I need your advice in managing my depression and anxiety

[morpher001]

As for the person above who mentioned psychedelics...I heartily agree that they are a great way to manage anxiety...none of the memory impairing side effects of Benzodiazepines, and much more benign and long-lasting effects. There's a lot of research on their positive effects as well. I think the problem is most doctors only know about the meds the pharmaceutical reps tell them about. While I do have some anxiety at the moment, it's not debilitating me to the same extent that my depression is. I wish it was just the anxiety, I'd take some psychedelics and I'd be back in shape in no time at all. Unfortunately the psychedelics never did anything to help my depression. I know there is some new research suggesting that ketamine might be a powerful antidepressant, but unfortunately that didn't work for me either. It seems the only thing that worked for me was opiates...but I'm not about to go down that road again without medical supervision. And try finding a doctor who's open minded enough to consider someone who was self-medicating for a year with opiates that they really want it for their depression, and are not just coming up with empty rationalizations to "get high." I just hope that someone will see that I haven't touched anything for over five months, and instead of even getting a little better I'm getting worse every day, back to the same state I was before I started self-medicating with opiates.

As for the first post about opiates causing side effects...beyond the tolerance development that wasn't precisely true. Only side effect I ever had was constipation. My well meaning boyfriend posted that message because I was too bed ridden over the past week to post myself =/

Are you female? Are you on the right pill? Hormones can really do a number on womens state of mind

 

[Jean Muree]

Jazzman - Welcome to the club. You are not alone.
A good combination that has worked for the combination of anxiety and depression is the use of both an SSRI and a Benzo. There are some combination drugs that are supposed to take care of both conditions with one pill; unfortunately, you are stuck with the strength of each ingredient (like, what is for the anxiety and what is for the depression and what if you have too much of one and not enough of another, etc.)
I am a mental health professional (who can't prescribe, at least in this backward state), but I work with the Primary Care Physicians; when they finally discovered I was not a drug-addled bitch and their patients started improving, we suddenly became a complimentary team. Anyway, my starting "cocktail" is Paxil (Paroxitine) 20 mg. daily at bedtime and Klonipin 0.5 mg. twice a day for ten days, then once a day for ten days, then either stop or leave them at 0.5 at bedtime. I see them weekly and reevaluate how they are doing. Depending on how they are feeling, acting (living), etc. after six weeks I may recommend an increase in the Paxil to 30 mg. (and then 40, 50 and a max of 60 mg. daily). I usually ask my client how they think they are doing, like are they were they want to be in how they feel? Do they think they might need a little more of something? Less of something? Is it working; if not, after about one or two increases, we will switch to another antidepressant. The "old" SSRIs are preferable to the "new" SSRI's (which are usually adding or subtracting a molecule of one of the ingredients). We can also "play" with the dosages of the Klonipin (benzodiazepine - I find very few people who choose Klonipin to abuse; Valium and Xanax, yes; Klonipin, no.

The combination of Paxil and Klonipin is "gentle" and side effects limited. The horrible side effects come from when the prescriber tries to kill a gnat with an Elephant gun! So, find a good doctor who listens to you and does not judge you or accuse you of being drug seeking (if you were drug seeking, it certainly would not be for Paxil or Klonipin). Work with your family doctor (if you like him/her) and get a good, private psychologist with knowledge of medications (stay away from community mental health clinics) and a good heart. Try to find an older psychologist who has been in practice at least fifteen or twenty years and who charges based on a sliding scale (whether you need it or not). Money-grubbing psychiatrists, psychologists and mental health professionals are usually not kind people.

Also, I agree with painenduser - keep in touch.

Good Luck. It can get better.