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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 5 of 5. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by Tomatheus on August 30, 2012, at 15:02:23
Hi,
I recently decided to try the Jarrow Formulas brand of Rhodiola rosea to see if I might get a different response to it than I did to a previous brand of Rhodiola that I had tried, which had basically worsened my vegetative depression. To sum up my response to the Jarrow Rhodiola, I would say that I responded wonderfully -- much the opposite way that I responded to the previous brand of Rhodiola that I had tried -- but only for a day before the herb completely lost its effectiveness. Rhodiola rosea apparently has MAOI properties, which might explain my temporary response to the herb, given the fact that so many other MAOIs that I've tried have produced strong responses that were short lived.
I guess I'm just really frustrated right now at the fact that all of my medication and supplement responses are so short lived. I mean, there are so many people who say that they respond well to Rhodiola rosea, but never do I come across anybody else who's said that they just respond to the herb for a day. So, I guess the question is, why am I such a freak as far as my responses to medications and supplements is concerned? What is it about my body that makes it respond to medications and supplements so differently from pretty much everybody else, that allows me to respond temporarily to so many treatments only to lose my responses? Finally, does anybody else on these boards have the same problems with responding to medications and supplements only temporarily? If so, have you found anything that helps with the symptoms that I have (lack of energy, psychomotor retardation, hypersomnia, difficulty concentrating, and anhedonia) on an indefinite basis?
I just feel so stuck. I've been suffering from chronic vegetative depression for more than 12 years now, and I'm tired of being teased with treatments that only relieve my symptoms for a few days. Please someone tell me that there is a way to return to my premorbid level of well being and functioning *indefinitely* -- not just for a day, a few days, or perhaps a little longer. I want to believe that the saying that "depression is treatable" has some merit to it and that it's not just a bunch of b*llsh*t designed to give false hope to those who have a disease that they'll have to live with for the rest of their lives, but 12 years of experience with chronic vegetative depression and treatments that haven't helped leave me feeling like I've been lied to about how treatable depression really is.
I'm really starting to believe that there isn't any treatment that's going to alleviate my symptoms in the long run. I hope that somebody can prove me wrong and let me know about a treatment that's helped them for at least several months after they had struggled with one temporary response after another, but I'm doubtful as to whether that's going to happen.
Anyway, thanks for listening.
Tomatheus
Posted by Johnnybaklava on September 1, 2012, at 0:03:28
In reply to Rhodiola frustration, posted by Tomatheus on August 30, 2012, at 15:02:23
I am really sorry to hear about your frustration, yet I totally understand it. I have similar issues, but have a few things that work for a bit, then I just switch to the next, andwhile not idealseems to work okay. Some things are just terrible right out of the gate, and some are great but fickle. Others I come back to and have a different effect. I think it's good to have a foundation of basic supplements that work for you, such as a good multi, B-complex, maybe some omegas and aminos, and antioxidants such as grapeseed and ginkgko that seem to help out other vitamins. But it's all really subtle and easy to be discouraged. It took me a couple of years to really get the antidepressants out of me and have a "clean slate" for the natural stuff to work. So be kind to yourself and realize that it's slow work but you will probably notice, months from now, that you are actually better off. So be patient and also never judge your reactions by others. I almost always have an opposite reaction to things, or don't react in the same way as others. But I found some things work, while others just don't. Like gotu kola, for instance. On paper, that should have helped my symptoms but it made me way cranky. Just take baby steps and note your progress, and don't feel shame for having something not work like you expected. It may just not be for you, or it may not be the right time. Some things that didn't work before work great for me now. Go figure.
Posted by Tomatheus on September 1, 2012, at 9:57:48
In reply to Re: Rhodiola frustration, posted by Johnnybaklava on September 1, 2012, at 0:03:28
Johnnybaklava,
Thank you for your supportive reply. I appreciate the fact that you seem to always have something nice and encouraging to say when I'm feeling frustrated and desperate. I just started a new supplement, this one an herb called stephania tetrandra, and like so many treatments that I've tried, I'm getting good initial results from it. I suppose time will tell how well this herb will affect me in the long run.
Tomatheus
Posted by AlexCanada on September 4, 2012, at 20:06:43
In reply to Rhodiola frustration, posted by Tomatheus on August 30, 2012, at 15:02:23
Hi. My melancholic depression is very similar in terms of symptoms. very difficult for me to think, concentrate, poor energy, drive, motivation and especially poor ability to have interest or enjoy anything. Over 10 years here.
