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Depression has about as many causes as it does brand names of medications for it. Some of it can be from traumatic experiences in which Cognitive Behavioral Therapy can work. Some can be actual chemical imbalance and that means the doctor has to determine which one. Physical illness is another cause and likely one of the most overlooked as well as undetected neurological conditions.

Antidepressants can be a blessing to some and as bad as LSD to others. I've seen first hand the good and the harm they can do to different people. I doubt one in ten doctors prescribing them would recognize Serotonin Syndrome for example. Many Shrinks as well are quite clueless about it.

If you take SSRI's and get a headache and/or upset stomach tell your doctor. If he brushes it ff find another or another till you find one with enough smarts to listen.

If a person has sensory processing related issues such as Inner Ear disorders be very careful with these drugs.

I don't doubt for a minute people can get severely depressed to the point of needing an appropriate medication. This could be true no matter the origin but the origin of the depression should be by all practical attempts to be determined. The origin needs to be determined so proper treatment can be obtained.

Doctors need to take the potential for adverse reactions seriously. It really gets me how many doctors come unglued at the mention of such medications as Xanax, Valium, Librium, or other related benzodiazepine class medicines. The same doctors will write a prescription for say Zoloft or Paxil and not give any thought to it. I have never seen anyone taking Valium, Xanax, or Other Benzo, hallucinate from it. On the contrary benzodiazepine are the protocol antidote medication for stopping a Serotonin Migration in progress. I have however seen persons given SSRI's and other antidepressants do just that.

I am among those who must never take any antidepressant due to sensory processing damage. It can affect me like LSD. Sad to say many persons taken into emergency rooms with advanced Serotonin Syndrome will only be given more of it as the treatment. They will label the patient psychotic and treat with medications that only make matters worse. No not even an unconscious patients makes some doctors think hey maybe there is something bad wrong here.

I'm not on an anti-antidepressant rant but doctors need to realize the somewhat rare but very real dangers of these drugs. They can be far, far, more dangerous than any benzodiazepine tranquilizer such as Valium, Xanax, or Librium. Patients would be very surprised to know just how little many shrinks know about the medications they prescribe.

I completely agree that these drugs can be very, very dangerous. We do not want to mess with the serotonin levels. I was on one for three months, and if I was even 1 hour late to take the pill, I would have the worst nightmares that night, nightmares that I have never experienced before or since, coming from my own private personal terror imagination. Since I was a new mom, that meant seeing my child tortured and killed before my eyes, etc. Weaning off of these drugs is HELL. It can be like weaning off of an opiate. You need to be under a doctor’s care.

"Doctors need to take the potential for adverse reactions seriously."

So true. Some years ago I was prescribed one of the SSRI's. I tolerated it reasonably well, but went off of it when I got tired of feeling like a bit of a robot. Both ups and downs were removed, and I didn't like the trade-off.

The second time I was prescribed the same drug, I didn't worry about side effects, since I'd had it before. What I didn't think about was that in the intervening years I'd been prescribed Imitrex for my migraines. One stress-filled day I took an Imitrex tablet for my headache and ended up in the ER with a cardiac arrhythmia. The ER docs checked me out, sent me home with some Xanax, and said to go see a cardiologist if it happened again. They never discussed possible medication interactions.

When I came out of my Xanax fog, I started doing some online research and learned that the combination of the SSRI with the Imitrex might well have caused a problem, since both affected serotonin levels. Add in a stressful incident, and I was in trouble. What scares me is that none of these medical professionals picked up on it.

I tossed the SSRI's, worked harder at lifestyle, diet and stress issues, added some Vitamin D3 to the mix, and am doing much better. The cardiac incident was over a year ago, and hasn't been repeated. What I've learned over and over in life is that we need to be our own advocates in this complicated world.