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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 25 of 44. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by LostBoyinNCBecksDark on October 11, 2007, at 2:22:01
I used to believe in all this psychopharmacology b*llsh*t, I went from
one psychiatry drug to another. I tried probably a hundred medications
over a seven or eight year period and none worked worth a sh*t. It
wasnt until I got diagnosed with obstructive sleep apnea (AND GOT
TREATED WITH CPAP) that I experienced any REAL improvement. Combine
that with testosterone supplements and well, Im doing well. Wont go
into details, but its way way better than going from SSRI to SSRI, to
Effexor, to Remeron, to MAOI, augment with lithium or low dose
atypical anti-psychotics, blah blah blah.psychopharmacology is a big bunch of sh*t. It hardly works for
anybody.Get a clue...use your brain...psychiatry is b*llsh*t. I still take an
SSRI but it doesnt do sh*t for me without the sleep apnea treatment
and testosterone. Going from one psych drug to another is STUPID! If
you arent responding good to psych meds, get a sleep study. Push your
doctors to give you tests...work them hard. If they get mad, f*ck them
thats their job.If you think these psychiatrists give a f*ck about you, you are
deluded. You have to do it yourself. You are the only one who is
ultimately responsible for what happens to you. If you expect others
to do it for you...good luck. You have to PUSH your doctors to
explore, do tests, find out whats REALLY going on.Eric
Posted by d0pamine on October 11, 2007, at 6:28:23
In reply to You people are suckers, posted by LostBoyinNCBecksDark on October 11, 2007, at 2:22:01
Not that you don't make some valid points, but I'm amazed that you followed up all that ranting by noting that you still take an SSRI. You could likely cut back on the hormones if you stopped overdriving your serotonin levels, or if that doesn't take care of it, and unless you don't have any nads, I'd look into the medical condition behind why you can't produce enough testosterone. There are numerous studies that indicate that alcohol consumption significantly decreases testosterone levels (and increases estrogen (ugh)). As far as the apnea goes, you'd likely see a great deal of improvement from less youtube and more exercise. With less booze alone, you and yer nads both might wake up and find you feel pretty dang good one day. Best of luck!
Posted by gardenergirl on October 11, 2007, at 10:35:57
In reply to Re: You people are suckers, posted by d0pamine on October 11, 2007, at 6:28:23
> Not that you don't make some valid points, but I'm amazed that you followed up all that ranting by noting that you still take an SSRI.
Snort! :)
gg
Posted by alan2102 on October 11, 2007, at 11:18:04
In reply to Re: You people are suckers, posted by d0pamine on October 11, 2007, at 6:28:23
Maybe he has a bit of testosterone-induced
hyperaggression? ;-)Yes, he makes some good points.
Regarding self-treatment, see:
http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20071009/msgs/788458.html
http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20071009/msgs/788467.html
Posted by KayeBaby on October 11, 2007, at 11:51:48
In reply to You people are suckers, posted by LostBoyinNCBecksDark on October 11, 2007, at 2:22:01
To what therapy do you attribute your charming personality to?
Kaye
Posted by Phillipa on October 11, 2007, at 11:52:06
In reply to Re: You people are suckers, posted by alan2102 on October 11, 2007, at 11:18:04
So according to the article ibuphrophen can alleviate a lot of the symtoms of depression caused by fatigue? Phillipa
Posted by alan2102 on October 11, 2007, at 12:12:50
In reply to Re: You people are suckers » alan2102, posted by Phillipa on October 11, 2007, at 11:52:06
> So according to the article ibuphrophen can
> alleviate a lot of the symtoms of depression
> caused by fatigue? PhillipaYou mean the Charlton article, I presume.
That is what he is suggesting, yes. Depression
underlaid by fatigue and malaise. He does not
cite it, but there is literature now suggesting
prostanoid excess as one of the problems in
major depression; i.e. a potential indication for
NSAIDS like aspirin and ibuprofen. I would not
expect them to be a complete treatment, but
they might help some people.
