DEPRESSION

There is always hope. Depression blinds us to that fact. If we can somehow hold on to our hope, just maybe we can find a way to get through.

Without emotion, man would be nothing
but a biological computer. Love, joy,
sorrow, fear, apprehension, anger,
satisfaction, and discontent provide
the meaning of human existence.
Arnold M. Ludwig---1980

What is depression / can alternatives help...

Being clinically depressed is very different from the down type of feeling that all people experience from time to time. Occasional feelings of sadness are a normal part of life, and it is that such feelings are often colloquially referred to as "depression." In clinical depression, such feelings are out of proportion to any external causes. There are things in everyone's life that are possible causes of sadness, but people who are not depressed manage to cope with these things without becoming incapacitated.

As one might expect, depression can present itself as feeling sad or "having the blues". However, sadness may not always be the dominant feeling of a depressed person. Depression can also be experienced as a numb or empty feeling, or perhaps no awareness of feeling at all. A depressed person may experience a noticeable loss in their ability to feel pleasure about anything. Depression, as viewed by psychiatrists, is an illness in which a person experiences a marked change in their mood and in the way they view themselves and the world. Depression as a significant depressive disorder ranges from short in duration and mild to long term and very severe, even life threatening.

What causes depression?

Despite 35 years of research antidepressant drugs still can cause adverse side effects Depression is big business It takes about 10 years and costs around £350 million pounds to develop a new drug Many drugs fail at some stage in their testing phase The patent on a new drug only lasts 10 years - during this time development costs must be recouped and profit earned for new drug developments Prozac launched in 1987, and Seroxat available from 1998, earn their manufacturers about one billion pounds per year. It costs the NHS £20 to treat a patient for one month with Prozac or Seroxat World-wide, 37 million patients have received Prozac since its launch in 1987 Once out of patent, generic forms of the drug can be sold at a fraction of the cost of the original because the manufacturer does not have to bear the development and testing costs It costs the NHS £1 to treat a patient for one month with a generic antidepressant The global market for antidepressants was worth $10 billion in 1998 and it is estimated that it will grow 20% each year to 2006. The Japanese consume very few antidepressants. Reboxetine, the first selective noradrenaline reuptake inhibitor is being tipped as the next big money spinner. It is conceivable that in the future antidepressants will be available 'over-the-counter' i.e. without prescription. (Source: Kohn, 2000) BENZODIAZEPINES: HOW THEY WORK AND HOW TO WITHDRAW

CAN ALTERNATIVES HELP ???

The group of symptoms which doctors and therapists use to diagnose depression ("depressive symptoms"), which includes the important proviso that the symptoms have manifested for more than a few weeks and that they are interfering with normal life, are the result of an alteration in brain chemistry. This alteration is similar to temporary, normal variations in brain chemistry which can be triggered by illness, stress, frustration, or grief, but it differs in that it is self-sustaining and does not resolve itself upon removal of such triggering events (if any such trigger can be found at all, which is not always the case.)

Depression and Stress Hormones The most common drugs used today to treat depression focus their attention on the brain chemicals, serotonin and norepinephrine. Increasing evidence, however, now indicates that another player in the brain, corticotropin-releasing factor, should share the spotlight. Studies have shown that abnormally high activity of this stress hormone is present in many cases of depression. Furthermore, research shows that drugs that block the action of corticotropin-releasing factor have the potential to lift the dismally low spirits of the depressed. The new insights help explain how depression arises and may lead to new options for prevention and treatment.

Instead, the alteration continues, producing depressive symptoms and through those symptoms, enormous new stresses on the person: unhappiness, sleep disorders, lack of concentration, difficulty in doing one's job, inability to care for one's physical and emotional needs, strain on existing relationships with friends and family. These new stresses may be sufficient to act as triggers for continuing brain chemistry alteration, or they may simply prevent the resolution of the difficulties which may have triggered the initial alteration, or both.

