Posted by bleauberry on June 28, 2008, at 20:14:41
In reply to Electroconvulsive Therapy???, posted by maoi_wowee on June 27, 2008, at 22:55:57
People who do not improve sufficiently with antidepressants are possibly not being diagnosed correctly or treated appropriately and it is not unusual for them to do better with other drugs instead. I think what most doctors and patients fail to see is the clues their drug failures have provided them. As just one example, if someone has failed most or all of the ssris, well, that is a pretty good clue serotonin is not a big player. If failed most reuptake inhibitors of any kind, that also is a clue. Maybe there's inflammation going on instead of monoamine shortage. Maybe there's bipolar even if it doesn't appear that way. Clues.
I would like to know, why is it the best antidepressant response I got was first from a mercury/lead chelation agent (DMSA), and then later from an antibiotic (doxycycline)? Someone else Memantine. Doctors need to be more creative and just try stuff. If a whole ton of psychiatric meds are not working, well, that is pretty strong clue, yeah? There's something else going on.
If the researchers in the STARD program can get something like 80% of patients into remission by just blindly following a step by step protocol of trying one drug or drug class after another, then your doctor should be able to also.
After my experience with it, I am not fond of ECT. It works well for some people, though probably not as well as statistics lead you to believe. I was assured memory loss was minor and temporary. Not. It was severe and permanent. Worse, it didn't work and the final bill was $12,000.
poster:bleauberry
thread:836895
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20080626/msgs/837056.html