Posted by SLS on June 17, 2005, at 9:09:23
In reply to Re: Is There A Magic Pill?, posted by ixus on June 17, 2005, at 0:06:47
Maybe it was magic beans that made me feel so well. They looked just like pills, though.
I really hope that the addition of Trileptal acts like a magic pill for me. I would love to come back here and speak more persuasively as to the magic that medicines can exert on severe depression. If Trileptal doesn't work out for me, I will continue to chase the remission I once had and that occasionally teases me by returning for a few days to a few weeks before disappearing again.
It is crazy not to believe. After 23 years of failed trials save one, I still do. Ah... now I get it. *I'm* the one who's crazy. Perhaps, I can't help but to believe because I have witnessed first hand evidence that has stared me in the face for over two decades. Having worked for two psychopharmacologists as a research assistant, seeing the same patients on a monthly basis, and having participated in research as a patient at the NIH among perhaps 50 others, what I have seen is unequivocal in my eyes.
There are magic pills for many people who will attest to that fact. I just don't know where they are right now on PB. Of course, the population here is skewed towards treatment-resistance. People who respond successfully to medication don't jump on Google to figure out why they responded so well. Anyway, I *can* attest to the existence of magic pills. You only need to have a good long-term memory and one real experience of remission to convince you. I have both.
If exercise works for people to bring them to remission, then it is indeed magic for them. It is not magic for me. Exercise is worth performing even if it is not. As a bodybuilder, I left a pictorial legacy as to my dedication to exercise when I was in my early twenties. The exercise combined both aerobic and anaerobic types. I found that it did not effect the quality or magnitude of the biological depression. However, I did feel better for exercising much in the same way a mentally healthy person feels better from exercise.
One thing that the magic of medication cannot do is to strip one of the psychosocial issues, if any, that will continue to reside after the depression remits. These issues might have been exactly those that triggered the depression in the first place. Some issues are a direct result of the depression itself because of how chronic depression affects one's psyche and life's circumstances. However, it is much easier to process psychotherapy in the absence of a biological depression such that learning becomes much easier and the changes made in cognition and behavior more persistent. Depression is often a multifactorial illness. Psychology affects biology. Biology affects psychology. They are inextricable. For a population deemed MDD, the contributions of both lie along a spectrum. For some, it will be an illness dictated solely by one's biology. For others, the biology remains nominal while psychosocial maladjustment manifests as depression. Many people reside somewhere between the two poles where the two dimensions interact to precipitate and perpetuate depression. The trick here is to treat both simultaneously.
Ha ha! I'm going to find my magic pill. When I do, I will soar like Icharus, but without need of wings.
:-b
In the meantime, I am going to continue to exercise.
- Scott
poster:SLS
thread:514026
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20050617/msgs/514249.html