How would someone know if they have this? I've only had consistent treatment for depression for 5 or 6 years, but it went off the rails again after a gastric bypass that I had 2 years ago. Nothing I have done since the surgery has helped except for just a few minutes or hours. Like if I go out somewhere it helps until I leave that place to go back home. If I find a program on TV I like or use to like it only helps for a few minutes then I'm depressed again. I feel like I'm in a rut and can't get out. What has everyone else done that has helped?

[Altered Moment]

There is a section at the top on treatment resistant depression. It depends on what you have tried and how consistently. What treatments have you tried?

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Rose76]

If you've had treatment for 5 or 6 years, and it's never been too successful, then that could be called Treatment Resistant Depression. I was told I had that after a year of so of failing treatment with medication. It led to the pdoc offering me ECT (shock treatment.) I declined that because I heard you lose your memory doing that.

Eventually, when the circumstances of my life improved, my mood improved. Sometimes, it's not your brain that's messed up, but the conditions of your life.

For a few of those years it was under control, but then I had weight loss surgery and that threw it off again. I have actually had depression for about 17 years total, but until 5 or 6 years ago it wasn't treated consistently. I don't have a psychologist or anything like that my primary has just been giving me meds for it, but he's not exactly the best listener so when I tell him that I think any of my meds needs changed he's never too happy about it. I'm just wondering if there are any other things to try besides prescriptions for depression for the most part.

[geis]

Well, therapy would be a good first step. For lots of people, meds alone aren't enough to successfully treat their depression. You might also want to look into finding a good psychiatrist--they're usually more knowledgeable about psych meds than GP's are, and there may be alternatives or combinations that you haven't tried.

The very first one I was on was the best, but I'm wondering if I can even convince my doctor to put me back on that one and off at least one of the 2 I am currently on. I think I will ask when I see him in a couple of months.

[eskielover]

I went for 13 years with unsuccessful treatment for what started as anxiety when my aerospace engineering career ended at the time aerospace engineering collapsed in California. At the same time that happened, we were hit by a huge earthquake that destroyed the freeway between where I lived & where I worked which added to my breakdown (one T offered the thought that PTSD was possibly part of the problem) but a year later it all turned into major depression recurrent with many suicide attempts.......9 years after that, there was a trauma that hit me in my life.

There wasn't a med that worked but the side effects were horrible. They actually had a difficult time with my Dx to start with because they thought that it was major overreacting to JUST a loss of my career. Guess they didn't think that women would place all their value in their career like men were known to do.

What I have since found out however was that my bad marriage that ended up being 33 years....the last 13 being the time after the loss of my career......but I realize now how trapped I felt.....& as soon after the trauma hit & I took my inheritance I was able to leave the marriage......my life started to clear up, the depression & even the anxiety lightened up even though the last issues with PTSD still haunt me.

Like Rose76 said:

Sometimes, it's not your brain that's messed up, but the conditions of your life.

& sometimes the conditions of your life you aren't even aware of that they are causing such a mess in your life. I knew that my marriage was bad....but I didn't realize how bad it was until I left & could look back at it & see the damage that it was doing in my life.

Even with the fighting that my pdoc & my psychologist knew about in the marriage.....they weren't putting 2 & 2 together either.

Sometimes we feel trapped in the situation with no way out & we just don't see how badly it's really destroying our lives.....but there isn't a med in the world or a treatment in the world or a distraction that will permanently CHANGE situations that need to be resolved for any treatment to really work.

After leaving my marriage (I moved 2100 miles away)....I got a psychologist who suggested the DBT group & I got involved with it.....amazing how much more clear things became when I was no longer trapped in the forest of that bad marriage.....all of a sudden so much became clear & treatment actually started to work & it was amazing the progress that was made in just a short time compared to all the time that was wasted before.

We NOW understand the whole picture......something even pdoc's & psychologists at UCLA's psych hospital weren't capable of doing.

I'm sure there are other reasons for treatment resistant depression....but I definitely know that situational depression no matter what DX it ends up with.....can truly be treatment resistant until the situation either changes or is resolved in some way.

[Rose76]

Originally Posted by Nala5065

I'm just wondering if there are any other things to try besides prescriptions for depression for the most part.

There are definitely other things, but they are not things you can just swallow and wait to work. Keeping your life organized, so that you get up in the morning with an idea of how you are going to spend your day. Planning to do something that involves some exercise. Even just deciding to walk to the store for a gallon of milk can be a good idea. (I can never just do calisthenics of anything that has no point to it. I'll only move, if it's getting something accomplished.) Maintaining your environment by straightening out what's around you. Also, finding something to participate in that gets you involved with other people.

Sometimes we're unhappy because we our lives are not about anything that can make us feel like we are accomplishing anything. Then all the pills in the world won't help.