Depression/Anxiety

[Wannabefree]

I missed your comment on sleep. I, too, require 8+ hours of sleep (9 or 10 is better) a night, and love a nap when I can get it! My problem lately (why I think I need to increase dosage) is I'll lay in bed many nights and toss and turn until 3 or 4 in the morning b/c I can't get my head to SHUT UP. I hate carrying on those conversations with myself (the what-ifs, the "I need to get all of this done," even daydreaming :/ ); praying helps a little, but it's still noise in my head when all I want to do is sleep!

I used to be the SAME way. I almost bet caffeine is your biggest issue. It eliminated all my night conversations with myself when I quit caffeine. I thought I had nighttime A.D.D. or something

 

[abifae]

That's good to know! Chocolate is safe

Now that I think of it, my sis has something with her heart (mitro-valve prolapse) and she has to (try to) avoid ALL stimulants.

*sniggers*

I have a severe enough heart murmur I almost lost a hospital job because they said I was lying about my health record. I bare down even a bit and it spits.

Luckily, I'd never been to a doctor so I was never told to coddle myself to save myself from heart attack. LOL. Technically, the degree of bad I should be waking with fluid in my lungs and junk, but I'm very active since I was never told not to

I will throw up if I run, and I can feel the massive chest pain when (regularly lol) I overstress it, but I don't care. I'm not going to sit around just because my mitro valve doesn't know to close all the way. Pfffff!

 

[lwheelr]

I have had a long history with depression, until about 6 years ago. It would get worse when pregnant, in the winter, etc. Since I had eight kids and various other pregnancies (ending in miscarriage), that was a big deal. And you just can't take meds during pregnancy like you can otherwise.

Anyway, there are a lot of things that can help - my depression was chemical and hormonal in origin. I had an underlying auto-immune digestive disorder, which is now improving under dietary treatment (without the help of a doctor).

1. Magnesium is the NUMBER ONE deficiency to cause depression symptoms. If you have any digestive disorders, auto-immune disorders, etc, you may not absorb this well. Blood tests don't show a true level of any nutrients, you can be low and show a normal result - even minor deficiencies can cause depression. Magnesium isn't something you can easily OD on though, and it is simple to treat, even if you CAN'T absorb it through your gut, so it is usually worth trying to see if it makes a difference (usually you'll know within days). Just get some Epsom Salts, and bathe in it every few days. Be sure to soak for a bit, and you'll absorb it through your skin. Alternately, you can mix them with some water, and wash in that before your shower - just leave it on for 1-2 minutes before washing it off. Most bath salts have Epsom Salts in them (which is just Magnesium Sulfate), and this is why they leave you feeling relaxed.

2. Sunlight. Helps with Vitamin D, melatonin regulation, and seritonin regulation. Also helps with magnesium absorption and utilization. Sunlight is the BEST form of it, just get some light on your skin and eyes especially - even just your face is enough if you are out for half an hour or more.

3. I used St. John's Wort when I was not pregnant or on any other medication. I found it worked best when combined with Borage Oil. One a day of each was more effective than three SJW. SJW can make you VERY sun-sensitive though, you can sunburn even when in the shade if there is enough reflected light.

4. B6, specifically. Watch out for B Complex - they can easily OD you on Thiamin and Riboflavin, both of which have NASTY side effects if you get too much (elevated blood sugar, insomnia, increased moodiness, etc). Plain B6 is best, I use Nature's Bounty brand, it tends to be the best absorbed by me since I have absorption issues.

5. A neat trick that a counselor taught me. I'd get more irritable when I had depression, and I'd be snapping and angry a lot more, I'd feel that other people's reactions to me were rude a lot more, etc. That leads to a LOT of guilt, makes the depression worse, makes the guilt worse, and this downward spiral starts up. He taught me to stop that guilt spiral, to be able to recognize when one of my own reactions was caused by the depression, so I could avoid those patterns that made it escalate rapidly. He said that depression changes how you view the world - I called it "looking at the world through mud colored glasses". Information comes into your brain, but it GETS CHANGED before you can process it. You then react based on FALSE information. So your reactions are TOTALLY normal, IF what you THOUGHT was going on, actually was - it just ISN'T happening the way your mind is interpreting it. When the kids sass you it is them being kids, it isn't personal. When you go somewhere and do something dumb in public, all the people who saw it aren't obsessing about how stupid you are. When someone forgets something special it isn't because they don't love you. You can FEEL like those things are real, but they are really a distortion of reality, and you CAN learn to recognize when something is being distorted by depression, and stop some of the reactions and the buildup of guilt. Learning this was literally life-altering for me, both in coping with my own depression, and learning to recognize it in my husband and kids.

