Posted by SLS on March 24, 2006, at 7:19:02
In reply to Re: Never thought I'd hear this....., posted by Tony P on March 24, 2006, at 2:39:10
Hi Tony,
> A fascinating thread ... I'm one of those diagnosed with _maybe_ BP3 (or 4 depending how the classification shakes out) -- certainly I react badly to most of the common AD's. Paxil made me sweat nails, Celexa gave me an out-of-body experience, Wellbutrin pushed me manic (according to my family -- I felt _fine_ ;), and Effexor induced terror. Luckily my pdoc, while convinced I fit somewhere on the BP spectrum, is open to trying alternatives (after 2 years on Lamictal I'm experimenting with tianeptine at the moment).
How are you doing on the tianeptine? Any side effects? How much are you taking?Have you ever tried an MAOI or tricyclic?
> ...to go back to the original post, I've read of studies showing that AD therapy alone and counselling/psychotherapy alone each have about a 30-50% remission rate in depression, but AD + counselling is much more successful than either alone. Sorry no references -- I plead guilty in advance to quoting the conventional wisdom here. Perhaps others have citations.
If subjects are selected according to a strict set of criteria for moderate to severe major depressive disorder, psychotherapy alone does quite poorly. I have seen this reported several times in literature. Medication is far more effective in these cases. However, adding CBT to medication increases the success rate significantly. It is important to remove as much psychosocial stress as possible.
> What matters, of course, is treating people. You can go ahead and diagnose me as bipolar mixed treatment-resistant cyclothymic XVII as long as the treatment makes me feel better and function better!Yup. I still think that an accurate diagnosis can assist a physician in choosing treatments that will increase one's chances of responding. This should be particularly true in the future when there are more drugs available and these illnesses better understood.
> Hopefully,
Also hopefully,
- Scott
poster:SLS
thread:620137
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20060322/msgs/624085.html