The depressive brain chemistry alteration seems to be self-limiting in most cases: after one to three years, a more normal chemistry reappears, even without medical treatment. However, if the alteration is profound enough to cause suicidal impulses, a majority of untreated depressed people will in fact attempt suicide, and as many as 17% will eventually succeed. Therefore, depression must be thought of as a potentially fatal illness. Friends and relatives may be deceived by the casual way that profoundly depressed people speak of suicide or self-mutilation. They are not casual because they "don't really mean it"; they are casual because these things seem no worse than the mental pain they are already suffering. Any comment such as, "You'd be better off if I were gone," or "I wish I could just jump out a window," is the equivalent of a sudden high fever;

SYMPTOMS OF DEPRESSION

Symptoms of Depression An estimated one in ten Americans suffer from depression, an illness that affects both physical and mental well-being. Often chronic in nature, depression can be triggered by adverse life circumstances or occur simply "out of the blue." Frequently, a combination of genetic, psychological and environmental factors contribute to the onset of depression.

The most common symptoms are set out below . If these have been experienced for more than two weeks it is essential to seek help. People may suffer from two or three of these symptoms but are unlikely to experience them all.

Feelings of helplessness and hopelessness.
Feeling useless, inadequate, bad.
Self hatred, constant questioning of thoughts and actions, an overwhelming need for reassurance.
Being vulnerable and "over-sensitive".
Feeling guilty.
A loss of energy and motivation, that makes even the simplest tasks or decisions seem difficult.
Self harm.
Loss or gain in weight.
Difficulty with getting off to sleep, or (less frequently) an excessive desire to sleep.
Agitation and restlessness.
Loss of sex drive.
Finding it impossible to concentrate for any length of time, forgetfulness. A sense of unreality.
Physical aches and pains, sometimes with the fear that you are seriously ill.
In severe depression, these feelings may also include:
Suicidal ideas.
Failure to eat or drink.
Delusions and/or hallucinations.

MORE INFORMATION
Depression is much misunderstood by the public, yet it affects many people of all ages. It is estimated that one in five people will suffer from depression at some point in their lives.
Depression is an illness where the feelings of hopelessness and helplessness, linked to the inability to concentrate, may make it hard for some people to carry out normal daily activities.
Depression is an illness with a wide range of physical and psychological symptoms, which sometimes make it hard to recognise and understand.
Personality may play a part in depression. Although anyone can become depressed under particular circumstances, some people seem to be more vulnerable than others. This may be because of things that have happened in childhood, such as abuse, or because of our individual make up (including body chemistry).
A lot of effective, intelligent and creative people suffer from depression and yet make an outstanding contribution to life. Often, information about their depression is only revealed after their death, as people misunderstand the illness. Amongst such people are Florence Nightingale and Sir Winston Churchill, who used to call depression his "black dog". Depression can effect anyone and does not reduce your value as a human being.

It is important for people to know that: Depression is an illness that can affect anyone at any age.
It is not connected with and does not develop into insanity

A few Suggested Frequencies
Depression - 100hz
Depression (due to drugs or toxins) - 1.1Hz, 73Hz
Depression (due to outside circumstances) - 35Hz, 787Hz
Depression, anxiety, trembling, weakness - 3.5Hz, 800Hz
Easily depressed 727Hz 787Hz 880Hz 10,000Hz

CES FAQ

ANXIETY

Heart Palpitations - Gone! Shortness of Breath - Gone! Anxiety Attacks - Gone! Sleepless Nights - Gone! Fear of Social Situations - Gone! Inability to Relax - Gone! Worry, Worry, Worry - Gone! Instead you'll have. . . Personal Self-Confidence... Top Performance on the Job... Relaxation in Social Settings... Ability to Have Fun Again... Belief in Yourself... Peaceful Sleep... Daily Joy and Serenity.. ALPHA-THETA STIM

Cranial electro stimulators offer a non-drug therapy for the treatment of ANXIETY, DEPRESSION and INSOMNIA. CES has been used in numerous countries around the world for over 30 years. It involves the application of mild micro current electrical impulses to the head via electrodes applied behind the ears or by means of ear-clip electrodes
CES should be used under direction of a licensed health care practitioner. Individual results will vary, but many patients report significant improvement of their Stress-Related Symptoms over a period of 2 to 3 weeks daily use.

