Posted by pseudoname on November 23, 2005, at 7:30:51
In reply to mood stabilizers for depression?, posted by sassie on November 22, 2005, at 12:59:17
20-30 years ago, pdocs often added lithium for unipolar depression when tricyclics alone failed. I got it from several pdocs for my unipolarness.
Same with anticonvulsants. Peter Kramer tells a story (as I remember it...) from when he was a psych resident in the 1970s. His supervisor kept having him give a unipolar guy EEG tests over & over until one finally showed *some* sign, however small & dubious, of seizure activity. Then they used that to technically justify giving the guy Depakote, whereon his depressive ruminations vanished.
A review of published studies 1966-2003 concluded:
"Augmentation of antidepressants with lithium is the best-documented augmentation therapy in the treatment of refractory depression."
—http://www.cpa-apc.org/Publications/Archives/CJP/2003/august/bauer.aspThey never worked for me, however. And my history with lithium caused me to be denied health insurance circa 1989. "We don't sell policies to ANYONE on lithium," I was told.
Good luck!!
poster:pseudoname
thread:581251
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20051119/msgs/581504.html