Posted by twinleaf on October 19, 2010, at 9:44:40
In reply to Re: Stablon (tianeptine) » twinleaf, posted by SLS on October 19, 2010, at 8:21:11
The depression was precipitated by the sudden loss of four important people thirteen years ago. Initial treatment efforts of SSRIs, SNRIs, APs, tricyclics (pretty much everything except MAOIs) plus supportive psychotherapy didn't help much at all. After nine years, I changed to a more intensive psychoanalytic form of psychotherapy, slowly weaned off all the psychotropic medication and began having TMS (first a six-week course, then as needed maintenance treatments when my Mongomery-Asberg-S scores got above 8-10. I am still doing this, although I haven't needed any TMS for the past 18 months (the longest I have gone without a "booster"). I added tianeptine a year ago, and also take 300 mg. lithium. T3 and T4 , fish oil and vitamins. I think every part of this has been important, with the strong relationship formed in intensive therapy probably being the most important.
Although cortisol measures are not considered very reliable, I have an endocrinologist who has been interested in following my pattern of salivary cortisol as well as whether or not I suppress on the dexamethasone suppression test. Initially, I was a non-suppressor with salivary cortisols which remained high into the evening. Now I am a partial suppressor with salivary cortisols which decrease during the day but not as much as they should. We check once a year to see how it's doing.
poster:twinleaf
thread:966212
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20101009/msgs/966245.html