Taking Hydrocodone For Depression (Page 24)
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I am wondering if anybody else out there has taken Hydrocodone and noticed that symptoms of depression are alleviated? I find that many of today's anti-anxiety and antidepressant drugs come with unpleasant side effects, whereas while taking Hydrocodone they aren't there. The caveat to all of this is that yes, I know that Hydrocodone and opiates in general can be addictive. So long term use would result in withdrawal symptoms. I'm just wondering who else might agree with me on this?

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I can tell you that this person who wants to collect IP addresses would not gain the attention of the authorities and would not provide enough evidence to prosecute someone. I specialize in network security, cryptography, cyber ethics, and cyber law with multiple college degrees and advanced degrees. They are blowing smoke, whether they realize it or not. I can say that they are just on here wasting time. Yes, they have the right to say pretty much what they want, I can promise you that a governmental agency would not give this situation time of the day. Please take what I am saying from experience. Not experience in practicing this, but based on significant research and the departments, which I will not name, I have worked for. You have any idea how easy it is to spoof your IP address? This person has no idea what they are talking about on this forum.

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Hi Halfshellie, I've been reading up on your posts. While over the past few months, I have had 4 surgeries. I am seeing a pain management doctor and have been weened off of dilaudid thankfully. I am currently on hyrocodone 10/325 x 5 per day. I do have good days in regards to no or little pain. So I do not take the medication. However, I know that my depression that I have suffered with for the past 15 to 20 years comes back. I have tried probably 12 to 15 different depression medication. Nothing has ever worked. So, I tried taking a hydrocodone and it has helped with my depression. I am allowed to take up to 5 hydrocodones a day. If I do not need to take it in regards to having pain, such as on a good day, I will take two pills a day as my depression sinks in very quickly and very deeply. Even before I had my first hydrocodone nothing worked. I at first did experience a euphoria at first. However I do not anymore. However, while I am allowed 5 pills a day, if I don't need them I don't take them. However I will take 1 10/325 hydrocodone twice a day and that helps me out with my depression and lasts.
I work in the IT field. I noticed you stated in your post that you are having trouble with the web editor. I would love to help you with getting this site up as I have experience in this area. Please let me know if you want help.

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I read what you said Tony. I'm not mad or anything but I'm curious about something. Are you now or have you ever been diagnosed with depression

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I was agreeing with Tony if the site does not show that...

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I agree whole heartedly with this statement. I usually use dance as a way of producing endorphins in my brain and keeping myself in shape, more free from emotional pain, and my confidence up. Lately though, I Havnt had the money to go to classes and have slowly been falling into a more depressed state. It's somewhat off and on but I've become very self critical, jealous, and almost hopeless at times. Hydro helps me feel relief from this but I still realize that its a horrible habit and addiction to pick up. I know how "anything that helps" feels and I am fighting to avoid it myself but its not a good thing to pick up, get into, and simply accept.

Happiness is earned. For some of us its a harder task than others but I believe that there are much better alternatives out there. Be strong you guys. I'm with you.

Ps: I also need to be careful of its effects on the liver because of a pre existing liver condition so I guess I have extra motivation.

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I totally agree. I was prescribed a cough syrup with hydrocodone and my depression and anxiety completely went away when I would take it. I am going to talk to my Dr. about perhaps putting me on a program with hydrocodone. I doubt he will though as I heard it is addictive and a controlled substance. If I could take this every day, I could give up all the other meds they have me on.

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I found this discussion thread while searching for any information on Vicodin as a treatment for depression. I was diagnosed with depression 10 years ago and take Effexor and Welbutrin daily. I was recently prescribed Vicodin after knee surgery and noticed a profound remission of my depression symptoms. I don't feel 'high', but I feel an optimism about my life - my job, future, relationships, that I've not felt in over a decade. Believe me, I would much prefer to avoid ANY medication, and the last thing I wast to do is create an addiction to Vicodin. But I'd like to understand if any science is behind this or if it's just my interpretation. Maybe there is a different antidepressant that operates on the same chemical principles?

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BOZO, thank you. I agree.

I would just like to caution that a very common side effect of using opiate, including Hydrocodone, is constipation. It can be severe and necessitate medical intervention.

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Always tell your Dr. amd lawyer EVERYTHING. That's the best policy, and let the chips fall where they may.

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I appreciate the posts explaining how hydrocodone is able to relieve depressive symptoms. I'm trying to get up the nerve to discuss this with a doctor. I'm having an awful time with depression. A friend offers me hydrocodone, but I don't want it, unless I can get my own prescription.

