Posted by bsj on November 23, 2003, at 21:21:37
In reply to Might Opiates in Moderation Fight Depresion?, posted by YoYoMe on November 15, 2003, at 22:55:51
>All 6 felt less fatigue and more vigor, and a >couple said they felt "more normal."
That's most certainly been my experience. I don't get high on hydrocodone--at least not what I'd consider to be high, though the drug certainly provides a noticable effect. As for the addiction boogeyman: it's more imagined than real; it's standard practice to use psychostimulants for refractory cases, and amphetamine and Ritalin have just as much abuse potientual as opiates do. (I was on Adderall, which is mixed isomers of dextroamphetamine, for two years.)
As for depression being caused by a malfunction in the opioid system: quite possible in some cases (it's highly unlikely that the bundle of symptoms we call "depression" is due to any single cause, which is why no single medication works for everyone). I can't really detect any qualitative difference between the suffering caused by physical pain and that of depression; depression--for me at least--is the suffering of physical pain without the physical sensation of pain. They seem to be one and the same thing.
poster:bsj
thread:280166
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/subs/20031014/msgs/283005.html