Posted by pellmell on September 14, 2002, at 11:46:35
In reply to You ARE on to something, posted by Arthur Gibson on September 14, 2002, at 3:48:45
I've never been suicidal, and fortunately am not even in a major depressive episode at the moment, but this dysthymia thing (or maybe it's cyclothymia, since my newish pdoc decided a few weeks ago I should start taking Depakote) I've got is life-suckingly persistent and so very hard to shake. And even though my life sucks a lot of the time, I know, from my own intuition, fiction I've read, and peoples' stories here, I'm still one of the lucky ones.
Anyway, to the point: a couple of weeks ago I'd been having trouble falling alseep before like 3am, so I bought a little package of diphenhydramine. (did you ever notice that the bastards at most drugstores charge nearly a dollar more for their store-brand versions of the stuff if it's packaged as a "sleep aid" rather than an allergy med?) I slept a bit more deeply, it seemed, the night I took it, but the next couple of days I felt a good deal more depressed: my symptoms of social avoidance, slowed thinking, hopelessness, etc., just flared up. I thought it might just be the normal course of my condition until I took a diphenhydramine pill a week later and felt the same thing again. I've also noticed that my Benadryl drowsiness "hangover" seems to last the entire next day, even if I'd only taken 25mg the night before. Though I wouldn't explain my exacerbated symptoms on the drowsiness effect alone: being drowsy from lack of sleep doesn't do that to me.
P.S.- what is the difference in mechanism of action between a histamine blocker and an antihistamine, anyway?
poster:pellmell
thread:119815
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20020914/msgs/119838.html