FREQUENCY AND DURATION: Optimal CES treatments are 60 minutes once daily or 30 minutes two times daily for the first three weeks. In some studies 40 minutes 1 time per day, five days per week has been found to be adequate. For chronic conditions many patients find CES is actually more effective when used every other day. After first two weeks of daily treatment application may be reduced to maintenance level ranging from one 20-minute application every other day to one 20-minute application every three days. Treatment should not be discontinued as ineffective until 2 weeks of twice daily applications have been completed.

PRECAUTIONS: Optimally CES treatment should be applied in early hours after awakening and while in relaxed and quiet environment. Normally it is best not to use CES within three hours of bedtime. Exercise caution when driving or operating machinery for one hour after treatment. Do not apply electrodes directly over the eyes or the carotid sinus area (upper side of the neck below the ear and behind the jaw). Do not sleep during CES treatment

Cranial Electrotherapy, a Profound Alternative Therapy

ANXIETY & Cranial Electrotherapy Cranial Electrotherapy Stimulation (CES) has been used as a treatment for anxiety in several parts of the world for over a quarter of a century. American medicine has only recently begun to realize its use as a safe and effective treatment. Studies show that Cranial Electrotherapy treatment yields highly significant reductions in anxiety, whether the patients were in a psychiatric setting, a scholastic setting, an outpatient setting, or an in-patient general hospital setting. Further, while many different kinds of anxiety have been studied, as measured by the six different psychological measuring instruments found in these studies, they all responded significantly to CES treatment. Less intense or less permanent forms of anxiety - the so-called 'situational anxiety' in which a person habitually responds to personally threatening events in his environment with an anxiety reaction - respond to Cranial Electrotherapy treatments within a week or less. The more permanent forms of anxiety - the so-called trait anxiety, or that underlying level of anxiety that a person typically carries with him at all times - require a longer period of Cranial Electro treatment.

Suggested Frequencies for Anxiety
Anxiety 304, 6130
Depression & Anxiety 3.5 Hz
Anxiety .5Hz, 5Hz, 7.82Hz 10.00Hz
Depression, anxiety, trembling, weakness - 3.5Hz, 800Hz
High blood pressure, hypertension1Hz, 14Hz, 17Hz, 20Hz, 65Hz

More here

DEPRESSION Studies show that reactive depression (that which results from acute changes in the patients life situation such as a job change or divorce) is decreased after 6 days of Cranial Electrotherapy treatment. More deep seated depression (endogenous) in some cases required 3 or more weeks of daily treatment. For this reason, many physicians routinely prescribe a minimum of 2 weeks to a month of daily Cranial Electrotherapy treatments in depressed patients, since it is frequently difficult to gauge the type or depth of depression with great accuracy. Since many patients have a 'depression habit' physicians should include a home CES unit in their treatment plan so that the patient can meet any new sign of impending depression with effective treatment and thereby break the behavioral reinforcement chain that has both led to and maintained the habit. In this way, a maladaptive habit can be effectively controlled or broken without the use of frequent medications and/or repeated visits to the physician. Other research has shown that Cranial Electrotherapy, when used this way is neither habit forming nor addictive. Such patients use it only when they experience an impending medical necessity.

INSOMNIA

Because Cranial Electrotherapy was originally called 'Electrosleep' in European countries, many earlier American studies were designed to learn whether or not such small amounts of electric currents would actually put people to sleep. That is, just as 50ma of current - called 'electro-anaesthesia' - put an individual into anesthesia so that surgical procedures could be performed, 1ma of Cranial Electrotherapy current was assumed to put them into a normal state of sleep if 'Electrosleep' worked.

Such studies discovered that while Cranial Electrotherapy does not necessarily "put a person to sleep", it does accomplish some very therapeutic changes in the sleep patterns of people who complain of insomnia. The studies below show that whether measured by the patient's own ratings, psychiatrists ratings or by electroencephalograph or polygraph recordings before and after Cranial Electrotherapy treatments, the following effects of CES in insomnia can be expected:

