I’ve been dealing with depression (and anxiety) for well over 5 years now. I’ve tried so many different medications and treatments with no apparent success. Inevitably, in the course of the treatment, the doctor will ask if I’m starting to feel better to see if it’s worth continuing the treatment, up the dose, or swap to something else. And… I never know what to say. If it’s not going to get dramatically better all of a sudden, I don’t really know how to recognize any incremental progress if it’s happening at all and without being able to do that, I might be passing on treatments that could have helped if I gave it more time.
So if you’ve been in this situation, how did you recognize progress? To the extent that you can put it into words, what did it feel like to slowly get better as you were treated?
I will say my experience with ketamine and ect were both more distinctly positive than this. ect didn’t last as long, but both made it easier to weather the day and take care if my obligations. Nothing was curative, I still have problems with anhedonia, but they did both help. ECT didn’t help until they were doing it bilaterally with a high level of stimulus for me though. If you aren’t at that level yet, I’d recommend trying a bit longer.