Posted by Pfinstegg on December 31, 2005, at 17:50:59
In reply to Re: Revolutionary approach to depression, posted by linkadge on December 31, 2005, at 16:56:39
Thanks, Link! Your posts have been some of the most informative and helpful. You really do a lot of reading! I guess we all have to come up against the painful fact that we have had brain changes because of HPA axis dysregulation, and that there really isn't the kind of treatment for us that we would like, yet. But a lot of good, smart people are working on it. The medical reprints from Rockefeller University and the German Primate Center were the principle ones in helping me make treatment choices. I hope that in a few years we will have more choices- I think we will.
I was startled to read a study about rats, bred for either low or high anxiety at the German Primate Center, and treated with Prozac from birth. The low-anxiety rats were unaffected, but the high anxiety rats treated with Prozac showed all the signs of depression at one year (giving up quickly on the forced-swim test, and other tests). The untreated high-anxiety rats, raised naturally with their mothers, did not show any impairments when tested at a year; they did as well as the animals bred for low anxiety. It raised a huge question in my mind: are the SSRI's actually worsening the situation in people already stressed enough to have developed unfavorable brain changes, such as
an underactive left frontal lobe, a smaller left hippocampus, and sparser or damaged- appearing CA3 neurons. And other things involving glutamate, and probably numerous other things which i don't know enough about to talk about.I hope you will give tianeptine a try. It's not a powerful AD, in the sense of making you feel great, but i do feel much more like the old pre-depression me- and that means so much. I could certainly be wrong, but I feel that it is helping my hippocampus be at least a bit more like it used to be. Several years ago, the left side was about 20% smaller than normal by MRI. I'm not expecting that it will grow back to a normal size, but I do think it's helping the neurons that I do have be healthier- and perhaps I am growing a few! TMS has very similiar actions- the hippocampal neurons look healthier. It also down-regulates the HPA axis, whereas the tianeptine acts more to protect excessive cortisol from damaging the neurons. At least, I think that's what I learned!
poster:Pfinstegg
thread:593368
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20051231/msgs/593795.html