Depression (the disease, not the economy)

[HotDamnImAPhiMu]

Is anyone else here dealing with Major Depressive Disorder? Are you being treated by your primary care physician or a psychiatrist? How long as your depression lasted? What drugs are you taking for it? Have you ever been hospitalized for depression? What are the side effects? Are you also doing a form of talk therapy?

I've been dealing with depression for a year and nine months. It was a side effect of the Depo Provera (birth control) shot, and it just snowballed out of control.

I started off with my primary care physician, but when it became obvious that I wasn't responding to several drugs the doc suggested I move on to a psychiatrist. I like her a lot; I feel like she really listens and acts on what I have to say. If I tell her a drug isn't working for me or the side effects are too bad to handle, she switches me to something else right away. No patting me on the head and telling me "we'll just wait another three weeks and see how you're doing then, hmm?"

I take Wellbutrin, Prozac, and Lithium. The combo seems to be working pretty well. The worst side effect is fine hand tremor (my hands shake). It drives me nuts. My handwriting is awful and I drop stuff all the time. Putting on mascara in the morning is an adventure. But I keep taking it because the shakes are better than those days when I couldn't get out of bed or eat.

I do go to talk therapy. I didn't want to go - it's pointless, I thought, since I don't have any big time problems in my life that would warrant counseling - but the more research I did the more I saw that patients who were treated with drugs AND talk therapy did much, much better than patients who were treated with one or the other. And boy did I want to get better.

I'm doing much better these days, although I'm still waiting for the go-ahead from the doc and the therapist for me to return to work. Makes for plenty of time to post on GC, though.