Psychiatrist Redux

     In hindsight I should have fired my shrink after the April commitment fiasco, but she'd been so helpful at first, I decided to forgive her and carry on.  It is not an easy thing to have to start over with a new psychiatrist--you have to bare your soul, try to get them to understand what's going on with you, hope they will understand you need a drug that will work, not psychotherapy.  But after her refusal to help with any pain medicine when my surgeon refused to help (via his staff, admittedly) or even refer me to a pain management clinic (the surgeon and shrink must have both skipped the class on helping your patient by referral), I'd had all I could stand of her.  I called my old shrink back and asked him for an appointment.  I saw him within a few days; he started me on pain meds and sleeping pills that actually worked for more than a night or two.  Within less than a week, I was no longer in agonizing pain 24 hours a day and I was sleeping through the night, after six weeks of just catching an hour or two every now and then.  Amazing what a little TLC can do!  Just don't put up with being mistreated by your doctor.  Fighting your depression takes all your energy.  I'm on a new anti-depressant now, but all I can tell it's doing is making me nauseated 24/7.  I hope before the dose doubles next week my body will have adjusted to it.  See why Carrie Fisher said if depressed people are just making it through the day they deserve medals along with the steady stream of drugs they're subjected to?  I wish believing that made me feel any better. 
        When I fired my shrink, I asked if she would give me the names of the three anti-depressants she believed I could metabolize.  When she'd first done the blood tests, she'd told me there were four anti-depressants not metabolized by the enzyme I didn't produce.  I was on one--it obviously wasn't working.  No, since I fired her, she wouldn't tell me.  I had tried to hold on for two more weeks and not fire her until after the appointment I had scheduled on July 12 (when I would ask for the names), because I suspected she would have that kind of attitude, but I couldn't bear any more pain.  The same day I fired her, the second pain managment clinic I'd contacted had called and told me my surgeon's office claimed they'd referred me to my shrink.  They wouldn't have known her name if I hadn't given it to them in an attempt to have the surgeon call her about my problem metabolizing drugs.  I had asked her to give me the names of what pain meds I could metabolize when I'd had my last appointment, but when I asked the surgeon's office for specific meds, they apparently thought I was a "drug seeker", and told me I'd reached my pain threshold.  This is why I said I'd lost all respect for the medical profession in my last post.  Just a bunch of mismanaged crap while I suffer.

What's the Point?

           I've lost all faith in both the medical profession and pharmaceuticals.  I've been in six different hospitals in six months; I've been on more than a dozen new drugs and yet mentally I'm in exactly the same spot I was in on January 2, 2011.   Physically I'm in worse shape because of rotator cuff surgery, but that will get better with time.  The depression never gets better.  It sits on top of me and is so heavy I can't move a leg or an arm or anything to help me try to crawl out from under it.  If I could identify some reason for this overwhelming desire for death, then I could confront it.  Maybe I'd be able to work out a path back into the enjoyment of life.  It seems I have an entire staff of medical personnel, especially since the surgery.  I even have my own case manager with my insurance company.  None of them help. 

           My shrink keeps telling me to write.  I write, but it is so dark and hopeless that I don't post it.  What would be the point?  People could see the pain I was in after the surgery.  They could see how frustrating it was to not be able to get any relief from the pain.  What makes doctors sacrosanct?  I've been refused a referral to a pain management doctor by scheduling secretaries.  I've been denied pain meds by receptionists.  When I finally see my surgeon in person, in all his glory, he claims to know nothing about pain or referrals.  He asks why didn't I call if I was in so much pain. I tell him he needs to have a long talk with his staff.  Multiply that pain, frustration, and hopelessness by 100 and try to imagine feeling that way every day for the last 8 years.  Of course I want to be dead!  That is the only reaction a sane person could have.  My arm is better now, my depression is worse.  At least the physical pain gave me something to focus on besides the depression for a few weeks.  I would trade the depression for the pain in a second.  Don't tell me to find something else to focus on besides the depression; that thought has occurred to me in the last 35 years.  Depression is unrelenting.  It tells me what to do; I don't tell it. 

        

Other Sources

     You can find out more about the DNA testing I had done [see Post: Why Your Anti-Depressants May Not Work, May 18, 2011] at MayoClinic.com/health/cyp450-test/MY00135.  They also have a blog where people can post comments that everyone can see immediately, so I don't know why my blog won't work that way.  If someone who is computer savvy knows how, please help.  The help support this particular blogsite provides is of no help--they said it is working like it's supposed to.  So maybe I just have to have something the Mayo Clinic has that my little laptop doesn't.  The Mayo Clinic's Blog also contains posts on why anti-depressants quit working, treatment resistant depression, and other questions of interest to people who suffer from depression.
     An article written in the Washington Post, April 18, 2006, also gives some basic information about how your liver works with medications.  The website for the article is binf.gmu.edu/jafri/chem579-binf739/LiverSuccess.pdf.
     Thanks to "Delle", the other contributor I've listed in my blog, for doing all this research for me.