Posted by MarkinBoston on October 26, 2000, at 14:53:51
In reply to Re: Men and Depression, posted by stjames on October 25, 2000, at 20:01:07
> For me I did therapy b4 AD's and while the therapy
> was a great learning experience we did not uncover any great issue that caused my depression
> nor did my6 depression lift because of the therapy. We did solve some issues. However I dwas not able to use what I learned in therapy till I started AD's.
>
> Otherwise I found therapy like going to the hairdresser, I left there feeling great but the next day i could not get my brain to work that way. Once I was on AD's I could really use what I
> learned in therapy.My experience has been somewhat similar. Happy thoughts and half-full glasses really have not helped me much. My major episodes have all be preceeded by stress, and no meds have fixed my baseline dysthymia. Even now, while I feel good, my cortisol levels are at the upper edge of normal. This predisposes me to depression and all the other symptoms of Cushing's syndrome. I'm begining to think something physical is causing the Cushing's rather than depression causing a pseudo-Cushing's state. Now I can go back to the endocrinologist and say that I feel good - now tell me why my cortisol is still high. Another chicken-egg situation.
By the way, panic (especially) and depression and hypertension and hypogonadism and weight gain are all related to high cortisol (hormone released mainly in response to stress) levels. High estrogen levels (even for a man) exaggerates cortisol release and likelyhood of panic and would explain why women experience depression more than men.
Social withdrawl is one behavior where an individual with high cortisol or high cortisol response is adapting by reducing stress factors.
For me, when contracting, I lowered stress by only working 20 hr./week. That was all I needed to work to pay the bills and didn't want to work more than that, and didn't save any money away during those years.I wish I could find a Dr. that had cross training in psychopharm and endocrinology. For me, they are tightly coupled. Only in the last year or so have papers come out suggesting anti-glucocorticoid (cortisol reduction) use as part of treatment for depression. Those drugs are a mixed blessing of positives and negatives and its really much less trouble on an endocrinologist to tell you to go see a pdoc than work up a cocktail with lots of blood tests and maintanance. Like me, you won't find yourself well recieved going this route showing journal papers to docs who haven't read in years and only get 15 minute follow up payments from HMOs.
poster:MarkinBoston
thread:47316
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20001022/msgs/47428.html