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 ...
Her drug bill is horrendous. I wouldn't mind if it had brought her happiness, but they don't. They have brought her misery.
I have often wondered about the numbers being used... think about it for just a second - people being treated for DEPRESSION taking their own lives? Hello - isn’t that a fairly common (and unfortunate) trend among those depressed?
Fact - a depressed person is many times more likely to kill themselves than a person who is not depressed...
No, you send in grief counselors and that's supposed to take care of it. I've always wondered what grief counselors tell the grieving that takes away their grief and what justifies the expense.
Have you tried fish oil, Vit D, zinc and other natural remedies? Prayers for your recovery.
Have you tried fish oil, Vit D, zinc and other natural remedies? Prayers for your recovery.
I recall a study being done on smokers/depression some years ago - something about smoking as self-medication or something. I used to smoke. LOVED it. Still miss it almost every single day and I haven’t smoked in years. I’m less happy now that I don’t smoke - but when you think about it, smoking is an artificial and really dangerous mood elevator. So it’s not worth it.
Sigh. It *was* fun while it lasted, wasn’t it?
I have been described as a "grumpy, moping F*@#". To counteract this I have a regimen I subscribe to: ride my mtn bike hard every few days so that I come home tired; play with my cat; fold laundry.
Works for me.
I think I have found a source of my malaise. My fiance told me "you need to stop reading all your news and politics stuff on that website; it just makes you mad!"
"that website" being FR.
Much of this is nonsense and more stigma towards those who suffer mental illness. Are you sure of what major depression is really like for those who suffer it? The illness is not having a bad day or a series of bad days. There are guidelines that are used in diagnosing. Fortunately the medications are helping some individuals. Mental illness has had a long history of criticism and social disgrace. There is abuse of these medications as with many other types of medicines. Some people may have bipolar disorder which is not always helped by antidepressants. Many of those who do use violence may benefit from a different combination of medications. When you hear someone went off their meds- do you know what the meds were? Suicide used to go unreported in the past because of the embarrassment families kept it quiet. Are we sure it has such a strong relationship to antidepressants?
Smoking cigarettes was always a very social event, too. It allowed people a moment to be happy together.
We could all lose a lot of weight, too.
It’s all easier said than done. Imagine yourself isolated on a desert island, which is what today’s urban environment has become for each and everyone of us. Sure, pills won’t cure melancholy, but neither will outdoor exercise and good diet. Been there, am there.
“Your post shows such a complete lack of knowledge about depression and depressive disorders as to render it laughable.
Depression and depressive disorders are not about feeling sad or sorry for oneself.”
I am not in the least bit unfamiliar with depression, and your response is unnecessarily hostile. My post is not laughable. I have a great deal of compassion for the depressed, and I am concerned that the use of SSRIs is often a temporary masking of some hard and serious work that needs to be done.
Depression is not ONLY about feeling sad or sorry for oneself, and I didn’t say that. These attitudes are PART of it, however, and need to be dealt with, not swept under the rug so we can all pretend there is no problem.
I never advocated abruptly stopping any medication. You are reading things into my post that are not there.
“Think carefully before blaming the pills for whatever happens. “
I under no circumstances have ever said that someone on SSRIs or any meds should stop taking them. I believe the man who shot up NIU should have stayed on his meds. I never said otherwise.
I also believe that, when his depressive symptoms first started being recognized, he and those who were helping him (hopefully he went to someone; someone was prescribing SSRI, and he stayed in a mental facility) should have worked with him, for hours a day if necessary, to develop the coping skills, attitude, and habits that really can help lift a person out of depression.
Because “going off” of coping skills, good attitude, and healthy habits wouldn’t have dropped him into a homicidal rage. “Going off” meds often will. It is really better not to get dependent on the meds if at all possible.
It reminds me of the whole Ritalin plague. You have children in your classroom who are defiant, noisy, boisterous, display nervous ticks, get aggressive, won’t cooperate. You can:
1. Spend hours developing relationships with them, punishing bad behavior, rewarding good behavior, making sure they get some exercise and decent nutrition, and plenty of rest, having them get involved in positive things were they can strengthen their self control -
2. or you can give them Ritalin.
The Ritalin “works,” I guess, for a while, but have you dealt with the problem, really?
Now, if you spend a few years working with a severely depressed person, and there is no result, no result, no result, or they get worse, then sure, I’d say, try meds. Maybe they can have a halfway normal life.
But no one seems to want to invest the time or the effort. And when I suggest that we do, I am called (by other posters) laughable or uninformed.
I see that several subsequent comments have set you straight on what is an extremely naive and biologically ignorant view of depression (as opposed to sadness) in human beings.
“With regards to item # 2. Supposed you witnessed an aircrash into Pearl Harbor that killed 11 of your close friends. Then you ID’d them in the morgue. Then you spent a week burying them. Should that depresses you? And if so, what next?”
I almost think you’d be mentally ill if it didn’t depress you!
If someone went through all that, and was all happy go lucky, I’d think they were not well.
I think that’s a good example of something that can haunt you for life. I can imagine crying over that 50 years later.
However, if, after a while, it dictates your every day life and you can’t stop thinking about it - if it makes you unable to sleep, work, be happy, or have a good relationship with anyone - then I’d say you need help.
Not because there is something wrong with for being depressed, but because you need help coping with the depression and overcoming its worst symptoms.
By help, I’d say first, lots of time and effort in working through all the issues and developing ways to deal with them. I don’t think SSRIs should be the first resort BECAUSE, then, the issues don’t get dealt with. They get covered.
It bears to be mentioned that these drugs are used for other things. I have fibromyalgia and could not move without them. I have recently changed to Cymbalta, from Lexapro, and I have less pain than ever. I am able to work and live a normal life with these drugs. Each person is different and treatment should be each case on it’s own.
Do you see yourself every getting off these meds, or do you think you will take them for a lifetime? I am not being judgemental with this question - if you think it is in your best interest to take them the rest of your life, that’s your decision and I respect it. I take thyroid every day and will until the day I day.
Do the meds continue to work as well five or ten years down the road, or does their effectiveness wane after a while? If it does, what do you do then?
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