Posted by IsoM on February 20, 2003, at 14:08:12
In reply to Need to see some success stories., posted by denise528 on February 20, 2003, at 12:50:54
I saw your previous post to me, Denise, & yes, I'm feeling better - sort of. I think the couple of months of stress, while now over, had a physical effect on me. When I'm stressed, I can't eat much & healthy eating & supplements went downhill. It's not that I start eating junk food, I simply don't eat except a bare minimum. My fibromyalgia & IBS (irritable bowel syndrome) flared up again. I'm feeling tired & worn out. But mentally, things have improved. I'll just have to get serious about eating properly again & remembering to take my Dicetel for my IBS till it calms down again. Because it's not one of my regular meds, I keep forgetting to take it. One or two months, & I'll be back to normal plus spring will be in full force then. (Already have crocuses, snowdrops, & a few other flowers blooming here.)
I wish you'd gotten more responses about your questions on dopamine & Parkinson's. I don't know enough to even venture a semi-educated guess there. I find neurotransmitters are such an unknown area for scientists as one neurotransmitter can have such an effect in one part of the brain & an entirely diff effect in other parts. Dopamine, for example - low levels in the motor areas cause these Parkinson-like symptoms but I've talked with a couple of people with Parkinson's, & other than the depression from having the illness, they're not necessarily depressed or have low motivation. I'm confused how low levels of dopamine in the motor areas wouldn't mean low levels in other parts too. Or are they unaffected by lower levels in other parts - less so than depressed people?
I must say I wonder a great deal about these things too but have found no solid answers. That's one of the reasons I read & read about neurobiology & anything related. I'm seeking to gain a better understanding of how our brain works. It's so hard to study something like neurotransmitters that only exist for a fraction of a second before they're taken up again or degraded.
Please forgive me if I asked before as I'm getting all the people here mixed up with symptoms & meds. Did you ever try Provigil? My doctor believed me when I told him about my narcolepsy without insisting on sending me to a sleep lab. When I asked if I could try Provigil (instead of sending to France for adrafinil - I told him about it), he had no problem with it. The Provigil was disappointing in that it did nothing to help me stay awake - zippo. So when I went back after a couple of months & asked for Dexedrine instead, he gave it to me. I stopped the Provigil & switched to Dexedrine, but after a couple of wekks, I noticed my mood going downhill. Provigil did nothing for keeping me awake but did wonders as a mood enhancer! I really can't say enough good about Provigil's effects on me. It seems to help immensely as an AD, mood enhancer, & motivator. I'm now taking Celexa, Provigil, & Dexedrine. There's odd days when I have no real need of Dexedrine when I'm busy & it's bright & sunny out. That's fine as it gives me brief holidays from it, stopping me from building up a tolerance to it. But my Provigil is a must for me now. It really does take time for it to have a full effect. I found a month or so & it reached max benefits.
When a med works for a long time & then won't work again years later, I wonder if there hasn't been small changes in your brain chemistry that might cause that. Our brain is quite plastic & does change & grow despite earlier thinking. Has there been anything you can think of that might have changed something? Anything physical (environmental changes, supplements or diet, illnesses) or mental (major stresses like deaths, divorce, etc., new jobs) or anything you can think of? Sometimes I think we know more about Mars than our own brains. A lump of brain tissue from a cadaver tells us nothing about the functioning, living brain. We don't know enough yet.
poster:IsoM
thread:202186
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20030219/msgs/202209.html