Posted on 04/08/2018 5:36:25 AM PDT by MarvinStinson
Victoria Toline needed nine months to taper off Zoloft. “I had to drop out of school,” she said. “My life’s been on hold.”
Victoria Toline would hunch over the kitchen table, steady her hands and draw a bead of liquid from a vial with a small dropper. It was a delicate operation that had become a daily routine — extracting ever tinier doses of the antidepressant she had taken for three years, on and off, and was desperately trying to quit.
“Basically that’s all I have been doing — dealing with the dizziness, the confusion, the fatigue, all the symptoms of withdrawal,” said Ms. Toline, 27, of Tacoma, Wash. It took nine months to wean herself from the drug, Zoloft, by taking increasingly smaller doses.
“I couldn’t finish my college degree,” she said. “Only now am I feeling well enough to try to re-enter society and go back to work.”
Long-term use of antidepressants is surging in the United States, according to a new analysis of federal data by The New York Times. Some 15.5 million Americans have been taking the medications for at least five years. The rate has almost doubled since 2010, and more than tripled since 2000.
Nearly 25 million adults, like Ms. Toline, have been on antidepressants for at least two years, a 60 percent increase since 2010.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
my niece was on anti depressants for 18 yrs (after the death of her new born son) they changed her tremendously, and even now she is not the same person. I can’t understand why her doctor thought this was good for her.
Another neurotransmitter, glutamate, has been implicated in depression as well, but more research is necessary at this time to determine the nature of this relationship.
Glutamate is the dominant neurotransmitter in the brain and serves to increase alertness by increasing the action potential firing rate of the neural transmission. GABA is the leading inhibitory neurotransmitter.
An imbalance of either of these two neurotransmitters can shut the brain down into depression or cause it to race and cause insomnia.
This past year I attended a psychiatric lecture explaining that the neural pathways for emotional pain are the same as the neural pathways for physical pain. Tylenol and Ibuprofen also decrease emotional pain.
Therefore, exercise.
For me, sunshine. I am from New York and I was so much more melancholy when Ilived there. Clouds, rain and cold do something physiologically to me. I have lived much of my adult life in the sun belt and have been a much different person due to it.
“I can’t understand why her doctor thought this was good for her.”
Dreadful doctor———anti depressants were never intended for someone who is grieving.
.
“At some point, I would start to wonder if being depressed is who you are supposed to be.”
Try living with someone who has it for a while.
L
A medicated society in a daze is much easier to control. This is by design. The government wants everybody addicted to stupor inducing drugs and incapable of doing anything. This is by design.
Awesome! Thank you for posting this!
unfortunately some of these people think unless they are Happy they must be/are depressed and that's not the way it works you have to learn to be OK... happy is for when there is something to be happy about same as sadness
i've seen this up close and personal dealing with someone who's mind set was exactly that, not happy = depressed, the drugs just made it worse
this is not to say there isn't real depression, but there is a difference
“Try living with someone who has it for a while.”
My take is that’s he’s talking about the rest. Belief is a big factor.
Really??? That seems... quite a bad approach, honestly! Wow!
IMO the entire country is over prescribed....on everything. I am 61, and take a total of 0 prescriptions, largely due to living healthy and genetics (a 90 year old death in my family is early).
I had to pick up one for my daughter, there were four people in front of me that had at least 50-75 different prescription drugs apiece. There is no way in hell any doctor can judge the interaction of that mess!
I pray that you never need to find out.
Situational depression is closer to what you describe. