Nicole recently blogged about her late aunt's battle with the dual diagnosis of depression and diabetes, and wondered why -- with modern medical care available to her, and with prescriptions to deal with both illnesses -- her aunt took neither, allowing her body to destroy itself piece by piece, taking only the medications prescribed to her for pain.

While I don't presume to have known Nicole's aunt Margaret, I can see a number of issues that can complicate the combined issue of self-care and chronic disease in general, and diabetes in particular.

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It's been roughly two weeks since I switched from Prozac to a new anti-depressant. I think I thought I would miraculously feel dramatically different pretty quickly. But I don't. However, I have noticed some subtle changes.

There's generally less yelling coming from me. Part of that is because The Mr. is doing more around the house, but even if he wasn't I think my moods would be more stable.

I find myself able to relate to and joke around with the kids a lot easier. I've realized a number of times that I'm playing around with No. 2 and No. 3 whereas several weeks ago I likely would have had a "don't bother me" attitude when they wanted to joke around. And it feels good to interact with my family differently.

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I was beyond thrilled when my depression didn't get any worse after No. 3 was born. For as miserable as I was after No. 1 and No. 2 were born, I felt absolutely fantastic.

I also felt for a long while that this was just the way it was going to be. That in order to feel something close to normal I'd need to take a pill once a day. No big deal considering all the other medications I was taking to be sort of close to normal.

I started to have episodes or days when I would be aggravated and super angry for no apparent reason. And then just like that I'd be fine. I started to look up symptoms of bipolar disorder thinking that having what amounted to rather extreme mood swings was a hallmark of bipolar. But after some research I decided that I did not have bipolar.

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I'm not really sure why I feel compelled to do this, but I do. It's important to me that you know that diabetes did not cause my depression. 

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