For me Parnate worked very well for over a year. Paxil helped somewhat for a few years. Risperidone worked somewhat. Ritalin and Dexedrine amazingly well but tolerance build up beyond the first few weeks. Gabapentin astonishingly well but much tolerance build up (but stopping and restarting does help). Ironically Gabapentin worked longer term for over a year until it developed most of it's tolerance. Almost everything else has had little effect or made me worse.
Rhodiola helped me quite a bit too especially for drive, motivation, energy and especially cognition. Sisu brand worked for me for many months, causes aggression but was small price to pay. NoW brand worked similarly.
After a year rhodiola doesn't help me as much anymore but Arctic Root (swedish brand used in clinical trials) works to some degree.
May I ask out of everything you've tried these years... what has helped you the most?
> Hi,
>
> I recently decided to try the Jarrow Formulas brand of Rhodiola rosea to see if I might get a different response to it than I did to a previous brand of Rhodiola that I had tried, which had basically worsened my vegetative depression. To sum up my response to the Jarrow Rhodiola, I would say that I responded wonderfully -- much the opposite way that I responded to the previous brand of Rhodiola that I had tried -- but only for a day before the herb completely lost its effectiveness. Rhodiola rosea apparently has MAOI properties, which might explain my temporary response to the herb, given the fact that so many other MAOIs that I've tried have produced strong responses that were short lived.
>
> I guess I'm just really frustrated right now at the fact that all of my medication and supplement responses are so short lived. I mean, there are so many people who say that they respond well to Rhodiola rosea, but never do I come across anybody else who's said that they just respond to the herb for a day. So, I guess the question is, why am I such a freak as far as my responses to medications and supplements is concerned? What is it about my body that makes it respond to medications and supplements so differently from pretty much everybody else, that allows me to respond temporarily to so many treatments only to lose my responses? Finally, does anybody else on these boards have the same problems with responding to medications and supplements only temporarily? If so, have you found anything that helps with the symptoms that I have (lack of energy, psychomotor retardation, hypersomnia, difficulty concentrating, and anhedonia) on an indefinite basis?
>
> I just feel so stuck. I've been suffering from chronic vegetative depression for more than 12 years now, and I'm tired of being teased with treatments that only relieve my symptoms for a few days. Please someone tell me that there is a way to return to my premorbid level of well being and functioning *indefinitely* -- not just for a day, a few days, or perhaps a little longer. I want to believe that the saying that "depression is treatable" has some merit to it and that it's not just a bunch of b*llsh*t designed to give false hope to those who have a disease that they'll have to live with for the rest of their lives, but 12 years of experience with chronic vegetative depression and treatments that haven't helped leave me feeling like I've been lied to about how treatable depression really is.
>
> I'm really starting to believe that there isn't any treatment that's going to alleviate my symptoms in the long run. I hope that somebody can prove me wrong and let me know about a treatment that's helped them for at least several months after they had struggled with one temporary response after another, but I'm doubtful as to whether that's going to happen.
>
> Anyway, thanks for listening.
>
> Tomatheus
Posted by Tomatheus on September 5, 2012, at 0:02:42
In reply to What has helped me the most... Meds + Herbs » Tomatheus, posted by AlexCanada on September 4, 2012, at 20:06:43
Hi Alex,
Thank you for your reply. It does seem that both of us suffer from some of the same symptoms. Ten years is a long time to endure an unrelenting melancholic depression, and I think that it's courageous of you to keep fighting this enemy that we're up against with the various tools that you have at your disposal. It's too bad that the success that you had for a while with some of the treatments that you've tried has been short lived, but I think it's good that you've had treatments that have done some good for you and restored at least some of your vitality for at least a few weeks before becoming ineffective. Yes, I too have had temporary successes with medications and supplements, some great and some mediocre, and while I treasure the opportunities that I've had to try to rebuild my life when I haven't been hampered by my symptoms, it's always so frustrating when one of those opportunities ends and a good treatment response fades. And I think that I was definitely showing some of that frustration in my opening post of this thread.