1. Sleep onset latency is reduced. That is, once a person has retired for the evening, the amount of time it takes him to actually fall asleep is reduced from one to two hours or more to the more normal twenty minutes or less.
2. The number of awakenings during the night are reduced. That is, while most insomniacs awaken three or more times during the night and have difficulty falling asleep again, those treated with Cranial Electrotherapy typically awaken no more than once or twice following therapy, with most reporting no awakenings. Furthermore, after awakening, they return to sleep much more promptly than before.
3. Cranial Electrotherapy treated patients spend more time in stage four sleep following CES treatments. That is, patients spend more time in the deepest, most restful stage of sleep than they did prior to Cranial Electrotherapy treatment. It should be noted that some patients who have deprived themselves of REM sleep - the stage during which dreaming occurs - by taking drugs or alcohol as a sleeping aid, sometimes spend the first two or three nights in unusually vivid dream states when first starting CES treatments. This is considered another indication of the therapeutic effectiveness of Cranial Electrotherapy in that persons are known to become increasingly disorganized mentally, some even to the point of psychotic-like symptoms, when they do not engage in the normal amount of dreaming.
4. Finally, it was discovered that many patients receiving Cranial Electrotherapy treatments report feeling more rested when they awaken in the morning following Cranial Electrotherapy treatments.
Treatment parameters: While some patients begin to respond after the second or third day of treatment, others do not have their best response with fewer than 24 days of treatments lasting from 15 minutes to 1 hour. The beneficial effects have been measured in some experimental groups for as long as two years. Some people with insomnia have a habitual pattern of responding to situational stress with an interruption in their sleep patterns. The best results are obtained when Cranial Electrotherapy is used each time unusual stressors occur in their life situations that would ordinarily cause poor sleep. The Cranial Electrotherapy device user is thereby trained over time to expect a good night's sleep no matter what stressful interruptions occurred in the normal flow of daily life.

Insomnia 10hz, 9hz, 8hz, 5hz, 2.5hz, 1hz
Insomnia 76hz, 78hz, 11hz, 12hz, 14hz and 16hz
Insomnia (see also Parasite general set) - 3.59hz, 3hz, 7.83hz, 10hz, 1550hz, 1500hz,
Sedative effect (Reported use on bleeding, bruises, insomnia, sinusitis) -2.5hz

ADDICTIONS   BT11 Tuner

Foremost among the treatment problems among chemically dependent persons is the need to help them through the psychologically and physically demanding period of withdrawal. The body reacts to the depressed physical state engendered by alcohol and other drugs with a rebound stress reaction. This reaction commonly includes states of extreme anxiety, depression, and insomnia, for which Cranial Electrotherapy treatment is known to be effective.

Underlying the addictive state is an insidious and progressive destruction of normal brain functioning including an often incapacitating memory loss, inability to process information involving abstract symbols, and other dysfunctions associated with the organic brain syndrome, and advanced condition which is known as Korsakoff psychosis.
Studies on the use of Cranial Electrotherapy in chemical dependencies are among the best controlled and well designed research in the U.S. They indicate that Cranial Electrotherapy is a highly effective adjunct to methadone withdrawal in heroin addicts, significantly shortening the time to symptom - free withdrawal when compared with methadone alone, and significantly lowering withdrawal anxiety as measured by the Taylor Manifest Anxiety Scale.
Further, the anxiety and depression accompanying and following withdrawal of both alcohol and other drugs in poly drug abusers is significantly reduced when patients receive Cranial Electrotherapy as a post withdrawal treatment.
Most importantly, perhaps, is the finding that Cranial Electrotherapy treatment halts and significantly reverses brain dysfunction in these patients as measured on seven different psychological scales of cognitive function, bringing many such functions back to the level of the pre-addiction state in the majority of patients studied.

Another problem in the treatment of chemically dependent persons is frequently recurring 'dry withdrawal' in which the individual suffers withdrawal symptoms within several weeks, then again in several months. The phrases used to describe these phenomena are a 'dry drunk' followed by the 'dry withdrawal'. These psychological states lead to high recidivism rates among these individuals as they return to treatment after "falling off the wagon".

Cranial Electrotherapy is now thought of as one of the most effective, non-drug treatments for these periods of withdrawal, and a patient who has a personal Cranial Electrotherapy unit available should be able to use it to prevent a full-blown withdrawal reaction at such times. By doing so he can reduce the need for additional medical treatment in a clinic or hospital setting, and will be less likely to resort to alcohol because of the discomfort accompanying these withdrawal states.