Who Here Suffers from SAD and how bad is it?

Seasonally Afflicted Disorder. Mine is pretty intense but also has a lot to do with how bad/good the rest of my life is. There have some years i have been fine.

This year it seems that it takes all my effort to not meltdown completely.

My salvation has been my light therapy box. I got it from these people:

http://www.alaskanorthernlights.com/

IT WORKS. A lot of people won't buy one because they think they won't have time to use it. You, being smart enough to be a DUer, probably read a lot. Just read in front of it. Do two things at once.

Try it, LP. It has saved me.

gives me these intense headaches...but this year i may be able to deal with headaches to avoid more issues.

thanks a bunch

pri

Theirs is different from most; it has no side effects that I'm aware of.

Best of luck to you. :hug:

Got it at Menard's (WI's Home Depot). I put it in my bedside lamp, and keep it on all night long.

I know that sounds weird, but I had noticed that I had trouble sleeping at night, but once daylight broke (especially if it was sunny), I'd fall asleep. Now I sleep much better.

Not a bad investment for about $6.

I live in SE Michigan, where the sun is absent quite a bit of the fall/winter. The severity of mine, like yours, depends on what is going on in my life as well as how dark the skies are in any particular year. Many years ago, a psychiatrist (who diagnosed the SAD) I was seeing had me create a timetable of my life to help me see how SAD affected me. The simple act of putting putting it on paper and having the visual was cathartic. It also made me realize why I dreaded the 4th of July...it was a "landmark" that signalled that summer was slipping away and the darkness (literally and figuratively) was coming.

I bought a light box a long time ago, and it has helped me out incredibly. If you can afford it, the investment can make the difference between hibernating and living life. In Ann Arbor, there is a local lighting company which makes them at a much lower cost than those I've seen elsewhere. I usually ride my stationary bike or read in front of the light box in the mornings.

in summer i can make changes in my life (the positive ones) and be happy with myself...it all changes when the sun fades

I did the same thing when I was diagnosed, and it opened my eyes quite a bit. For me, mid-October through November are the worst six weeks of the year. All the traumatic events of my life have occurred in this six-week span, going all the way back to childhood. Maybe that's why I despise the 'holiday season' so much.

Now I know that I'm basically out of commission for that time period (except for work and basic life functions), it makes it a lot easier to plan life around it.

though I don't really know that much about it

but i've never been diagnoses or anything. a nurse one time suggested that i had it, and from early fall to late winter, i usually notice it.

I was recently prescribed an anti-depressant by my psychiatrist and that coincided pretty much with the change from summer to fall. I've got other issues that are making me depressed right now, but I don't think the change in seasons helped me any.

but i dont think its necessarily the cause

in Shetland where my mum's from, part explained by isolation in the "old days" though it's not really any more isolated now than much of mainland Scotland, many people now put it down the fact that as Shetland's almost in the Artic circle it has a long winter with maybe only a few hours of watery sunlight a day followed by what can feel like endless darkness.

I've often wondered if the instance of SAD was more prevalent in other countries where this is the case, like Greenland/Iceland/parts of Russia - anyone know?

Maybe we'll hear from an Alaskan DUer.

I used to do the lightbox religiously in the winter-- which means five months out of the year here in MN. However, I started taking Lithium a couple of years ago to boost my depression meds, and I noticed that I started to have a hard time using the light. It was too bright and overpowering and would give me massive headaches.

I think the addition of the lithium to my drug mixture made me more sensitive to light. I don't know if that's a common side effect or not, but it affected me that way. :shrug:

We finally saw some sun up here in MN, and it's helped out quite a bit. Unfortunately, sun in winter here means the temps get bone-chillingly cold (sometimes single digits fahrenheit at night), but I'll take that over no sun for three straight weeks!

The last couple years it's been pretty tough, but like you said it has a lot to do with circumstances as well. I've done a number of meds - they never really get me back to "normal" but I'm semi-functional.

I read about a study from Finland or Sweden or some place like that. They found that vitamin D supplements were just as effective as light therapy. Then I found this small study that found Vit D even more effective. http://www.biopsychiatry.com/dvit.htm

My former shrink (now retired) told me about a study that found going out side first thing in the morning for about 15-20 minutes to be very effective - better than the light banks. Hell, sometimes I can barely get out of bed let alone put on a coat an stand in the snow looking at the sun.

One last thought. I've found that my eating habits can make it worse too. Carbohydrate cravings are a big problem. Since I'm also hypoglycemic, too much simple carbs just make me physically tired and worn down. I have to try very hard to eat well - whole grains, veggies etc. Avoid processed food in general - who knows what's in it anyway.

even weak sun like we get in the winter, makes our systems produce Vitamin D, right?

I read that somewhere and wasn't the least surprised. I've heard that all the paranoia about the sun, and the consequent reduction in most (sane) people's sun exposure because of fears of melanoma, may actually hurt us in the long run because Vit D does seem to help stave off depression.

I've been taking a calcium with D supplement for a couple of years, and we adopted a dog from a shelter a couple of years ago -- so every day, just about, no matter what the weather is like, I have to get off my can, put on a coat and go outside.

The SAD actually has been somewhat less oppressive, the past couple of winters. I remember that clicking in my brain last winter, late in the winter -- that I hadn't had a really nasty insomnia and depression episode most of the winter.

This year is an outlier, but then I think it will be for everybody here at DU with good reason. But I'll still have to get my coat and boots on and take the dog out, so at least I might feel less bad physically, or have somewhat less of a struggle with insomnia.

cash for the light bank. Problem is that the people in these studies were taking huge amounts of Vit D. I'm not sure what the side effects of that would be.

Thats why my old shrink thought the early morning sun option would be a better idea. However, thats rarely feasible for me so I still take the vit D anyway.

Daily walks - even in cloudy conditions - along with limiting carbohydrate intake are very helpful for me.

DemEx

After getting almost no work done last week and hibernating the entire weekend away, I think I want to try some sort of light therapy. There's no way I'm shelling out the $ for a light box. A friend of mine is trying to build up a "base tan" for a winter getaway, and says that going to a tanning bed a couple of times a week helps her to feel better.

Any opinions?

here (different than in the US?) do not have the same light waves that sun and daylight have, so not very useful for SAD that depends on this light....imo.

DemEx

I went to Home Depot (a chain of large hardward stores here in the US) and bought two 100W, 1400 lumen floodlamps and two clamp-mounted shop lights (a total of about $22US). With a little internet research, I found that the recommended dose of light is 10,000 lux for about 30 minutes in your peripheral vision, which I can achieve by placing the two light sources about a half a meter away (lux equals lumens per meter squared).

So, my set-up is not quite as fancy as the commercial lightboxes, but it seems to be effective so far. I'm on my second day of light therapy. I'm doing an hour a day in the morning for the first week. On day 1 I felt like warmed-over dog sh*t. It's about noon on day 2 now, and I actually woke up before the alarm and feel better than I have in weeks.

I wanted to try the lightboxes, but the price always held me back...

So you sit at the computer with all of these flood lamps on you?
:D

Keep us posted on how you feel in the coming days and weeks!

:bounce:

DemEx