All Entries Tagged With: "medication"
Medication Update
Throughout the year of 2009 I took several different vitamins and supplements. I began taking many of them during Spring, when the sun was coming out more often. Because of the timing I was never sure if it was the sun or the medications that were making me feel better.
I was taking the following daily to help with depression:
Vitamin C- 1000 mg
Vitamin D- 1000 iu
Fish Oil- 2000 mg
The sun has now hidden itself away until next year, and so I hesitantly decided to do an experiment. I am still taking 15mg daily of Paxil, but as of 3 weeks ago I have stopped taking everything else. Tareak and I haven’t noticed any changes in mood or behavior. As much as I’d like to think they were helping, it seems as though they weren’t doing much.
About three months ago I started taking 2000 mg daily of N-acetylcysteine, for trichotillomania. Unfortunately I didn’t notice any changes or improvements in my trichotillomania. I was very hopeful that it would be the breakthrough I needed, but considering there is no cure for trichotillomania to date, I’m not surprised that it didn’t help.
I plan to start seeing a counselor early next year and may try switching to or adding Wellbutrin. My depression is currently under control, but I still feel like I am just “surviving”, and not really living.
“More than your biochemistry…”
This article was on the Psychology Today website. The author believes that “Depression is more a social problem than a medical one, and no purely biological cure will be found for it any more than biology alone will cure other social ills such as poverty or child abuse”.
I think this is an interesting theory and one that I definitely buy into. In the last month of improvements I’ve seen in my life, my medication dosages have not changed, but my attitude has- and this has improved my relationship with Tareak and my view of myself.
Let’s Expand Our View of Depression: You’re More Than Your Biochemistry
The costs of depression on a variety of levels are huge: Marriages and families splinter, individuals suffer, societies suffer the consequences of the often destructive behaviors of people coping badly or not at all with their depression, businesses suffer the negative effects of employees too disabled to function properly, the economic costs of greater health care expenses are greater for depressed patients, and there is the tragedy of suicide – lives lost to despair and apathy. Depression is a terribly disabling disorder, and despite significant advances in treatment, the problem continues to grow.
Depression is a multi-dimensional disorder. It has biological components based in genetics, neurochemistry and physical health, it has psychological components that involve many individual factors such as cognitive style, coping style, and qualities of personal behavior. And, it has social components, factors that are mediated by the quality of one’s relationships, including such variables as the family and the culture one is socialized into, and one’s range of social skills. The best, most accurate answer to the basic question, “What causes depression?” is, “Many things.”
Currently, the medical model of depression receives the greatest attention for a variety of reasons. The pharmaceutical industry in particular has invested tens of billions of dollars in advertising to the public as well as investing directly in individual physicians, encouraging all to define depression as a disease caused by a neurochemical imbalance that requires medication to manage. The lion’s share of research money goes to drug research, further elevating drugs to the status of being the source of hope for everyone who suffers depression. As a result, antidepressants are the most widely prescribed medication in the U.S., and are considered a first-line treatment approach, de-emphasizing the value of psychotherapy despite its success not only in treatment, but in the area of prevention.
It may sound extreme to some, but I stand by this statement: Depression is more a social problem than a medical one, and no purely biological cure will be found for it any more than biology alone will cure other social ills such as poverty or child abuse. This is not to say that antidepressant medications shouldn’t be a part of treatment, especially in those specific instances where there are clear benefits medication can provide over psychotherapy. Rather, medications should be used more carefully and with an associated recommendation for a well-considered skill-building psychotherapy.
The social side of depression is especially important, yet is terribly under-considered in most people’s consideration. We know, for example, that depression runs in families: The child of a depressed parent is anywhere from three to six times more likely to become depressed than the child of a non-depressed parent. The genetics research makes it quite clear that it isn’t entirely – or even mostly – faulty genes responsible, especially since there is no “depression gene.” It has more to do with the patterns of thinking, coping, behaving, and relating that parents (and other significant role models in our society) model day in and day out than it does one’s genetic makeup. When you have the largest demographic group of depression sufferers now raising children, it should surprise no one that their children are the fastest growing group of depression sufferers. After all, parents can’t teach their children what they don’t know.
Furthermore, the more distressed one’s marriage, the more likely one is to either already be or to become depressed. The quality of one’s marriage is a very large risk factor, yet many people never consider how powerful a good marriage can be in helping insulate its members against depression. These points provide excellent reasons to want to strengthen parents and marriages.
To think of depression as only an individual’s biochemical disorder, as if he or she isn’t a product of powerful social forces that operate in families, organizations, and cultures, or to reduce it even further to a purely biochemical phenomenon, is so terribly reductionistic as to disempower the very people who need help changing their lives, not just their brain chemistry. It’s true: You are more than your biochemistry.
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It’s That Time Of Year Again
The birds and singing and the flowers are blooming and Leslie is walking around the house with toilet paper stuffed up her nose. Every year from around March-September I suffer from severe allergies. You might wonder what this has to do with depression, but it actually plays a bigger role than you might think.
I need this invention most of the year.
Allergies make me tired. My body is working overtime trying to fight off all the things that make me sneeze and this hard work drains my energy. Unfortunately the allergy medication doesn’t help me out in the energy department. While it might help my itchy eyes and sniffles the number one side effect is drowsiness. I have tried allergy shots, a neti pot, nasal spray and prescription drugs. Each of these remedies provide some relief, but I can still feel the drowsiness weighing on me and pulling me down.
The number one thing I want to do when I’m feeling especially depressed is to sleep. Some days I just feel so tired that it requires all my energy to just breathe in and out. Sleeping provides an escape. Excessive sleeping is a symptom of depression and one that becomes even harder to fight when I am being weighed down with the drowsiness allergies inflict. This past week I have felt extreme temptation to just crawl back into bed after I’ve only been up for a couple of hours, not because my allergies have been horrible, but because the combination of the allergies, medication and depression just make my bed look so desirable. While it would be easy to just climb back into bed and get a few more hours I have resisted. I know that in order to combat my depression effectively I can’t give into all my urges to just crawl into bed and escape life, no matter how tired my body is.
Sacrifice of Sanity
Tareak is a great help and support to me in trying to overcome my depression, but sometime I feel like he doesn’t have any idea what I’m sacrificing. I was on Paxil for 7 years before I attempted to lower my dose. The 30 mg I was on helped me lead a relatively normal life. Currently I am on 15mg and I would say that I am simply surviving.
Our family dynamic is a little different than most. In our case, Tareak is the one that is anxious to have children instead of me. Were he not so anxious, I wouldn’t have ever lowered my Paxil dosage. I don’t see anything wrong with staying on medication for the rest of my life, but getting Tareak to even take asprin for a headache is like pulling teeth. Because he is anti-medication he would like to see me get off Paxil as quickly as possible.
Since lowering my dosage I have basically given up a year of my life. During the past year I have simply been surviving, not living. I have sacrificed the joy that I used to find in even the smallest of things. I have sacrificed my sanity, the ability to feel like I am in control of myself and my emotions. It is hard to feel like I can take care of myself and even harder to imagine taking care of an infant in my current state.
I know it is hard, if not impossible for Tareak to understand what it is like to not have control of your sanity. I hope he never has to experience this feeling. I would never willingly give up this feeling unless it was for someone I loved. Even if Tareak can’t understand the feeling, I hope he can understand what my sacrifice means about my love for him.