Hi thedivinemrsm,

I am sorry you are going through treatment resistant depression. It is miserable!

I have been treatment resistant for the past 2 1/2 years. I felt like my doctor was guessing what drugs to try, and I was on 15 different drug combinations during this time. One night I was watching Dr. Daniel Amen on PBS. He was talking about using SPECT brain scans to give psychiatrists more information before diagnosing and treating brain diseases. They use these brain scans at the Amen Clinics. There are four of them in the United States.

I went to the Amen Clinic in Newport Beach, California in March of 2010. It was an amazing experience. I have an atypical depression that needs to be treated in layers. The anxiety portion needed to be treated first. I am in the last step of the medication changes in my treatment plan, and I am finally starting to feel some relief of my symptoms. I will continue to raise the dose of Effexor XR until I feel even more relief. It is going well so far; I am going on Effexor XR, and off Luvox very slowly. I am not feeling any side effects, or withdrawal.

If you would like to know more, go to my blog at http://escapefromdepression.blogspot.com. I talk about the Amen Clinic in detail and my brain scans are posted in Chapters 11 & 13.

I hope you will find some relief soon!

Sincerely,
Caramel