Botox and Depression

From What If Botox Could Ease Both Wrinkles *and* Depression? by Tess Bonn

How does Botox help treat depression?

Specifically, the idea of utilizing botulinum toxin A to treat mental health disorders is primarily based on what’s known as the “facial feedback hypothesis,” which suggests that our emotional experiences are influenced by our facial expressions. For example, smiling typically makes us feel happier while frowning can make us feel more sad. 

The theory was first developed by evolutionary biologist Charles Darwin and the “father” of American psychology William James in the 19th century. While we typically use facial expressions to signal how we’re feeling to others, they can influence how we feel ourselves. In many cases, this self-reflection can reinforce negative thoughts and feelings. 

The article talks about some studies that show some positive results, but it's not a cure all.

 

Calling Dr. Demento

Highlighted text: Ludwig Boltzmann, who spent much of his life studying statistical mechanics, died in 1906, by his own hand. Paul Ehrenfest, carrying on the work, died similarly in 1933. Now it is our turn to study statistical mechanics.

Well, that's a grim opener, but who were these guys and what's their story? Depression seems to be the answer.

Ludwig Boltzmann (1844 – 1906)

 

Ludwig Boltzmann and his Entropy Formula

In 1906, Boltzmann's deteriorating mental condition forced him to resign his position, and his symptoms indicate he experienced what would today be diagnosed as bipolar disorder. Four months later he died by suicide on 5 September 1906, by hanging himself while on vacation with his wife and daughter in Duino, near Trieste (then Austria). He is buried in the Viennese Zentralfriedhof. His tombstone bears the inscription of Boltzmann's entropy formula. - Wikipedia

Note that while he was on vacation with his wife and daughter, he only hanged himself, not his whole family.

Paul Ehrenfest (1880 – 1933)

 

Paul Ehrenfest

Ehrenfest, a gifted extrovert from Vienna, was highly respected by his colleagues. Some thought him the conscience and driving force of international theoretical physics. He had contacts everywhere. But all the while he suffered from increasing depression, his private life was in turmoil, and he told Goudsmit and others that he was planning to kill himself. Six months after writing the letter, he did just that, after first taking the life of his youngest son, who was afflicted with Down syndrome. - Physics Today

Thought for the Day

CBD - Cannabidiol

From one of my far-flung corespondents:

I've been taking CBD and carefully examining it's effects for  a month. I feel it's of great benefit to me, and I wanted to pass this along.

In an effort to deal with lifelong adulthood depression and compulsiveness, I've tried many consumer-grade (not "psychotic-grade") pharmaceutical available through my family doctor at the time. Even at the minimum doses they have strong effects on me, and as such end up feeling artificial and I hated them.

I have to avoid pot, even though I've tried (and enjoyed) some of the extremely strong pot produced now, but the cumulative effects were not ideal. It helped me a lot with arthritic pain, and my code improved due to increased arms length objectivity, but it put me at odds with normal depressed miserable people and it messes with short term memory, as we all know.
...
Somehow I came to find this, so I bought it from Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Dew-Drops-Hemp-Supplement-Cinnamon/dp/B00E253XSA

Embarrassingly stoned postings that make up the bulk of the opinion on the internet make finding out about this a real treat. I was worried until about 10 minutes after I first tried a dose, i.e. didn't like the part about the former chief scientist of the company complaining about biocontamination, so I double- boiled the open-bottle. CBD doesn't boil until 180C, so the stuff can be sterilized without losing effect.

My take: "It's like the good part of pot... without the GREAT part.".. which means: It provides me the pain management and mental stress relief without the euphoria and forgetfulness.

Anyhow it's only a month, but I'm pretty sure I like this. Maybe it's why I always have a roll of hemp twine around for tying things up.

Makes me wonder about my own history. It also makes me wonder about the company I keep. Here I live in one of the most "progressive" states in the Union, a pioneer in medical marijuana and I had never heard of this stuff before. I dunno, maybe I need to go outside occasionally.

Depression

 

