Depression Talk

My Mom’s been on this new diet since February first. It’s a program called Food Addict’s Anonymous, a variation of a twelve step program. I’m sure it’s a lovely program that’s helped many people, but if my Mom is on this diet for much longer, I’m going to explode.

Behold the FA-Nazis

The diet isn’t written down. There are no particular menus that I can predict. If you feel like eating, you call an FA-Nazi that tells you that you can’t eat it. And then you go to meetings three or four or five times a week so they can tell you what you can’t eat.

Things the FA-Nazis have told her she is not allowed to eat:

• Cabbage
• More than two pieces of fruit per day
• Sugar
• Nuts
• Wheat or wheat flour
• Rice or rice flour
• Artificial sweeteners or diet sodas
• Chick peas or green peas or just about any other kind of pea
• Spices — other than salt or black pepper
• Cooking more than one food in one pan. This means, if she wants sauteed onions and zuccini, she can’t cook them together and she can’t mix them together on her plate.

How This Depresses Me

Now, granted, I’m not on the diet. But how can I eat normal food in front of my dieting Mom? That would be a form of torture. So, I eat basically nothing when she’s around except yogurt and then, when she goes to meeting or goes to sleep, I stuff my face for hours.

She’s now lost 17 pounds. Meanwhile, I’ve gained 20 pounds. When I said I’d soon explode if Mom doesn’t drop this diet soon, I wasn’t kidding.

The good news in this film is that reasearch on depression is being done. The bad news is that they are ticking off a lot of lab mice in order to carry out these experiments.

There’s very few creatures more depressed than a labratory mouse. Even Richard Lewis would seem bubbly compared to a lab mouse. What they go through if similar to what humans go through in that we learn to give up hope and quietly wait for death.

But how do you scientifically know when a mouse is depressed? Apparently, when they stop swimming in a pool of milk with smooth sides they are unable to climb out of. The more depressed the mouse, the sooner they stop swimming.

Scientists have given antidepressants to mice to see how long they’ll keep swimming. The mice did indeed swim longer. Then, they gave the mice behaviorial therapy, giveing out rewards when the mouse heard a certain clicking noise. Mice with both antidepressants and behavorial training swum even longer than the mice that were just on antidepressants.

Also, when the mouse brains were examined (the video never quite explains how this is done) they showed that new brain cells and neuiral pathways grew in those mice that had both antidepressants and behaviorial therapy.

Which I guess means that those of us who suffer from depression still nedd to keep taking the meds, but also need to go get a bathing suit because we’ll all soon be swimming in milk until we give up. I’m not sure if any researcher will be around to pull us out by our tails, though.

I’ve taken LSD once — but not by choice. My boyfriend at the time did the “open your mouth and close your eyes and you will get a big surprize” thing and boy, was it EVER a surprize! So, if you happen to be at a party or your significant other suddenly turns into a skeleton with a smile, don’t panic — it’s just LSD (also known as acid, Bartman, blotter paper, window pane). It will pass.

Nothing Can Hurt You

The first thing you have to realize that with LSD, you will see things. You may hear things, too or even smell things, just like an hallucination. But it’s like television — it seems like it’s right there with you, but it’s not.

So, get to a safe place, sit back and enjoy the show. Depending on the quality of the LSD and your general health, effects can last a few hours or a couple of days. There will be plenty of time later to inflict revenge on the person who spiked you.

What You See

Everyone’s LSD trips are different, so I’ll describe some of the things I saw. Everyone’s faces had lots of colorful squiggles on them and various flaces flashed over the face. The one that kept popping up on my boyfreind’s face was a vampire.

The great thing was the flashes. I could write in the air as if my finger was a pen. That was highly amusing.

I also saw a small grey, black and white wolf sitting in the corner of the room. However, he just sat there and watched and soon he was no big deal.

I also felt that my body had extended far beyond the borders of my skin. I could reach my hand out perhaps six inches from the wall — and feel the wall. Again, that was highly amusing, but it made going to the toilet a challenge worthy of climbing Mt. Everest.

The Come Down

Most of the visual hallucinations went away in about twelve hours and the feeling of beeing “trippy” (goofy yet calm) lasted for three days. And when I came back down to earth, I discovered my boyfriend had robbed me of nearly $1000.

So, I don’t recommend taking LSD, but you do get to see some pretty lights.