Posted by cactus on October 11, 2007, at 17:48:34
In reply to You people are suckers, posted by LostBoyinNCBecksDark on October 11, 2007, at 2:22:01
....have been an excellent combo for me. Not everyone here suffers from sleep apnea. No need to be so harsh, not everything that works for one person will work for another. I have tried loads of AD's, AP's, mood stabilizers etc to no avail. Now I'm on Zoloft, Clonazepam and CPAP and I feel pretty good for the first time in over 15 years. You have to realize that everyone is different mate, without making wild statements like that. I wish you all the best and a speedy recovery. There are some very sensitive people on here and there is no need to send them into a tail spin. Cheers C
Posted by LostBoyinNCBecksDark on October 11, 2007, at 18:32:28
In reply to Re: You people are suckers, posted by d0pamine on October 11, 2007, at 6:28:23
> Not that you don't make some valid points, but I'm amazed that you followed up all that ranting by noting that you still take an SSRI. You could likely cut back on the hormones if you stopped overdriving your serotonin levels, or if that doesn't take care of it, and unless you don't have any nads, I'd look into the medical condition behind why you can't produce enough testosterone. There are numerous studies that indicate that alcohol consumption significantly decreases testosterone levels (and increases estrogen (ugh)). As far as the apnea goes, you'd likely see a great deal of improvement from less youtube and more exercise. With less booze alone, you and yer nads both might wake up and find you feel pretty dang good one day. Best of luck!
I'm already feeling good again, but it only happened AFTER I expanded my horizons, got a clue, and stopped expecting results from the endless psychiatric medication merry go round. More Pdocs should be referring their treatment resistant patients to specialists for tests to rule out things like sleep disorders like sleep apnea, hypogonadism, etc.
Once in a while I come to these boards now to lurk and I think how stupid I used to be because I actually BELIEVED in psychopharmacology! LOL What happened to me is, 1) I got diagnosed with secondary hypogonadism but only after pushing my primary care doctor to test me. The hypogonadism has since been confirmed by two other doctors, one an endocrinology specialist.
Now, my doctors PUSH me to take testosterone!
The second thing that happened, was a pulmonary doctor decided on his own, to treat me for obstructive sleep apnea. I had already been diagnosed with OSA since 2000, but the doctors I was using were jerky and wouldnt order CPAP treatment. The result was I suffered and all the psychiatry meds in the world wouldnt help me.
Once I got on CPAP, I started improving fast. Making REAL honest to gosh progress. I am way less irritable, my sleep is more restorative, Ive been able to get off klonopin since CPAP as my blood pressure dropped like crazy on CPAP. The Zoloft works way way better after CPAP.
Im just saying, if you are on the med merry go round with no success, GET A CLUE and try other stuff!
Eric
Posted by LostBoyinNCBecksDark on October 11, 2007, at 18:49:37
In reply to You people are suckers, posted by LostBoyinNCBecksDark on October 11, 2007, at 2:22:01
My sleep doctor, a pulmonary doc, told me "he had seen so many of his patients get treated for sleep apnea with CPAP, they start getting some deep restorative sleep for the first time in years and their depression evaporates."
Another sleep doc I have consulted with who is a psychiatrist and also does ECT, told me "he had seen many people with just mild obstructive sleep apnea dramatically improve after they were treated with CPAP." This was an ECT psychiatrist mind you, not some psychopharmacology guy.
There is other stuff out there besides psychopharmacology. Something MAY BE WRONG WITH YOU that you and your Pdoc dont know about. And your other regular doctors may have stopped bothering with you and written you off as a headcase and decided to let the shrinks handle you with drugs. You need to develop the ability to see through all this crap and take matters into your own hands.
Sleep medicine is a developing specialty of medicine that IMO, will be heavily competing with psychiatry in the future. And man, I am glad of that because STAR*D and other stuff is showing that few psychiatry patients experience remission despite taking their prescribed meds. I already knew what STAR*D concluded...I had known it for years. So had many many other mental patients...a lot of people go thru the med merry go round for years and suddenly realize, "man this psychiatry stuff is a bunch of crap." Its a big lie.
If its really a brain problem, why arent Neurologists treating severe mental illness? They should be. psychiatry wont fix you...
Think independently.
End of rant.
