Chapter 42: FROM DARKNESS TO LIGHT

I would definitely describe the symptoms of depression as darkness.  To bring the light back in to my body and life has taken all of the following:

Trip to the Amen Clinic in Newport Beach, California:  a higher level of education to diagnose and treat my specific psychiatric disorders.  The SPECT brain scans provided information to help in prescribing medication that had the highest chance of being effective for me.

Chapter 1: Depression, Amen Clinics, Amino Acids
Chapter 2: Back to School, Father Died

Chapter 3: Teaching Position, Major Depression

Chapter 4: No To Suicide, 15 Drug Combinations

Chapter 8: Amen Clinic, Newport Beach, CA

Chapter 9: Three Days At The Amen Clinic

Chapter 10: Detailed Treatment Plan

Chapter 11: My Brain Scans, Outside Surface View

Chapter 12: I Hate Clonazepam, Supplements 

Chapter 13: My Brain Scans, Inside Active View


SPECT Brain Scans:   Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography

Chapter 11: My Brain Scans, Outside Surface View
Chapter 13: My Brain Scans, Inside Active View

Medications 

Generic Luvox:  50 mg morning 75 mg afternoon
Effexor XR:  112.5 mg morning
Generic Neurontin:  300 mg 4 times per day


Effexor XR 

Chapter 15: Clonazepam The Beast, Effexor XR 
Chapter 16: Effexor XR, Live My Life In The Now 
Chapter 19: Effexor XR, Enlightened Relationships 
Chapter 25: Effexor XR, $260.59 or $160.80 Every Month 
Chapter 35: FEELING SOME RELIEF, Antidepressant Medications 


Getting Off The Drug Clonazepam 

Chapter 12: I Hate Clonazepam, Supplements 
Chapter 15: Clonazepam The Beast, Effexor XR 


Supplements

Chapter 10: Detailed Treatment Plan 
Chapter 12: I Hate Clonazepam, Supplements 
Chapter 32: 6,000 mg Of Fish Oil A Day 


Fish Oil, Omega 3 Fatty Acids 6,000 mg Per Day 

Chapter 32: 6,000 mg Of Fish Oil A Day 


Raised My Vitamin D Level from 20 to 45, then to 72  

Chapter 29: Do you know what your Vitamin D level is?


Depression is a Disease  

Chapter 23: Angry At The Disease 
Chapter 24: Effexor XR, Please "Kick In" Soon
Chapter 31: Don't Stop Believing
Chapter 36: Blood Type & Diet, Healing Depression Symptoms 


Exercise & Endorphins

Chapter 10: Detailed Treatment Plan

Chapter 33: Endorphins - Natural Morphine 


Reading the Books, The Power of Now, and A New Earth, by Eckhart Tolle.  Changing my thinking and living in the Now.

Chapter 5: A New Earth, Changing The Way I Think 
Chapter 6: Ego, Pain-Body, Live In The Present 
Chapter 14: Normal Day, The Power of Now  
Chapter 16: Effexor XR, Live My Life In The Now  
Chapter 18: "Fulfillment, Peace, Life in all its Fullness." 
Chapter 39: The Constant Chatter In My Mind Is Not Me 
Chapter 40: EGO 
Chapter 41: PAIN-BODY


Enlightened Relationships 

Chapter 19: Effexor XR, Enlightened Relationships  


Reading the Book, The UltraMind Solution, by Mark Hyman, M.D.  This led to food sensitivity testing and diet changes.

Chapter 7: Keys To UltraWellness, Food Sensitivity 
Chapter 12: I Hate Clonazepam, Supplements 
Chapter 21: Healing A "Broken Brain" 


The Link Between Inflammation and Depression 

Chapter 37: Treat INFLAMMATION Ease DEPRESSION?
Chapter 38: Depression and Inflammation ARE Linked 


Mercury Toxicity 

Chapter 26: Is Mercury Toxicity Causing Depression?
Chapter 27: Has the Mercury I Have Been Exposed to Caused Toxicity?

Chapter 28: Heavy Metals Testing Is Extremely Controversial!


Reading the book, Change Your Brain, Change Your Life, by Daniel Amen, M.D. 