In doing this blog and the migraine blog, I read a lot of information about different types of depression (and often people with migraines have depression). Right now, I’m reading The Family Intervention Guide to Mental Illness: Recognizing Symptoms and Getting Treatment by Bodie Morey and Kim T. Mueser, PhD. The book deals not only with various types of depression and mood disorders, but also fun things like schizophrenia, dementia and obessive compulsive disorder.

In reading all of the symptoms, I can’t help but see myself having every single one of these conditions.

This Is Normal

Actually, it’s a normal reaction to read about an illness and then suddenly think you have it. It’s not just hypochondria (which is also mentioned in the book, come to think of it.) Haven’t you ever read a magazine artile or saw a news show about a newly discovered disease and then start feeling the very same early symptoms of the disease? I can’t hear anything about arthritis without my back giving a twinge, for example. And I can’t hear anythign about diabetes without thinking “Mmmmm — sugar..” (OK, maybe that was a bad example.)

However, most people get over this sensation in a few days. They run around like a maniac in order to take care of their lives and in the process, the memory of the upsetting disease we think we may be getting goes further and further from our minds.

Time Frame

And I think that’s why we are suddenly convinced that we have the condition we were just learning about. It was takng up our full attention. But if a couple of weeks go by and you still think something’s wrong, it couldn’t hurt to go see a doctor.

Hope this helps.

Seroquel (quetiapine) is an antipsychotic made by British Big Pharma giant AstraZeneca. It’s their second biggest cash cow (only behind Nexium). It’s been out for over ten years now and has helped a lot of people with the manic phase of bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. AstraZeneca is hoping the FDA will allow Seroquel to be used for major depression and general anxiety disorder (GAD). It is perscribed to some people for those conditions, but strictly on an off-label basis.

Just one snag — many people takng Seroquel gain weight. Lots of weight — as in, now they have Type 2 diabetes weight. And just last week, it has been discovered that AstraZeneca knew of this side effect and decided not to mention anything about it.

Oops.

But Seroquel Works For Me

If you are already taking Seroquel and know you have been able to better manage your symptoms on it, please do not go into a panic over this bit of news. I’m sure your doctor has told you about the importance of regular exercise and eating a low-fat diet. You just need to keep that up while on Seroquel — or many other drugs that have been known to cause weight gain.

Don’t just stop taking Seroquel cold turkey. The withdrawl symptoms can be painful, including headaches, dizziness and a return of panic attacks.

How Does It Cause Weight Gain?

FIrst off, not everyone on Seroquel gains weight. But it can make you sleepy and make you hungrier than usual. I couldn’t find any numbers about what percentage of people taking Seroquel gain a lot of weight.

So, if you stay active and eat lower-calories fresh foods instead of always turning to processed foods and sweets, then it’s theoretically possible to keep the weight gain to a minimum.

Better to be fat and peaceful than to be thin and suicidal.

The fun thing about depression is that it rarely comes to you without bringing along a few uninvited guests. Many depressives also have chronic pains (like migraines) or neurological disorders (like epliepsy). But more and more depressives also have Type 2 diabetes — although you can get diabetes before getting depression. Diabetes also increases the risk for getting dementia, but we’ll save that for another blogpost.

About Medications and Weight Gain

In developing Type 2 diabetes, most people are overweight or even obese. The too rich diet throws off the blood sugar (and not necessarily too much sugar). Now, if you have depression or anxiety and are taking certain medications, you have to be aware they can increase you appetite and make you sleepy, thus leading to weight gain. These medications include Xanax, Wellbutrin and Lexapro, which may be linked to causing Type 2 diabetes in some people. (Oddly enough, these same medications can cause weight loss in some other people. The fun of prescription medication!)

If you already have diabetes, then you know that controlling your wieght and exercising regularly is essential. Some medications can make you drowsy, give short-term memory loss and increase your appetite. Be sure your doctor or therapist know that you are diabetic.

Things You Can Do

If you have to take medications which may cause sleepiness and weight gain, you need to plan in advance to eat less calories, more fiber, more fruits and vegatbles and drink more water. If you can make double or triple the servings for healthy meals and freeze the leftovers, then you will be less tempted to call for a pizza because you are too tired to cook.

If you can also cut out smoking and alcoholic beverages, then you will help the drugs help your body do it’s job without the extra weight-gain.

Also, try your best to keep to a schedule. In this way, you can keep yourself busy and try not to think about taking a nap.

Hope this helps.