Antidepressants are all the rage but have a dark side

Chicago Tribune ^ | February 3, 2008 | Christopher Weber

[neverdem]

Despite recent bad publicity over withheld studies showing marginal results, the resume of America's arsenal of antidepressants is enviable: consort to celebrities, subject of best-selling books and tabloid headlines. They may be the most celebrated pills since Valium.

Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil, Celexa and Lexapro, among others, have become both household words and medicine-cabinet staples. Known collectively as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs, these antidepressants are prescribed for anxiety, social phobia, obsessive-compulsive disorder and numerous conditions besides depression.

SSRIs are now the most commonly prescribed of all medications in this country. The rate at which physicians prescribed SSRIs more than doubled between 1995 and 2004, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. SSRIs are considered the first line of defense in treating depression, an illness that afflicts more than 20 million Americans.

Given their wide circulation, SSRIs will have a profound impact on the nation's mental health in the decades to come. But whether their impact is for good or ill depends upon whom you ask.

Most antidepressants boost the amounts of messenger chemicals, or neurotransmitters, circulating in the brain. SSRIs were the first to target the key neurotransmitter serotonin, with highly touted...

--snip--

Just last month, a report in The New England Journal of Medicine showed that the makers of drugs such as Prozac and Paxil didn't publish results of trials indicating that their products performed just modestly better than placebos, which have no actual pharmaceutical value.

--snip--

Rosie Meysenburg of Dallas and Sara Bostock of California met at a public hearing on SSRIs sponsored by the Food and Drug Administration. Both had strong reservations about the safety of SSRIs. Together, they created a Web site, SSRIstories.com, which catalogs more than 2,000 news stories detailing violent acts -- murders, suicides, school shootings -- by individuals taking SSRIs...

[steve86]

Re: I brought up SAM-e in the above thread.

Did you ever look into SAM-e for OA?

From the Wiki:

“Multiple clinical trials confirm benefits for depression, some liver conditions, and osteoarthritis...It may require up to one month for it to reach full effectiveness in treating osteoarthritis” and I think I gave a link above which also mentioned OA.

[Fiddlstix]

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[visualops]

What many people do not realize, is there are a range of disorders that fall under the depressive label, and that clinical depression is fundamentally different from what most people loosely call being “depressed”.

[Patriotic1]

My therapist once treated someone who said it was an effort for her to breathe. Yes, as the commercials say, it’s more than just mental - it can be physical too.

As someone who takes effexor, your comments offend me. Before I took this med, I couldn’t think clearly. I could barely function.

I also was involved in CBT which I think makes an enormous difference. In my case, and in many others, changing one’s thinking means a lot. It can be difficult to do. It’s tough to see one’s thinking objectively, and it’s even harder to change.

Just as it is hard to do the things you cited.

But taking the meds gave me the ability to start changing things. It brought me up to a stable place. CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy) helps you realize that lemons are merely the precursor of tasty lemonade.

Ya know, just LIVING when you have depression is incredibly hard work, regardless of what it looks like from the outside.

[Patriotic1]

Add to that I've seen accounts were people who weren't violent or suicidal became that way after they were perscibed SSRI's and after they stopped taking the SSRI's.

And that's a huge problem. Whether someone thinks these drugs are helping them, they ARE changing the chemistry in your brain. So while it may not seem to have any impact on one's thoughts (i.e. "not working") they are. Cold turkey is horrible for the brain. Adjusting the dosage down and allowing for the brain to rebalance itself takes time and patience.

[G Larry]

My observation is that the incidence of “depression” has tripled over the same 30 year period that we’ve seen a marked decrease in the role of organized religion, in the lives of the average American family.

It seems clear that a lack of faith is contributing factor in the occurrence of depression. The percentage of people who charcterize themselves as "Spiritual, but not Religious", is amazing.

[Patriotic1]

Sorry to hear that. My meds haven’t brought me happiness. They stabilized me. I still have bad moods, sad moods, etc. Whatever they are, they are not happy pills. However, I am able to WORK at being a happier person.

[Marie2]

What comment(s) did I make that are offensive? From the start of this thread, I have just been advocating that other therapies be tried before meds. Why is that offensive?

