What Causes Clinical Depression
Q: Only two people in my family have had Clinical depression. Me and My
sister.
We both smoke. She tried to quit first...using the patch. She became
clinically depressed and didnt go for treatment for a year and a
half(big mistake..well we didnt know what her problem was).Anyway...It
took ECT to bring her back. One thing she said during that time was
that she thought the patch caused it.(we thought she was nuts). So I
come along and start trying to quit and I get clinically depressed.
But I wasnt gonna let it go for as long as my sister did..ECT no
thanks. I ran to the Doc and got my antidepressants. While waiting for
them to kick in I of course started smoking again(I know self
medicating). So I was smoking and taking antidepressants and life was
good. Then I went back to work....hmmmmm..cant smoke there.
A:Little by little the depression symptoms came back...more attempts at
meds to fix this problem...nothing helped..I was back at home...hey I
can smoke here.
So you guessed it..two packs a day and I was ready for anything.And I
went back to work...
Hello do we see a pattern here...
Im home now....And Im not going back til my system is functioning
right.
I asked my Doc what she knows about nicotine addiction....nothing.
Im in a small town 20 minutes from one side to the other..my choice of
Doctors is limited.
So I start researching...I found out that most of the medical
community is going by the party line and saying that It is underlying
depression. Guess what?
Im not believing that for a minute.At least not in my case...
My only question is since Im now hooked on antidepressants and
nicotine how do I get off this chemical merry go round.
I bought the unofficial guide to Quitting smoking...it has alot of
great info
but I need more information about the brain chemistry aspect.
Also according to this book Nicotine IS NOT the only addictive
substance in cigarettes does anyone know what else is???
I have clinical depression too and it did get worse when I quit. The "worse"
part of it went away, but it lasted about 5 months. I smoked over 25 years.
What I do know is that our neurotransmitters sends the chemicals to our brain
that we need...like dopamine. When we smoke, we damage them but they replenish
(I think - you gotta ask a neurologist this kinda stuff to get the facts
ma'am). Anyway, I know that it lightened up after about 5 months for me. People
that don't have clinical depression before they quit sometimes get a case of
quit depression. That is the rejeuvenation of the neuro's...(so I surmise) and
it goes away in a shorter time. From what I was reading, it lasts 1 or 2 months
on average, and if it lasts longer than that, then you could have clinical or
manic depression. I think that is what you read when the term "underlying"
depression was used. That is all it means. Smoking masks all kinds of ailments.
Nicotine and carbon monoxide are 2 of the addictive chemicals in cigarettes,
but geez, there are 4000 different ones that could be in that cigarette, so who
knows? There is a list of what could be in your cigarette, and I am not sure if
the link is here....but you might wanna check this link out for some other
resources:
http://www.ash.org.uk/html/factsheets.html
I am just guessing though about the above, and you might want to call the
American Cancer Society for some answers too. Also MayoClinic.com is a good
source of info.
Great summary. A lot of people get moody when they quit smoking, but
most get better on their own. I had as rough a quit as anyone in my
group, but I noticed after a few months that the rest of my quit group
was getting better and I wasn't. I was getting worse.