Well! It would seem you're in very good company here. I, too, have some of the same issues. I was on Effexor XR for three years. Compared to how I felt when I first started medication (early spring of 2002, started Celexa - 14 months on that) I'm not having the same issues and symptoms. I *have* learned when I need to destress and decompress. My anxiety and depression was brought on by severe prolonged stress that caused a brain chemical imbalance. I was told that the amount of time I would be on the meds was equal to the amount of time it took me to get to the point of needing medication. And so far that's been right.

I've always had issues with SAD. Before I crashed and burned in 2001/2002 I was able to control that with St. John's Wort. After the crash and burn I tried St. John's Wort again and it had no affect on my anxiety and depression. When I had to force myself to go outside and dig in the dirt (gardening and plants is a passion and a therapy for me and has been for many many years) that's when I knew I was in trouble.

With the PN I'm having issues now of how this is affecting and will affect everything I do. I've gotten to the point on this road of knowing there are things that I'll never do. Because of the PN. I've looked into the future wondering just how bad this is going to get. And without a concrete diagnosis there's really no way of knowing for sure.

Now, I try not to look too far ahead. Sufficient unto this day.... My goal is to make it through today. I'll worry about tomorrow when it gets here.

SSRIs are options that work for a lot of folks.

Welbutrin is the only one I can take and it does help me with pain....interesting as the many of SSRIs are contraindicated in CMT or HSNs....check out the list of 'bad' meds for Charcot Marie Tooth Disease, which is a weird name for Hereditary Neuropathies of many types....the definition has been broadened, and there is wrangling over what to call what and who 'owns' what.

To think one can have a chronic disease and not have some depression is absurd....I don't even call it depression in those cases....

I call it 'adaptational affect'. Same as PTSD....of course, you are not going to come out of a traumatic experience 'normal', you get an 'adaptaional affect' or way of dealing with what happened to you.....life events change things.

It is fine, it is NORMAL. If you have chronic disease and are Pollyanna all the time I think you are more likely psychotic. When you look in your linen closet and see Miralax, enemas and a box of gloves, it does not put a smile on your face....unless you are really, really wierd.

Chronic disease, especially when it starts to shut down what you never thought about what your body did by itself when you were healthy, is not uplifting.

There are things one can do to alter the way you frame things.....You can use remedies, and of course, as you all do, make merry over small accomplishments, and appreciate, that effort and courage went into those accomplishments.

Treatments can be natural, synthetic, it can be light...light helps me, but I live so dang far north, and my genetics indicate I should really sleep all winter...wake up now and then and chew on reindeer marrow, 'down' a caribou eyeball, and go back to sleep....and then wake up ready to wear a swimsuit around the first of May and party 24/7 until Halloween, upon when I should simply fall asleep again. I do not understand why the modern world does not work like this.

Every winter I get into a funk, and it takes until mid June to get myself going...I have avoided this funk only a few years by exercising...too much....worked on the depression-killed the joints and muscles....then we all know about my adventure with the kite and skis...(an attempt to not get winter depression) even before I knew I had neuropathy.

This year I wanted snowshoes for Christmas, but my family nixed it due to global warming....'You won't get to use them" Right....I think we have had at least 3 feet of snow....I can still see my mailbox, but it is on a slant now.

I swear that plow guy just loves knocking off boxes. I bet he has stickers of mailboxes on his truck....one for every box he did in...like some military pilot.

I gave up on skis...that foot flopping would probably work OK on skis, but the balance thing....not to mention getting up when those skis are crossed and the tips in your armpits and you are on your back like a turtle....it isn't pretty....Lord you can't even reach your cell phone...especially when your arm is broken (been there-done that). For those few moments I was not depressed...I was invigorated...that lasted a few hours until after I left the ER, in a cast.

Depression---it is not a dirty word....'Depression' indicates to me, that if your world is all fine and dandy, and you are still sad.....you are depressed.

If your world is not fine and dandy, for whatever the reason---being sad, anxious, irritable, sleepless, overeating, undereating, unsocial etc, is kind of what happens......it is not a state of being to be ashamed of or to hide...

That said, you have to fight it...or it gets worse. You may not want to use some of my more controversial methods....I am getting old enough that those methods could land me in a nursing home, and I don't think I would ever get over that 'depression'.

If you can't change your circumstances (most of us can't) we can only reframe what is happening in a different light....and take what steps we can to assist ourselves.

