Posted by blueberry1 on February 11, 2007, at 14:11:53
In reply to Patience..., posted by SLS on February 10, 2007, at 9:17:03
Patience is indeed a requirement for treatment of depression. Sad. Those who are already stripped of strength and endurance must somehow invent superhuman patience.
I am guilty of monitoring myself on an hourly and daily basis. But it is good. I can see when a trend is beginning, whether it be good or bad. In a another week or two, whichever way the trend went, I can look back and see what the telltale signs were when it started.
My history with meds is that anything that was good for me in the long run showed itself to be good from day 2 to day 14. I've gone many weeks and months on meds that did not show anything in that first 2 weeks and they never did later either. So my history is, if it don't work in 2 weeks, the odds of it working later are slim. Existent, but slim.
I don't remember where they were, I think at pubmed, but a couple studies looked at early response predicting long term response. In general, a hint of improvement in 2 weeks is highly predictive of further improvement. Some people without improvement at 2 weeks do get better long term, but fewer of them. If it were a poker game, the odds are stacked in favor of the early responder to win.
Another study evaluated the time course of response to patients who did respond to zoloft. It went like this. Anti-anxiety day 1 to day 7. Antidepression from day 7 to day 30. Anti-anhedonia from day 30 to day 54. So if someone were starting zoloft and they did not fit this pattern at say maybe day 25, that doesn't mean they won't improve, it just means that the statistics are not in their favor, compared to people who have responded to zoloft.
One problem with almost all clinical studies is they only show the end result at week 6 or 8 or 12. They don't mention how many people started to improve at week 1, week 2, etc. They don't mention how many people who didn't improve at week 2 did improve at week 8. They just say that it takes 8 weeks. Which I think is incomplete an misleading.
Anyway, yeah, patience. From those least able to have it. Weekly an monthly improvement is what really matters, but I do watch it on an hourly and daily basis as well.
poster:blueberry1
thread:731565
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20070207/msgs/731823.html