Posted by Scott L. Schofield on January 1, 2000, at 9:48:52
In reply to Sleep Deprivation, posted by JohnL on January 1, 2000, at 0:38:07
> So it's about 1:30 a.m. right now. In the new millenium! I've been wanting to try a night of sleep deprivation. This seems like a perfectly appropriate night for that. Fireworks on TV every hour from around the world and the country. Family is all snoozing away. I keep stumbling onto scientific experiements where 36 hour sleep deprivation brought about rapid improvement of depressive symptoms. So what the heck. One of those studies corresponded with initiating Pindolol at the same time. Remission was achieved in 60% of patients and was maintained in a majority of them with ongoing antidepressants. But you know how those scientific studies are. They always seem so much more promising than what happens in the real world. We'll see.
>
> Apparently all is well here at Y2K so far, except I think I need a lot more coffee! JohnLI experienced a significant antidepressant effect from sleep deprivation, and would use it to be able to read stuff and comprehend it the next day. I have also experienced total sleep-deprivation while taking a few different antidepressants. Here, the sleep-deprivation happened to be the result of the insomniac side-effect of the drug(s) itself. I would feel the antidepressant effect the next day, but it would disappear by early afternoon. Unfortunately, it never seemed to stick - either on or off antidepressants.
Not all cases of depression respond to sleep-deprivation. The NIH psychobiology department used response versus non-response to one night’s total sleep deprivation as a diagnostic tool to help choose drugs to try. I don’t recall what drugs were involved or where they were placed in this dichotomy. I’ll see if I can find something on it.
As an added note, it seems that total sleep-deprivation is not necessary for the antidepressant effect to occur. It has been found that to go to sleep at one’s normal time and wake-up at 2:00pm also produces the response.
The pindolol thing sounds exciting. Are you thinking of giving it a try? Where can I find more information about it?
Thanks.
- Scott
poster:Scott L. Schofield
thread:17756
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20000101/msgs/17770.html