Meds that work for me for treatment resistant depression

I am beginning to believe I have treatment resistant depression as the years pass. I have basically been on some kind of psych medication since I was 13--I am now 24. There have only been a couple of periods (lasting only a few months if that) I have not been on any medication due to my mood.
I am beginning to lose hope in anything working. I don't have the energy to fight anymore. My hopes get dashed too often, my attempts to change don't last and the roller coaster with the medications are starting to frustrate me.
I feel so lost and that there is no hope, no help for me. The hospitals around me are more for those struggling with addiction. For people like me, who have psych issues the hospitals are more for a stabilization or "just until the storm passes" so to speak.
Has anyone heard of TMS? Has anyone had this treatment? What was your opinion?
Thanks

Hello do any of you guys have constant headaches with your dep/anx ?
And sort head twinges ?

Thank you for timing the arrival of this new forum to coincide with my first day here. I'm pushing fifty and have been in and out of treatment for nearly 30 years.

Some meds seemed to strengthen my coping skills for a while, but I am not so sure any of them actually lift the depression to any significant degree or length of time. Wellbutrin and Effexor were pretty good until they were not, Depakote and a few others didn't help at all; I am struggling big-time right now, after a few years of reasonable success with Cymbalta. Recently started supplementing that with Trazadone and it helped a little.

Except for a lucky seven-month stretch about a year ago, I don't think I've ever been anything but depression or manic for more than a few days. The mania is rarely dangerously high (except to my bank account) but the depression can dip pretty deep and I've been hanging on the precipice for about two weeks now....which is why I am here. I tend to have a lot of anger with my depression, and I want to bite everyone's head off. Mostly I manage to restrain myself, by sheer strength of practical-reality awareness and years of practice - some days my acting reaching academy-award level.

My depression is rarely the "my life sucks" or "I am a bad person" brand; it is more along the lines of "people in general suck" and "the world sucks," so anything from a news headline to a dead kitten in the road can plague me for hours. Mostly I just don't give-a-flying flea one way or another. I don't actively want to die, but I don't particularly see why any of us work so freakin' hard to go on living in this world. Seems like the main thing "non-depressed" people have going for them is some kind of delusional gift for pretending things are better than they are.

Hello Hunny!

Based on the title of your post, I was eager to open the thread and find out how I too, struggle from short term relief of medications. (some of them only last for 2 months.)

If I read your post in its entirety, I was hoping to hear a combination of medicines that helps with treatment resistant depression

ECT seems quite scary and it has a lot of negative connotations, but there was a point for me where I felt that I needed to do something radical so I agreed to it. The reality for me was that it wasn't too scary, everything was explained well beforehand, as for the actual treatment it was done under general anaesthetic so all I know is that I went under and then woke up with a bit of a fuzzy head and a stiff jaw. After I slept off the anaesthetic I felt a bit wired but this wore off after a couple of hours. Initially my mood would sink again but after about 4 treatments my mood stayed wired for a bit longer and stopped sinking as low. After about 8 treatments my mood stayed a little on the high side and this persisted for a few weeks.

In all I had 13 treatments, eventually my slightly high mood settled into just below normal, so I needed to keep on with therapy and meds for several years. It wasn't a miracle cure but it took me from almost catatonic with zero motivation, hardly eating and not caring for myself to a functioning but moderately unhappy person.

The side effects for me were headache (mostly slept off with the remainder of the anaesthetic), stiff jaw (the doc made a slight change of dose to the muscle relaxant they used so this only happened once), feeling slightly wired and anxious (no worse than agitated depression and it was self limiting), feeling slightly high (again time limited) and short term memory loss. The memory loss was a little strange because I didn't notice it until people told me about stuff and I'd struggle to remember what they were talking about. I found that reading my diaries and asking people for detailed descriptions of the events I was struggling to recall helped. Even now after many years I find that odd lost memories from that time return. Some people report long-term, permanent memory loss.

There are two reasons why I am not considering ECT right now, it is not available in the area where I live and I don't have anyone to drive me to a different town two or three times a week for between 6 and 8 weeks. Also I'm not at the non functioning state I was in back then and I believe there may be better options (for me) out there, I'm just struggling to access them.

There are lots of threads about ECT in the Other Treatments forum if you want to find out about other people's experience. Some people swear by it, others regret having ECT, I'm somewhere in the middle, I know it worked for me, but even so I'm not sure I'm ready to try it again.

I have major suicidal ideation with attempts, which are the hallmarks of my treatment resistant depression. I take effexor xr, welbutrin xl, abilify, seroquel for sleep and klonopin for anxiety. That has been my med routine for the past 16 years and it has worked somewhat. But now I have added ECT every 2 weeks, and will be adding a low dose of clozaril. TRD is the pits!!!

It is the pits.

Curious to know if anyone here--new to the forum TRD--has gone the L methyl folate route?

Anna

I too have found Hydrocodone to be the best anti depressant out there. I don't have any chronic pain but on occasions (kidney stones, tooth aches, etc) I have taken it and it has totally lifted the depression while the effects lasted. I have also taken it at times when I shouldn't have to relieve depression. I am a recovering addict/ addictive personality so not a good option for me. I don't ever take it now unless I really need it for pain for some reason. Oh how I wish it wasn't addictive and had no withdrawal. They should study it more. Works better than amphetamines and I have experience with those back in my days of drug use.