Posted by SLS on January 20, 2006, at 15:40:32
In reply to Re: Which ADs increase DOPAMINE the most?, posted by shasling on January 20, 2006, at 11:09:45
Hi Suzie.
I came to believe that dopamine was the key to all of my problems in 1983 once my first tribe of doctors at Columbia Presbyterian gave up on treating me pharmacologically. I have been through the self-education and brainstorming theorization process for over 20 years without any formal education. Big deal. I have been employed by two psychopharmacologists as a research assistant. Big deal. I have been a research patient at the NIMH and was one of the first people whose brains were imaged using positron emission tomography. Big deal. While there, I encountered a few more MD and PhD brains to pick. I remain in contact with them today. Big deal.
I first began chasing bupropion and nomifensine in 1983. Both were touted as being dopamine reuptake inhibitors, and it was hypothesized that this was the mechanism that bestowed upon them their antidepressant properties. As of today, these drugs are more poorly understood than they were 20 years ago. The same goes for lithium after 60 years. The more we learn, the more we realize how little we understand. What I have learned, I thought I might share with others: We don't know sh*t. We certainly don't know enough about the biology of psychiatric disorders to deduce an exclusionary role of one neurotransmitter over another, whether it be to explain the etiology of the pathology or the treatment of the disorder. To realize this is, I believe, enhances our chances of getting well. It demands that we keep open minds to the many treatments that are emerging in the nursery of neuroscience and prevents our uneducated pretension of understanding from becoming our own impediment to success. This is as true for doctors as it is for patients.
- Scott> > Guys, the short answer for me is that it is a complete lack of volition that causes me to lean in that direction. As well as the fact that serotonin tx does absolutely nothing, noradren/norepi tx makes my body go and causes me to run around, electrically, almost frantically just doing things, but there's still something very much missing; and I'm doing things sort of because I have to at the mercy of the adrenaline. On the correct dopaminergic, however, I have more energy, but it isn't based simply on my body being driven. I have energy because I find interest in things. The change feels very much like what I imagine 'normal' must be, rather than electric, and I have a reasonable amount of volition, initiative and reward. During the small window when Abilify (which only affects dopamine) was working for me, I finally felt absolutely normal, calm, productive and capable of doing everyday things; and I took care of everyday things because I *wanted* to, not because I *had* to, as is the feeling on noradr/norepi. Unfortunately, it later made me crazy and I had to stop taking it but that is beside the point...
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> That having been said, and really with all due respect because you all do some really informed and helpful posts, I am disappointed that anyone who doesn't know those of us who have identified dopamine as our probable issue (and really who knows us better than us?) would question and/or discount that. I mean, we've all had enough of that from doctors and family members, etc. and it is never helpful and always degrading to be discounted in that way. That was one thing I immediately noticed about this site was that one's credibility about one's own condition was assumed, and that was such a gift. I am surprised and disappointed to find that kind of thing here, which had previously seemed like an unconditionally safe place where my knowledge of me would not be discounted by someone who 'knew' better.
poster:SLS
thread:599864
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20060115/msgs/601138.html