I Feel Better: Deplin
Posted: Sunday, May 09, 2010
by Tex Norman
I've lived with depression so long that I expect to be depressed. Depression has been the norm for me for the last 54 years. For me, not being depressed would be like rearranging the furniture in a blind man's house. Everything in my life is where it has always been when I am depressed. I have actually started to fear that MAYBE depression was such a habit that I was keeping myself depressed because that was the only way I knew how to exist.
Something has changed. I'm not sure what changed, but there is no doubt that within me something has changed. I am different. I noted two things happened about the time I started feeling better. I started taking Deplin , and I wrote a description of what I thought a depression free life would be like.
First let me comment on the Deplin . What I understand is that one of the B vitamins needed by everyone is Folate . We get Folate from our diet, IF we obeyed mama and ate our green vegetables. Of course many of us do not eat enough green vegetables to ingest a therapeutic dose of Folate , so, to get this essential vitamin into our body without eating a pound of broccoli per meal, some of us take the man made form of Folate that comes in a little tablet called Folic Acid. Researchers found out that before our body benefits from this folic acid the vitamin must be broken down using a 4 step process.
Folate is chemically created as Folic Acid which breaks down into
Dihydrofolate , which then breaks down into
Tetrahydrofolate , and this is finally broken down into
L- Methylfolate .
The tablet Deplin is L Methylfolate .
The literature on Deplin claims that some people have a compromised ability to break down folic acid . Researchers further claim that about 70% of depressed people have this compromised ability to turn folic acid into L- Methylfolate . With Deplin , it doesn 't matter if the patient can or can't bread down Folate , because when you ingest L- Methylfolate the body can use it immediately.
With Deplin not only do we benefit from ingesting this purest form of Folate , we also benefit from this L- Methylfolate because it is concentrated. Deplin makes a lot more of the useful supplement available to you. Remember, one 7.5mg Deplin tablet provides the bio-equivalent L- Methylfolate of 66 (800 mcg ) folic acid tablets.
I started taking Deplin about a month ago. My therapist added Deplin to the antidepressant cocktail I' ve been taking for several; years.
When the Deplin was suggested to me, and when I learned that it was a form of vitamin supplement, I was polite and said I'd try it, but in my mind I expected nothing to happen. Deplin is a purified vitamin! For most of my life I have considered vitamins as a way to produce very expensive brightly colored urine.
Remember all the wild claims made for ingesting mega doses of vitamin C, back in the day?. I remember hearing that if you took mega doses of vitamin C you could cure cancer and improve your ability to play the piano. That seemed crazy to me. After a month, something changed in me. I've been depressed for most of my life, around 55 years or so, and I have been taking meds and using talk therapy since 1980, and I figured I would live depressed until I died depressed. I did not believe anything was going to fix me. Something has happened after being a month on Deplin . I would not say I am giddy, I do not feel I have my life under control, but I am no longer worried, fearful, hopeless. I still have all the problems I've always had, including a traumatic childhood, but now I just feel I can cope. I may not know how I'm going to cope, but I sense that I will be able to cope. This change in me is not a thought, it is a feeling, but it is just barely a feeling. It is more like an unpleasant feeling gradually faded away, and I am just now noticing that it is gone. At first I thought it was a fluke. I thought, well, even a guy like me can have a good day once in a while. But one OK day followed the next OK day. I've been waiting for that other sad shoe to drop, I' ve been waiting for my sole to fall and it just hasn 't happened. . . repeatedly. This is the closest I have ever been to feeling as if I had an effective treatment for depression. Depression is like diabetes for me, you have it for the rest of your life, but with the right diet and meds you can live almost as if you didn't have it. Deplin just may be the I'm OK drug that brings my chronic depression under control.
No one expected this less than me. I am not happy. I am not joyful. I am not problem free. My life is still as flawed as the world around me. What is missing is worry, dread, and hopelessness. I don't feel giddy, I'm not smiling all the time. The change is that I feel OK about being alive. I feel like I can cope with whatever happens next.
Have I just, finally fixed my thinking patterns? I don't think it is that. I'm leaning toward the years of cognitive behavioral therapy, my psychotropic cocktail and the booster effects of Deplin . Obviously this is anecdotal evidence, and my experience is not a scientific conclusion. For the world of science the study must continue, but for me, well, all I can say is, I feel better.
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Top-level comments on this article: (4 total)Tex, you are my hero!To have the courage to write publicly about your troubles is most impressive. NOT fearing the judgment others may make about you is crucial to moving in the right direction, regardless of age or experience.
However, if you'd ever like to talk privately it would be my pleasure. I have had my trials with depression also. You can email whenever you like.Thanks for reading and for the kind words. I'm heading to work, but I would like to exchange emails. I am not sure what your email address is. Sometimes the comment box won't allow you to put email or web addresses in the comment section. Writing mine out it would be texarooty at g mail dotcom.
Very interesting article Tex. I hope it just gets better for you. Thanks for sharing.
Way to go Tex. I learned a long time ago (26 years ago) to stay open-minded about cures. I was very sick, in bed for three months. Went to three doctors, couldn't find a thing. Finally out of desperation I went to a Knesiologist who was supposed to be gifted, and who told me to get off the beta blockers that one of the doctors prescribed, and start taking 5000 MG vitamin C. I was on my feet in three days! Ya gotta go figure.
Hi Tex.I am so behind on my reading, but I'm sure glad that I picked this one to read. I couldn't not read it because of the title, and anytime you feel better I want to know about it.That you've given me another avenue for research for my husband's depression is just icing on the cake.I'm so glad that you feel better. I understand all the qualifications you attached to it. Been through a few of those with Bernd. But still, YOU FEEL BETTER! And that's wonderful.Hugs,Dianne
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