Eric
Posted by LostBoyinNCBecksDark on October 11, 2007, at 18:56:47
In reply to Re: What my sleep doctor said, posted by LostBoyinNCBecksDark on October 11, 2007, at 18:49:37
http://www.annals-general-psychiatry.com/content/4/1/13
"The two main factors suspected to be responsible for depressive symptoms in OSA are sleep fragmentation and oxygen desaturation during sleep. Sleep fragmentation is a direct consequence of the recurrent microarousals associated with the apneas and hypopneas, and the nocturnal hypoxemia is due to the intermittent drops in oxygen saturation caused by the respiratory events [47]. Sleep fragmentation is the primary cause of EDS in OSA patients, and is suggested to result in the depressive symptomatology in OSA. This last perspective gains support from the finding that EDS as measured by the Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS) and the Maintenance of Wakefulness Test (MWT) was found to be correlated with higher depression scores on the Hospital Depression Scale (HAD-D) in 44 patients with OSA [48]. Furthermore, a Canadian study on 30 OSA patients showed a significant correlation between the severity of psychological symptoms on SCL-90 and less total sleep time, as well as percentage of wake time after sleep onset and ESS scores [49]. With respect to hypoxemia, Engleman et al. noted in a recent review that the effect size of cognitive impairment in OSA correlated highly with severity of hypoxic events, ranging from .3 standard deviations for milder levels of AHI to 2–3 standard deviations for higher levels of AHI [50]. Recently, preliminary imaging data suggests that hypoxemia related to OSA might also play a role in impacting mood. Cerebral metabolic impairment resulting from recurrent nocturnal hypoxemia in OSA have had previously been observed in several imaging investigations on OSA [51-53]; independently, white matter hyperintensities (WMH) have been linked to depressive symptomatology in studies on affective disorders [54-58]. Aloia et al. reported in a small sample of older patients with OSA more subcortical WMH in the brain MRI of patients with a severe OSA as compared to those with minimal OSA, and a tendency for a positive correlation between these subcortical hyperintensities and depression scores on the Hamilton Depression Scale [59]."
Posted by elanor roosevelt on October 11, 2007, at 21:24:17
In reply to You people are suckers, posted by LostBoyinNCBecksDark on October 11, 2007, at 2:22:01
or is this post aggressively rude?
i suggest you try some estrogen
Posted by bleauberry on October 11, 2007, at 21:33:40
In reply to You people are suckers, posted by LostBoyinNCBecksDark on October 11, 2007, at 2:22:01
I disagree with the choice of words, but I do understand your frustration. In psychiatry, efforts are made only at treating symptoms, and not doing it very well statistically, and the whole effort is basically a roll-the-dice guessing game based on someone's theory, hunch, or experience.
I'm glad you found the real cause of your body chemistry's problem. I suspect most if not all psychiatric patients also have an identifiable cause. Sadly, doctors don't investigate much, other than a basic blood test and maybe an incomplete thyroid test.
Unknown allergies. Unknown intolerances. Faulty genes in the B-vitamin/methylation mechanisms. Heavy metal toxicity (copper, lead, mercury). Amalgam fillings. Candida overgrowth. Parasites. And many others. These all cause serious psychiatric problems that no psych drug is going to fix. They are all identifiable in a lab test. No more guessing at WHY the symptoms are happening. There is a cause and it can be seen in a blood draw, if one knows what to look for.
That being said, psych drugs are life-savers for a minority of people. There are impressive success stories with them. Not that many though.
Find the cause and fix it rather than guessing at how to manage the symptoms is what I believe. For the $10,000 dollars the patient will eventurally spend on medications, and the dozen or so years of their lives wasted in suffering trials, far less money could have been spent on finding the real problem, fixing it, and be well in a few months, in a way that lasts a lifetime.
Posted by Dr. Bob on October 11, 2007, at 22:07:15
In reply to am i missing something?, posted by elanor roosevelt on October 11, 2007, at 21:24:17
> is this post aggressively rude?
Please don't post anything that could lead others to feel accused or put down.
But please don't take this personally, either, this doesn't mean I don't like you or think you're a bad person.
If you or others have questions about this or about posting policies in general, or are interested in alternative ways of expressing yourself, please first see the FAQ:
http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/faq.html#civil
http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/faq.html#enforceFollow-ups regarding these issues should be redirected to Psycho-Babble Administration. They, as well as replies to the above post, should of course themselves be civil.
Thanks,
Bob
Posted by mike lynch on October 12, 2007, at 1:36:15
In reply to am i missing something?, posted by elanor roosevelt on October 11, 2007, at 21:24:17
so because you were diagnosed with the wrong condition psychiatry is b*llsh*t?
Posted by stargazer2 on October 12, 2007, at 8:23:28
In reply to Re: Expand your mind...try other stuff, posted by LostBoyinNCBecksDark on October 11, 2007, at 18:32:28
Lost (you said it)
I take offense to the way you are insinuating that everyone here is only doing the medication route. Plenty of us have sought out specialists in other disciplines to rule out other conditions. You are making assumptions that don't hold true for many of us.
Your attitude is rude and offensive. I find it hard to believe you had depression since that usually makes you more sensitive to the feelings of others.
CPAP and testosterone may work for you now, but many treatments fail over time. It sounds like you are using those treatments for other factors in your depression that you have chosen to trivialize and ignore.
Plenty of us have had successes and haven't chosen to criticize others and put them down for their efforts. We come back and give others suggestions or advice in doing this.You sure don't know how to win friends and influence others. There's so many other ways you could have said the things you did, but you have chosen to criticize and blame others.
