Posted by Cole_B on December 19, 2004, at 11:16:36
In reply to Re: Depression - Night and Day, posted by banga on December 18, 2004, at 18:39:17
> By the way, what do you know about the possible long-term effects of Lymes disease on neurochemistry? Have you researched it, spoken to some docs, found out what may have helped previous people? Have you also considered your family history, to get an idea what the chances are that you inherited the depression? YOu probably have done this, but on the off-chance you havent I thought Id mention it...could give some clue as to what may work best.
First of all, thanks to all for your responses.
Yes, I have some family history of depression - my grandfather (maternal), as I mentioned in my original post, and my father had a chronic low level depression (and anxiety). I don't doubt that these are factors in my condition.
My problem is that there are so many confounding factors now. For example, I awake every morning shaking like a leaf - is this leftover Lyme, agitated depression, or a reaction to the Effexor? I've had this before in the last year and it has always remitted eventually, but it freaks me out. Also it seems to parallel my depressions, but not exactly. This last episode started out feeling like depression but has now progressed to the shaking and despair. Last year I had a depression, my doc raised the Effexor dose and I eventually felt better but then developed the shaking, which remitted when I cut back the dose. It's all so *%$#@! complicated. Lorazepam doesn't really seem to control the shaking that well.
Lyme causes psychiatric problems, no question, but I have no way of knowing if I'm still infected or not. Antibody tests don't mean anything, since they only measure exposure, not ongoing infection.
I'm attracted to Lamictal because my grandfather did well on Lithium.
Anyway, sorry for this impressionistic post; I'm just feeling kind of overwhelmed right now. I want a silver bullet, dammit.
poster:Cole_B
thread:431351
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20041217/msgs/431623.html