Posted by anita on January 9, 2000, at 19:59:18
In reply to Re: Lamictal Peter, posted by JohnL on January 8, 2000, at 3:43:04
For me, Lamictal helps stabilize my moods, and in that way it helps with depresssion, but I can't say it generally speaking has a strong antidepressant effect for me. I do highly recommend Lamictal to those who have fluctuating moods, especially since it seems to work at a low dose and has low side effects.
The interesting thing about amantadine is that it increases dopamine (D1 & D2). So the reason it works for some depressions may be not because it is a viral depression, but because the dopamine helps the depression and other dopaminergic meds hadn't been tried with this population. I believe there is a test for the borna virus, but I could be just thinking of an experimental one that's in the works.
I second the suggestion to try dopaminergic meds -- I think some depressions are really helped by them that do not respond to serotonergic/noradrenergic meds.
anita
> The dopamine connection. SSRI or TCA augmentation with Methylphenidate, Desoxyn, Adderall, Bromocriptine, Amantadine. None of the drugs you've tried were in the dopamine agonist class. That is an angle that has been totally unexplored with you so far.
>
> The borna virus connection. Amantadine, with or without SSRI or TCA. Some refractory depressive patients discovered by accident their depressions finally lifted after multiple failures when they took Amantadine for influenza. If your depression is virus related, nothing else will work. At this point, this is an option to look at seriously.
>
poster:anita
thread:18307
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20000101/msgs/18493.html