6. Chocolate - I actually have a fair bit of chocolate - about 1-2 servings a day, and they are nice chunky servings. Chocolate is a mild immune suppressant - not enough to cause low immune issues for normal people, but just enough to help with auto-immune disorders, so I use it medicinally (seriously!). I use Organic Dark Chocolate, so it has the least amount of sugar and stuff, and the best concentration of chocolate. I make my own hot chocolate, using Organic Green and Black's Cocoa powder. Love that, can make it without too much sugar, and G&B has a wonderfully rich flavor, takes less of it to get the same effect and flavor.

7. I find that going to church, and reading my scriptures really helps keep my moods on an even keel also. Even when my mind is so gone that I can't even understand what I'm reading, just the effort of picking up the book and reading a page or so helps normalize things more.

I've been off meds and herbs for depression, for about 7 years now. I just focus on controlling the Crohn's Disease, and now I pretty much know that if I'm having issues with depression, it is due to a dietary imbalance (most often B6, sometimes Magnesium since I absorb it better now), or something situational that I'm not coping with well (which means I need to get my butt in gear and do something about it). I have very few incidents anymore where it is a real problem.

A serious word of warning... Depression usually gets worse in the winter, especially if you are taking meds. It usually starts to naturally get better in the springtime, due to higher light levels.

Meds can make that feel upside-down! If your depression gets WORSE in the springtime, and you are on medications, you may need to REDUCE your dosage, NOT increase it.

If brain chemistry balance improves due to higher light levels, and your medication level stays the same (or worse, INCREASES, due to you or the doctor thinking you need more when you actually need less), then the medication can have a reverse effect as you get so much that your body has a toxic reaction to it. This can happen even on fairly low levels, and the effects can be tragic - it tends to create the WORST types of side effects - extreme depression and suicidal thoughts, intense irritability, irrational anger, poor judgment, violent outbursts, etc. This is especially true of seritonin reuptake inhibitors (like Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft, etc). This happened to my husband, and to my brother-in-law (they are unrelated by blood), and there are thousands of documented cases of similar reactions.

Anyway, that's my experience. Hope it may be of value to someone.

 

[savingdogs]

Thank you very much Laura (and others), I'm sure that a lot of people will benefit hearing your story.

I'm curious about the epsom salts. The magnesium absorbs through your skin? That is so interesting. I'd like to try that one but I'm very sensitive to sodium so I'm thinking it would be absorbed through the skin too.
It never occurred to me when I'm cooking or such with sodium that my skin could absorb it. But of course we absorb light through our skin, not sure why I had not thought about that before.

Your tip number 5 is especially helpful to me. I think that paragraph describes some new goals I need to have. How did they have you work on recognizing when that happens? How do you take off the mud-colored glasses? Sometimes I think mine have been mud-plastered to my face!

 

[lwheelr]

Epsom Salts are Magnesium Sulfate. No Sodium.

I found out about using them for magnesium supplementation when I was researching alternate absorption methods when the Crohn's was at its worst. I can absorb it through my intestines now, so I can just take a regular supplement when I need, but it sure saved my life for about six months.

I think the key to recognizing what is depression influenced, and what is not, is to look back over some things that have bothered you, and think about whether your reactions to them were within the spectrum of "normal". If they weren't, and if you remember having reacted better to the same kinds of things, then you have a basis for making judgments later on.

I think you might need to develop a habit of reviewing the events of the day, and thinking about what things happened, and how the depression might have affected your perception of them. I do this in an unpressured setting - after laying down to sleep, I'd just let my mind ramble a bit, but some people might need a walk by themselves, or a warm bath to help them feel relaxed so they can just think about the day, think about what things were good, and which things might have been colored by the depression. This is an important first step, because in doing this, you stop the guilt spiral - so you can reason with yourself over those events. It means being totally honest with yourself, but also being kind to yourself.

And at first, it means that most of what you notice is going to be AFTER the fact. But if you keep doing that, eventually one day you'll recognize in the middle of something that it isn't what it seems to be, and you'll be able to change how you are reacting right then and there.

See, I REMEMBERED being somebody else. I remembered being able to handle things better. I had depression continuously for about 4 years, before it just went away after one of my pregnancies when I had a little extra time between them. I didn't know what it was at the time, I just thought that somehow I was becoming a bad person, because I could not motivate myself to do things, I got angry over the needs of my kids (because I felt overwhelmed with them - they did not CAUSE the depression, overall, I did love being a mom), and life just seemed so hard and discouraging. It wasn't until about a year after the depression cleared that I saw a description of depression, and the lightbulb went on and I knew what it was. This was more than 20 years ago when depression was not well identified.

I also knew that it was related to pregnancy. So when I got pregnant again, I went to the counselor, who handed me this little golden bit of information. I still had depression, but it never again got as bad, and I had some ability to reason with myself when my reactions were unreasonable - not a lot - it was still REALLY hard. But it was BETTER, because I understood what it was, and how it was influencing me, and I did have just that little extra edge to change some of my most inappropriate reactions. When depression does not spiral down from unproductive guilt and self-recriminations, the degree of damage it does is cut by about half or more.

