Posted by ChicagoKat on September 28, 2012, at 12:27:43
In reply to Re: I'm in trouble » jono_in_adelaide, posted by SLS on September 27, 2012, at 21:36:23
> > The only thing that stopped me was my mother, she had suffered the same stuff i had (depression, anxiety, panic attacks) as well as 10 years when she slipped into alcoholism, plus a divorce and raising us kids alone.... she hadnt had an easy life, and i decided that I couldnt burden her with her child committing suicide.
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> Whatever it takes...
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> I hope you always find a reason not to.
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> You know, uncertainty acts to prevent me from leaving life so quickly. I am uncertain that there is anything more than this. I am unwilling to gamble that there is an afterlife.
>
>
> - ScottDear Scott,
You are one of the other absolutely wonderful people I've met on here. I hope you'll let me call you my friend. Anyways, I worry about you, because I think I remember you once mentioning that you develope tolerance to effective treatment within a matter of *days*. That's extraordinary, not to mention very tragic. I've thought about that b/c I develop tolerance to effective treatments within a matter of months...ever since I had ECT at any rate. And my benzo tolerance is throught the roof. It takes about 8-10 Ativann for me to feel even a mild effect. And if the doctor keeps raising the dose the tolerance just keeps going up. And it only takes days, like with you. AND the really funny thing is my tolerance stays right at that level when I am off the benzos. I don't go through withdrawal at all. It's like my body says if you want benzos you're gonna have to take a bottle full of them. Very strange. So benzos are out for me, but Gabapentin has been a godsend. It really helps with anxiety and sleep. But I develop tolerance to it at the same fast rate that I do other meds; in fact even faster; it takes about a week for me to need a dose increase. But my pdoc tells me you can go up to like 4000mg of it so we have room. But hopefully with my change to Nardil I won't need it anymore. Nardil really helped my anxiety. And my sleep. I'm just afraid I'll develope tolerance to it too after a couple of months and then what will I do?? I asked my pdoc last time I saw him why he thinks I develop tolerance to effective meds so quickly and he just said I must have an amazingly effective liver. I answered back that maybe I should become a heavy drinker. He laughed. But I didn't really get a good scientific answer to my question. Probably b/c he doesn't know, just like your pdoc probably doesn't know. And I was thinking about it yesterday; why is it that we deveolop tolerance, no matter if it's at a very fast or a very slow rate, only to psychotropics. Why don't we get tolerance to say Advil? Or Pepcid? Or, more interestingly, to Tylenol, which is a centrally acting agent? Anyways, food for thought and I thought you might be interrested. Knowing you, you've already pondered it and done lots of research on it. Sorry for my extra long post, I just can't help myself, once I start postiing I just type away. I hope I don't bore you! Anyways, take good care of yourself, and know that I am thingking of you and hoping from the bottom of my heart that you find a solution that works for you and doesn't develop tolerance! Oh, by the way, do you have a really good therapist? I mean a REALLY good one, not just one that you talk at for an hour and you get nowhwere. I mean someone who is willing to see you 3x per week b/c you are so severely depressed, and does her absolute best, in a very gentle way, to get at the root(s) of the problem, and then treats you for them. I have such a therapist and she is a Godsend. She finds out about the traumas that happened to me when I was a child, and she says I suffer from developmental PTSD. So she uses a treatment that they have found is very effective for people with PTSD; it's called EMDR. I forget what it stands for but it involves thinking about a trauma that occurred to you, no matter at what age, while you watch her fingers go back and forth. It's a right brain/left brain kind of thing. And they've found that somehow this desensitizes the brain to the trauma. And then, right after you have dealt with that trauma, you go on to whatever your mind thinks of next, no matter what it is, which is usually another trauma, and do the same thing again. She calls it being on a train. And, if things get too intense, which has happened to me, I almost had a panic attack once, she stops and takes care of my immediate problem. For panic attacks she has me count backwards from 1000 by 3 out loud. I know I make a lot of mistakes b/c I'm so upset, but that doesn't matter, it really helps to calm me down and I'm usually OK by the time I reach 900 or thereabouts. If you ever have panic attacks, give it a try, it's way more effective than Xanax. We've done EMDR several times and I can tell you it's absolutely emotionally ehxausting, but that I feel better after it. And the more I've done it with her, the better I'm slowly starting to feel. I'm beginniing to feel hope, which is just insane for me. AND, since I have a medical background, and since the first time I took an antidepressant, when I was 20-something, I think it was Prozac, it had such a HUGE efeect on me, it changed me life, it made me a different person: a non-depressed person. It was amazing in so many ways, but I won't bore you with the details, especially since this post is reaching epic proportions. But, as all the antidpressants do for some of us, I slowly built up tolerance and the dose kept haveing to be raised, until I reached the max of 80. Then I switched to a different drug, and it had nowhere the mind-blowing effect on me the Prozac did (I think that was just b/c Proazc was the first antidepressant I ever tried. It could have been anything and I prob would have had the same reaction.) Anyways, long story short I went through all the meds there are and reached the max with each of them, then started trying adding