Movement, music, vitamins, church, social activities, lights and meds all work to some extent.....sometimes even just 'committing' to doing something about it works.

That said, I still can't get to the swimming pool....maybe when it gets above 15 degrees, I can contemplate getting that wet, and going outside to a cold car....but I know it would help my 'depression'.

Oh, and there is that matter of not looking like one of those dream 'avatars' in my swimming suit.... I am amazed at where certain anatomy has migrated to. Rather than getting depressed I can see if I can get it to migrate back. Geese go back and forth every year...

I will just have to use my imagination, and get over the reality of what is.....I am what I think I am, right??? I think I have a stability ball in my closet somewhere....maybe what migrates down can migrate up again??? Hope springs eternal.

All of us have the right to be 'depressed' what ever that is....sad, mad, grumpy, irritable, hungry, not hungry, sleepy, sleepless etc. If a doc asks me if I am depressed, now I answer him/her, 'if you were me would you be and if so, what would YOU do about it?'

Life is not a bowl of cherries---at least not without the pits.

I don't even think 'Life is like a box of chocolates'....at least what you get is sweet each time, even if you break a tooth on a nut, it was sweet and yummy.

Life has been more like eating a banana with salsa, or oatmeal with corn nuts mixed in....none of it has been easy ever, and if it was, I think I would not know how to cope with it.

Life is an unhill climb, with scary downhill slips, bumps and bruises, hanging on for dear life, being out of breath, scared to death of falling, and not looking down or back.....

and if you are not discouraged, and scared at times, you are just not in touch with reality.....

The point, and you all do it, and know it, is to keep climbing....each plateau along the way, gives you a new view of the big picture...and a sense of where you have been....how far you have all really come!!

Billye---Congrats on the driving!!! I am in awe of that----next, the Indy 500!

As they used to say about Mad Stan (and if anybody knows that reference, I owe them a gluten-free cookie) once she gets on a rant, she's unstoppable.

Seriously, there is much to be said for the idea that if one is NOT at least a bit depressed when hit with chronic, painful, "idiopathic" conditions as so many of us have been, then one is far more unbalanced than one who does experience depression. The trick becomes where does one go from there--does one respond adaptively.

The sad truth is that most of the doctors we go to have litttle training in psychology/psychiatry, and are so often divorced from their feelings and intutitions by the day-to-day grind of modern medical practice, they assume that such feelings of depression are pathologic. The scandal of women entering into physicians offices and ASSUMED to be suffering from degree of clinical depression if a "smoking gun" for their symptoms is not immediately found is far too enraging for me to even BEGIN to discuss.

Life may not be a box of chocolates all the time, but I feel comfortable in asserting, especially when hit with these "no-see-um, no-know-what-they-um" conditions, that life becomes much like a septic tank--what you get out of it depends on what you put into it. And that decision to be adaptive, to be proactive, is as good an indication of mental health as there is.

So you don't think I should tie a piece of raw meat to a pole duct taped to my semi clothed body and run across the frozen tundra pursued by wolves (like on that commercial) to perhaps jolt myself out of my winter depression?

I bet it would work for me,

Am I ranting? I thought perhaps it was along the lines of raving...raving maniac.....I have cabin fever....

I do not know why they call it cabin 'fever' when you are freezing. If I got a fever perhaps I could save on my heat bill and irritate the Saudi king. Not to mention if Hugo gets in any worse of a mood, I am in real trouble....I can't even manage a hot flash right now....where are those things when you need them???

My brain is telling me to 'adaptively' curl up in a ball under 3 quilts, and six pillows and a big yellow dog balanced on top, and eat expensive Swiss chocolate bars with almonds, and stay there until it gets over 32 degrees farenheit, which at this rate could take at least 8 weeks.

I suppose I could construe that as depression. I encourage any shrink to cure this with meds...maybe ClubMed.

I love the septic tank analogy....for some reason I can really relate to that.

Thank you Mrs. D. You are the GREATEST! I got my vitamin D today and will order the other stuff tonight. I already feel somewhat better, just to be taking some positive measures. Thanks to everyone!

Susan did you see the tights,the arm warmer's,the well of course you did it's
youe book ,and I love it.

J er it's always good to see you,why because it is.

