Hazelwood Lyle wrote:

> The greatest relief I've found so far, though it was only passing, began
> when I woke from having my Gall Bladder removed. I felt absolutely
> WONDERFUL, beginning only a few minutes after I woke from the surgery.
> Its removal was not for gallstones, but for a long-undiagnosed infection
> that was affecting my general (and mental) health. 
> 
> Please, I don't mean to detract at all from those suffering depression.
> I'm not claiming to be anything but a very interested reader who wants
> to find his own path to a better life. Unfortunately, mood altering
> drugs are a bit dangerous for me, but I'll be reading and learning
> whatever I can from this thread. 

(PC Disclaimer: All "IMO" and not claiming to know what's good for you.
Take it or leave it.)

I know from personal experience that chronic infections can very well bring
all the symptoms that are generally attributed to depression. Depression is
one of these "diseases" that are not really diseases. (Which isn't meant to
be constructed as "are not real" :) 

Depression, epilepsy, schizophrenia, "diseases" like these are different
from, say, a flu because they don't have a clear cause. (Even with the flu
it's not quite clear why one gets you and another not, but at least there's
that virus that gets you when it does.) Those "diseases" are not much more
than descriptions of a (pretty vague) symptomatic picture. And of a bunch
of drugs that are given experimentally, until the "right one" is found. The
causes are pretty much unknown (try applying the "why question" sometime to
the claimed causes; you won't have to go far) and I think that while
experiences of others can serve as very helpful guides, everybody really
has to get to their own bottom of it and figure it out.

I think there's more to it ("it" being our ability to experience ourselves,
work with ourselves) than drug-driven medicine wants to admit.
Incidentally, it is this what brought me to Brazil. Sometimes the measures
need to be radical :)

Gerhard

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