Posted by MarkinBoston on February 2, 2001, at 13:44:07
In reply to Re: chemical imbalance or not or both?, posted by dennis on February 1, 2001, at 20:12:01
My situation is both. I have baseline dysthimia with major episodes that have always followed stressful periods. I'm usually off meds until the next major episode because the Effexor side effects are worse than the dysthimia. I've tried many other AD's and none has worked as well as Effexor. I don't suffer from withdrawl, by the way, and even have felt better taking the original short acting version every other day.
As to who is affected by stress, I read one paper where cortisol levels were measured in subjects over a week where they talked and did arithmetic in front of an audience. All had elevated cortisol (stress) the first day. During the week, one third of the subjects maintained high cortisol levels from the exercise, while 2/3's adapted to it with lessened cortisol increases.
So, about a third of people don't get accustomed to stressful situations, and are more at risk for depression, heart disease, and obesity. I don't think many studies on the effect of stress differentiate between subjects who do and don't adapt well to stress and thus get less definitive findings.
> I believe stress can and does cause depression, even a little bit of stress, I think people percieve and deal with stress differently and so some are more sensitive to stress than others. I dont think serotonin levels are the key to being happy, I think SSRIs are overprescribed. It would be nice if there were drugs that relieved stress without makeing you into a zombie, because I think stress can be a major problem, maybe even the only problem causeing depression, and its often not realized how much stress is affecting a person. Depression, anxiety, stress, I think they are all connected, rather than being completely different things.
poster:MarkinBoston
thread:53130
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20010131/msgs/53178.html