[Revolting cat!]

You got it. More than that,it’s the materialist, Darwinist view of man as nothing than a more or less random collection of cells and chemicals (did I get that rightDr Dawkins?) Depression as a problem of biochemistry? OK, as you say, doctor. In some, perhaps, no doubt. But depression’s underlying causes cannot be fixed by pills, and when they are all in the environment, talk therapy won’t be much help, except to the talk therapist’s bottom line. Really, it’s a quite depressing picture. I heard that diet supplements containing Omega-3, whatever the heck that is, are helpful too.

[Conservativegreatgrandma]

I do hope things go well for you. I’m old enough to know that there are ebs and flows in life and things change from time to time.

[Conservativegreatgrandma]

I do hope things go well for you. I’m old enough to know that there are ebs and flows in life and things change from time to time.

[Dianna]

I've always wondered what grief counselors tell the grieving that takes away their grief and what justifies the expense.

Grief counselors are much more about listening than telling. Counseling doesn't take away your grief. It gives you a place to discuss the event and your feelings, worries and fears over and over and over and over until you're feeling more in control.

My friends and relations love me. They loved my son. But no one wants to hear about grieving as frequently as I need to talk about it.

[ktscarlett66]

It’s like indecision about something so minor can just paralyzes you. If you’ve never had it, it’s hard to understand (’Gee, just throw laundry in and then vacuum while it’s washing/drying!’) but you can’t figure out which is the best way to proceed and so you end up staring at the wall or sleeping (or in my case, playing 4 straight hours of Spider Solitaire) so you don’t have to do anything or make any decisions at all.
I can totally identify with your friend’s pictures/vacuum dilemma, funny as it may sound to an outsider.

[Conservativegreatgrandma]

I am so sorry about your son. I understand it is one of the most difficult griefs one must bear—to lose a child.

[najida]

Maybe,
for me and my brother,
getting out of ‘religion’ and out of the church was part of our healing process.

Look, depression is genetic in my family and I can literally trace it back on both sides. BUT, coming from a very religions ‘pray about it’ or ‘think happy thoughts, count your blessings’ or even worse ‘you ungrateful weakling!’ Only made it worse. It’s like screaming at a kid with broken leg for not being able to run, much less walk....and telling them that because they aren’t praying hard enough, it will never heal.

For me, it was decades of hating myself for not ‘getting right with God’ etc. Finally, I said screw it and starting taking matters into my own hands.

Honestly, the lifesavers have been a great therapist (for all of us) and good meds. Again, prayer and church may help some, but for others, they offer more pain than help.

[mysterio]

But taking the meds gave me the ability to start changing things.

Don't let the knee-jerkers get you down. The medications are a positive thing. The pick-yourself-up-by-your-own-bootstraps crowd is often good intentioned, but they are far from experts in the field of psychiatry.

I have an anxiety disorder and have decided to go without the pills for my own reasons, but I would never deny another the opportunity to receive medications, nor would I brow beat them for doing so. Good luck in your treatment, and I hope your program works well for you.

[Dianna]

I am so sorry about your son. I understand it is one of the most difficult griefs one must bear—to lose a child.

Thank you. It has been hard. I'm very much a thinker and have generally worked things out pretty well inside my head. That doesn't work for grief. It isn't something that can be "rearranged". It needs to get out.

Oddly enough, as someone who has been mildly depressed for most of my adult life, my son's death hasn't lead to any increase of my depression. I couldn't tell you why.

[varina davis]

mark

[steve86]

Oddly enough, as someone who has been mildly depressed for most of my adult life, my son's death hasn't lead to any increase of my depression. I couldn't tell you why.

I believe that is quite common among chronically depressed individuals. It doesn't mean that you miss the person any less, that you didn't care, or even that you are not grieving (but "separately" from the depression). It is just that the long-term depression is due to a biochemical condition and is independent from the situational trauma. I happen to have had much the same experience myself.

[Revolting cat!]

If the state of my mind as I type this is nothing but biochemistry, then there is no such thing as God, no such thing as soul, no such thing as spirit. Go play with your toys children. Play will make the chemicals in your brain make you feel better.