Posted by yxibow on June 7, 2008, at 4:23:05
In reply to Re: What Does It mean When you just don't care anymore » Marty, posted by Phillipa on June 4, 2008, at 12:33:50
> All SSRI's SNRI's a few TCA's all benzos two mood stabalizers. I don't like what is being said about meds and how they don't work for a lot of people. I think I may be one of them. Love Phillipa
There is at times a lot of negativity towards medication because INDIVIDUALS who have gone through trials, and some of them may not have tried the combinations long enough, express frustration.I was sort of surprised by the almost complete negative response to the Newsweek article, not that anyone has to agree about medicating children -- it was an individual very tough case, because only a small number of BP cases have been seen in very young children. At any rate, that is a side tangent.
It is fine to compare illnesses and the struggles we go through, but you have to realize, and I think this is important to stress in general, besides the "don't believe all you hear", that each person's case, because they feel compelled to post their struggles, is different from anothers, and is different from yours and your body chemistry and your psychological makeup.
Though we have discovered a lot since the 1950s, psychiatry is still more an art than a science -- it is evidence and scientifically based as far as medication, but identifying traits and how to deal with roadblocks and obstacles is an art.
And it isn't all medication. One can't just take a pill or even polypharmacy and wait for it to do everything. Its work. Whether you can afford therapy or not (it really would benefit society if healthcare or a universal healthcare paid for more of that but that's just my soapbox...), there are legitimate books you can buy or check out from libraries on self-help.
Its what you put into it, and if you can imagine an image of glue being pulled off a wall, that is the struggle of moving forward and away from the dark corner.There are much more than two mood stabilizers, there might be another TCA you havent tried such as Clomipramine, there are the tetracyclics (Remeron).
Also, although there are those who have had fantastic results as they have described, there is also no reason to jump directly to an MAOI or ECT or more drastic steps either -- they require considerable thought, and the last one is expensive not to mention though at one university I am familiar with that has performed many thousands and not a single patient has died, there are memory risks.
As for the existential question as to what day is different from another -- we know our past, we live in our present -- there is no predicting the future, other than to say, why make it the blackest of the black. Does that serve an existential purpose either? There is always something to be gained from life -- its not always obvious, but its there.And it sounds like and please I hope not, it is just a resonating feeling because I go from one feeling to the next myself, just like countless with depression there are latent suicidal ideations perhaps. That's natural even for someone who isn't beset with mental illness but is so stressed to the brink. But don't go down further into that pit.
You may be medication sensitive. So am I, although not to all medications -- some, because at the same time I am a rapid metabolizer for a lot of them, doses may be higher than for other medications (rapid metabolism means faster elimination of a particular medication or medication pathway than the average curve.) Also age, genetics, all these things play into things.So all I can say is that there are a lot of postings you could say are "case studies", found in journals -- one or two patients mentioned by a doctor or set of doctors (e.g. Mr. A with a history of [illness] was admitted and .... responded to ...[medication]).
I invite you not to think, as hard as possible -- I do after a number of years battling an illness, as a case. NAMI used to consider someone a Consumer, now a person with a biochemical illness is a Client, as in you go to a business and they help you with doing something, so you're a client of theirs. This is a move to try to not make someone feel like The Patient.
Please continue to follow up with whoever you are working with and try to get out and do something, anything, even if it seems so incredibly boring. By doing, we strengthen ourselves and distract ourselves from our own tendency to be distracted by an ilness.
-- best wishesJay
poster:yxibow
thread:832871
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20080606/msgs/833426.html