[Altered Moment]

Well I was having high hopes for Fetzima. It seemed to be working at first. I noticed a difference in the first two weeks. I am still tapering off of Effexor. When I stop taking the Effexor I feel like total crap. 37.5 mg. I start taking it again I feel somewhat better but I am still feeling very blah. just blah.

It is so frustrating. Maybe the Fetzima will help as it hasn't been that long. I am not really tired during the day but I just want to force myself to sleep so I can escape. My favorite time of day is evening so I can take my remeron and klonopin and watch tv for a couple of hours and then go to bed. Sleeping and dreaming at night is my favorite time. I have no purpose. I am in limbo but have no interest in doing anything. Hopefully I will snap out of this soon. That is how it always works for me. I snap out of it like a switch went off regardless of what meds I am taking. It is not due to anything I have done it just happens.

I'm sorry you're feeling so blah, Zinco. I'm hoping for that switch to flip me out of this depression too.

[Beatzen]

I know that feeling. That's why I have self medicated. Try not to be so hard on yourself. You are sober and offer a lot of support to others on here. You have reached out to me EVERY time I posted. That is pretty selfless. Ty. Do something kind for yourself. Reach out here and let OTHERS support U for a change. Nothing ever stays the same. Hugs.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Rohag]

Originally Posted by zinco14532323

That is how it always works for me. I snap out of it like a switch went off regardless of what meds I am taking.

Does your prescribing doctor know about this?
Have you noticed whether any of the drugs shorten the time to "snap out" of the depressive episode?

Hoping whatever good is happening happens sooner and not later...

Hi Zinco.....I know that your depression is somewhat resistant, but I found this rather interesting:

Practical Management of Treatment-Resistant Depression - American Family Physician

It's got the usual info, but if you scroll down there's a bit on thryroid function and depression.

If you know about this, then ignore me

[Altered Moment]

Originally Posted by sophiesmom

Hi Zinco.....I know that your depression is somewhat resistant, but I found this rather interesting:

Practical Management of Treatment-Resistant Depression - American Family Physician

It's got the usual info, but if you scroll down there's a bit on thryroid function and depression.

If you know about this, then ignore me

Thanks. I haven't seen that site. I will check it out. My thyroid has been checked a number of times and is always normal. Thyroid can certainly cause it though. My niece was just diagnosed with hypo thyroidism and as a week or two after she started taking meds for it went into a bad depression. They are trying to get her dosing right. Her doc told her she had never seen anyone react like that after starting meds for it. Which made her feel worse of course. She is only 21.

[Altered Moment]

Originally Posted by Rohag

Does your prescribing doctor know about this?
Have you noticed whether any of the drugs shorten the time to "snap out" of the depressive episode?

Hoping whatever good is happening happens sooner and not later...

Yes my pdoc is very well aware of it. I have very treatment resistant depression that comes and goes in cycles. For most of my life, although very deep in severity, they only lasted three weeks or so. In the last five years they are lasting months at a time. The current one is not as severe but has lasted six months now.

It is very hard to tell which drugs may have helped. I have taken so many and switched and upped doses and all of that for such a long period of time it is all a big blur. I have kept lots of mood logs over the years but they have all been lost due to hard drive crashes or I just burned them. I was in the habit of journaling alot and then just burning the notebooks to let it go. Worked for me but now I have no data to look back on. Effexor and Celexa were always my go to ones. They always seemed to work the best in combination. The thing is I have taken them so often and so long they have pooped out. Effexor has been the one I have taken the most and was the most effective but I have given up on it. Now I am on to the new ones and there are not that many. Tried Abilify with Pristiq and with Effexor for a couple of years when it first came out. I did better on Pristiq. I may try that one again. My doc likes the SNRI's as they are supposed to be activating and my biggest complaint has always been no motivation. Currently ChangingMyMind is finding Pristiq is killing her motivation so who knows. She has only been taking it a week so I hope she sticks it out and gives it a chance.

[Altered Moment]

Originally Posted by sophiesmom

Hi Zinco.....I know that your depression is somewhat resistant, but I found this rather interesting:

Practical Management of Treatment-Resistant Depression - American Family Physician

It's got the usual info, but if you scroll down there's a bit on thryroid function and depression.

If you know about this, then ignore me

Interesting. I had never heard of augmenting with Lithium or Thyroid Hormone for depression.

I don't know why no one has ever suggested ECT for me. Maybe they are afraid of it. I know I would be afraid to try it. I did do six weeks of a new one called TMS Trans Cranial Magnetic Stimulation. It didn't do anything.

Originally Posted by zinco14532323

Interesting. I had never heard of augmenting with Lithium or Thyroid Hormone for depression.

I don't know why no one has ever suggested ECT for me. Maybe they are afraid of it. I know I would be afraid to try it. I did do six weeks of a new one called TMS Trans Cranial Magnetic Stimulation. It didn't do anything.