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@ Donna.
a state leader for the american pain society? collecting IP addresses? what the hell is that going to do? you have no idea what you are talking about, especially when it comes to opioids. if you did, you would know the role opioids play in firing of dopaminergic neurons within the ventral tegmental area and nucleus accumbens which would result in almost immediate cessation of depressive symptoms in most people. and the fact that some people get no remission of symptoms from ssri's because they actually lack normal function of endogenous opioids.
there are many people who could benefit from this type of therapy. and fyi, the withdrawal from any ssri would rival, if not surpass, a low dose hydrocodone therapy.

@ Halfshellie
Thank you for sharing your story! Interesting read. Mine is number 17 on here. I tried to go to the website but it is still under construction. I think this would help alot of people. Its awesome that you have a doc willing to work with you. No telling where you would be without her.

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I found Hydrocodone extremely helpful in recovering from a severe depressive episode. For me, it is extremely constipating, so I'm not attracted to using it routinely. I happened to have some left over from when I had lower back pain. But it is used up now. I'm afraid to ask any doctor to let me have a small amount of hydrocodone for relief from severe depression.
I think it is wrong that someone like myself, with no history of substance abuse, cannot have this available as a tool to arrest severe downward spirals. But I wouldn't even have the temerity to ask a doctor to give me a prescription. I don't think that the doctor would be able to legally do this. I have heard of some depressives receiving opiates for depression relief in special studies. I wish I could be allowed that.

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Hi Kay,@Kay,

I have been working on the website but am having a hard time using the website editor. I want to get it up as soon as possible. So much is happening all over the news concerning opiates that I feel the website would be noticed now. I don't want people to suffer like I did. The address is going to be opiates4depression.com. I hope to have it up by 10/3/11 or 10/4/11. I am working with GoDaddy and I think I need to use an less sophisticated editor .

I had the same success that you did when I started using hydrocodone as an antidepressant. I had been using xanax and didn't need to take that anymore. My mood became much better when I didn't need to take it. Hydrocodone should be used as off-label antidepressant again. We are proof that it works.

I'm so glad that you posted here again. I was getting frustrated with the website editor and really needed to read your post. I'm going to work hard on it this weekend and get it done. It is timely and will get noticed. As soon as I publish it I will post here.

Thanks again for sending me the post. I wasn't giving up (I spent an hour on the phone with GoDaddy last nightl) but I didn't work on it today and I was losing some momentum. I really think that somehow you were meant to write that post so I didn't give up. I know that sounds goofy but I really believe that. And I'm glad that I'm not alone. Thank you and you'll hear from me soon.

Halfshellie

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@halfshellie,

Have u started the website and if so, what is the name? I also wanted to add that taking my antidepressants always make me tired and sleepy but when I take my hydrocodone it does not. I never take more than what I am prescribed and sometimes less. I understand when u say it helps u feel normal and not depressed. For me instead of feeling overwhelmed or anxious, I do feel like I can handle life. That is the best way for me to describe it.

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Dear halfshellie,

I am in total agreement with you. I was diagnosed with PTSD, panic attacks and depression over 10 yrs ago. I take clonezapam, buspirone, venlafaxine. I started taking hydrocodone (10/325) a few yrs. ago for ankle/back pain (pins in ankle). I have noticed the changes of my mental state since then. My dosage of the other meds have even decreased. Went from taking 6 mg daily to 1 mg a day of my clonezapam.
A website would b great showing that there are other medications to help with depression/mental disorders. Instead of taking 4-5 different meds, I only need to take .05 clonezapm a day and reduced my other meds. I plan on talking to my therapist about this.

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@ Ann
Yes, I felt I had to address that comment.

The more I research this the more concerned I get about this issue. I spoke with my doctor about this and she feels that for patients that are using the medication for pain that they may have to increase their dose. She is a psychiatrist and not a pain doctor, however she does treat people with chronic pain. I am her only patient that uses this medication for depression. however I have been sending her the links to all of the research I have done the past 6 days and I hope to change that. As well, I am a walking talking test subject. I think that for pain patients they have to increase their dose because they think that if they can't feel the euphoria of hydrocodone that it isn't working. For those of us who take it for MDD we are so happy to have our depression in remission we don't want to feel that euphoria, we want to feel normal, like ourselves before the MDD. This is only my opinion. But I am starting a website over this controversial issue. I don't think anyone else should suffer. This is society and the government telling MDD patients that we can't use a narcotic to relieve our depression and as a result hydrocodone fell into oblivion. I really want to change this and I feel that I am not alone. There must be others who use this the same way I do and are prescribed this for depression. I hope there is. I don't want to give out the website address because I am not looking to advertise but keep googling for opiates and depression and you will come across my website. I am still working on it and haven't uploaded it yet but it will be done by the weekend. This will be a place for support where we don't have to be afraid. My contact information will be available there so that I alone can defend this position. I think, so far as I can see, that I am qualified to be the so called "poster child" for the effectiveness of this medication.

