Diabetes and depression

hya and welcome,
sorry to hear you are feeling so bad, i used to suffer severe depression and anxiety with agorophobia so understand how you feel, i would see your gp again and ask for different meds, there are so many available, see if there are any depression self help groups in your area or ask your gp if he can refer you to a psychologist or community mental health team
i have had experience of these and they were very helpful, if there is any other questions you have, just ask...

Hi Bazza159

Also been a sufferer of depression on and off for years so I have a good idea how you feel.
As totsy suggests go back to your Dr to see if they can change your meds and see if you can get a referral.
Keep reading in this forum and post if you can - It will help you realise that you are not alone
Bright blessings to you

Hi Bazza,
Depression is difficult to understand if you have never suffered with it and there are varying degrees. It is a word that is used very easily by some people. Fed up, bored etc. is not depression as some people think.
As a sufferer you have my sympathy, it is one of the most misunderstood conditions by society as no one else can see your suffering and think that your moodiness,sometimes anger or withdrawal
is your personality. Some sufferers are very good at hiding how they feel but that doesn't detract from the fact that their condition is real and they are experiencing feeling of hopelessness and confusion.
Modern anti-depressants do not have the side effects associated with the older ones and are quite safe. It is really trial and error to get one that suits you and it can take from 4 - 6 weeks for them to kick in.
IMHO talking therapies are a great way forward so I would ask your Dr. to refer you a.s.a.p. The waiting lists are long because, like every other discipline in the Health Service, therapists have long waiting lists and are thin on the ground. If you have private medical insurance this may be included on your policy.
Exercise can also help, nothing too strenuous, walking can lift your mood. If you don't like the idea of walking alone is there someone who would accompany you? Is there a friend you trust to listen and be non judgemental about your thoughts and feelings?
Some people find that the diagnosis of diabetes brings on depression and this is quite a normal
reaction. You are grieving for your old lifestyle which didn't include diabetes. That has gone and now you are facing a commitment to managing a condition that you didn't ask for and it is quite daunting.
Keep coming back to the forum and ask for any help that you need, we are here for you.
Regards, Catherine.

Yes anti-depressants can have unhelpful side effects, for me they stopped the depression, but only because they made me not care about anything. Messed up my sleep too. I'm very upset that I was ever prescribed them, I was depressed because I had been diagnosed with diabetes, and was in a very bad relationship with someone very difficult (Asburger's syndrome), and was having problems with my university course, I think being depressed was a normal healthy reaction to my situation, and my doctor knew all these things yet still drugged me rather than advising I sort out my problems. Sorry about the rant.

Talking can be a big help, if you don't like the counciller etc who you first see, talk to a different one, sometimes you can just not get on with the first person. You can't get bad side effects from talking! Any social contact can help too, maybe you could think about what used to interest you (I know being interested in anything is hard with depression, but think about anything you have done in the past) and join some clubs etc? book groups, that sort of thing.

As Catherine says exercise can be good, walking can be very helpful.

I hope you find something that works, and that using this forum helps!

Hi im feeling down and cant get motivated . Bs 's are not good and been told to supplment byetta with insulin !!!!! feel like im going backwards not forwards and just want to cry but wont let it beat me anyone in the same position ??

Re: Diabetes and depression
by jojorowcol on Thu Feb 26, 2009 9:29 pm

Hi im feeling down and cant get motivated . Bs 's are not good and been told to supplment byetta with insulin !!!!! feel like im going backwards not forwards and just want to cry but wont let it beat me anyone in the same position ??
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hi Jojo,

I too have suffered from depression, and like yourself just now I am struggling with my diagnosis from the consultants.

I think its more, for me anyway, like everyone says, a pining of sorts from pre-diabetes, when life seemed easier, you could go where you wanted, when you wanted and eat when and if you felt like it lol. Now everything is so regimented and for a majorly unorganised person like myself it is no mean feat. I have a full-time (and v stressful job), 2 young children who seem to have a club to go to nearly every day, a house to run and a hubby whos shifts aint the earliest finishes. Sometimes it gets too much and I fell very isolated and down, I feel out of control and I blame the medication, for if I didn't have to take so much time out of my day every day to deal with it, coping with everything else would be easier.

I know thats not the case but it makes me feel better having something to blame.

I struggle with my meds as with most of them I suffer side effectes. The Byetta seems to have stopped working though and my apetite has no longer gone, its always there so I have to control my eating by willpower, and when your down it aint easy. Glucophage gives me terrible tummy ache, my thyroxines almost off the chart. I also have terrible back pain (moreso recently muscle spasms) in which I have to take methocarbamol and diclofenac, when I take these i'm no use to anyone, its almost like i'm drunk, can't speak or coordinate very well, okay when your at home but bad when your at work and you have to take them .

I live in hope that once my meds are sorted and I have some control back I wil feel better and a bit more organised.

Bazza, you could try contacting the mental health charity MIND. They're extremely helpful, have a wealth of advice available and run support groups etc. for anyone who has problems. I wish you the very best of luck, depression is a horrible illness.

No one antidepressant has more than about 60% efficacy. However somewhere around 85% or more of depressives are helped by one or more meds.

What does this tell you? Well it suggests to me that like Type 2 it's a multifactorial illness and different forms require different approaches.

Also there may be an interraction with BG control, many of my "mental" symptoms were worsened by BG jumping from near-diabetic levels to near-hypo levels several times a day: the drops release quantities of cortisol and adrenaline and other neuroendocrines.

I went from 225 mg venlafaxine to 37.5 mg with fewer symptoms purely from levelling out my BG, and (probably) due to a combination of D3 supplementation and the sun finally coming out I have dropped to 17.75 mg/day. Thyroid is well worth checking with diabetes and depression, endocrine problems sometimes follow one another around.