Hi there!

I just want to say that depression is a legitimate problem, and most people with any sort of disease suffer from it at some point. Please remember that it doesn't matter how long you have had a disease, it matters how it affects you and how you react to it. (Just because someone may not have had this for 2 years does not mean that their depression is unjustified.) For me, realizing that my levels of depression really affected my pain levels and interpretation of that pain was a huge turning point in treating my RSD.

You say that "my RSD needs to be taken out of the equation before my depression can go away." And while getting rid of this would be wonderful and ideal, I think that many of us know that it just isn't going to happen. So the question becomes, if the RSD cannot go away, can the depression go away? And I think that the answer can be yes. And even if the RSD went away tomorrow, would that automatically make you happy? A lot of cancer patients suffer from more depression after they go into remission because of the weight of what they just went through.

I want to see everyone living a full and happy life despite being sick. I'm not saying that it's easy, and trust me, I want to attack people when I am having a bad day and they tell me to "be happier" or "get happy". But one of the things that I have been doing for myself for the past 5 or so years is to focus just as much on my mental state as my physical state.

I too have been on tons of different antidepressants (9, before I found my current one that actually works- Cymbalta.) And I have had more spinal surgeries than I can count. (My SCS liked to move around a bit.) And it did take me a while to find a therapist that I liked and that helped. And it was one of the hardest things that I ever did, but I went to therapy for years every single week. Don't just "go through" therapists. Try to find one that is right for you, that will truly help you. I also firmly believe in meditation and mindfulness. The amount of stress that went out of my life because of these two things was, and is, truly amazing.

There is no shame in having a mental illness- and depression is a mental illness. It is no more real or imaginary than RSD. So dealing with it is just as important. To me it has made the difference between constantly suffering and being in pain. Your brain is a powerful tool, and it can be used for both good and bad. When I was younger, I used to build this wall between myself and the RSD. I always told myself that the RSD was not part of me, and that I was totally separate from it. But at some point I realized that we both shared the same body, and that if I was constantly attacking and trying to kill this part of me that was never going to go away, I was only injuring myself. Being kind to yourself and treating both your body and mind makes a world of difference. I went to a program at UCSD that was based on Jon Kabat-Zinn's work. It changed my life and was one of the best things that I have ever done for myself.

And please, I think that a lot of people would appreciate it if we didn't attack certain medications as not even being medicines. If Tylenol works for one person, but not another, that's fine, but nobody needs to make fun of it. This isn't a contest about how many meds we're on. It's about being a bit happier at the end of the day.

Lynns