Posted by SLS on November 7, 2022, at 13:21:27
In reply to Re: Most antidepressants are rubbish, posted by Lamdage22 on October 30, 2022, at 13:11:06
> I wouldnt say rubbish, but if you think a pill or a few pills will take you all the way to remission, youll likely get disappointed.
I am disappointed that you are disappointed in pharmacology as an avenue of successful treatment with extremely robust improvements. SLS is an example of reaching a dramatic and persistent remission using drugs and without psycotherapy. Sorry. It exists. If you are coming to your conclusions based upon what you see in the Psycho-Babble population, you are making a monumental mistake. It is far to skewed towards treatment-resistence, or even refractoriness.
Are you aware that many people who have bipolar disorder are *ultra* rapid cyclers? Their mood switches dramatically from depression to mania and back to depression again - on a very regular cycle that can be predicted months in advance - before they take their very first pill? You should read "Mood Swing" by Ronald R. Feive. You will become a believer. He describes patients switching every 48 hours. What's that remarkably precise and persistent cycle all about? They become different people every two days. Is that likely to be a psychological cycle? Of course not.
I watched someone close to me have a starkly regular and dramatic mood switch having a period of exactly 11 days. Not 10. Not 12. 11. This was his presentation when he entered the research program at Columbia-Presbyterian in Manhattan. His 11-day cycle had been in place for over two years before being given his very first pill to swallow.
His 11-day bipolar mood cycle comprised 8 days of a severely vegetative depression followed by 3 days of remission, etc. Without fail, this cycle continued for two years uninterrupted. The time it took to switch from one extreme to the other was no longer than 30 - 45 minutes. The change was dramatic. in magnitude and paroxysmal in its and That was then followed by 8 days that left him mute and without the ability to read the written word. At least he knew what it was like to feel normal for 3 consecutive days. Were it not for this carrot, I think he would have committed suicide decades ago. Anyway, the first drug they tried on him was imipramine, a tricyclic. He responded to it with a dramatic improvement that lasted almost 2 weeks. The degree of improvement was greater than that he saw during his cyclic 3 days of of improvement.
Then came a costly mistake. He was placed on high dosages of lithium added to imipramine. Besides making him feel moderately worse, it abolished his cycle permanently. No more 3 days of relief.
After 40 years of swallowing all sorts of pills and having ECT, nothing worked - until 2 years ago.
That person was me.
My illness is a biogenic brain disorder. Period. You don't need an accurate biological explanation in order to validate clinical observation. The brain has been very much like a black box. We know what goes in. We know what comes out. However, there is very little consensus as to what happens inside the box. All that really matters is that people get better.
Depression leaves in its wake great psychological damage to one's psyche. If they were well-adjusted and psychologically strong (emotional intelligence), the spontaneous emergence of a depressive disorder wreaks havoc with the mind. The mind is altered by the changes in brain function. Psychotherapy is often necessary to heal the mind after the brain has been stabilized.
Don't lose hope. What else is there?
- Scott
Some see things as they are and ask why.
I dream of things that never were and ask why not.The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.
poster:SLS
thread:1120914
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20220917/msgs/1120971.html