Depression

[jldeleon]

I have been on anti-depressants forever and I know how freaking expensive they are without insurance. I found two super inexpensive pharmacies in Canada that I got them through when I did not have insurance once. They were about 1/4 of the price I had paid for them here. Here are the pharmacies - pass it on. They do have to pass through customs and may be checked, which may delay shipments to some extent. But if you order them a few months at a time that should take care of that.

I just thought I would share this with all of you, who may find it useful.

jandrugs.com
canadadrugs.com

Also, equally important, "maca root" is AWESOME at counter-acting the negative sexual side effects of SSRIs (a class of commonly used antidepressants).

 

[Barefoot TJ]

Thanks for sharing. How long have you been going through snail mail to get your drugs? And can we move this to the Health forum, Jen?

 

[jldeleon]

Thanks for sharing. How long have you been going through snail mail to get your drugs? And can we move this to the Health forum, Jen?

I only did it for about 6 months several years ago - and yes, please move it.

 

[Hobbit]

Hi Jen,
Well this is a bit awkward to ask, so please don't feel offended!
Do you know the cause for your depression?
Sometimes ago I read about a treatment for depression without drugs that consisted of taking a couple of times everyday a lift to the upper floor of a high building and then descend the stairs on foot. The theory was that descending (or rising for that matter, but that's more tiring!) lots of stairs would be done on the forefoot and thus stimulating the reflex zones of the lungs: as an imbalanced lung energy is considered being responsible for melancholy and depressive states in traditional chinese medicine, regular stimulations of these zones are supposed to help these conditions.
But: As a barefoot runner you would of course quite often stimulate the reflex zones of your lungs anyway, so I'm a bit puzzled that apparently this didn't work for you.
Or is your depression linked to other illnesses, perhaps as a side effect of medicinal treatment?
I also suffered from depressions a couple of years ago but never wanted to become dependent on drugs, so I just muddled on with my life as best as I could. Until I found out about the influence of forefoot walking and barefoot running on my lungs and general health. And that rid me of all the depressive states I used to have!

 

[jldeleon]

Definitely NOT offended. I believe in reflexology and I have never felt as good as I have this past year and I have not ran as much, barefoot, as I have this past year -I definitely believe there is a link. That being said, I could never treat myself naturally. I have bipolar, with a baseline of depression (as opposed to a baseline of mania). I have to take both a mood stabilizer an anti-depressant. I have tried natural anti-depressants, but they are not strong enough. My naturopath thinks I would benefit from natural lithium (the only natural mood stabilizer). However, lithium (synthetic) is the only mood stabilizer with a side-effect of DEATH. I am assuming that is true of natural lithium, as well. I will put up with a lot of side-effects to be functional -but death is not one of them. Even though it's a rare side-effect, it's not a change I'm willing to take.

 

[RunningPirate]

Now I remember a big brouhaha (or was it a hullabaloo?) about Canadian pharmacies and how they weren't dispensing drugs approved by the FDA (because the US is the only country that knows anything about meds, apparently) and buying from them meant certain death up to an including spontaneous decapitation. Is that no longer the case? ....or did folks finally figure out that it was a bunch of BS and that the noise was due to Big Pharma being torqued because they were getting cut out...

...as for lithium, remember death is not a side effect; death is an effect.

 

[BFwillie_g]

It isn't true that you only live once.
You live every day.
You only die once.

-- someone's Facebook status

 

[BFwillie_g]

My naturopath thinks I would benefit from natural lithium (the only natural mood stabilizer). However, lithium (synthetic) is the only mood stabilizer with a side-effect of DEATH. .

Lithium has a lot more side-effects than that.

What the heck is 'natural' lithium anyway?

Confession - a psychotic psychiatrist/neurologist had me on lithium once in the early 90's. I was dealing with mood swings at the time and made the mistake of going to someone like him. And this was the only kind of treatment he understood. He did gobs of blood tests and brain scans, all of which came up normal, but he gave me the battery acid anyway. It removed my personality completely. It also made me sweat profusely 24/7, disrupted my digestion, and dumped my B/P into the cellar so low that I ended up in the emergency room. Then he took me off it. And I said adios to him.