Why the bad, irritable attitude if you're no longer depressed?
Posted by Deputy Racer on October 12, 2007, at 11:27:55
In reply to Re: Expand your mind...try other stuff/ You too, posted by stargazer2 on October 12, 2007, at 8:23:28
>
>
> Your attitude is rude and offensive.
>
> You sure don't know how to win friends and influence others. There's so many other ways you could have said the things you did, but you have chosen to criticize and blame others.
>
> Why the bad, irritable attitude if you're no longer depressed?Please don't post anything which could lead others to feel accused or put down, even if your feelings have been hurt. Additionally, when you come across a post you find objectionable in some way, please use the Notify Administrators button at the bottom of the post.
If you have any questions about these policies, please read the relevant sections of the FAQ, located here:
http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/faq.html#civil
http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/faq.html#harassed
http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/faq.html#help-enforceFollow ups regarding this issue should be directed to the Administration board, and should themselves also be civil.
Dr Bob has ultimate authority over this site, and may choose at any time to revise or reverse any administrative action taken by a deputy.
Deputy Racer
Posted by Netch on October 12, 2007, at 11:36:15
In reply to Please be civil, posted by Deputy Racer on October 12, 2007, at 11:27:55
For a second I thought PBC meant porc, beef and chicken :-)
Posted by Dr. Bob on October 12, 2007, at 13:09:43
In reply to Re: please be civil » elanor roosevelt, posted by Dr. Bob on October 11, 2007, at 22:07:15
> Follow-ups regarding these issues should be redirected to Psycho-Babble Administration.
Here's a link:
http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/admin/20070817/msgs/788741.html
Thanks,
Bob
Posted by deniseuk190466 on October 14, 2007, at 4:15:27
In reply to Re: CPAP, SSRI's and benzos.... » LostBoyinNCBecksDark, posted by cactus on October 11, 2007, at 17:48:34
I thought sleep apnoea just affected large people so I've always counted myself out from that particular condition as I'm slim.
Can slim people have sleep apnoea?
Denise
Posted by Ashley B on October 15, 2007, at 8:52:13
In reply to Sleep apnoea - what type of people does it affect?, posted by deniseuk190466 on October 14, 2007, at 4:15:27
Yes, slim people can have sleep apnea.
I've thought about getting tested myself, but it's very expensive. I used to stop breathing in my sleep, mentally awaken but be unable to physically move, and stay that way for a few seconds. It was frightening.
Posted by Mathia on October 15, 2007, at 9:35:27
In reply to You people are suckers, posted by LostBoyinNCBecksDark on October 11, 2007, at 2:22:01
YO,
Well if you are on an ssri, your post definitely shows me its not helping. I dont think the sleep apnea thing is working either. Not saying its not helping you sleep and thats great. Just an observance from reading your post, you seem like your fed up and disgusted at this point after trying everything to be happy. And dont get me wrong I have my own thoughts on the whole psycology world and all the ssri's but just seems like your frustrated. Ive been there, dont give up and good luck.
Posted by FredPotter on October 15, 2007, at 19:45:53
In reply to You people are suckers, posted by LostBoyinNCBecksDark on October 11, 2007, at 2:22:01
I agree with much of what you say Eric. I've suspected I have obstructive sleep apnoea for a while. My little boy likes to share my bed when he comes to stay and he told me I snore, flail my limbs and stop breathing, then start with a snort. Who needs a sleep laboratory when I've got him? My Dr has finally agreed to commit me for a sleep test. I would have thought given my son's observations they could give me a CPAP thingy now. I have a plastic tongue cap but it cuts into the connective tissue and I'd wake up with it having fallen off
Fred
Posted by Mathia on October 15, 2007, at 20:27:03
In reply to Re: You people are suckers » LostBoyinNCBecksDark, posted by FredPotter on October 15, 2007, at 19:45:53
The sleep apnea thing can be a problem. You should check into it. I think its mainly a problem with your heart possibly stopping. I had sleep apnea, had a (I forget whats its called now) nose, disectimy, etc. Bottom line, helped my sleeping, not my depression. Still was depressed after.
Goodluck
Matt
Posted by cactus on October 16, 2007, at 1:54:34
In reply to Re: Sleep apnoea - what type of people does it affect?, posted by Ashley B on October 15, 2007, at 8:52:13
Yes larger people are more prone to it but I'm quite slender and one of my co workers is a stick insect and he has it too. It has improved my sleep but my bouts of depression still come back. It is not a cure for depression but it does help take the edge off.
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