The bar at the crossroads
Sep. 14th, 2010 01:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
I want to say up front that I have a healthy respect for doctors, even ones that seem stupid because they finished medical school and I got thrown out of college after two semesters for a poor GPA and a bad attitude. That being said, I do not take everything they say as gospel. I read articles about what they tell me and research medicine that they prescribe and try and make as informed decisions as I am able.
It is tricky thing to take the advice of someone who has knowledge and experience beyond yours and say, "I don't think what you are telling me is right," and yet here I am.
Paul and I have currently come to a critical point in his care. He has been medicated heavily for over eight years of his life now for chronic debilitating depression. The medicine has made him gain weight, his hands shake, he has constant insomnia, migraines and the build up of chemicals has begun to break down his liver. There other choice side effects that I wont mention here, but they are unpleasant. He takes pills because the alternative is him being functionless to the point of coma or eating the barrel of a gun.
He takes them because no other options were given to us.
And so now he has been informed that his depression is "med-resistant" which we suspected about five years ago. The option now being dangled in front of us is electroshock therapy.
We researched it thoroughly and to be frank - it scares the bejesus out of both of us.
After preening through the driest of medical journals, mind-numbing statistics and ghastly new age hippie sites, we found an alternative that seems oddly appropriate and at the same time utterly insane.
In a few months we are flying to Iquitos, Peru and taking the Ayahuasca.
And so I, a person with a fair amount of common sense and a reasonable amount of intelligence is leaving her husband's care to a shirtless Shaman deep in the Amazonian jungle who will blow smoke in our faces and sing after we drink a horrible brown liquid, begin to hallucinate and vomit furiously into a bucket courteously provided.
I am honestly terrified at the prospect but it scares me less than doctors anesthetizing Paul on a table and shocking his brain until he has a seizure. The main side effect is memory loss which they claim often returns in a month or so.
The only reasonable argument I have under my belt for doing this batshit crazy thing is the oldest medicine of the many Paul has been taking is less than twenty years old, they make him sick and uncomfortable, are killing him in incremental amounts and he is STILL depressed.
The Aayhuasca ritual is hundreds and hundreds of years old, there is some research backing up relief from depressive symptoms and there is no record I could find of anyone ever dying from taking it.
A homeless guy who lived under a bridge once told me once that at the crossroads of insanity and desperation is the bar where the devil drinks. Clearly he had been to that bar and I feel strangely as if I have just pulled up a stool and asked for the "special."
It is tricky thing to take the advice of someone who has knowledge and experience beyond yours and say, "I don't think what you are telling me is right," and yet here I am.
Paul and I have currently come to a critical point in his care. He has been medicated heavily for over eight years of his life now for chronic debilitating depression. The medicine has made him gain weight, his hands shake, he has constant insomnia, migraines and the build up of chemicals has begun to break down his liver. There other choice side effects that I wont mention here, but they are unpleasant. He takes pills because the alternative is him being functionless to the point of coma or eating the barrel of a gun.
He takes them because no other options were given to us.
And so now he has been informed that his depression is "med-resistant" which we suspected about five years ago. The option now being dangled in front of us is electroshock therapy.
We researched it thoroughly and to be frank - it scares the bejesus out of both of us.
After preening through the driest of medical journals, mind-numbing statistics and ghastly new age hippie sites, we found an alternative that seems oddly appropriate and at the same time utterly insane.
In a few months we are flying to Iquitos, Peru and taking the Ayahuasca.
And so I, a person with a fair amount of common sense and a reasonable amount of intelligence is leaving her husband's care to a shirtless Shaman deep in the Amazonian jungle who will blow smoke in our faces and sing after we drink a horrible brown liquid, begin to hallucinate and vomit furiously into a bucket courteously provided.
I am honestly terrified at the prospect but it scares me less than doctors anesthetizing Paul on a table and shocking his brain until he has a seizure. The main side effect is memory loss which they claim often returns in a month or so.
The only reasonable argument I have under my belt for doing this batshit crazy thing is the oldest medicine of the many Paul has been taking is less than twenty years old, they make him sick and uncomfortable, are killing him in incremental amounts and he is STILL depressed.
The Aayhuasca ritual is hundreds and hundreds of years old, there is some research backing up relief from depressive symptoms and there is no record I could find of anyone ever dying from taking it.
A homeless guy who lived under a bridge once told me once that at the crossroads of insanity and desperation is the bar where the devil drinks. Clearly he had been to that bar and I feel strangely as if I have just pulled up a stool and asked for the "special."
no subject
Date: 2010-09-14 05:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-14 09:59 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2010-09-14 05:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-14 07:14 pm (UTC)It has saved lives in the case of severe, medication-resistant depression.
But, yeah, you've got to make your own choices about medical treatment. And I can certainly understand why ECT scares the crap outta people. It's definately got a fairly freaky history.