I don't forget how awful it was to live with MDD and I never will. When I say that my life was circling the drain that is putting in mildly. I don't run to this medication when something goes wrong in my life or when I am feeling down (yes, people with MDD do feel down every now again just like people without MDD). I don't have to because I know I can address it and handle it like a person without MDD would. The thing is I just can't believe the number of people who have treatment resistant depression - TRD and here we have a researched antidepressant that works and no one is using it. That is absolutely ridiculous. When I think of the poor souls out there suffering it breaks my heart. The more SSRI's I tried that didn't work the more hopeless I became. Hydrocodone is a lot like the SSRI's where it takes a bit of time to reach it's full effectiveness. I kept a journal through all of my experiences with the different antidepressants and upon review I see it took about 3 weeks before I was truly feeling like myself (the good and the bad) again after starting hydrocodone. I wrote in that journal that my doctor told me not to see my life through "rose colored glasses" and I never did. I think she meant the euphoria of the medication. Like I said my life was in the dumper and I had a lot of work to do to get it back on track and that took a good year and half of hard work. However I was able to pull it back up and would never have been able to do that without hydrocodone. When I think of where I could be now without it it scares the beejeezus out of me. I am sure that I would have been either institutionalized or dead. I am not joking about that. I should also mention that MDD runs in my family and that I have had 3 aunts who were institutionalized (documented) and one died in an institution. That was my reality. Even now my hands shake when I think about it. Anyway thanks for your support and keep looking for me on the net. God bless and good luck to everyone. Remember this, don't let anyone talk you out of what works for you. Do the research and follow protocol. My new website is going to be able to help those people who are refused this medication by providing links and evidence of it's effectiveness.

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To Halfshellie. Thank you. That is the point I was trying to make when when one of the comment writers was threatening all of us, I think everone on this page was taking Hydrocodone for legit reasons when they accidently found out that it did more than relieve physical pain. It helped the emotional pain and not by getting high. Unfortunately a lot of people believe that if you are taking Hydrocodone for anything other that physical injury, then you are abusing it. I also agree with you about the Oxycodone. I do take it for post surgical pain. But it makes me irritable. Good luck to all of you and God Bless.

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If you are experiencing depression every day then you should try taking 5mg twice a day. Taking a double dose probably does give you a feeling of euphoria and that's not good either, it only distorts reality. I am certainly not telling anyone what to do but if your depression is like mine where it never goes away then why live with it?

I take 10mg a day, 5mg 2x's a day, and my depression has been in remission for 4 years. I did try to take oxycodone as a substitute for hydrocodone. It made me feel sad. There is something in hydrocodone that isn't in other mem opiates. I am sensitive to chemicals and the relationship I have with body/mind is close. I rely on this relationship to guide me, so to say, when trying anything new especially medication.
I have to say this....It bothers me to hear someone say that they will report someone else if they think that person is abusing pain medication. I want to point out as well that this person is not qualified. Untreated mdd leads to not only physical abnormalities such as shrinking of the brain but psychological abnormalities as well. Not only that, why does one happy healthy American want to deny another the same? Unless they are not a happy healthy American. There is no abuse going on here but off label use and that's legal. If there is a medication that saves your life but you can't take it because that isn't what the medication is meant for is absurd. No physician in the world would not give you that medication. Hydrocodone saved my life. My life was circling the drain (to my standards) until I started to take it. I challenge anyone who would try to take that away from me. I am more than happy to give you my name and address and save you the trouble of trying to find me from an IP address.

Up to 40% of people have treatment resistant depression - TRD. What does that mean? It means that a little over 1 million people are walking around not living up to the American standard. Who knows what contributions these persons might make if they weren't suffering? I'm outraged at this. Taking 10mg of hydrocodone does not make anyone a drug addict. Drugs are not bad it is abuse that is bad. Really, I haven't read something so ridiculous in years, since I was a teaching 11th grade and they had an excuse. It doesn't surprise me that person is a "state leader". It should remind us all to vote even in the smallest elections.