To answer your question regarding what treatment has helped me the most, there is no doubt in my mind that what's helped the most has been Nardil. To this day, Nardil (which I took with the sleep aid doxylamine succinate, or generic Unisom) remains the only treatment that's significantly turned around both my depressive symptoms and my functional impairment for more than a few days at a time. For me, both Parnate (the Goldshield version from the U.K.) and Marplan worked like Nardil did for about three days before losing their effectiveness, and selegiline did something similar. On Paxil, I had an inconsistent response, cycling back and forth between euthymia and vegetative depression on lower doses, and going back and forth from hypomania to vegetative depression at higher doses. I managed to respond partially to a combination of Parnate and SAM-e (which I wouldn't recommend because the two substances are contraindicated) for about three months before I completely derailed the course of my life by throwing aminoguanidine into the mix (more on that in a bit), but my response to Parnate with SAM-e was weak at best, as was my response to a combination of Wellbutrin and lithium. Nardil, when taken in combination with doxylamine succinate, was really the only treatment that adequately relieved my vegetative depression for more than three days, but even Nardil had its problems, some of which may seem unbelievable. I found out that if I took Nardil as it came to me in the bottle that the benefits of the medication only lasted for about two weeks at a time, but when I tried putting the contents of my Nardil tablets into enteric capsules, I was able to not only get the benefits of the medication to last longer but also to eliminate some of the side effects that I was experiencing. I also found out that if I tried taking Nardil without the doxylamine succinate that I was taking with my antidepressant that I would experience a full relapse of symptoms the day following the night when I didn't take my doxylamine. But even with the enteric capsules and the doxylamine succinate, my responses to Nardil didn't last beyond a few months. I think that my eventual relapse on Nardil was most likely caused by a bad batch of the medication because I experienced severe agitation like I had never experienced before along with other side effects and a loss of effectiveness when I started taking tablets from the suspected bad batch, but whatever the cause of my downfall on Nardil was, my response to the medication didn't last.
After I lost my treatment response to Nardil in the summer of 2006, I tried other medications with no long-term success until I started on my Parnate/SAM-e combo the following winter. Three months into my trial with Parnate and SAM-e, I tried aminoguanidine in an attempt to combat the agitation that had been a problem for me since I had taken lithium a few years prior to that point. And the response that I had to aminoguanidine the day that I took it is mostly beyond words, but the medication basically seemed to destroy my cognition. I took aminoguanidine before heading into a medical school library to retrieve some journal articles, and I simply wasn't able to do any of the reading that I was hoping that I was planning to do at the library. I later went to a cafe that served coffee and sandwiches and tried to read some Web pages on my laptop while I was there, but I found that I could no longer absorb the information I was trying to focus on. I left the cafe in frustration and returned home, hoping that the effects of the aminoguanidine would subside with time. I remember noticing the next day that the cognitive impairment that had come on from taking aminoguanidine was not gone, and it wasn't long after that that I basically became psychotic. The colors of most everything in my environment seemed to be brighter than usual, and things started to appear to be different from the way that they really looked. The songs on the radio seemed to be directed at me, I started to think that some of my thoughts at the time were profoundly significant, and I also started to think that everything going on around me was a message from God. I didn't know it at the time, but it certainly seems in retrospect that I had gone psychotic overnight. Some of my psychotic symptoms are much less intense now than they were when they first came on, in part because of the Abilify that I'm taking, but the psychotic symptoms are not completely gone, and neither is the cognitive impairment that I experienced upon taking aminoguanidine. Somehow, my vegetative depression actually became less severe around the time that my psychotic symptoms emerged. So, now, instead of experiencing the extreme slowing of thought that I used to experience, I experience my "vegetative" depression more in terms of having difficulty concentrating, along with the hypersomnia that used to plague me before I took aminoguanidine. Some supplements that I've taken over the past few years have helped to boost my concentration and reduce the severity of my hypersomnia, but nothing that I've tried has come close to addressing all of my symptoms or turning back my functional impairment like Nardil did before I took aminoguanidine.
So, at the moment, I'm taking Sytrinol, a supplement that somebody on another site recommended, along with my Abilify and five other supplements (folic acid, coenzyme q10, Korean ginseng, liquid vitamin B12, and liquid SAM-e), and I'm certainly improved over my baseline state. My hypersomnia is under control, my concentration is better than usual, and my energy and psychomotor retardation are less severe than usual, and those are all good things. Unfortunately, I don't feel like my overall cognition is anywhere close to being like it used to be before I took aminoguanidine, and that's probably the main reason why I'm not functioning on the same level that I was functioning on when I was taking Nardil or before I started experiencing depressive symptoms. And as much as I'd like to completely fix my cognitive impairment and psychosis, I'm not sure that that's going to happen. I do think that because I've experienced relief from my depressive symptoms in the past that perhaps I can experience that relief again, and that's why I keep trying different treatments (mostly supplements) with energizing properties. I have tried some other medications besides the ones that I mentioned earlier in this post, but the vast majority of the medications that I've tried since taking aminoguanidine (including all of the antidepressants that I've tried) have turned out to be intolerable.
Well, I'm going to bring this post to a close before it gets any longer, but I hope that what I've written gives you at least a glimpse into what successes and failures I've had treatment wise and where I stand now as far as my treatment is concerned. Thanks again for responding, and feel free to provide me with any feedback that you might have.
Tomatheus
This is the end of the thread.
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