Have you been treated for depression?

I have heard several people comment on this, thought it would be interesting to know how many people with apnea suffer from depression.

Hmmm. Not sure how to answer that, in my case.

I was never diagnosed with depression. In fact, I would never have considered myself in any way depressed. But once I had been on PAP therapy a few weeks, and the haze started to lift, and the sky got bluer, and the grass got greener, and I stopped feeling like I was mostly dead--well, looking back, I assume I MUST have fit the definition if a doc had started asking questions. Thing is, though, if there is a readily-identifiable cause for those feelings, pains, and limitations (and not breathing and not sleeping certainly should be identified, even if it often isn't), then I'm not sure how the mental-health professionals view it, technically speaking, diagnosis-wise, from that angle.

So I tend to think of it as my having been a candidate for chemical or talk treatment who just happened to get airway-pressure treatment first, instead. I was not healthy mentally or emotionally, but the treatment that fixed that, as much as any human can be "fixed" anyway, was pressurized air.

It is my opinion that people who do not sleep and breathe at night often get treated for other conditions before the root cause is addressed. Some of us do meds and come off them once we are on PAP therapy. Others of us do meds and end up staying on them even after effective PAP therapy, for one reason or another. Still others of us were never on meds, but maybe should have been or could have been. But I think the majority of us had physical, mental, and emotional issues that eventually led us to getting diagnosed with sleep apnea, and so we are all probably mostly in the same general category with that stuff, despite the path that may have gotten us here.

That's just my take based on my experience and what I've read around here, though.

jeff

jnk wrote:Hmmm. Not sure how to answer that, in my case.

I was never diagnosed with depression. In fact, I would never have considered myself in any way depressed.
jeff

Same here. More then once in my life. I worked my way through - literally working out. I am smarter now and go for talk therapy when I feel I need to de-bug my issues.

Maybe there is a need for a "depressed and no official therapy" ?

I was diagnosed with mild depression/anxiety 9 years ago and have been on medication that whole time. My physcian is now thinking of lowering my dosage (which right now is not very high) and believes that since being on cpap (since august) that I am much morfe grounded and less confrontational sinced I am now getting better sleep.

My guess is there is a significant number of people who have been depressed and/or treated for depression who are really suffering from a sleep disorder. There is still significant stigma attached to admitting one has depression in this society (why, buck up! don't let a little depression get you down!). So this poll format is probably a good way to do this! Thanks!

I agree w/ SnoresLikeWalrus. I was on Wellbutrin for a year and it did nothing. Why? Because I wasn't depressed!

deleted

Ok so I ticked the first one but for me it means "Treated" only because I know I had depression before.

BlackSpinner wrote:Ok so I ticked the first one . . . .

I did too, right before you did.

never been treated...
i felt very depressed for the last few years, like i could die and no one would notice. i didnt actually go look for help, im hoping it was just lack of sleep

Very interesting topic and theory. I am now wondering if my anxiety and depression is really the result of lack of good sleep rather than true anxiety and depression. I've only been on CPAP therapy for a month but am wondering if I will eventually decrease my dosage and get off it. Only time will tell. Plan and letting time tell me what to do. But I am so thankful to now be on the CPAP as it has helped so much already.

Yes I am in therapy, and I believe my apnea is the result of deep grief from childhood and the anxious troubled sleep I had. I am Freudian and I don't take meds. They didn't help. I believe getting this equipment brought my depression to the fore.
Mine is not a view very many people have. It's amazing that in my first sleep study I had I showed many hypopneas but no central apneas. In the sleep study with the machine I showed 2 central apneas and less hypopneas.

janeysmom wrote:Very interesting topic and theory. I am now wondering if my anxiety and depression is really the result of lack of good sleep rather than true anxiety and depression. I've only been on CPAP therapy for a month but am wondering if I will eventually decrease my dosage and get off it. Only time will tell. Plan and letting time tell me what to do. But I am so thankful to now be on the CPAP as it has helped so much already.

I have heard experienced sleep doctors say that among their patients who come to them on depression medications, it is rare for any of those patients to remain on those medications once PAP therapy is optimized for them. That is only anecdotal, but I respect the docs who said it.

I, as a patient, think it is important that the doctor who prescribed the medication be aware of the PAP therapy in case dosage needs to be reduced or stopped. It is worth stressing, though, that no patient, of course, should ever decide to adjust his or her own dosage or should decide to stop those medications on his or her own. There is a proper systematic way for those medications to be inititiated and a proper systematic way for the use of those medications to be adjusted or ended.

jeff

If you should ever have feelings of depression coming on, read this......

http://www.tcnj.edu/~hofmann/Maxine/maxine.htm


Den

For the last few years I have had anxiety attacks (mild ones) late at night. I blamed them on my life circumstances (fire, lack of employment.....) until I got my cpap and did a lot of research. I now realize that most of the panic attacks happened as I was drifting off to sleep .... duh ... if there is no oxygen I am going to panic. Nothing to do with half asleep remembering the fire and all the other things that happened. I put on 30 lbs getting up and eating to make myself feel comforted, created alsorts of hang ups and bad habits about food, weight and sleep. I still find myself resisting going to sleep, eating in bed (though it is decreasing and I have changed to healthier snacks then chips & dip or chocolate)

Just before I got on cpap I had no emotional energy to do my art work, attend conferences on stuff I loved, sci fi conventions and all that. Withinn a month of starting cpap I had signed up for a conference and finished a piece for it. I still missed out on world con because I couldn't afford the last minute price. My whole outlook on life switched from "I am just old and on the run down to the end nothing is worth bothering about" to " Wow look how many more years of creating stuff I have!!"