I came across a term, recently that was new to me. I thought of you straight away. It's 'unipolar depression'. It's simply another term for major depressive disorder but, to me, it seemed more to describe 'waves' of depression.
Like being bi-polar but without the added 'benefit' of the highs. Just lows and nothings.
...

[Altered Moment]

Originally Posted by sophiesmom

I came across a term, recently that was new to me. I thought of you straight away. It's 'unipolar depression'. It's simply another term for major depressive disorder but, to me, it seemed more to describe 'waves' of depression.
Like being bi-polar but without the added 'benefit' of the highs. Just lows and nothings.
...

Thats me unipolar. I have heard that before. Lows and nothings and numb.

What is also weird about mine and the cycles it that they have always been triggered by a change in seasons. I don't have Seasonal Affective Disorder but it is kind of similar. Over the years it has always been at the same times of year that I would dive into one. In California where I spent most of my life they actually do have seasons, well at least in northern. When fall went to winter and the rainy season would start I would dive into one. Then when spring went to summer and the first time it got real hot I would dive into one. Usually mid summer as well. The winter ones would last longer.

I was reading today about melatonin. Just about everything is about SAD and every day sleep cycles when it comes to melatonin but I did find one article about a guy who had a bad depression every summer five years straight and a doc successfully treated him with melatonin. A low dose in the afternoon which is kind of counter intuitive. Apparently melatonin also plays a role in how we adjust to changes in the season. I am going to try taking some each afternoon. I did have one pdoc who called it a diurnal rhythm.

Agomelatine....

And this...
http://bipolarnews.org/?p=2374

I'm just very glad that there is more research going on. Not all depression is the same.

[Altered Moment]

Originally Posted by sophiesmom

Agomelatine....

And this...
Buspirone and Melatonin Together May Treat Unipolar Depression : Bipolar Network News

I'm just very glad that there is more research going on. Not all depression is the same.

What is Agomelatine?

I will read that article later. Some people have asked me why I would read so much on depression and participate in this forums and doesn't it just make you more depressed? No quite the opposite for me. It gives me hope. It helps me understand it is not my fault, that I am not just some lazy slob. And I feel a part of.

Thanks SophiesMom you have helped me today.

[Altered Moment]

Low dosage lithium augmentation in venl... [Psychiatrike. 2012 Apr-Jun] - PubMed - NCBI

Lithium augmentation is one of the best studied strategies for resistant depression.

Now why wouldn't my pdoc ever mention this. Don't they keep up on the research. It may not be FDA approved but they prescribe off label all the time.

[TheOriginalMe]

Aglomelatine is a melatonin based drug, I believe. I would like to try it because everything else has either pooped or causes unendurable side effects. Sadly, not licensed for depression in the UK and not available off-label without a pdoc (no I won't indulge that rant again you all know it so well, ok just a little whinge then).

I would also be open to ECT again (same problem no pdoc). I'd recommend it (it didn't "cure" me but it kept my depressions manageable for a good number of years). I think it would start with the full 12 sessions and then followed up by weekly (maybe slightly less frequently) top-ups. I found it far less scary than the psychotic depression I was having in my mid 20s. I also agreed to it because I figured that I would be in oblivion for half an hour three times a week and that could only be good (hardly informed consent). As to the side effects, well they were mostly short term memory loss ( kept a journal so I could fill in the blanks and in severe depressive episodes my memory isn't good anyway) and some confusion (but I was psychotic so again how much of that was the treatment and how much was the illness idk). I think I was going to try lithium at one time, but I repsonded so well to the ECT it was forgotten about. I think I might ask my GP about that one, cos if its in my notes (even from years back) he might be able to Rx without a pdoc.

I've previously been Dx as unipolar, then cyclothymic (the ups aren't high enough for bipolar but the downs are deep depressions so not dysthymia either), now severe recurrent depressive disorder, but basically, I have cyclical severe depressions, though I managed a good ten years in near total remission with only minor depressive symptoms, thanks to ECT.

Sometimes we have to be our own doctors.
I may get some hate on this, but my own doctor is simply there as a prescription pad. She is more knowledgeable than I am, but she is not inside my head......

[Altered Moment]

Melatonin in mood disorders. [World J Biol Psychiatry. 2006] - PubMed - NCBI

The cyclic nature of depressive illness, the diurnal variations in its symptomatology and the existence of disturbed sleep-wake and core body temperature rhythms, all suggest that dysfunction of the circadian time keeping system may underlie the pathophysiology of depression.

This is the first time since a pdoc I had along time ago mentioned it that I have heard the term diurnal.

You can buy Melatonin over the counter here in the US.

[Altered Moment]

Originally Posted by sophiesmom

Sometimes we have to be our own doctors.
I may get some hate on this, but my own doctor is simply there as a prescription pad. She is more knowledgeable than I am, but she is not inside my head......

Along time ago I started walking in and telling them what I wanted to do. Either up the dose or switch. They have always gone along with it. Sometimes they suggest something that I agree to try. Like recently with Lamictal. The Fetzima was my idea.