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I was astonished at what hydrocodone did for my depression when it was prescribed for me for back pain. I did not need all my tablets because my back pain resolved and I very seldom have any problem with my back. I take medication for depression, but in the past year have had more severe depression. I have been diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder, as opposed to "dysthymia," which had been my diagnosis for years. I found that, if my depressive mood became very severe, taking 2 Vicodin (5/500) would stop me from going further into a downward spiral and even reverse the tailspin I was in. The effect would last for days - after one dose! Once I got that relief, I would be apt to start doing more and the increased activity would pull me up to where I was not mired in mental quicksand. I am even thinking of asking my psychiatrist to order me some hydrocodone to have available to use just to pull out of a severe episode. I know it is unlikely he will agree, but there are psychiatrists who have used hydrocodone for depressed patients, at least in studies that I have read about. I would have no interest in taking hydrocodone regularly because I am easily made severely constipated by any kind of CNS depressant. Managing my sluggish gut is an issue all on its own. I just am convinced that having access to some hydrocodone for aborting a severe downturn into depression would help me manage my chronic depression. I think it would be a better option than ECT, which has been offered to me.

I have heard that some persons are "opiate responders." These are persons, like myself, who, when very depressed, can have a great reduction in depression by taking an opiate. I read that not all people are affected that way. I've read that, for some reason, hydrocodone works particularly well, in that regard - better than other common opiates.

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I see that no other posts have been made on this topic. I did write a post this AM and it has to be reviewed before posted. I think this is strange. The first and only post I made was done without review. This must be a very hot topic. I can't believe that my post created such a hulabaloo.

I haven't stopped thinking about it all day. Why would my story create this kind of interest? My story isn't very different from the others I read. The only difference is that I am prescribed this medication for depression, make no mistake, and that I have taken the same dose for 4 years and don't have to increase it. I suppose that is my answer, my use of this medication is strictly for depression and my physician is aware. I don't look at hydrocodone as a pain killer but as an antidepressant that should only be taken as directed otherwise the side effects would hurt me. As well another fact is that every 90 days I do not take this medication so that we can see if my body chemistry has returned to normal from the menopause cocktail it has been serving me (I feel I would be lying if I didn't say that during that week I go to my church every day and pray for it to be normal and that I don't have those feelings from the MDD anymore. Although it isn't a big deal to take a pill every day I suppose I want as much as anyone else out there to feel like myself without it.) For those of you who read my post and want to consult their physician for the same treatment please be advised that I have had the same therapist for 25 years, the same physician for 15 years and that my depression and the treatments I have tried are well documented. I made the post so that others could learn from it. I should have made it clear that I work at feeling "normal". I did include this information in my post but I should have worded it differently. When I was first diagnosed with depression at the age of 23 I was given prozac (that's when prozac first came out) and inside of a month I was eclipsed by sadness. I knew right away it was the medication and stopped using it. I went to a nutritionist and he lead me the direction of not only diet but exercise. The depression back then wasn't a daily feeling like it has been for the past 5 years but would come a couple of times a year and was much less noticeable and easy to work thru once I changed my diet and incorporated exercise into my life, not just that though I also worked very hard at meditation. For my 25th birthday my parents hired an apostle of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi to instruct me. This was in the 1980's and there wasn't an internet, now you can search and find a meditation expert or a book without a problem. It was a big deal back then and I am forever grateful to my father. Meditation is difficult (if you take it seriously) and it has taken me a lifetime to come close to what I would like to achieve. My point is that I have/had worked hard to combat my depression in a more natural way before taking hydrocodone. It isn't easy and takes many many hours every week to keep these commitments. I know what you are thinking...no matter what the cost in hours or money you are willing to try anything.....I understand. I have looked into the eyes of the depression monster too. For people that do not have depression you wouldn't understand. I can't even give you analogy that comes close to those feelings of MDD. If you would have asked me 18 years ago if I would ever be in fear for losing my sanity I would have answered "no way, I've combated mental illness and I know how to handle it" boy was I wrong. Anyway, I don't want people to think it's as easy as taking a pill and your life is transformed. It isn't like that at all and you have to work at it. You may be saying to yourself "why me? Why don't other people have to work at their mental health and I have to?" My answer - luck of the draw. Be thankful for what you have and not what you don't have. I think this another piece of advise that helps. Be thankful for every thing you do have. For instance I recently went through a divorce and lost my big giant house and moved into a 2 bedroom condo. I wasn't unhappy about that at all although all my friends seem to think this was a step down, quite the contrary for me. I was so thankful not to have to clean that monster house any longer and to be able to not clean if I didn't want to. I was still sad that I didn't have the mansion any longer however I knew I couldn't continue to think that way and I needed a new perspective. This was something that I had to work on as a young adult, changing the way I thought about certain things, thinking that way wasn't good for me and there are always many ways to look at something. A lot of facts were true, I didn't have the big house anymore with a pool and tennis court but the fact that I had to clean all those things were truths as well. It is a fact that I no longer have to worry about that monster anymore so that was the part of the truth that I focused on. Do you get it? I hope you do.

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