It doesn't mean you don't hold yourself accountable. It just means you identify which things you can change, and which things you cannot, and recognize which things were a product of the depression, so that the guilt that just beats you up can be eliminated. Guilt has a purpose - it is supposed to motivate us to positive change in our life. To stop doing things we know are wrong.

It isn't supposed to be a means of self-inflicted torture for things that are honest mistakes, unconscious misunderstandings, or things that are blown out of proportion due to mental warping of reality.

If you tell a lie, you make it right, and think about why you did and how to avoid that in the future.

If you yell at a kid over something that wasn't their fault, you apologize and think about how you could have done it better - and then you be kind to yourself about it and let it go, and don't let those unkind self-recriminations keep running around in your head just beating you up.

If you are not able to face taking a shower in the morning because it seems like too much work or because it hurts, then recognize that you don't feel that way because you are dirty and worthless, but because you feel overwhelmed because of depression, and be kind to yourself about it.

If your kids are home from school and just seem to be having one of those days where they suck the life out of you, then recognize that it IS genuinely hard today, but that about half of the difficulty is due to the depression. Be kind to yourself and don't beat yourself up with thoughts that you are a bad mom, that you are incompetent because you can't handle two snarky and bored kids.

I use prayer to stop those negative thoughts too. Once I recognize that something unproductive is going on, that it WASN'T fault on my part, that it ISN'T something I can fix - or that it is something that I already tried to fix, then I ask the Lord to help quiet my mind and help those thoughts go away. And then I do something to HELP them go away - music, reading, talking to a family member, or something else that involves me so I have to let it go. And it does go away.

If I don't KNOW if I was to blame or not, because I know my judgment is not clear at the time, I ask the Lord about that too. I ask Him to help me know what I need to do to fix it if it was my fault, and if not, to please take the negative thoughts and guilt out of my mind so I can do the things I need to really be doing. Interestingly enough, I have NEVER had any reaction to this plea, except for the thoughts to go away! Generally, when it is my fault, I KNOW it is my fault, and there is no need to ask! But sometimes depression makes things confusing, so I ask the Lord to arbitrate, just so I know for sure that I'm right in labeling it as something I should not be guilt tripping over.

Thinking about things CAN be hard work. But when it becomes a productive thing, instead of a tortuous one, miracles start to happen. The depression is not likely to magically leave (unless it is chemical based and the problem causing it is resolved), but by reordering HOW you think about things, and by identifying which things are real, and which ones are not, the level of depression is mitigated, to a point where life is much more copable. And for me, that was a true miracle.

 

[Bethanial]

Thanks so much for sharing - I too completely understand the mud-colored glasses, and appreciate you sharing how to help get rid of them. I'm working on finding a new counselor today, and talking to my PCM (primary dr) abt dosage, etc.

 

[me&thegals]

Sunlight (or SAD light if in the north), exercise, nutrient-dense food, plenty of sleep, social network and more exercise. Good luck!

 

[savingdogs]

Thank you again for sharing with us all your peronal coping mechanisms. I feel bad you have had to deal with these feelings for so long. lwheelr I feel like printing out what you just wrote and reading it every morning.........

 

[dragonlaurel]

Thanks for all that info! I didn't know about low magnesium levels being part of it. I wish we had a bath tub. Might be able to improvise and use it like a mask. I'll see if I can get some Borage oil too. It's already good for my Eczema, so it can do double duty.

I have had situational depression before (reacting to something bad that happened) and sometimes the other kind. Lots of stress lately, and I noticed I was on the edge of depression. It takes a little while for St Johnswort to accumulate enough to change moods, but it's not bad enough yet for that to be a big deal.

Any idea how soon the sun sensitivity kicks in?

 

[Bubblingbrooks]

Thanks for all that info! I didn't know about low magnesium levels being part of it. I wish we had a bath tub. Might be able to improvise and use it like a mask. I'll see if I can get some Borage oil too. It's already good for my Eczema, so it can do double duty.

I have had situational depression before (reacting to something bad that happened) and sometimes the other kind. Lots of stress lately, and I noticed I was on the edge of depression. It takes a little while for St Johnswort to accumulate enough to change moods, but it's not bad enough yet for that to be a big deal.

Any idea how soon the sun sensitivity kicks in?

You can also use a 5 gallon pail to soak your legs and then your arms.

During the winter, in addition to fermented cod liver oil (5,000 IUs of A and 500 IUs of D in 1/2 tsp), a SAD lamp is often used in Alaska.

The reason the fclo works so well, is because of the synergistic workings of the A and D together in the 10-1 ratio.