A major symposium about vagus nerve stimulation as a treatment for chronic or recurrent depression will be presented at the American Psychiatric Association’s Annual Meeting in May. This is the largest gathering of psychiatrists in the world and over 25,000 psychiatrists will be in attendance.
On February 3, 2005, the FDA deemed vagus nerve stimulation(VNS Therapy) approvable as a treatment for chronic or recurrent treatment-resistant depression. The formal launch of VNS Therapy will take place at this meeting of the leading psychiatrists in the world. The manufacturer of the vagus nerve stimulator, Cyberonics Inc., will have a major symposium on the topic of VNS Therapy as a treatment for depression.
VNS is not related to brain surgery or electroconvulsive therapy. There is no cognitive impairment( i.e. memory loss) or interactions with drugs. The sixty-minute procedure is usually performed in an out-patient hospital and the recovery process is less than five days.
The book: Out of the Black Hole: The Patient’s Guide to Vagus Nerve Stimulation and Depression will be exhibited at the American Psychiatric Association Annual Meeting in May. The book is available at www.VagusNerveStimulator.com, Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.com.
It is written by a patient, who suffered from severe chronic depression and was implanted with the stimulator in the FDA investigational trial. The therapy completely changed his life.
You can learn more at www.VagusNerveStimulator.com. There is a free electronic newsletter to keep you up-to-date.
Charles Donovan was a patient in the FDA investigational trial of vagus nerve stimulation as a treatment for chronic or recurrent treatment-resistant depression. He was implanted with the vagus nerve stimulator in April of 2001. He chronicles his journey from the grips of depression thanks to vagus nerve stimulation therapy in his book:
Out of the Black Hole: The Patient’s Guide to Vagus Nerve Stimulation and Depression
He is editor the http://www.VagusNerveStimulator.com Web Site
It’s a side-effect of depression, and it’s one of the most dangerous causes thereof as well. Especially during depressive episodes, maintaining your self-esteem can be quite hard to do. There are many things that can bring your self-esteem down, and there are ways to try and minimize them. That is not what this is about, however. This is about what to do to keep from dropping your self-esteem, how to try and keep a positive attitude about yourself.
There are a few ways to do this. The simplest is to make a list of things that you like about yourself, or things that you feel that you are good at. Even if this list is short, the important thing to do is to make the list and focus on the length, not how long you feel that it should be. Focus on things within each list and, if you can, expand on them. By making sublists, you will be able to add to your main list and have specifics to remember about why you are proud of each item on your list.
The second way to do it is to borrow and modify an idea from George Orwell. In 1984, he talked about the “three minutes of hate”. Modify that to “three minutes of love”, or any other such time. Take a little time each day, go to your mirror and tell yourself how good a person you are. Pick one or a few things to focus on and spend time encouraging yourself. This should help you keep your self-esteem high.
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Anxiety is a disorder that can disturb a persons mind to an extent where they lose control over their actions e.g. thinking and decision making. This sense of instability makes it hard for a patient to carry on leading a normal life. When anxiety takes hold it forces the patient into believing that they no longer have any say on matters of importance like decision making etc. All this can have a devastating effect on the sufferer as well as all concerned parties around them.
With the help of modern science we have modern medicine and treatments and if supervised by a governing body of the medical profession along with your modern way of thinking and that is to believe in yourself and recognise your illness then the help out there will certainly give you hope in having a brighter future.
It is no wonder why anxiety is diagnosed as a mental health disorder when it can cause so much havoc in the upper region. Some patients lost hope where they believed their anxiety was beyond repair. Unfortunately they became a victim of their own thoughts that was to give them the only solution to their problem and that was to commit suicide.
We all know the feeling of anxiety where the fear factor sets in and we imagine that something awful or nasty is about to happen. If faced with difficult times e.g. like an upheaval in life, divorce or losing someone close are all situations that can be identified to the cause of anxious moments.
There are different types of anxiety; therefore the importance of speaking with a doctor is imminent so the right course of medicine or treatment can be prescribed. Mild bouts of anxiety are common and present in a great many of our lives, but for the more severe cases anxiety bouts now become attacks which is a major worry.
Doctors dedicated in this field will diagnose an anxiety disorder if the patients tension level scales to high and stays with the sufferer for several months. If the patient can not pin point a reason behind his anxiety then it is right to stick with the prognosis of it actually being anxiety. The reason being is, depression stands in the way of diagnoses due to similarities of symptoms for both disorders. What the doctor has to decipher is whether the patient has depression with anxiety symptoms or vice or versa as in i.e. is anxiety the cause of their depression.
The effect anxiety has on each individual differs in many ways; some people are prone to the psychological/emotional side of things. When other people are tortured by the effects physically
The Psychological downside to anxiety comes in the form of inability to concentrate along with irritability. A patient experiences constant worry which can lead to sense of fearful anticipation. Lack of sleep is a strong symptom causing fatigue to take the whole body.
The Physical effects can be pains where the patient feels tightness in the chest. Breathing is affected. Loss of appetite, sex drive goes down hill and visits to the loo are more frequent (Urinating) sickness dizziness headaches and muscle tension are just a few to mention of the symptoms.
Anxiety if permitted will devour any thoughts you have on leading a normal life if you leave it to fester and rot inside like maggots eating away at a corpse. This can be all prevented if you seek advice early on any concerns you may have relating to your health or that of someone close.
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