Posted by bleauberry on November 8, 2010, at 17:04:41 [reposted on November 24, 2010, at 0:39:43 | original URL]
In reply to , posted by on December 31, 1969, at 18:00:00
You ask a tough question. Everyone has a different journey and everyone's treatment will be customized for them.
That said, we want to combat inflammation, bacterial infection, fungal infection, immune dysregulation, malabsorption, food intolerances/allergies, toxicity, and genetic flaws or disease flaws in converting vitamins, fats, and proteins to the correct metabolic forms that we need. All of these have profound direct effect on the neurotransmitters and receptors and glands.
We tend to think of "increasing neurotransmitter levels or availability." That is such a primitive way to look at it. There is so much more involved than just the levels....integrity, purety, functionality, competitiveness.
Some lifestyle changes in food choices combined with a handful of synergistic specialty supplements have effect on all the above. Results can then be custom tailored by trial and error, which we are all well versed at unfortunately.
For me the turning point was when someone pointed out to me that EVERYTHING is experimental...that includes all of our psychiatric prescriptions, all herbs, and supplements. That said, many herbs have literally hundreds of clinical studies on them we know more of what they do and how they do it than we do of our manmade chemicals. Not to mention 1000s of years of experience and use.
Everything is experimental. There is no hard science. There is more we don't know than what we do know. Once those realities are accepted, many new doors open up.
Where we often go wrong, I think, is that when we speak of depression we speak of serotonin, dopamine, etc. Substances that can improve or cure depression, many of them are not known as "antidepressants". It's just that as they do their thing at reversing something unseen contributing to the depression, depression goes away.
All that said, I still think the best thing for any new depression patient to do is follow the doctor's orders. Prescriptions can save lives or buy some time. Sometimes they even work. Sometimes they work like magic. It is for the veteran depression patient that I think time has arrived to expand the knowledge base beyond the psychiatrist's office.
poster:bleauberry
thread:969029
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20101117/msgs/971162.html