Posted by EarlyWakening on July 31, 2002, at 20:59:18
In reply to Corticosteriods: I feel almost as if I am cured, posted by Jerrympls on July 30, 2002, at 0:10:57
I’ve had experience extremely similar to yours.
For years I’ve suffered primarily from early-morning awakenings, generally considered to be related to depression, in spite of taking anti-depressants. It’s been really debilitating.
About two years ago, I had to take Methylprednisolone for about a week in the form of a Medrol DosePak for a foot injury (plantar fasciitis). You take a DosePak over the course of six days: 24mg – Day 1; 20mg – Day 2; 16mg – Day3; . . . . . . 4mg – Day 6.
It caused me some difficulty getting to sleep while I was taking it, but I generally felt better starting with the third day. For the next two months, I felt better than I had in over a decade. As BekkaH said, Not High, just Fine. I was sleeping well, wakening up refreshed, and had a full charge to get me through the day. I was very productive during this time, both at work and outside of it. . . . And then one morning I woke up early again, and everything was back to the way it had been before.
About a year and a half later, I again had to take a Medrol DosePak for the same injury. And just as with BekkaH, it did nothing for me at all this second time.
As a result of this experience, I’ve done a great deal of research. It’s long and technical, and I won’t be hurt if you lose interest before the end.
----------------------------------------------There is a system in the body called the HPA axis (hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal). The hypothalamus is a part of your brain that releases a hormone called CRH (corticotropin-releasing hormone, also called CRF or corticotropin-releasing factor). CRH signals the pituitary to release another hormone which, in turn, signals the adrenal glands to release cortisol. Cortisol is the body’s main stress hormone which triggers the “Fight or Flight” response. Much research points to cortisol as a key player in depression.
The release of cortisol in the body is supposed to be controlled by a “negative feedback loop”. Excess cortisol signals the hypothalamus to stop releasing CRH, which stops the chain from releasing more cortisol. However, if this negative feedback loop is malfunctioning, the process never stops. The result can be depression, sleeping problems, and other stress-related disorders.
Pharmaceutical companies like Organon are starting to believe that problems with the HPA axis are more central to depression than are monoamines (serotonin, norepinephrine, dopamine). Organon is working on a glucocorticoid antagonist currently in Phase III clinical trials. Mifepristone, another glucocorticoid antagonist among other things, is also being studied, but right now it’s only being studied for depression with psychotic features. Neurocrine is the furthest along in trials of a CRF antagonist, but its partner GlaxoSmithKline is making the process longer than it needs to be. The drug is still in Phase I, a good seven years away from your nearest Walgreen’s.
The best research on CRF antagonists is being done at the Max Planck Institute in Germany by Florian Holsboer. Pertinent to my particular problem, he has shown that CRF antagonists significantly increase deep, Slow-Wave sleep in depressed patients without suppressing REM. Charles Nemeroff at Emory University has been the biggest champion of CRF research, but he’s been very quiet lately. Alex Vgontzas at Penn State is doing the most research on CRF from a sleep perspective. He has shown that too much CRF can really interfere with sleep. Men middle-aged and older start waking up too early and not sleeping as soundly because of it.
------------------------------------------------Bottom line is . . . you’ve stumbled on to something important, but taking steroids is not the answer. They’re extremely bad for you long-term. And unfortunately for you and me both, a really good, clean solution is still several years off.
poster:EarlyWakening
thread:114297
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20020731/msgs/114706.html