I am not a doctor, and I am only one patient, so what I am about to say is
not to be construed as advice for anyone else to follow. It is merely my own
personal experience. I suffered from one of the severest forms of depression,
Bipolar Type II with extremely rapid cycling. The episodes would come upon my
like someone dropping bricks on my head. I could feel the descent of the
nightmare and watch it overtake me within seconds. I was told that in many
cases, the faster the cycling, the deeper the episodes were. Mine would last
anywhere from a few hours to a few days of intolerable, excruciating psychic
pain, and the hours and days in between were simply like a drowning person
coming to the surface gasping for air. What I am trying to communicate here
is how bad it was. For 13 years I was on over a dozen different
antidepressants, mood stabilizers, and anti-anxiety drugs and combinations of
these. I was rarely stable for longer than a few weeks at a time, without
needing changes in medications and/or dosages. And in addition, I could have
been the side effect poster queen, making it ever so much more difficult for
me to find any kind of successful treatment. A number of times I attempted to
get off medications altogether using every kind of "natural" treatments I or
my doctors knew about. Within a month or so I was invariably back on
medications. I cannot advise people what treatments might work, since I am
not qualified to do so, but I will say that a low carbohydrate diet (a sort
of cross between Atkins and Paleo) and at least a tablespoon or more of
flaxseed oil a day forms the cornerstone of what helped me crawl out of the
abyss. Fistfuls of other supplements round out my program. In 3 weeks I will
celebrate my one year anniversary without any prescription medications, and,
more importantly, a year living with a sense of stability that I have not
known in the 13 years I spent on prescription drugs. My doctor is astounded.
I can never say that I may never need medical treatment again; I can only say
that what I am doing now is working for me now. Each case is different, but
one should never lose hope.

Maddy Stratton