The Unhelpful Doctor: Seasonal Affective Disorder

An example of a really unhelpful doctor dealing with a patient with seasonal affective disorder.

Created using Xtranormal.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• depression
• seasonal
• affective
• disorder
• doctor
• appointment
• GP
• general
• practitioner
• sad
• winter
• blues
• health
• clinic
• clinical
• unhelpful

[macnutz]

I also have problems with sad. It starts in the autumn every year. Pot does help temporarily. I know a fellow who bought one of those expensive complete spectrum light panels. He says it helps him. It's a curse but it doesn't hit me as hard now as it did in my twenties and thirties. I suspect it never really goes away. At 60 it is still a factor in life.

[nephthysuk]

@macnutz I used to live in Central America (no winter) so I thought I was just aclimatising but it has never gone away. 24 years now...

[blc341]

they also talk like robots too

[nephthysuk]

@blc341 Yeah, some do. ;o)

[nephthysuk]

@PostSurgeOperative I kill plants (not deliberately). I bought a small rose and a cyclamen and put them on my dek at work, the flowers fell off the rose and nearly all the leaves have fallen off the cyclamen (within about 48hrs). I just don't know how to keep plants alive.

[PostSurgeOperative]

@nephthysuk The best cure for SAD I know of is cannabis. Whether smoked, made into tea, or baked into biscuits, it works great!

In most of the US, doctors are prohibited from prescribing cannabis for SAD, so they give their patients a wink and a nudge, and tell them to get a full spectrum light. The light alone is helpful for some people, but it works best in combination with cannabis plants--even if you don't consume the cannabis--because it improves indoor air quality!

[nephthysuk]

@Elenkhos I have two lightboxes, one at home, one at work, a dawn simulation light, sertraline, still got problems. I have felt horrendous for over a week (october is an awful month for me).

[Elenkhos]

Here the doctors will tell people to get a full spectrum light box and sit in front of it. My friend suffers from this, as well as I , but I don't use the box I just lay around like a beached whale. He was complaining that the boxes were upwards to three hundred dollars and told him, just go to the art store, they sell the light bulbs,get a cardboard box, line it with aluminum foil and use it. It cost him $8, and it helped him dramatically.