Posted by LostBoyinNC34 on November 23, 2003, at 8:40:43
In reply to Many men need T *decrease*, posted by linkadge on November 23, 2003, at 6:45:06
One of the excluding criteria for that recent testosterone clinical trial at Mclean I posted about, was a diagnosis of bipolar I or bipolar II disorder. Arent you bipolar? I remember you as the person who said they respond well to lithium and said they had too high a sex drive.
Let me tell you something, there is no male alive with unipolar major depression who has "too high a sex drive." Men with unipolar major depression have TOO LOW of a sex drive.
> One of the biochemical characteristics of violent male criminals described in the book "The Brain" baised on the 12 part PBS miniseries, was *excessive* testosterone coupled with low serotonin levles. Making them *extremely* irritable with very little lack of impulse control.
But Im not talking about criminals here dude. Im talking about a demographic of men 30 and over who are severely refractorily depressed, disabled, candidates for ECT or MAOIs and basically are shot to shit in a sense. Super severe, refractory, UNIPOLAR depression. Im not talking about a group of guys who go around robbing banks or committing crimes.
Plus, the whole idea of using testosterone for TRD is to add it to the existing regimen of antidepressants. This makes some antidepressants work better than before. Although, there are some men who seem to do OK on just testosterone by itself. And there is even a clinical trial at Columbia psychiatry that uses nothing but testosterone for refractory depression in men. Again, Im talking about men who formally scored abnormally LOW on testosterone lab tests. Not high testosterone guys here, remember that.
> By no means, am I trying to say this describes you, what I am trying to say is that for many men, (myself included), our testosterone is in the higher range of normal, but we still are depressed.One of the things Ive recently read is that low testosterone levels are associated with low dopamine levels. If you do a search on yahoo or Google, you will find that Neurologists are experimenting with testosterone to combat many of the nonmotor side effects of parkinsons disease. There are many more clinical trials using T in parkinsons disease than there are to treat refractory male depression.
Nobody with low dopamine levels is going to be "impulsive and a criminal." In fact, if dopamine levels are low, the odds are serotonin levels are going to be low as well. Personality characteristics of low dopamine can include obsessiveness, rigidity, "muleheadedness" and excess conservatism.
>
> When I was depressed, I was still very assertive, agressive, angry and irritable, low mood, and constantly regretting my actions. I was competitive, dominant, chronically jealous, and superficial.Definitely doesnt sound like normal depression. Definitely some form of bipolar disorder. No unipolar depressives are "competitive."
>My testosterone levels were fine. Dopimanergics made things much worse. Infact, SSRI's and lithium, were the only things that enabled me to stop and think things through rationally. They irradicated my irritability.
Like I said, being a bipolar youd be excluded from the trial and also since you dont have low testosterone, there is no need to even take testosterone. Im talking about the large numbers of 30 plus men with UNIPOLAR severe refractory depression here, who have scored low on testosterone tests.
>
> I would agree with you that many depressed baby boomers probably have low T but....
>
> to say something like low T is "MALE" depression is extrodinarily narrowmined.Not if you are unipolar depressed male its not.
>
> And if you didn't ask for my opinnion, you wouldn't have opened this message :)Well, I will be honest with you I dont think your opinions are worth much. Arent you the fellow who put together your own rTMS machine? LOL Thats a pretty manic thing to do.
I was in the rTMS clinical trials in 1999 and I wasnt very impressed with rTMS. I dont think its ever going to be FDA approved. Its so safe...if there was anything to it as far as effectiveness for severe mood disorders, I expect it would be FDA approved by now.
An article by Dr. Mark George in the September 2003 issue of Scientific American said rTMS doesnt even penetrate deeply into the brain like ECT does. It doesnt stimulate those "deep brain structures" like ECT does.
Testosterone is far better for severe, unipolar, refractory depression in men compared to rTMS.
Eric
poster:LostBoyinNC34
thread:282575
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20031121/msgs/282779.html