>>Often the diagnosis is not correct to begin with. Someone comes into the doctor “depressed” but really has bipolar, shizophrenia, or something else, which SSRI’s greatly make worse, such as triggering mania. Or they don’t have the type of depression that can be helped with SSRI’s to begin with.<<
Or they don’t have depression at all, which was my case.
What makes me absolutely frothing livid is that in my personal experience, from the age of 15-23, with treatment from multiple doctors at multiple facilities is that the answer was always medication.
- No suggestion of hormone or thyroid tests
- No examination of behavior patterns
- No suggestions for exercise or diet
- No comparison of drug interactions (when the combination of SSRI’s and birth control pills made me stark raving mad, the answer was yet anoter pill, not discontinuing one of the other two)
And worst of all:
- No thought to how damaging a frivolous diagnosis and prescription can be to someone’s life.
Yeah hyprethyrodism sure can make one appear mentally ill.
I take high doses of thyroid since having my thyroid removed and get tested four times a year to rule out to much thyroid before looking at the other chemical imbalance issue.