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Q: Vagus Nerve Stimulator & Depression
Hello,
I am a medication resistant patient with major depression and generalized
anxiety. I have heard good things about the Vagus Stimulator and was wondering
if you knew of any studies in the Chicagoland area for either the Vagus
Stimulator or any other treatments for medication resistant patients. I
spoke with Rush University and they told me that the Vagus Stimulator study had
been completed and the other studies, like the electro- agnetic study and the
drug studies are double blind studies and having had attempted suicide on 4
occasions, both I and the people involved in the study felt it would be best
if I did not participate. Any help you could give me would be very much
appreciated.
Thank you,
Dear Mr. W' --
Well, seems a bit odd, writing here on a bipolar website about your medication
resistant major depression and generalized anxiety, which has been quite severe;
so I hope that at some point someone has wondered whether you could have a
"bipolar component" and tried treatments accordingly. As you may have seen on
my website about bipolar variations that are not clearly bipolar I (here's the
intro page), and
in the essay therein about how
anxiety and
bipolar disorder, there is reason to connect mood and anxiety conditions and
use that to guide treatment, in some people. So I hope that such a line of
thought has been considered as an explanation for your symptoms. Although in
some ways I also hope it has not, because if that's the case, then there's
clearly an approach to treatment with many options to be explored, that you
haven't had yet!
The vagus nerves stimulator is worth considering if the
main problem is depression. It appears to be "another antidepressant" to try,
though in this case, much harder to access and obviously a much bigger deal to
go through than trying a new pill. So, my main message to you is to make sure
that what you need is "another antidepressant trial" and not a trial of
something else.
Seems like you've figured out that finding your way
into a research study is unlikely; and so will have to be considering other ways
to get access to whatever treatment you and your doctors decide is the next
thing to try. Good luck with that.
Dr. Phelps
Published December, 2004
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