atypicals and mood stabilizers, etc, etc to no effect. the SSRIs still helped me a little bit; they let me hold down my job as a pharmacist for the weekends, but then my doc suggested ECT. WHAT A NIGHTMARE. But that's for another post. It made my depression and anxiety worse, and made it so the SSRIs had no effect on me at all. I lost my job b/c of it and had to first go on unempolyment, and now I'm on disability. THank God. It's giving me time to try to get better. But I'll never be a pharmacist again, for reasons I'll save for yet another post. Aren't you happy? I must be driving you mad by now, or else you have stopped reading and I am just typing to myself. Oh well! So after the ect disaster I was hopitalized twice for suicidality, which had never happened to me before, and it was at that time that I went through my first washout (24mg of Ativan a day!!!), and was put on Nardil, but you already know how that turned out...but VERY luckily I met my current absolutely wonderful pdoc who has stuck with me through thick and thin and has helped me try every combination/possibility in the book. And he has finally agreed, since we have tried everything - even Tramadol..yes, he was willing to prescribe that for me! - which turned out to be an utter failure, he has finally agreed, as I was saying, to go back to Nardil which we know works for my Anxiety and my sleeping at a low dose, and mildly helps me depression at that low dose. As I've told you a million times I can't go higher than 45mg/day. But we're wondering if,, after time and more enzymes are blocked, that maybe it will help my depression even more. Plus, with you and Jono recommending Nortryptiline that might help my depression too. But I have to say I hate TCAs - the side effects are horrible, as I'm sure you are aware, but I've most recently been on Elavil (for sleep), and I know it's one of the worst as far as side effects go. So we'll see! I'm really excited, but at the same time I'm afraid of the tolerance curse. I'll keep my fingers and toes crossed (now THAT would not help my ataxia!!). But after all is said, and I know a LOT has been said, I've come to believe, even with my medical/scientific background (I had 2 yrs of med school too - yet another story to bore you with in the future!), but as I was saying, I've come to believe that medication is just a bandaid, or at most something that helps concomitantly. Through my intensive therapy, even I, who was raised to believe that science is everything, all my family were/are scientists, I've come to believe that it is the therapy and the EMDR that will eventually bring me relief from my terrible depression and anxiety. It won't be easy, and it may take a while, but I'm truly beginning to believe it's working. That's why, a million years ago, I asked you if you have a really good therapist. And if you don't, you should search for one. I'm utterly serious about this. And I know you are a science person too. But if I can be convinced, anyone can. You don't happen to live in the Chicago area do you? If so I'd send you to see me therapist right away. But if you don't, PLEASE consider searching for a therapist who does EMDR, b/c you once mentioned you had PTSD before. I don't remeber if it was developmental or not, but whatever. And if you find a therapist who does EDMR, find one that will meet with you 3x a week to start. And, if you don't like the therapist when you first meet with him or her, keep searching. It is SO important to find the right one. I feel like after all the trauma I've experienced, all the pain I've endured, all the times I just wanted to die, I finally got lucky and met this therapist. I firmly believe she is going to save my life, and not only that, make me a happier person for the rest of the years I have left on this planet.WELL, I am SO sorry that was SUCH a long post, but I really care about you, you've really been there for me when I needed someone, and I want so badly to help end your pain. And is seems, no matter how much research you've done, no matter now many meds and med combos you've tried, nothing is working for you. So I'm stressing a diiferent route, one that I was very skeptical of, as I'm sure you are too. And that is to find a really good, really caring therapist who will try EMDR on you. It's worth a try right? It can't hurt. Think about it, research it, and let me know what you think. I am thinking about you.
Kat
p.s. I'm like you again in that I'm not certain there is anything after this life. Like I said, I was raised in a very scientific family, and religion was absolutely not a part of my life. I was raised with the belief that once you die, that's it, there's nothing, and your body rots in the ground. My Dad was a confirmed atheist. On a funny note, now that he is 76, he has become an agnostic. Which is what I consider myself to be too, and have ever since I left home and went off to college. I feel I have no proof either way. But, when I think about it, I think there absolutely has to be something or someones who are greater than us. It's my blind fish at the bottom of the ocean theory. Those blind fish have absolutely no idea that a world exists where there is light and sunshine, and plants, and rivers, and even other planets and a whole universe. So perhaps we are akin to them, but on a slightly higher level. Perhaps there are things that exist that we may never see or even be capable of understanding. But maybe we will be able to. Where there's smoke there's fire, and there has to be something to Christianity. One of these days I want to take a class on Theology so I can better understand that side of the argument, seeing as how I have such a strong grasp of the opposite side of the argument. I'm also thinking that maybe I'll just try going to church a time or two and see how it affects me. My grandparents were Russian Orthodox, so I figure that's the kind of church I'd go to. Who knows. It is certainly the greatest mystery in life. And now I've made my post even longer. I really hope you don't mind.
poster:ChicagoKat
thread:1026549
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20120922/msgs/1026914.html