Hi there,

If the prozac has been helping him; most would consider his problem bio-chemical/physical; or that the medicine aides him as a cruch or has a placebo effect... Depressed people who do not respond to medication are considered to have a depressive type that is situational/psychological (speaking in extremes ofcourse, there is grey in between) and therefore most suitable for counselling. If this presumption is accepted, i.e, that his problem is mainly physical/biochemical then counselling may not entirely be the answer; some ideas off the top of my head are:

1. He stays on medicines and gets help for sexual dysfunction (i.e, viagra)which sadly is a sideeffect of SSRI's; or you put up with a husband with low sex drive (sad), or,

2. He goes off the medication with help from a counselling psychiatrist and commits himeself to learn how to cope with the unpleasant feelings he has; and maybe in time he can overcome them, or some of them (but he must take responsiblity for this) , and/or


3. He has a complete detox (in case this is causing his depression) including parasite, liver, kidney and bowel detox. As a precaution and a good idea anyway.


I would go with #3 firstly as he is probably full of medicine and backed up as well. Is he open to this?

Best of luck.

hi,

taking psychiatric medication for years at a time can be highly toxic and permanently alter your brain chemistry, and not for the good. here are two books that will answer a lot of your questions. one is written by dr. peter breggin who is a psychiatrist who has spent years and years studying this issue. the other is by gabriel cousens who is an expert is detoxing from psychiatric medication.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0738203483/sr=8-2/qid=1142172410/r...

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0060959657/sr=8-4/qid=1142172494/r...

i believe that peter breggin has a way for you to get in touch with wholistic psychiatric doctors.

i mean perhaps your husband is fine with the status quo, but you don't seem to be. Depression is never easy, but what is? there is a price to pay no matter how you deal with it. medicaiton? a price to pay. no medication? a price to pay. my own personal opinion is that psychiatric drugs are like any other drug, they numb you long enough to help you thru the day, but after years of being numb where does that leave you?

of course they do have their place, and some do well on them. then again some do well smoking pot.

i find that choosing to feel my naked emotions, no matter how miserable or horrible or tragic they are that i am moving through Depression and experiencing life more fully, that is the path i have chosen and i do not regret it.

its really up to your husband perhaps allowing others to choose his path in life is part of the problem.

peter breggin will take you thru the steps one by one to get off meds if he wants to do that. but first he has to decide what he really wants, he needs to make a decision about his fate. proactively taking control of his life will help alot no matter what decision he makes.

ff

Hello,

Has your husband tried any of the safer, more natural alternatives to pharmaceutical meds? I know that not all of them work for everyone, but a lot of them do work for a lot of people. He would have to come off meds before trying them as you cant take them with meds, but this might be an idea for him if he decides to come off Prozac. And I dont care what anyone says - diet plays a part. Personally speaking I have tried

St. Johns Wort
SAMe
5HTP
Tyrosine
DMAE

(Google them to find out more.)
I had minor improvements with the amino acids (5HTP and tyrosine) but I have weak digestion so taking them in pill form was not always effective.

SAMe and DMAE are expensive, so I did not continue them - the improvement I had on these was quite minor - had it been significant I probably would have found the money somewhere.
I am currently on St. Johns Wort and I have had the best results from this. Its the fourth time in my life I have used it and I have seen an improvement each time (my Depression comes in cycles - high energy, very outgoing with great focus & motivation but high anxiety; then very low energy, extremely low moods, apathy, grief, reclusive almost agoraphobic).
St Johns Wort doesent make me 100% - maybe 50 - 60%, but it's enough to allow me to get through the day - DO stuff and be involved in my own life rather than just drifting along trying to keep my head above water.
Things that make me worse are wheat & dairy - I strongly suggest an allergy test for your husband; I found out I'm allergic to these two things and when I avoid them I feel so much better. Wheat especially, dont underestimate it, it can cause horrendous mental symptoms. Any allergy can cause all kind of mental & emotional symptoms though.
Meat - i'm vegetarian now and I dont plan to ever eat meat again. It makes me angry and negative and seems to take away my sense of compassion & connectedness, as well as my creativity. I do MUCH better off it. This is just my own observation from my own experience but I have heard similar from others.
Other nutritional factors can cause Depression such as deficiencies and heavy metal poisoning. I have a theory about copper toxicity - some agree with me some dont but I've researched this a lot and spoken to a lot of people about their symptoms and I believe that it can play a huge part. I posted a bit about it in reply to someone else recently:
//www.curezone.org/forums/m.asp?f=27&i=3253

These books are very helpful, well worth a read at any rate:

Optimum nutrition for the mind by Patrick Holford (isbn 0-7499-2398-9)
Natural Highs by Patrick Holford (isbn 0-7499-2254-0)
The mood cure by Julia Ross (isbn 0-00-712803-7)
The No Grain Diet by Joseph Mercola (isbn 0-340-83235-5)
What are you really eating? by Amanda Ursell (isbn 1-4019-0688-5)

Kep going with the cleansing - I'm doing that too and I can say that as toxins get released from the body things also get released from the mind, I'm finding this is happening to me already but I have a long way to go yet.

One more thing - try EFT (Emotional freedom technique -check out the EFT forum)
or go to this website for more info
http://www.emofree.com

Wishing you luck

Mel

Take 5 grams a day of L-Glutamine, 500 mg of Niacinamide, and one capsule of B-complex 50. This is from Hulda Clark . It has worked wonders on me and several friends. It works especially well on Alcoholics. Completely harmless.

I was on anti-depressants for at least 15 years. See my story and click on the link inside. The link does not work on his own, the message has been removed, but I still could find it in this post.
//www.curezone.org/forums/m.asp?f=403&i=294
For most of my life (at least 40 years) I have used, mainly during the summer, dexedrine (an amphitamine) for energy.

At this point I am still off all my drugs. Since about 5 years I have gotten slight head tremors and I understand that older (I am 70) people get this from using drugs.
When I get nervous it gets really bad, but I am trying to find my own solution.
In general I feel fine, but slowly have started doing less again. For me that is o.k. since I am retired. Sometimes I think back how well I felt on the prozac and I miss that, but my problem was that it eventually wore off, otherwise I would have stayed on it. And I always needed amphitemines to have energy. The prozac helped me overnight, I was like a different person, all the spooks in my head went away.
Since my husband could not do a lot of things like going in stores and elevators and he saw the change in me he saw my doctor too. He uses paxil and he is like a different person, it is wonderful. He probbly has been on it for 15 years. He never thinks of getting off them, he believes in doctors.
I am the only one in the family who does alternative stuff.
So if your husband wants to get off it, he should read my link, because I did all the cleanses while I was on 6 prescription drugs and I made a lot of progress in my health.
For the tremors I just started with Gaba and I still want to buy L-Tyrosine, this was suggested by white tiger, he says it is good for Depression and tremors. I read it on the Ask curezone forum.
BTW when I look back on my life I probably always had a certain amount of depression
but there were always excuses, like immigrating to the US I probably was homesick etc,but now I know it was depression.