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Re: Anhedonia, a tricky sympt: what works besides VNS?

Posted by bleauberry on January 18, 2011, at 18:07:46

In reply to Anhedonia, a tricky sympt: what works besides VNS?, posted by psychobot5000 on January 16, 2011, at 11:22:06

My personal experience is that the focus on dopamine is not completely accurate. Most dopamine strategies can be somewhat helpful, but not dramatic. For me, norepinephrine is the big guns when talking about anhedonia. We're all wired different and we all have different things wrong with the wiring, so it's hard to predict. All I know is that with me, anhedonia is more of a norepinephrine thing than a dopamine thing. From that point, it becomes a journey of trial and error to identify what KIND of norepinephrine....reuptake inhibition?...accelerated release?....more raw material to make it?....antagonism?....agonism?...removal of some other thing contaminating the system? For sure at least I have learned anhedonia, for me, is not a serotonin thing, is mildly a dopamine thing, and is strongly a norepinephrine thing.

Some of the more successful stories here over the years involved well rounded strategies hit many things at once....abilify+ssri; prozac+ritalin; ssri+tca. For sure, a pure ssri aint gonna do the job with most people.

I believe a portion of the condition needs to involve retraining the brain. Consumption of some kind of herb or medicine alone is not likely to get the complete job done. New activities need to be undertaken. Things need to be "forced" before they can be enjoyed. Eventually the brain relearns how to have fun. But it takes purposeful strategic work. It requires forcing oneself to do something that should be fun regardless that it doesn't feel fun thinking about it. Repeat, repeat, repeat....as in any kind of training. A pill by itself can help set the stage to do that, but by itself is not going to provide lifelong benefits.


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