If I was a little girl again,wouldn't C. make a great Mommie..I mean evevytime
my teacher sent a note home,for the first time,but there wouldn't
be more then the first time..You couldn't hold her hand it would be flying
around,you would be laughing,way down in your stomach,when the spit
flys into the teacher face,I polite child would hold a big box of kleenex,
for wet face teacher..I mean by the time mommie C got done ranting
because she had to get our snowshoes on both of us,once more pick up
the mailbox,and go cross country,in our leg warmers,from Aunt Susan
and get our visors on after all that SAD is not funny,thank you Aunt
Mrs.d. Not to mention that Aunt Mel found a way to invent our interesting
snow shoes..We would wear cleaner bags over our coats to keep them
dry,monnie C would tell me about how we were making the world green
the bags looked black,perhaps that's why the teacher want's to see
mommie C because I don't know my black from green..If I was going
tp pick a Dad it would be darlek,thought you I was going to say Glen
ok our world is different,he will be Daddy Glen,hmm teachers do need a
raise..Monnie C would be ranting,Daddy d would be putting all the stickies
on the tearchers puter and anything he could think off..Best part when
we revive the teacher Daddy Glen would be passing out Gluten ffree
cookies..Now do you understand what little Sue means by green and black?
Poor underpaid teacher looks like she got hit by spit and one of Aunty
Mel's crosscountry shoes..On our way out the door Daddy darlek would
tell us to turn on visors,as not to be sad this evening...Daddy Glen
would let us have one more cookie and explain,why it was necessary
to crosscountry to school oh shoot we forgot the Triplets Bob,Brian and
Hey Joe...No wonder mommie c rants. Hugs to Family Sue

So you don't think I should tie a piece of raw meat to a pole duct taped to my semi clothed body and run across the frozen tundra pursued by wolves (like on that commercial) to perhaps jolt myself out of my winter depression?

I bet it would work for me,



My brain is telling me to 'adaptively' curl up in a ball under 3 quilts, and six pillows and a big yellow dog balanced on top, and eat expensive Swiss chocolate bars with almonds, and stay there until it gets over 32 degrees farenheit, which at this rate could take at least 8 weeks.

I suppose I could construe that as depression. I encourage any shrink to cure this with meds...maybe ClubMed.



Sounds pretty adaptive to me.

I also love that first image--I don't think you need to be semi-clothed, though--wild women who run with wolves should be COMPLETELY naked, so they can be captured on YouTube and eventually be given a creative development contract by a studio trolling for new talent. (If you want to make it in show biz, you gotta take some risks--like frostbite.)

You made me laugh! I have a vivid imagination and you both sure stirred it up. Cyclops you gotta find something to do. Some hobby. I know..takes so much effort, but you can do it. I'm still making jewelry. Sometimes I spend hours on the computer (days the eyes are willing) looking for 4 small pearl cabocheons (I know it's mispelled, but I'm too lazy to look it up). Seems no one makes them in a 3mm size. But this task occupies me for a couple of days. Then I decide..I can use onyx and the search is on. Occupies me for a few more days until I finally get lucky. Then I get to check the mailbox for several days until the stones needed to repair the earrings for a dear friend arrive.

You get the idea. These things keep me going. You have to have some purpose in your life, no matter how small. And I think something like this would be so much warmer and less likely to freak out the neighbors Glenn.

Billye

I have to find a hobby too. I want to learn to chrochet. As for the depression. I mean for me of course now a lot goes with my pain level. Right now my pain is very high with spreading issues and my mood is in the garbage. It is like when docs ask are you depressed about the pain. Yes of course I am. I used to be able to do so much and now its like I am just happy when my pain is tolerable and to sit in more comfort. My mom was saying though like when I have a moderate pain day and I can distract I seem to have a better mood. So I agree with silverlady about distraction though some pain of course it is impossible. Silverlady I took a jewlery class it is fun. My friend sells hers on the net. You should think of similar. I bet some people on the board may even buy.As we say in my therapy world one day at a time or even one moment. Many hugs to all and happy wishes

Its so hard - as mentioned - to "step away" from pain, etc.... and hobbies do help a lot! - my challenge has been to find new ones that dont require tons of physical exertion like my old ones - and I know when I play a bit with a hobby I've found I can do kinda at an angle so my back doesnt hurt - I forget the pain and time flys by....

Billye - know what you mean by looking for hours for one item - takes so much longer sometimes to find what you are looking for then actually making it! And I think my mailman has come to the point he's afraid I'm going to tackle him for any packages!