Well, to start with, everyone is not "wired" the same. And in the second place, the
majority of serotonin neurotransmitters are not located in the brain. About 95% or
more are located in the digestive system. Don't tell me that we all react in our
digestive systems the same way!

Orthomolecular science has the edge on treatment for depression and bipolar illness, in my view. I've seen in myself too many changes from diet improvement to believe that we all don't
have a lot of work to do on our nutrition in an effort to help brain function. My view is somewhat different from that of others, but I have always seen a psychiatrist, never an Orthomolecular specialist--probably should have if one were in our area.

The fact that treatment is so different for so many people explains to me, in part, why this illness is different for almost everyone. I've rarely seen anyone with the same symptoms I have. Dr Jamison and Dr. Goodwin who wrote "Manic Depressive Illness" explain in their work that this is not a static illness; it is a dynamic one. Things may be constantly in a changing state.

One of the most common threads I've seen over the years in this illness is that somewhere in the background of many bipolar and depression patients, alcohol seems to have been present whether in generations earlier or in an immediate member of the family. In many cases, it was used as a self-medication effort. That's a question posed to me by one psychiatrist whom I saw earlier in my life: "does anyone in your family drink alcohol?"

About 70% of depressed patients are known to be missing at least two enzymes in the stomach that metabolize folic acid into folate, a form of Vitamin B6 that the brain can use. The other 30% probably are not med resistant, but that's just a guess. At any rate, both depression and bipolar illness often are challenges for psychiatrists to treat effectively--that is, to do so without side effects that are often more bothersome than the illness itself and to do so when patients present with alcohol or other drug conditions.

In my view, I think that's why many of us try to do as much as we can to avoid the need to take medications in high dosages. It's an uphill climb in healing in these illnesses, but it is so in every other illness as well.

These are illnesses, I think, that will eventually be treated with gene replacement therapy, and the sooner it happens, I'll be one of the earliest ones to get in line for treatment.