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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 4 of 4. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by rjlockhart on August 30, 2006, at 21:53:24
Something with all of them, im talking dopamine, serotoinin, endorphins. Are they just being slow or not flowing right?
Are they being, not just as much there should be in the nerve synapse.
I wake up sometimes depressed. On my days off.
WHats you opinion?
Matt
Posted by Jay on August 31, 2006, at 0:38:53
In reply to When your depressed are nuerons not flowing?, posted by rjlockhart on August 30, 2006, at 21:53:24
> Something with all of them, im talking dopamine, serotoinin, endorphins. Are they just being slow or not flowing right?
>
> Are they being, not just as much there should be in the nerve synapse.
>
> I wake up sometimes depressed. On my days off.
>
> WHats you opinion?
>
> MattI think it is close, but also beyond that Matt. I am far from being an expert on this stuff, but it seems blood flow in your brain really plays some role. Of course this includes the neurochemicals you talked about, but it seems everybody has a "balance" between these (I don't mean that old silly explanation like "You don't have ENOUGH serotonin, or whatever..), which work together. Like, I have heard that, for example, over-sleeping maybe causes lowered dopamine. Hence, that's why we don't sleep 15 hours a day to feel "great".(And possibly why we feel crappy from oversleeping.) Also, exposure to light lowers melatonin levels. So, much is still up in the air, and I think we are still at the primitive levels about all this stuff. It would be nice if we had a "breakthrough".
Jay
Posted by Racer on August 31, 2006, at 2:06:28
In reply to When your depressed are nuerons not flowing?, posted by rjlockhart on August 30, 2006, at 21:53:24
Actually, Matt, no one really knows what causes depression, or anxiety, or any of the other mental illnesses. All anyone really knows is that there are drugs that improve symptoms, and they go from there to theories based on that knowledge.
The MAOIs were first developed as blood pressure medications, as I recall, but someone noticed that the people in the trials felt better -- HEY! I'll bet they'd be good for depression! Well, yes, we know they are good antidepressants. That means there's a good likelihood that the neurotransmitters they affect might be involved in depression...
No one really knows what depression is -- there are symptoms which are associated with it, but no one knows if it's one disorder, or thirty disorders with similar symptoms. No one really knows if it's a lack of sufficient serotonin -- tianepine would seem to refute that theory -- or if increasing serotonin might improve mood through some other mechanism, like neurogenesis.
As for what you're describing -- waking up "depressed" on your days off -- that's not depression. That's waking up blue, or in a bad mood, or unhappy. "Depression," when it's used on this board, usually means major depressive disorder, which requires symptoms to be present for weeks at a time. Not transient feelings of unhappiness, or emptiness, or any other transient feelings of that nature. TRANSIENT feelings of unhappiness are NORMAL. So, the fact that you wake up blue on your days off probably means you're NORMAL. It probably means, if you've given us a pretty accurate idea of your life situation, that you don't have something planned, so you feel blue.
Honestly, Matt -- what is it that keeps you from getting into therapy? Is there some reason you're so resistant to the idea? Therapy makes a difference for most people, even those with major endogenous depression. For much of what you've described over the past few years, you could really benefit from it. It would give you more long term benefit, with far fewer side effects, than any medications on this planet.
Here's an analogy: I'm going to physical therapy. My former GP told me to take Aleve, and then offered me Vicodin (proving thereby that he hadn't even glanced at my chart, but that's a different story). He tried to give me drugs, alone. I hated that idea, but didn't know what else to do. When things just kept getting worse, I fired that doctor, and my next doctor sent me off for physical therapy. It's already helping more than the drugs did, with much less chance of addiction, more long term benefits, etc.
Same with psychotherapy. It's worth giving it a try, Matt. It's likely to help you a lot. I really am curious, though: that's been suggested to you numerous times, and you haven't really responded that I can recall. What is it that stops you from considering therapy? At least as an augment to the drugs?
Posted by Phillipa on August 31, 2006, at 10:05:34
In reply to Re: When your depressed are nuerons not flowing? » rjlockhart, posted by Racer on August 31, 2006, at 2:06:28
Don't they have therapists on campus? Love Phillipa
This is the end of the thread.
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