Posted by SLS on May 30, 2005, at 7:40:34
In reply to Re: Meds need vs addiction?? what do you think?, posted by Phillipa on May 29, 2005, at 20:10:15
Hi Phillipa.
:-(I'm sorry you are feeling so bad and have been so disappointed by medication.
:-)You still manage to put a smile on my face when I read your posts. You are one of the sweetest people we have ever had here. My hopes are that you and I will both find something on PB that will lead us in the direction of our healings.
Things must be especially difficult for you because of all the changes made in your life that have required you to start with a new doctor, a new diagnosis, or that you come to display a new set of symptoms to be reckoned with. One of the things that I am most grateful for is the stability I have in my life. I have managed to stay in the same area and see the same doctors. I have been forced to move only once in the last 15 years.
A dear friend of mine is an RN in NC. She, too, was a very self-confident and outgoing person whom performed her job with excellence. Then came double-depression / bipolar disorder. She had to drop out of work and count pennies. I met her while we were both research patients at the NIMH 12 years ago. We were guinea pigs. Of course, we had had such high hopes that the foremost medical institution in the world would have been able to get us well. No such luck, I'm afraid. I do not look unfavorably upon the NIMH. They used what they had at their disposal, including drugs that we will never see in the marketplace. I was given a drug called clorgyline. It is without a doubt the most demonstrably powerful MAOI antidepressant that exists. At a time when I was basically intractable, it was potent enough to break through the wall. I felt better for a month or so and responded episodically and partially to it thereafter. Eventually, it was withdrawn for lack of interest.
For many of us who have been treatment-resistant for many years, I think our confidence in medicine waxes and wanes. It is hard not to be bitter and to trust doctors and medications that apparantly make us feel worse instead of better. Perpetual failure produces helplessness. Combined with perpetual pain and depression comes hopelessness. What are we to do? I guess each of us as individuals find support in different places. PB represents support and encouragement to me. With all of the deficits that exist in modern medicine and its impotence to treat everyone successfully, still comes hope. There is the hope that there already exist treatments that will work, but have yet to be tried. There is the hope that new treatments will be developed that will yield remission. I can't help but to want to remain of positive outlook and extoll the virtues of the treatments we have now and the altruism that still drives many researchers to find new ones.
Try to avoid cynacism. Stay away from cynical people. Cynacism is an insidious contagion that can kill.
- Scott
poster:SLS
thread:504713
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20050527/msgs/505138.html