Antidepressants

[mountain_tiger]

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Antidepressants are one of the most common prescriptions in the developed world today, aiming to alleviate mental illnesses and whatnot. Sounds great, right? Well, the way I see it, they might not be as great as often perceived, for various reasons.

For a start, they actually increase suicidal ideation in adolescents and children, though in fairness, this is being made more well-known by the drug companies. So it's acknowledged as not being a unviersal cure...

And of course there are the rather unpleasant side effects that can result. Nausea, headaches, drowsiness etc. Now, in its own right, that would probably be a small price to pay for alleviating depression and whatnot. But there are also rare cases of very serious effects: heart attacks, strokes and seizures. This is particularly worrying because there is much about antidepressants and long-term effects in particular that is still unknown. Look at medicine in the past. Not much was known at the time, and many of their cures were worthless or even detrimental. Of course, all medical products have to be tested for many years before they can be released for general use, but this wouldn't be able to factor in, say, use for several years. Considering how many people use these drugs, there could potentially be very serious consequences in the future.

But one of the key problems can be summed up with a simple question. Are the anti-depressants helping you, or controlling you? They effectively alter your mindset so that you don't become depressed (and they aren't even particularly effective at doing that, but moving on...), but in the process, you lose control of yourself, so to speak. The drug controls you. And the drugs have withdrawal symptoms much like alcohol, nicotine etc. So in the process of taking the drug, you lose yourself, in a sense.

Overall, I'm somewhat sceptical of the use of antidepressants on the whole. IMO, the treatment of depression should be similar to how you'd treat alcoholism or cocaine addiction, for example. Do you take drugs to stop yourself getting drunk? No. Instead, there are self-help groups, people out there who can help you, and more importantly friends/family who can support you whilst you get the help you need. And you don't lose your identity or become 'controlled' by antidepressants.

 

[El Nino]

Based on personal experience, I wouldn't say that the drugs control you. If anything, it's the disorder that controls you.

That said, getting on drugs is not really a pleasant experience, nor is tapering off on them. There isn't any way to find the optimal dosage for a patient beyond starting off small and increasing it until you see the results that you want. So the effect on a patient in the beginning stages of treatment can be unstable or uncomfortable.

A disease like schizophrenia does not respond very well to therapy or counseling. Drugs were a major breakthrough in the treatment of schizophrenic disorders. Depression has seen similar results, but it is a different disease.

The chemical interactions in the brain are very complex. There is more than one neurotransmitter in the brain that has been linked to depression. Drugs are usually specific to one chemical or one class of chemicals, and the only way to find out which chemical is responsible for the symptoms in a particular patient is to try out various drugs until you find the right one. Unfortunately, we don't have any other way of doing it. We can rarely see these chemicals at work; we have to deduce them based on their effects.

The unfortunate reality is that if you have a severe mental disorder along the likes of schizophrenia or clinical depression, your life is going to be different than that of a neurotypical person. Sadly, you will almost always be blamed by other people for the things that you feel, even though you have little control over them. People will compare their experiences to yours, as if feelings of sadness in a neurotypical person are comparable to the same feelings in a person with severe depression (something that I find debatable). Even on drugs, it isn't likely that you will behave exactly like a person who has never had the disease. It's like living with a disability that way.

And no one is going to pat you on the back for going through a day without suicidal thoughts. No one is going to know what you think or feel if you don't tell them. To most people, not having thoughts of suicide is such a default that they can't imagine anything else.

In short, drugs are not a perfect solution, and pharmacology isn't a perfect science. But the disorder is hard to control even with drugs, and it is even harder to control without them. Living under the influence of drugs isn't always pleasant, but it's even worse to live under the influence of a mental disease.

 

[AMKalmar]

I would recommend staying away from most things approved by the FDA. Natural is the way to go.

 

[Omnicron's Baklava Enterprises]

More morbid subjects brought to you by mountain tiger.

 

[SuperBowser]

Depression is not a pleasant disease. Antidepressants are proven effective by countless clinical trials. They are not 100% effective and side effects can be unpleasant but they work very well for very many people. Personally, I would gladly take the drugs if I felt I wouldn't get better otherwise. If the alternative is living with clinical depression for an indefinite period, it's not really a choice for me.

(btw, people do use drugs to help quit alcohol)

 

[Nidtendofreak]

As I see it: don't take antidepressants unless it's a bad depression. I know somebody who has been clinically depressed for probably six years now, but it took five years for family members to figure out what was going on. The family members have got the person going to the doctor and other stuff, but they won't be able to get meds for quite a while, due to how slow the process is going.

Let me tell you, this person is very different from how they were six years ago. Without a doubt, meds are needed in this situation. I think a lot of the problems occur when people who don't really need the medication think they do, and start taking them.

 

[Darkshadow7827]

I would recommend staying away from most things approved by the FDA. Natural is the way to go.

I would hope this is a sarcastic comment.

Anyway, mental disorders are sticky situations. They have lots of factors that play into the diagnosis of a mental disorder (MD). Even then, it's hard to pinpoint when a person has a MD such as depression. Sure the Diagnostic & Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) can give minimal criteria describing when a MD is prevalent, but it's still not clear cut. It's not like if you have under X amount of neurotransmitters (NT), you'll get depression. Note that this is different from motor abnormalities caused by lack of NTs.

