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 20: Acupuncture, Relaxed Wanderer

The needles were thin and I could barely feel them go through my skin.  She used them on many parts of my body and I had some on my face; above my nose and on my forehead.  She was treating my depression symptoms and for pain in my lower back from a herniated disc.  I laid quietly listening to the music and completely relaxed.  It was a restful, rejuvenating experience.  After the half hour quiet time she came in, removed the needles, and rubbed Dragon Balm (an external analgesic) on my skin.  The balm was warm and then cool and the scent was invigorating.  (Dragon Balm can help relieve a headache.  I rub a small amount on my temples and it helps soothe the pain away.)

After my first acupuncture session I felt calm and looked forward to seeing if I would be able to come off antidepressant medication and feel good without it.  I had researched treating depression with acupuncture on the Internet and there were many case histories of it being successful.  I started lowering the dose of my antidepressant and began taking a combination of herbs called Relaxed Wanderer Formulation.

My first acupuncture appointment was in the month of July.  I was lowering my antidepressant dose extremely slowly because I have experienced withdrawal symptoms from every psychiatric medication I have stopped taking.  My acupuncture sessions were relaxing and enjoyable for about three months.  Then I started to notice my thinking was changing and I wasn't feeling as good.  Two more herbs were added to my regimen and I don't even remember what they were.  I started to write down how I was feeling and what I was thinking.

I no longer looked forward to my appointments.  The half hour quiet time seemed long and I felt anxious for my provider to come back into the room so I could leave.  I was hoping these feelings would pass and the acupuncture itself, and the herbs would begin to work.  I lost the desire to do things I usually enjoyed, things that were important to me lost their value, I felt tired and irritable, and began feeling I had never accomplished anything in my life.  These are depression symptoms for me, and I knew the acupuncture and herbs weren't working.  Soon after, thoughts of suicide plagued my mind and I knew I needed to go back on the antidepressant.  That is what I did the first part of December.

I was disappointed acupuncture did not help my depression symptoms, but I felt fortunate the antidepressant worked for me after going back on.  My doctor had warned me that for some patients the antidepressant doesn't "kick in" after restarting it.  Fortunately, acupuncture did work on the pain in my lower back.  After 4-5 treatments per month, for 5 months, my back was pain free.  It was agile and felt back to normal.  That outcome was welcomed! 

It was fascinating at first to feel the symptoms of depression returning.  I observed my thinking slowly changing.  Other things in my life during this time hadn't changed.  Without the help of the antidepressant the disease gradually took hold again and within five months the disease was in control.  By December the fascination had changed to misery!  The results of this experience did not talk me out of trying the amino acid therapy many years later.  At this point, I believe I will stay on antidepressant medication long term.

Last Friday morning I made the move up to 150 mg of Effexor XR.  The gradual rise of the dosage has seemed slow-paced, but I am still not feeling any side effects that are strong enough to bother me.  I was taking Effexor several years ago and the side effect of nausea never went away.  The medication was effective on my depression symptoms, but the nausea was constant and irritating so my doctor changed my antidepressant to Zoloft.  

My psychiatrist at the Amen Clinic believes I had a problem with nausea because I started on too high of a dose, and increased it too quickly.  I am relieved I have not felt nauseated.  I am taking approximately 19 mg of Luvox twice per day.  The tablets are getting smaller and smaller.

Normal Day, Please Hasten Your Arrival!