Posted by Pfinstegg on January 19, 2003, at 15:13:44
In reply to and also... » Pfinstegg, posted by judy1 on January 18, 2003, at 11:05:48
Hi! Congratulations on the new baby! There is a lot a research out there now showing that childhood neglect/abuse leads to neuro-endocrine over-reactivity, and to smaller than normal left hippocampuses, amygdalas and probably other closely related parts of the brain. As you know, the basic cause is generally considered to be excess cortisol, brought on by the initial hyper-reactivity, which shrinks the neurons, shortens the dendrites and prevents the birth of new neurons, which would normally occur, in the hippocampus anyway, at a rate of several thousand per day. Now that people with severe depression are getting MRI's and cortisol testing- and thyroid and sex-hormone testing as well, it's becoming clearer and clearer that the abnormal neuro-reactivity leads directly to the brain abnormalities- and the depressive disorder.
I think that it is generally thought that a wide range of anti-depressants, when they are successful, partially reverse, or at least stop, this adverse sequence of events. However, the AD's don't work for everyone. Because they didn't for me, I began doing as much research as I could on possible other treatments which might reverse the brain abnormalities which I knew I had: a small left hippocampus, DST non-suppression, high basal levels of cortisol, and slight hypothyroidism.
Well, I'm so thankful to be able to say that I've gotten into a complete remission. To do it, I needed a course of TMS (roughly equivalent to ECT). To try to maintain the remission, I'm doing the following: adding cytomel to the synthroid which I had been taking, taking enough fish oil to get 1 gm. of EPA daily, taking a lot of B-complex, taking a low dose of HRT (Ogen and Provera) twice a week, and taking tianeptine. Plus, of course, exercise and as calm and supportive a life as I can manage. It's hard to say which does what- I feel I need them all!
The article on the prevention of hippocampal shrinkage in stressed baby tree shrews is : "Stress-induced changes in cerebral metabolites, hippocampal volume and cell proliferation are prevented by antidepressant treatment with tianeptine" B. Czeh et al, German Primate Center, Gottingen, Germany
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.211427898
wishing you the very best in your search,
Pfinstegg
poster:Pfinstegg
thread:136050
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20030119/msgs/136585.html