As other people have said, anti-depressants will help alleviate some of the symptoms, but it can never cure it. It will never be able to restore a person to 100% either. For all metal disorders, there should be a drug regimen depending on severity of the MD and some form of therapy.

 

[Fatmanonice]

I would recommend staying away from most things approved by the FDA. Natural is the way to go.

I once followed this for the 11 years I had untreated depression and it was a terrible mistake. It got to the point where I seriously considered throwing myself in front of cars on a near daily basis as I walked to school. I was mislead by just about every misconception about deression under the sun, none of which I bothered looking into and simply went along with because my family insisted they were true. Anti-depressants have been proven to work in a vast majority of cases although, the FDA will openly admit, some antidressants can make some patients worse. I unfortunately had this happen to me when I took Cymbalta and have since switched to Lexapro. What you have to understand about medications is that they can take decades of lab testing to be approved as prescriptions and that, even when they do have assoicated risks, this is the case for all medications and they are much, much safer than how they initially start out in their early trial days.

You see, drug testing has to go through stages and be fully approved before moving to the next one. You usually start with rats then something more akin to humans like monkeys and then humans in clinical trials and then it has to be approved as a medication. It's a very long process and over-the-counter drugs have even higher standards so if you see something that says "These statements haven't been approved by the FDA", it's a dead giveaway that it hasn't had all the nessecary testing or didn't pass for what it claimed to do. When it's all said in done, prescription medicine only gets approved after the drug company that has made it has shown that is the best they can do with the technology they currently have at their disposal and that it has minimal risk supported by years of testing and data.

The natural way can help but only with minor cases. Sunlight, diet, vitamins, and exercise can only do so much especially if the person has a very strong chemical inbalance like I had. That's why proper diagnosis is such an important thing too because using strong medications for minor cases can have dire consequences.

As an ending note, the FDA does mess things up from time to time but things would be far worse if we didn't have it. For a good look at how things were before the FDA, just read Upton Sinclair's The Jungle. The FDA is in place to keep food and drug companies from making short-cuts just to make a profit while at the same time endangering their consumers.

 

[mountain_tiger]

More morbid subjects brought to you by mountain tiger.

I think that this should offset any morbidness.

http://i972.photobucket.com/albums/ae206/matt496/untitled.jpg

Moving on...

I would recommend staying away from most things approved by the FDA. Natural is the way to go.

Just because something's natural doesn't mean it's safe or beneficial. And natural substances can easily 'control' you in the same way man-made drugs do.

As I see it: don't take antidepressants unless it's a bad depression. I know somebody who has been clinically depressed for probably six years now, but it took five years for family members to figure out what was going on. The family members have got the person going to the doctor and other stuff, but they won't be able to get meds for quite a while, due to how slow the process is going.

Let me tell you, this person is very different from how they were six years ago. Without a doubt, meds are needed in this situation. I think a lot of the problems occur when people who don't really need the medication think they do, and start taking them.

But how bad is a bad depression? The problem is that, as far as I can tell, in this regard, suicidal ideation is always considered a bad thing. Anyone who even considers it can't be considered in the right mindset to make that sort of decision. But why? Suicide in itself isn't necessarily always bad, but rather it's the circumstances of the individual and the consequences it would bring about. But apparently it can never be something that an ordinary person would want...

 

[SuperBowser]

There's more to depression than just suicidal thoughts. A quote from Lewis Wolpert, a developmental biologist that spoke about depression:

It was the worst experience of my life. More terrible even than watching my wife die of cancer. I am ashamed to admit that my depression felt worse than her death but it is true. I was in a state that bears no resemblance to anything I had experienced before. It was not just feeling very low, depressed in the commonly used sense of the word. I was seriously ill. I was totally self-absorbed, negative, and thought about suicide most of the time. I could not think properly, let alone work, and wanted to remain curled up in bed all day. I could not ride my bicycle or go out on my own. I had panic attacks if left alone. And there were numerous physical symptoms -- my whole skin would seem to be on fire and I developed uncontrollable twitches. Every new physical sign caused extreme anxiety. I was terrified, for example, that I would not be able to urinate. Sleep was impossible without sleeping pills: these only worked for a few hours, and when I woke up I felt worse. The future was hopeless. I was convinced that I would never go to work again or recover. There was a strong fear that I might go mad.

Antidepressants help.

 

[Mr.Freeman]

I would recommend staying away from most things approved by the FDA. Natural is the way to go.

So uh, how's that been working for you exactly?

 

[Nidtendofreak]

But how bad is a bad depression? The problem is that, as far as I can tell, in this regard, suicidal ideation is always considered a bad thing. Anyone who even considers it can't be considered in the right mindset to make that sort of decision. But why? Suicide in itself isn't necessarily always bad, but rather it's the circumstances of the individual and the consequences it would bring about. But apparently it can never be something that an ordinary person would want...

Suicide is always bad outside of "if I don't kill myself, they will force information out of me that will kill other people". End of discussion on that point.

Depression is bad when it starts to seriously affect your ability to preform normal functions. This person ended up dropping out of school, sleeps like 15 hours of the day, and generally speaking hates everyone. I'm not going into details, but it's basically one step below suicidal.