Chapter 22: Serotonin, Deep Limbic System


Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation 

Chapter 34: Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation


Acupuncture 

Chapter 20: Acupuncture, Relaxed Wanderer


Viral Meningitis  & ADHD 

Chapter 17: Effexor XR, ADHD & Viral Meningitis


Blood Type and Diet 

Chapter 36: Blood Type & Diet, Healing Depression Symptoms   

Chapter 24: Effexor XR, Please "Kick In" Soon

It felt good to vent in Chapter 23! :)

Effexor XR Catchup:  I did not feel any side effects from Effexor XR until I started on 150 mg.  I had a mild headache and constipation.  These are frequent side effects with this medication.  After 10 days the side effects diminished quite a bit, so I raised the dose to 187.5 mg.  I was relieved the side effects did not flare up again and my depression symptoms improved a little bit.  

Ten days later I raised the dose to 225 mg.  On this dosage I have noticed my appetite isn't as good.  I am not nauseated, but food doesn't sound or taste good.  It will be interesting to see if this side effect decreases in the next week to 10 days.  I have not been able to lower my dose of Luvox to less than 25 mg in the morning and 25 mg in the afternoon.  If I do, the depression symptoms become worse.

It has now been 9 days since I increased the dose of Effexor XR to 225 mg.  My lack of appetite has improved as well as the headaches and constipation.  I will probably wait to raise the dose to 262.5 mg until next Tuesday, which will be two weeks.  The improvement in the depression symptoms is subtle.  It has been a long wait!  I am hoping for a big improvement soon.

I have been reflecting on the past 29 years of dealing with the disease of depression.  I am going to talk about random memories I have.  If anyone would like to share their memories, opinions, or experiences about psychiatric diseases, please comment on my blog.  I would like to read your comments.

During the 1980's I was seeing a psychiatrist who had a psychologist working with him.  The psychologist met with support groups on different subjects.  For those of you who have never gone to a psychiatrist, you do not lie on a couch and talk about your dreams, hopes and desires.  (Like in some movies or shows.)  I have always sat in a chair and focused on my symptoms and what medications may be effective.  My life situation was discussed, but not in detail.  I have talked about my life situation in detail with a psychologist and a therapist.  It can be very helpful.  The psychiatrist I started going to in the 1980's was my doctor until he retired in 2009.  He had known me for so long I think he did know my life situation in great detail! 

I decided to join a depression support group led by the psychologist mentioned above.  The first night we met there were several of us sitting in the room waiting for the psychologist.  A man came to the doorway and said, "I'm not sure I am in the right place.  What group is this?"  The man sitting across from me said, "This is the depression support group."  The man in the doorway said, "Oh, thanks", and walked away.  "He doesn't want to be associated with the likes of us.  I can't say that I blame him."  This was said as a joke by the man who told him which group it was, and we were all laughing as the psychologist came into the room to begin the meeting.

I hope the prejudice against people with psychiatric diseases has improved since the 1980's.  When I was first diagnosed with depression in 1983 there were no ads on television about depression or the medications used to treat it.  There is more media attention in 2010, but I don't know if people are being educated about the fact that psychiatric disorders are diseases caused by areas of the brain not functioning correctly.  They are not a character flaw, or something you can just snap out of.  They are brain diseases that can be severely debilitating! 

A lot of people don't realize that depression is an illness. I don't wish it on anyone, but if they would know how it feels, I swear they would think twice before they just shrug it. 
Jonathan Davis 

Depression is a treatable medical illness like cancer and heart disease. – Judith Peacock 

For me being depressed means you can spend all day in bed, and still not get a good night’s rest. – Unknown 

That’s the thing about depression: A human being can survive almost anything, as long as she sees the end in sight. But depression is so insidious, and it compounds daily, that it’s impossible to ever see the end. The fog is like a cage without a key. – Elizabeth Wurtzel

Depression is a prison where you are both the suffering prisoner and the cruel jailer.  -- Dorothy Rowe 

"We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." — Anaïs Nin

 

Chapter 23: Angry At The Disease

I am angry at the disease depression and I need to put the reasons why in writing.

I am tired of:

having withdrawal symptoms from every psychiatric medication I have stopped taking.

having side effects from every psychiatric medication I have started.

having to wait 4-8 weeks to see if a medication is going to be effective.

needing medications that are expensive.

having a psychiatrist who tried 15 different drug combinations in a year and a half with few results; and then didn't support me after I went to the Amen Clinic for help.

