A new treatment for depression that won't lift.

For reviews on Steve and Robyn's book, Broken Minds Hope for Healing When You Feel Like You're Losing It, please go to
http://www.amazon.com/Broken-Minds-Healing-Youre-Losing/dp/0825421187


















If you have read my blog or read our book (see above) you know that I have been extremely depressed many times in my life. In the year 2000, I was blessed by the Father of Mercies and the God of all Comfort; I was put on a medication that made it possible for me not to live in the dark dungeon of depression.
We are fortunate to be living in an age where treatment is available.  My depression was so bad that I would try anything helpful as long it was not sinful.  I probably had been on about 15-20 antidepressants before I found the right mix.  During the periods that medications were not working, I was successfully  rescued from my enemy, my depression, by Electro/Convulsive Therapy. However, it "wore off."  I still recommend ECT for those who are a danger to themselves and cannot take care of their basic needs.
This new treatment, deep brain stimulation (DBS) may seem to "push the envelope."  I would use it if I was depressed for years and years without relief.  You may say, "Steve, why would you recommended such a drastic measure for depression?" That is because you have never had my style of major/endogenous depression. Desperate times call for desperate measures!

I have the utmost sympathy for those who after much prayer and the use of medical interventions still find no or very little relief.  This is why I recommend this article which gives real hope to people who have not been able to escape the vortex that depletes brain chemistry and results in a  hopeless feeling that says, "I will never be better again." SB
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The treatment is called Deep Brain Stimulation or DBS. It consists of drilling two nickel size holes in the skull and snaking long metal electrodes into tiny nodules of tissue in a deep brain region called area 25.

Editor's note: "Battery-powered brain," a report by CNN's chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta, premieres on CNN Presents, Sunday, April 15, at 8 p.m. ET. Gupta is also an assistant professor of neurosurgery at Emory University's School of Medicine.

 

Atlanta (CNN) -- The first time Edi Guyton tried to commit suicide, she was 19 years old, wracked with depression and unable to deal with the social and academic pressure of college.

Even as a little girl, Guyton never seemed happy. Her mother had encouraged her to smile, but she didn't see any reason to. In her mind, everyone who smiled was "faking it."

She often thought about taking her own life, and one night in her college dorm, Guyton's dark thoughts gave way to action. With a razor blade, Guyton cut one wrist, then the other.

"I think I wanted it to get better or I wanted to die," she said. "The point was that everything was so bad, I wanted people to know that it was controlling me."
 

 

Edi Guyton lived with debilitating depression for 40 years before experimental brain surgery.

Her depression controlled her life for the next 40 years -- until she decided to volunteer for an experimental treatment. A neurosurgeon would drill two holes in Guyton's skull and implant a pair of battery-powered electrodes deep inside her brain.

Fore more on this subject, please go to the link below.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/04/14/health/battery-powered-brain/index.html

 

Please forward this to a person you know that has tried everything for their biological depression but

it has not succeeded.

SB