Allergies, Drug Interactions, rTMS

In an email from Herb (in black, my response in red):

In my wife's case we were treating coughing, congestion and a prolific amount of phlegm for sometime thinking it was a cold or flu like symptoms.  After numerous testing and chest x-ray my wife was finally diagnosed with what turned out to be Asthma. For me, it was dust, dust mites, grass, pollen, ragweed. For the Asthma she utilizes a nebulizer twice a day containing two drugs; Brovana and Budesonide.  While most drugs list potential side-effects from soup to nuts, I carefully monitor, observe and maintain empirical records on her reactions to all her medications and treatments.  My wife also uses Benedryl for two purposes at bedtime.   One it helps with the congestion and it aids with sleep.I use it to help with sleep as well  So far, no problems with these meds.

I'm not a doctor but through my training as a former Board Member, President and facilitator of a local chapter of DBSA (Herb, I don't(know what DBSA is) I don't give anyone advice but rather share our experiences, my research, knowledge and collaboration with mental health professionals around the world.  I advocate for patient and support person education while encouraging hope and persistence. That is why I  blog.

With that said I really wouldn't have anything to suggest for allergies other than to carefully read all drug literature and while some drugs list the potential for depression and/or other serious side-effects one has to also address the immediate medical problem first. I have a tendency to ruminate on what the negative aspects of  what the drug could do to me, and thus increase the fear factor in the issue. I monitor my body and the reactions it may have, then look the drug up to see if it matches what is going on with me. I would then suggest careful record keeping to see if in fact a particular med negatively effects one's mood state.  As many of us already know each individual is unique and so too one's responses to all treatment options.  Therefore you might utilize a med effectively while the same drug may negatively impact my wife.  I coined a phrase some 5 decades ago as it relates to her therapies, "The Trail and Error Approach to Wellness" as it applies to her mental well being. Bingo!!  

From our experiences I would avoid adding or combining too many drugs at once as one can't determine what drug is doing what or negatively impacting the individual.  One treatment option people often over look is slowly withdrawing from all medications and then starting from square one. This I have done as well, and am in the process of going the way of drugs again, in an attempt to stabilize myself in order to return to work.  Too often treating physicians tend to have tunnel vision and only look at their specialty while the patient ends up heavily medicated and the situation worsens.

I also read that you were talking about rTMS.  I can share with you from my discussions with Dr. John O'Reardon of University of Pennsylvania and Dr. Mark George of the Medical School of South Carolina that rTMS can be performed safely on VNS patients by knowledgeable physicians.  One individual with whom I collaborate was not achieving significant benefit from VNS.  So he went on to try rTMS which did the trick for him.  The problem is no one can guarantee what will or will not work for any given patient.  We simply have to keep trying until we find a treatment or combination of treatments that produce some efficacy.