QUESTION? PSYCHIATRY & SLEEP DISORDERS
Question:
My sleep doc told me that medication is used to treat central sleep apnea. It’s probably true for other neurological-based sleep disorders too. Elise – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -Lynfen2 wrote: > I must be lucky or something.I had a relapse > of depression was seeing a psyhiatrist who > didn’t listen. Luckily I found one that listened > to the sleep problems I was having[hallucina- > tions upon falling asleep, sleep walking and > referred me to a sleep specilalist after just one > visit. The sleep doctors listened too.THE > end result is you can have depresssion and > a sleep disorder . I have parasomnias, > sleepwalking, sl osa and inability to maintain > sleep. (going to sleep was never a problem. > the doctors at the sleep center told me that > they thought the parasominas might be due to > a biochemical inbalance since antidepressents > had reduce from daily to 2=3 times a week > the episodes of sleep terrors. Research in > depression points to chemical imbalances > Thankfully medication has made halllucinations an infrequent thing. However > i still struggle with depression so maybe there > are two types of chemical imbalaces one > with associated with depresssion and one > with sleep parasomnias. I know there has > been much research into serotonin in > depression, Has any one heard of high or > low levels of other chemicals that are > associated with sleep disorders…. > It’ really hard to find info, lots on osa but > little on the other stuff.
Response:
I must be lucky or something.I had a relapse of depression was seeing a psyhiatrist who didn’t listen. Luckily I found one that listened to the sleep problems I was having[hallucina- tions upon falling asleep, sleep walking and referred me to a sleep specilalist after just one visit. The sleep doctors listened too.THE end result is you can have depresssion and a sleep disorder . I have parasomnias, sleepwalking, sl osa and inability to maintain sleep. (going to sleep was never a problem. the doctors at the sleep center told me that they thought the parasominas might be due to a biochemical inbalance since antidepressents had reduce from daily to 2=3 times a week the episodes of sleep terrors. Research in depression points to chemical imbalances Thankfully medication has made halllucinations an infrequent thing. However i still struggle with depression so maybe there are two types of chemical imbalaces one with associated with depresssion and one with sleep parasomnias. I know there has been much research into serotonin in depression, Has any one heard of high or low levels of other chemicals that are associated with sleep disorders…. It’ really hard to find info, lots on osa but little on the other stuff.
Response:
Thanks for replying everyone. Druth, I agree with Gary. Can you give us more info. on this. Marge
Response:
On 2 Sep 98 07:43:21 GMT, after having stubbed my toe on the damned stairwell, I was temporarily distracted when ww…@vtn1.victoria.tc.ca (Gary Greene) wrote: >x-no-archive: yes >It’s common knowledge that depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive >disorder, compulsive personality, and various stress states >have concurrent sleep disruptions, yet these problems are rarely >mentioned in this group — or at least this is the first time >I have seen it discussed. And the tone of the post implies that >the connection is not often made. >Can I ask Druth, who seems knowledgeable about the subject, >to expand on the points he mentions? What sleep-study data >would be used, and how would they be used?
Gary, Owing to constraints of time, I regret that I cannot do the research and provide the studies (furthermore, it has never appeared to matter how much research I demonstrate to prove my point 
). I have seen literature which describes certain characteristics of polysomnography data that is consistent with depressive illnesses. For instance, among other criteria the placement of REM sleep during a night of sleep can be telling. In the DSM-IV, the psychiatrist’s "bible", reference is made to polysomnography data in depressive illnesses. This is a start! I believe you can find some information in the Medline database. "Psychiatric Polysomnography" is even more novel than the sleep sciences themselves, and there is a horizon of road yet to cover. In time, polysomnography data will be used to look at these psychiatric illnesses, and we will find that many of these diseases will, ultimately, through the combining of the sleep sciences with psychiatry, find their geneses in the earliest manifestations of disordered sleep (disordered sleep also can spawn mental, "cognitive" progressions which can later be recognized and classified as aberrant according to traditional criteria for mental illnesses, but which will equally have lost their etiologic context). The inability to see the late-staged sequelae of the sleep disorder is rampant today, and is owing to an embryonic state of medicine; the ability to see long-term cause and effect relationships has always been weak in medicine, and only the imminent and acute assocations have been easier to discern, at first; this flaw borne from impulsivity and the lack of longitudinal study becomes magnified even more in the realm of sleep and mental health. For instance, no doctor could fathom that one could find those who had sleep apnea in ther childhood by taking a tour through a local homeless shelter. Therefore, today, so far, there is a strong (though incipient) correlation between only depressive illnesses and polysomnographic findings. We hope the trend continues, and that this enlightenment moves forward in perpetuity. To seek out these ends, it is vital that psychiatric and sleep disciplines converge upon the science of polysomnography. We will find that sleep is at the root of much mental illness, as well as psychological decay. D
