Posted on 02/18/2008 9:26:24 PM PST by 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...
(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...
Of course there a many violent and suicidal people who need such medication and who would be that way without it.
That said, I've seen too many accounts where SSRI's were given to people carelessly. 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.
beer maybe less harmful than these serious psychotic medications.
The actual website is one of the shoddiest things I've seen. If a person has any history of being on an SSRI and there's a violent act, they go on the list.
There's people who were arrested for violent acts before going on antidepressants who commit subsequent violent acts on antidepressants and they go on the list.
Winona Ryder's shoplifting - on the list.
A girl who was killed by child abuse in a "rebirthing" was on antidepressants. Never mind she was killed by someone not on antidepressants. She's on the list.
A girl who suffered from depression and also was a sleepwalker fell from the 8th story of a hotel. She's on the list.
Another girl is reported by the mother to have died "from a reaction to the antidepressant." No other information is given.
You get the idea.
First of all, I hope that you’re enjoying your retirement.
Well, in reference to the article title, Depression has a very real and well known dark side too.
I currently take 10mg Prozac (Fluoxetine) / day.
It was the only thing that worked to lift me out of a dark pit that gradually decended on me when I was in my early 40’s. I can see why some people with Depression kill themselves. you don’t know what’s happening to you - I thought I had early onset alzheimer’s because I could not think straight and felt like I was in a dark pit all the time.
It took a few weeks to start to work, but over several (about six) months I was back to normal as I was before. Wow - Amazing stuff.
However, I think it is wrongly prescribed or over-prescribed in some cases. Keeping in mind that with SSRI’s the patients can somestimes flip over to Mania, it’s not like taking aspirin for a headache. Which is how I think some people look at anti-depressants.
I take 10mg Fluoxetine because 20 mg a day makes me too jumpy. On the other hand, my sister takes 60 mg a day because less than that is not as effective for her.
A friend of my wife takes Paxil. So after taking to my doctor I gave it a try. On the second day I woke up shaking like a leaf and seeing sparklies all around and things seemed to be jumping off the wall at me, plus a loud rumbling / rushing sound all around. I called the doctor, took an Ativan, took the day off work and slept the rest of the day and went back to my dose of Prozac.
Only thing I can guess is if a brain chemical such as 5HT is pushed by Anti-Depressants in the same way Serotonin is, and if brain chemicals like 5HT are part of what gets affected in the brain during LSD experiences, that might explain my reaction. If so, sure glad I never dropped acid...
Well, I guess everyone’s different. Seems to me most of the problem is not treating SSRI’s as just a Tylenol or Advil for the brain, instead of the powerful drugs that they are.
Usually the patients beg for them. Doesn't excuse the overuse of them, but it does explain it.
I had 5 kids sad walk into the doctors to say they were sad because their brother died.All five plus in laws were presrcibe antidepressants.Only my baby Mary took them,the rest never got the prescription filled.
Every single time I went to my ex dr he tried to give me zoloft. I swear he got a kickback. I finally got a different dr.
Give us back our cigarettes.
Actually no. I think it’s also used to wean people off of really destructive behavior like throwing down 6 packs of beer all the time. That’ll just make you fat and have a bad liver. Prolly have a wife that hates you too. So yeah these things are sort of a non-religious bridge out of bad lifestyle choices. The idea is you eventually don’t need to prescription once you have gotten the other part squared a away. YMMV, naturally. But I wouldn’t just say they are crap and be done with it.
I take Luvox, a SSRI and without it my life is too painful to live.I try not to live in the past but some things are hard to forget. My doc is not a pill pusher, some people have a REAL needs for these drugs.
Antidepressants don’t have any effect on people who are not depressed, and they are certainly not “happy” pills.
Antidepressants do have their place in treating certain kinds of serious depressive disorders. People cannot snap out of it any more than they can snap out of a brain tumor. Still, these drugs are way over- prescribed and I feel they have had a detrimental effect on society. They can dull the protective sense of shame and guilt that is our internal moral compass. These meds contribute to people’s give-a-crap being broken. It also makes it easier to point to the sins of others like the dead white men rather than looking inside at our own.
Well, there goes Dr. Healy again...
People with other MH diagnoses get depressed.
People who are depressed are prone to suffer other mental anomalies, including paranoia, cognitive impairment, memory loss, anger/explosiveness, substance abuse, etc., etc.
People clamor for them because they are bombarded with marketing and advertisements. It’s not good that people insist (over the reasoned advice of their doctors) based on marketing not much different from that used to sell cars or soda pop.
This drug rep agrees.
Yeah, I see that often...and I don't let it persist. I either switch or reduce the Rx and watch carefully. It's common to have different doses for different patients. The key is careful monitoring and, yes, some practitioners fail to do that.
People with other MH diagnoses get depressed.
People who are depressed are prone to suffer other mental anomalies, including paranoia, cognitive impairment, memory loss, anger/explosiveness, substance abuse, etc., etc.
"But he also saw that his position would be strengthened if he could cite the results of a drug experiment on undepressed, certifiably normal volunteers. If some of them, too, showed grave disturbance after taking Pfizer's Zoloft—and they did in Healy's test, with long-term consequences that have left him remorseful as well as indignant—then depression was definitively ruled out as the culprit."
Why did you ignore that? Healy changed his mind about SSRIs.
Many people get depressed from things other than worry or stressful relations. Pneumonia, for example, can cause serious depression with a rapid onset. All the soul-searching in the world won't benefit these cases.
Also, in many instances, the patient's mental abilities deteriorate as a result of the depression and it becomes impossible for them to literally think straight.
But, if the patient is a good candidate for it, outdoor exercise, a good diet and good friends can be as helpful as anything.
“Depression can be totally debilitating and should not be treated lightly. I think using prescription meds is a way of treating them lightly. I’m not a medical professional. It’s just my observation. I think you need to fight your way out of depression, and often you need help, but I don’t think the pills are help.”
The Northern Illinois University killer went OFF his meds a few weeks before his murderous rampage. Methinks he should have stayed on them, as at least while on them he wasn’t busy plotting and carrying out mass murder. I think we have to be very careful here not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Many times pills can help, and many medications have allowed us to live a lot longer than one ordinarily would, as most of us know. There is much more trial and error to get the right meds that will work on a given mental patient, however, if those pills allow the mentally ill to at least function in society, then so be it. This killer at Northern IL Univ. went off his meds in order to try to solve his problems on his own. Well, we can see where his decision led him. Think carefully before blaming the pills for whatever happens. I don’t trust this anyhow, as the Libs are always after the big pharmaceuticals, and they will use any leverage they can get to do so.
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