Rose is Rose by Don Wimmer and Pat Brady

I suffer from depression. Except I don't seem to be suffering too much. Maybe I should say I've been 'diagnosed with' or I am 'coping with' it. When I first got the diagnosis, which must have been 10 or 15 years ago, I went and told my parents. I tell my dad, and what does he say? "You know, I think your mother is depressed." I told my mom, and what did she say? You guessed it: "You know, I think your father is depressed." So maybe it runs in the family. The technical term for what I have is disthymia, which is long term, low grade depression.
    I'm talking to a guy I know who is also suffering from depression, and he was trying to explain how hard it is to explain depression to someone who doesn't have it, and I have to agree. It's not something that is amenable to logic. One of the worst things about depression is that it prevents you from asking for help.
    Depression makes it really hard to do just about anything. It's like there is no impetus. The question of "why bother?" doesn't even come up. You can know what you need to do, and you can know that if you just started doing things you would feel better about yourself, but that little spark that gets you going is missing. You can be just as smart, just as capable and just as knowledgeable as a normal person, but you can't get anything done. It's like there is a tiny little engine deep inside you, and it connects the part of you that wants things done to the part that does things, and that little engine has been turned off.
    I'm thinking about this and a vision comes to me. I'm standing at the bottom of swimming pool full of water. All the people are up there on the deck surrounding the pool. It should be easy enough to get there, just push off from the bottom, or shoot, just float up to the surface, and I could climb out and be with all the normal people, but I can't move. I can't even float. (I'm not drowning because I don't need any air because I'm not breathing.)
    This reminds me of a story Haruki Murakami wrote about man who got dumped in a dry well in Mongolia. Somehow he managed to survive the fall to the bottom, but there was no water, and no way to climb out. So he sat at the bottom of the well and waited. If I recall correctly, eventually someone came by and pulled him out. He went back to Japan and eventually wound up as "therapist" to rich Japanese women. The "therapy" consisted of sitting in the same room with this guy. Something about him made the women feel better. (What can I say? It's a Murakami story.) Now that he is successful, he was a well dug outside his house and occasionally goes down there (with a ladder) to recharge himself.
    Which reminds me of Rose's Dungeon of Resentment, which is where I got the illustration.
    Funny thing about depression. I remember getting one of those useless healthy living newsletters and it had a list of symptoms of depression, and I read down through it and said, no, that's not me. A week later my wife reads the same list and says "you're depressed, and you're going to the doctor". She was right. Prozac basically saved my life. You're only supposed to take it for six months or so, by which time you should be better, but here it is 15 years later and I'm still taking it. Occasionally I will try going off of it, but it never seems to go well. It's not there is any big outward difference, but I notice that some small things change, like my temper gets a little shorter, so I go back to taking it again. It's gone off patent, so you can get the generic version.

Hard Case

Brain scan of white matter fibers, brainstem and above. The fibers are color coded by direction: red = left-right, green = anterior-posterior, blue = ascending-descending (RGB=XYZ). The Human Connectome Project, a $40-million endeavor funded by the National Institutes of Health, aims to plot connections within the brain that enables the complex behaviors our brains perform so seamlessly. Courtesy of the Laboratory of Neuro Imaging at UCLA and Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging at MGH. This image is not really connected to this story, but hey, cool brain picture.

Grouchy, angry, irritable and depressed: the hard cases

October 08, 2013 By Melissa Healy in the Los Angeles Times

    After languishing for years in the shadows of psychiatry's definition of adult depression, irritability is finally getting some respect again. It's about damned time, you might say.
    A new study has found that people suffering a major depressive episode who report they have become grouchy, hostile, grumpy, argumentative, foul-tempered or angry will likely have a "more complex, chronic and severe form" of major depressive disorder than those who do not acknowledge irritable feelings and behavior.
    We're not talking about a small minority of the depressed either: In this 30-year study of 536 subjects who first presented with depression, 54% acknowledged irritability in feelings and behavior. And while cussedness is increasingly recognized as a hallmark of depression in men,  the current study found that a majority of women fell into its "irritable" group as well.
    Compared with the merely sad, guilt-ridden and lethargic, the irritable depressed had more severe depressive symptoms. They stayed depressed for longer. They relapsed more readily. And they were more likely to experience other psychiatric conditions as well, including anxiety and substance abuse disorders, impulse-control problems and antisocial behavior, the study showed.
    The difference between the two groups was so stark as to suggest that major depression with "overt irritability/anger" might be diagnosed and treated as a distinct form of the disorder, requiring more intensive treatment, the authors wrote.
    Indeed, the researchers suggested, such depression may spring from different biological origins than depression in which manifestations of anger or irritability are absent. That is also suggested by the study's finding that subjects expressing irritability were more likely than those who did not to have a family history of bipolar disorder.
    The latest research, published in the journal JAMA Psychiatry, began in 1978 to track 536 adult Americans in five U.S. cities who were seeking help for an episode of major depressive disorder. Researchers interviewed subjects about their symptoms twice a year for the first five years and at least once a year thereafter for an average of more than 16 years. More than 45% of the subjects were followed for 20 or more years, giving researchers an unusually detailed perspective on the long-term course of depression.
    The study's authors did not count those who said they experienced "occasional snappiness" among the depressed and irritable. To be counted in that group, a subject was required to acknowledge he or she was "somewhat argumentative and quick to express annoyance," that he or she "often shouts or loses temper" or that he or she "throws things, breaks windows, or is occasionally assaultive." In the most extreme manifestation of irritability, a subject would be "repeatedly violent against things or people."
    Irritability is formally seen as a hallmark of major depressive disorder in children and adolescents. But in 1987, the American Psychiatric Assn. dropped it as a diagnostic criterion of major depressive disorder in adults.

I'm depressed, and often grouchy, hostile, grumpy, argumentative, foul-tempered or angry. Been that way for a long time. I take Prozac. Been taking it for a long time. It is only supposed to be effective for six months or so. It still seems to help. I am better behaved if I get enough sleep, but that is like a full time job. It goes better now that I quit trying to get a solid eight hours. Now I sleep for two or three hours, then I'll get up for an hour or two, then go back to sleep for three or four hours. And I'll take a nap in the afternoon. By the time I get up at 5PM I have finally gotten my eight hours and I am good to go, well, until one or two in the morning when I start the whole thing over again. My wife pointed out this story to me. I wonder why.

P.S. Just went for a walk and Yosemite Sam popped into my mind. Think he might be the archetype for a depressed grump?