"traditional psychiatrists" using an educated guess in determining which medication would be effective for me.  They decided after hearing my list of symptoms.  Other medical fields look at the organ they are treating.

letting things I need to do just sit. 

having everything I do take so much effort.

having to put my life on hold because I don't feel like doing anything. 

having thoughts that come from a brain not functioning correctly, not from anything real.

having things that were important to me lose their value. 

not having any energy. 

not finding pleasure doing things I used to enjoy.

not feeling well enough to attend activities.

my body not creating enough neurotransmitters on its own.

people I love having to deal with this disease.

having a genetic predisposition for depression.

not having advanced medical care in the treatment of depression where I live.  I needed to go to another state.

families and friends losing someone they love because of suicide.

depression causing extreme misery.

available technology not being used with every patient it could help.  SPECT Brain Scans and the research that goes with them gives a psychiatrist more information to diagnose and treat psychiatric disorders.  The Amen Clinics have been using this technology for about 10 years.

Information from, The UltraMind Solution, by Mark Hyman, M.D.

Taken from pages 11 and 12; book published in 2009

• Psychiatric disorders affect 26 percent of our adult population or more than 60 million Americans.
• More than 20 percent of children have some type of psychiatric disorder.
• More than 40 million people have anxiety.
• More than 20 million people have depression.
• One in ten Americans takes an antidepressant.
• The use of antidepressants has tripled in the last decade.
• In 2006, expenditures on antidepressants soared to over $1.9 billion.
• Psychiatric disorders like depression and anxiety are expensive.  They are among the top five most costly medical conditions, including heart disease, cancer, trauma, and lung disorders.  The cost to our health-care system exceeds $200 billion a year, which is over 12 percent of total health-care spending.
• Alzheimer's disease will affect 30 percent (and some experts say 50 percent) of people over eighty-five years old, which is the fastest-growing segment of the population.  It will affect 16 million people by 2050.
• Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder is a label we now give 8.7 percent of children between the ages of eight and fifteen.
• More than 8 million, or one in ten, children now take stimulant medications like methylphenidate (Ritalin).
• Autism rates have increased from 3 in 10,000 children to 1 in 166 children--an elevenfold  increase--over the last decade.
• Learning disabilities affect between 5 and 10 percent of school-age children.
• The indirect costs of all these broken brains to society are mammoth.  They include loss of productivity at school, home, or in the workplace, accounting for a loss of over $80 billion a year. 

Thanks for reading.  My heart goes out to everyone who is angry and tired of depression!

Chapter 3: Teaching Position, Major Depression

I had accepted a teaching position at an elementary school and it would be time to start my new career the first part of August. We had a short family trip planned before I went back to teaching. We drove to Aspen, Colorado to see Pat Benatar perform. The concert was sensational!  (Pat Benatars new book will be available on amazon.com June 15, 2010:  Between a Heart and a Rock Place: A Memoir.  You can check it out on a link in my Books and DVDs, I Recommend widget.)

I did not feel well on the trip. My back ached from sitting in the car too long, I felt tired, had a headache, and a feeling of dread. The night before we planned to come home I woke up during the night shaking with my first panic attack. I felt as if I would die if I could not get out of the hotel room! How was I going to soothe myself without waking everybody up? I took some clonazepam, turned on a flashlight, and started writing thank you notes for the flowers we had received when dad passed away. I survived the night.

I started teaching and tried hard to get into the routine of working full time. I was feeling exhausted and overwhelmed. At night I would dream I had forgotten to do something for dad, but it wasn't true. One Friday night my husband and I went out to dinner. I felt sick and miserable and wanted to go to bed. The next day I was pretty sure I had a sinus infection and went in to see a doctor. The sinus infection was confirmed, and I admitted to myself the amino acids were not effective anymore and major depression had returned. Perhaps I would have recognized it earlier if I had not been grieving at the time. I don't know.

I knew it would take six to eight weeks to begin feeling better after starting on an antidepressant. I was too sick to be the kind of teacher my students deserved. I decided it was in the best interest of the children in my class to resign. This was a hard decision to make. I felt disappointed, unprofessional, and angry at a disease I had battled before. I started back on Zoloft and the sinus infection slowly healed.

I felt good enough to attend my son's MBA graduation in Arizona. Actually, I don't think I felt good enough, but I was going anyway. Zoloft had given me a partial response to the depression symptoms, but I did not feel as well on the medication as I had previously. It was wonderful to spend time with my family, and I came back home with a renewed motivation to get feeling better.