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Comment by Klockan | Hacker News Reader

> exercise, acupuncture, aromatherapy, drugs, meditation, float tanks, social interaction, music, intensely flavored foods, cold therapy, saunas, electroshock therapy, etc.

None of those are guaranteed to work though, a significant number of depressed people never gets over it and it wouldn't be that way if we knew effective treatment methods.

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The current answer is we don’t yet have full functional pathologies of types of depression, noninvasive, specific mood disorders classified down to exact neurological dysfunctions, accurate and precise knowledge of how existing antidepressants work and evidenced-based application of particular therapies based on such scientifically-identified presentations. Clinical psychiatry has been mostly a scattergun, guesswork that lacks scientific rigor.

For example, I just tapered-off mirtazepene as it stopped working after 9 years and, so far, bupropion isn’t helping. I’d really like to try S32212 if it proves safe enough in human models because it likely lacks the GI and weight-gain issues.

I've tried almost every anti depressant on the market and none of them worked. What did work for me is kratom. I've been taking it daily for about six months and it has completely turned around my mood and general enthusiasm. There are some minor side effects but they went away after six weeks or so. I know it might frowned upon to recommend what is basically an opiate for depression, but it has been a minor miracle for me.

And what if your depression is cause of beliefs/behaviors and not curable with pills?

Sublingual ketamine has worked well for my girlfriends depression. Dissolved into water at 30mg/mL, she takes 1mL every three to four weeks. A threshold dose, the dissasociative effects are rather weak there, but the antidepressant effects are rather rapid and work wonders for her.

If you’re in the US, I believe you can go to clinics and have it administered by a doctor which is safer.

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