You know,
Jelainep, I have a lot of questions about
depression, too. I have experienced it on and off since appx 1978. I have these questions because altho I was a fairly (not severely) anxious child -- mostly just a worry wart -- I was never a 'down' child or type of person. I would never have expected I would suffer from depression. And agreed, the Lyme depression was the very worst and was completely different than any other depression I had experienced.
My questions have to do w/ depression and illnesses like fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome, possibly chronic Lyme. I do not know a lot about those illnesses. But the couple of people that I have known who are sick w/ these, it seems that some kind of virus and/or depression was a part of their past medical history. This (depession) would have been close to 40 yrs ago and was probably never diagnosed. I just knew these women were always in bed and did not drive. (one was my ex-mother-in-law) No one ever knew why they were always in bed and it was never discussed. Then, later in life they received diagnoses of CFS and fibromyalgia.
Anyway, somehow, all of these things -- depression, chronic Lyme, , CFS, fibro, MS, and others are somehow tied up together. Maybe not always, but so many times it seems that a depression preceded these illnesses. I do believe that people may experience profound sadnesses in their lives, but a clinical depression does not always seem to be caused by any particular thing or experience.
So I am wondering if this predisposition to depression originates w/ something very physical, like an unknown virus or unknown immune disorder. And that it sometimes progresses, leaving someone susceptible to chronic lyme. And that is maybe why some people are cured and some never are. Maybe 2 weeks abx cures many people, but not those of us w/ certain predispostions or susceptibilities or pre-existing conditions.
This would explain the amount of ingnorance in the medical field. They don't know enough about the origins and triggers of clinical depression. It would require enormous amounts of studies over many years to discover the links between all these. The sufferers/patients seem to know some things are connected, but the Drs sure don't. Seems that figuring out which came first, the chicken or the egg, is something at which the medical profession most often fails.
Maybe that is why so many ID Drs think we're suffering from mental problems and not an infection. (because we are suffering from mental problems!)
I think we need a lot more answers about clinical depression. How it originates and where it has come from. Maybe that would answer a lot of our questions.
We've discussed this many times before -- There are many who are misdiagnosed w/ MS, ALS, CFS, etc when they really have lyme which is treatable. But I also believe that many times these people do have these illnesses and they were caused by Lyme. It would also be very interesting to spend some time on those other boards and try to learn how many of these people previously suffered from some unknown virus or depression.
Still, please note that my first diagnosis of clinical depression was preceded by an undiagnosed illness of some sort that was very suspiciously preceded by a known tick bite. It was an extremely engorged tick and the illness came exactly one week later. So maybe Lyme is the root of all of it. I wonder if we'll ever figure it all out!