 

[DNEchris]

And I said adios to him.

Good call!

 

[jldeleon]

Lithium has a lot more side-effects than that.

What the heck is 'natural' lithium anyway?

Confession - a psychotic psychiatrist/neurologist had me on lithium once in the early 90's. I was dealing with mood swings at the time and made the mistake of going to someone like him. And this was the only kind of treatment he understood. He did gobs of blood tests and brain scans, all of which came up normal, but he gave me the battery acid anyway. It removed my personality completely. It also made me sweat profusely 24/7, disrupted my digestion, and dumped my B/P into the cellar so low that I ended up in the emergency room. Then he took me off it. And I said adios to him.

The reason the tests came up normal is because there was not, and still is not, a "simple" test for bipolar -he was probably ruling out other issues, such as a brain tumor, etc. The best way is still to chart moods for a long period of time. The only thing that sets it apart is the cycling of the moods. A pattern will eventually emerge. But psychiatrists often would rather guess what works based on what they know it is not, than take the time to chart moods for months. A psychologist can not actually diagnose bipolar, but in my case, that is exactly what happened. She had noticed a pattern in my moods because I had seen her for so long. She gave my notes to a psychiatrist after I flipped out and ended up in a mental ward. He gave me a mood stabilizer (and anti-depressant) and it worked. I was LUCKY. It's usually hit and miss with the meds for quite some time. Lithium is the "touchiest" of all meds. There is a not really a standard dose like their is for most medications. So how much and how often must be custom-determined for each person. Back in the day, doctors probably started people on too high of a dose. Now days they start you on a microscopic dose and ease it up a little tiny bit at a time. I don't actually know what the difference between natural and synthetic lithium is.

 

[BFwillie_g]

Yeah, the mistake I made was going straight to a Psychiatrist/Neurologist. He didn't know me, we didn't have any long-term relationship or even discussions. His usual patients were people with severe conditions and his only therapy was heavy drugs.

I just remembered that there was a conflict with the insurance company because I'd gone to him without a referral from the proper channels. I think I had something from my GP but was supposed to go to basic councelling or something like that. My bad, lol.

 

[Hobbit]

Well I think, with lithium it's like as with some other oligo elements, you need only very small quantities and if you're higher than that it becomes rapidly toxic.
As for the natural lithium (as opposed to synthetic), it occurs in some mineral waters. Another possibility is to wear a lepidolite with skin contact: Lepidolite is a relatively soft stone which contains (natural) lithium. And surprisingly it has the reputation to help with emotional disorders. If you believe in litho therapy it might be worth a try. As it's not very expensive and quite beautiful, even if you think that wearing stones for healing is just some kind of esoteric hokus pokus, it might still be worth a try.

 

[rbondi]

You(or anyone with any illness) do not have this condition due to a lack of meds in your lifestyle. Treat the cause, not the symptom or you will never be well.

 

[jldeleon]

Last I checked, no one has yet determined the actual cause of bipolar...my former psychiatrist tried to explain to me how it was possible to treat something, without knowing the exact cause. The field of medicine is not an exact science, so, okay.

 

[OdiarAmor]

Here is a random fact too: Synthetic drugs such as synthetic marijuana and synthetic meth/cocaine/ecstasy can trigger things such as bipolar, schizophrenia, and psychosis that people do not come out of.

 

[rbondi]

Last I checked, no one has yet determined the actual cause of bipolar...my former psychiatrist tried to explain to me how it was possible to treat something, without knowing the exact cause. The field of medicine is not an exact science, so, okay.

The field of medicine is an exact science, the science of business.

 

[randicoot]

Lithium as a drug is not the pure metal but a salt of the metal. There are natural occurances of lithium salts--the pure metal is not found naturally on earth since it is very reactive--but salts can be created in the lab and industrially. I could only find that synthetic lithium is lithium carbonate, which occurs very rarely on earth.