Meds that work for me for treatment resistant depression

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.

though I should have posted my last post in here...but just noticed this section.

I've tried several different anti-depressants across three classes with a few "class of their own" thrown in. Some have failed or pooped but I really struggle with side-effects that I find intolerable and incompatible with living a "normal" life. So does that make my depression treatment resistant or medication resistant or am I medication intolerant?

I've tried talking therapies in the past, not particularly effective, am trying CBT right now (too soon to say, but my gut instinct is that it isn't right for me) and I've had ECT which DID work. I'm not sure whether I'd want to go through ECT again, but even if I did it isn't an option where I live, neither are antidepressant combinations or augmentation.

So given that I haven't tried everything and there is one treatment that has worked well it would be unrealistic to describe my depression as treatment resistant even though the clinical definitions would suggest so.

I have my "go too" depression med. I too have tried every med on the market without much success. I've had three back surgeries and was prescribed Vicodin for the pain. a remarkable thing happened when I was taking it, no depression.
I know it is an opiate and is addictive, but it cures (or masks) my depression for about 3-4 hours.
I occasionally take a half a pill when I know I am going to be in a social setting and even half a pill makes me feel much better. I am not advocating this method, just telling you what helps me for a few hours. It seems like even a brief break makes the rest of the day a little easier.

I'm all too familiar with Vicodin for the same reason, a history of major spinal surgery (cervical), and I've noticed the same thing with regard to Vicodin and depression. Even previous to my spinal ailments I nearly always suffered from migraines though, since I was a small child, and what the relief I finally felt with Vicodin (albeit temporary as you say) caused me to consider is the amount to which physical pain has factored into my lifelong battle with depression. When I experienced actually being out of pain, I couldn't remember ever having felt it free of it before, or at the very least since the time I started having migraines there was never a moment that I wasn't either in pain, or worrying that I was about to be, with recurrent migraines leaving a host of creeping symptoms in their stead. I realized that I can't even imagine what life would have been like without any kind of chronic pain, but that it would have been very different indeed; freeing. And yet, with nothing to be freed from.. just simply free, in a way I can't comprehend. What vision would be to someone who has always been blind.

I don't know; in fact there's just no way for me to imagine what it would have been like. For me, I have only ever felt it in occasional medically induced increments such as you've described.

But it seems to me that the weight on my psyche represented by my constant struggle with pain has been far more significant than I ever had an opportunity to consider through comparison. When I was growing up, I wasn't allowed to express distress about pain I was in; I had to "suck it up" and "stop complaining", and "not be such a crybaby". And so I did. I was trained out of expressing anything, about any pain I experienced. Which seemed great to everybody, including myself at the time. I took on an appearance of being very strong, a real scrapper, picking myself up by my bootstraps, and so on. Except that I buried so many elements of my reality into my tiny little 5-year old psyche, perhaps even including the ability to identify and process my own pain.

But I digress.

Of course, without any natural experience of real absence of pain to compare it to, it's rather hard for me to say how much any opiate-induced psychological relief I've experienced has really been my own, and how much of it has been part and parcel of the drug's effects itself. Some lovely combination thereof, I suppose; for a couple of hours anyway.

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.

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

I've also tried a wide range of antidepressants with no lasting luck. What was ECT like? How did it make you feel better? I'm really desperate to improve my 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 hear ya! I have Percocet that gives me a few hours of relief. It's my go to med when things are really bad.

I have taken hydrocodone for pain and it would also ease my depression, but I think that was the opiate effect. Of course when the med wears off the depression is back. Before I was put on so much medication I would have a drink to "calm my nerves". Another bad thing to do as alcohol can become addictive. I have been taking Wellbutrin since July. Recently my neurologist put me on amitriptyline to control my migraines. This medicine makes me sleepy but it does seem to help the migraines and also seems to be easing the depression. I hope the relief continues.

^of course opiates improve mood for a while since they can cause euphoria...but obviously not something one would want to get dependent on. Since no meds they have prescribed me for depression help I use cannabis for its mood lift to help ease the pain....otherwise well I'd be tempted to take opiates much more than I have which has only been on a few rare occasions.

I also use cannabis for that, it also helps with my anxiety and helps me get an appetite (or at least be able to stomach food [and managing my other medication side effects]). I've never had any pain killers have an effect on me aside from when I had my wisdom teeth pulled. I also want to avoid addictive substances because I have a tendency for dependency. (it was fun to rhyme that)

I have a decent supply of codeine that was prescribed to me after my recent surgery. I didn't take it for the pain, but now it is tempting me, I've been having problems sleeping and I know it will take the edge off my anxiety and depression. I don't drink alcohol, have never smoked tobacco let alone cannabis, I've never even thought about experimenting with illicit drugs, but I'm so desperate for relief from depression that I would consider abusing codeine.

Just realize it's temporary. It's not a long term solution for any of us.

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Let's say you have 90 pills. You start taking two a day. Within a month you might be taking five a day because of tolerance build up. Then you have to worry about what all that acetaminophen that comes with it is doing to your liver. Then at some point you will run out and go through some pretty bad withdrawal for a week or two, and you end up where you started.

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I accept what you're saying 100%, I guess this temptation is like self harm, one I will resist as best I can. It just seems weird that a "straight laced" gal like me could get so tempted. That's depression though, messes with my head.

Depression tempts anyone. It can get to a point where you feel desperate to stop the pain, even if it means eating a whole tub of fried chicken or abusing a drug.

I've been through 35+ meds and God only knows how many combinations, plus ECT. Still trying to find something to help
ECT has succeeded in making my depression worse because of the permanent memory loss it caused. I'd rather die than go through it again.

I am very atypical with depression and also treatment resistance too. I'm 59 and also have tried everything under the sun. What I found that works the best for me is Zoloft and wellbutrin. Far from perfect but the best results by far.

I also agree opiates also relieve depression and anxiety too! Any thing that addresses the central nervous system seems to work. I could even get by on a simple klonopin script for 2 x a day!

But it seems no matter what I take or how good it is, my depression always pops up as my anxiety does too.