Whatever path you take, good luck and I hope it all works out for the best for the both of you. I know from personal experience that depression is NOT an easy thing to deal with. I can't imagine how I'd handle it if the meds didn't work.
(no subject)
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Date: 2010-09-14 06:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-14 10:05 pm (UTC)So if nothing happens with the Amazonian medicine, well we will come back and give it a try.
We just want to exhaust all options first.
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Date: 2010-09-14 06:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-14 10:06 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2010-09-14 06:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-14 08:14 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2010-09-14 06:33 pm (UTC)I hope everything turns out well.
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Date: 2010-09-14 10:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-14 06:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-14 10:11 pm (UTC):)
thanks
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Date: 2010-09-14 07:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-14 10:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-14 07:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-14 07:39 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2010-09-14 08:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-14 10:14 pm (UTC)Expect a full accounting of events
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Date: 2010-09-14 08:29 pm (UTC)Sorry you have to go through this.
There's so much power, prestige and money to be made by doctors, the whole profession is dominated by materialistic megalomaniacs . . . they become so used to people treating them like gods they seem to actually believe they are deities . . . or perhaps they already are like that before medical school.
Yes, I'm bitter. But it's based on experience. Maybe in the Amazon you'll meet human beings who actually care about their patients instead of being so focused on their fancy homes, cars, and vacations.
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Date: 2010-09-14 10:16 pm (UTC)Thank you
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Date: 2010-09-14 10:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-14 10:17 pm (UTC)thanks
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Date: 2010-09-15 12:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-15 01:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-15 01:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-15 02:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-15 03:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-15 06:27 am (UTC)But, I finally have something to say besides that. Last year, I went to Peru to participate in filming a documentary about the use of Ayahuasca for treatment of anxiety and depression in Western people (it's not finished yet, but if it were, I would obviously recommend a viewing). "Participating", besides carrying a camera, included participating in 1 san pedro ceremony and 3 ayahuasca ceremonies with a Shaman (he was usually shirted) over the course of 10 days. While my depression isn't debilitating, I wanted to see if there was a way to go about treating it that didn't involve medication.
I won't go into a novella-length description of the experience here, but please feel free to ask anything about the experience, from the taste of the drink (it's color is actually closer to olive green, depending on freshness) to the profuse vomiting (which can very from the "From both ends" variety one of my crew members experienced, to myself, who did not vomit AT ALL (because, as my shaman told me- well, his translator told me, I do not speak Quechua- "The purge is all in your mind"). My experience was definitely a mixed one; some of it was amazing, and some of it was very bad. But I don't regret the experience.
There is also a pre-cleanse diet you should follow prior to your visit, if you can. I wish you the best of luck, and at the very least, I can guarantee that you won't regret your journey.
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Date: 2010-09-15 08:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-15 06:46 am (UTC)I'm a science guy and have no love for most "alternative" treatments, but it's clear we have almost no idea what's going on with depression. I think you're doing the right thing.
Anyone who knows what the bottom of depression feels like is likely to agree.
Prevail!
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Date: 2010-09-15 12:29 pm (UTC)I know in my own case, I think I may have self-medicated without even realizing it--I took shrooms a few years ago (first and only time) and not long after I gave up antidepressants for Lent. I haven't been back since.
(There were some messy side effects--a panic attack that hit me about a day after the dosage and, oh, falling in love with the man who gave me the shrooms, but I think those trade-offs were ultimately worth it.)
Given the severity of Paul's situation, I think he may well need more extreme solutions than what I took. I wish you well on your journey.
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Date: 2010-09-15 02:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-15 04:34 pm (UTC)Also, must hear the story of how it turns out. This sounds like it could be amusing on an epic scale, despite the circumstances leading to it.
Summary: Go You
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Date: 2010-09-15 04:55 pm (UTC)Although I have never done an ayahuasca ceremony, I have been doing ceremony for the last 6 years and I have witnessed and experienced healing on very deep levels which leads me to my faith in the medicine. If it were to be in my life, I would accept it with open arms.
Good luck is an understatement, it will change your life. And it may seem terrible at times, but it is typically for the better when you are able to look back.. as you probably already know from life experience. =)
And you never know.. you may find that you get the message that you need to come back and use ECT.. either way, remember to ask for clarity around the situation. If I may be so bold. And very important - Anything you ask for, always tack on "in a good and gentle way, for my (our) highest good." Ego in these situations is very dangerous... what you *think* is best is not always.
I'll be getting off my soapbox now. Good health and good help to you both.
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Date: 2010-09-15 08:22 pm (UTC)That is new advice, and taken to heart. Thanks!
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Date: 2010-09-15 05:41 pm (UTC)good luck. I don't blame you one bit.
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Date: 2010-09-15 07:05 pm (UTC)