Posted by JohnL on June 10, 2000, at 4:52:28
In reply to Once a depressive, always a depressive?, posted by Libby on June 9, 2000, at 13:26:14
> Do people who have been depressed for as long as me actually get well or just better?
>
> LibbyPeople do actually get completely well. I've seen plenty of life-long sufferers get completely well right here at this website. But in my opinion, the recipe for success is this:
A patient who has done a lot of research.
A patient willing to try anything.
A physician willing to try anything.
And trying to make sense of the clues provided by drug reactions. When someone gets completely well, they can often look back with the benefit of hindsight and see that the clues were there all along.Depression is caused by about 10 different possible chemical imbalances. The symptoms are the same, but the causes are different. It's sad most physicians focus so much on just antidepressants, because ADs only address 3 of those 10, and usually just 1 of the 10--low serotonin.
The correct medication for the person's unique chemisty is characterized by complete recovery and few, if any, side effects. That indicates a close match in chemistry. The less a drug works, the longer it takes to work, and the more side effects there are, the farther away the drug is from targeting the real problem. You won't find that in research anywhere, but that's what I have seen over and over and over through the years in observing other sufferers. With all this in mind, it is pretty safe to assume that whatever medications you have tried so far have been off-target.
Every drug you've tried so far has provided clues. But like I said, it takes a well-studied patient and an open-minded phsycian to first recognize the clues, and secondly make some sense out of them.
Since psychiatry seems to me to be an educated guessing game, I think it makes sense to use the clues for making better guesses. For example, if someone has already tried 2 or 3 serotonin meds, then I would feel comfortable assuming the chemistry responsible is not serotonin, and our next best guess should probably not be a serotonin drug.
Unfortunately most phsycians are not trained to think that way. It's not their fault, it's just the way they were trained.
To shed some light on what I'm talking about, I would suggest you go to www.drjensen.com and browse around. And I would strongly encourage you to buy his book "The Successful Treatment of Brain Chemical Imbalance". Even if you just browse around his website, you will pick up some information you didn't already know, and you will likely discover something helpful that provides understanding and hope. For the regular uncomplicated depression I think conventional psychiatry is perfectly fine. But when things become complicated or prolonged, like in your case, then I think we need a different angle of attack. I am just one of hundreds of success stories that can attest to the validity of Dr Jensen's practices.
It seems more complicated than it really is. But it's not. Find out which of the 10 chemical imbalances is at fault. Then find the best drug in the appropriate class to target that chemistry. It takes an open minded patient/phsycian team to sample different meds in an effort to gather clues. The clues are all there for the taking.
JohnL
poster:JohnL
thread:36729
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20000610/msgs/36809.html