Posted by Questionmark on October 6, 2006, at 2:56:44
In reply to Re: Nicotine and Depression » MrBrice, posted by SLS on October 5, 2006, at 6:21:13
> My thing with nicotine is that, if it is going to be an effective antidepressant, it has to produce a broad spectrum of action, and be consistent all day long, every day. Now, these guys used a patch at 7.0mg per day. The improvement they observed at 8 days disappeared by 28 days, but they had, for some unexplained reason, lowered the dose to 3.5mg. I want nicotine to work. If it works for you, it might work for me. It is still my suspicion, though, that it has only acute and subacute effects. Basically, you'll get a buzz off of it whenever you take it after a period of abstinence (over a period of hours) and perhaps a feeling of slight improvement that will last a week or so. However, if it will bring you any kind of relief, perhaps it makes sense to use it as a bridge until you find an antidepressant that works well.
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> How do you plan to administer the nicotine?
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> Nicoderm® nicotine comes in 7mg/day, 14mg/day, and 21mg/day patches.
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> It would be a big help if you could keep a daily log of your progress.
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>
> - Scott
Yeah I was going to mention the same thing. I personally doubt that nicotine could have *much* sustained benefit over a continuous period of time-- probably some: mostly cognitive, but little if any mood benefits over time (though I could be wrong of course).
And in regard to the nicotine & depression study you posted Scott, I wonder if the depression scores would have gone closer to baseline & placebo by the end even IF the nicotine dosage was not lowered. I imagined the reason for the lowering was to help offset habituation, i.e., kind of give a gradual withdrawl, but who knows.I remember in the period when I only smoked a cigarrette once in a great while (once every month or so approximately), I would do it deliberately for self-medicative purposes (this came after the doing-it-for-euphoria period), and when I did I would get a very significant boost in mood, confidence, sociability, and cognition **for hours**-- often for the rest of the day. I don't know how or why, but i know it wasn't placebo. ... But eventually, I began to smoke about once or twice a week-- and EVEN AT THAT LEVEL I no longer received the benefits I had previously. I mean I would still get the wonderful "cigarrette buzz", but after that, when the cigarrette was finished, there would be nothing beneficial remaining.
There you go-- 1st-hand anecdotal evidence of the tolerance of nicotine (well 2nd-hand for you all but whatever).
I think nicotine may cause some REAL profound and long-lasting receptor changes in the brain.
I believe this is why an ex-smoker can have cravings and automatic conditioned responses related to smoking even after YEARS of being abstinent. I'd give some good examples but I've already been typing way too much about nicotine.
poster:Questionmark
thread:686441
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20061003/msgs/692310.html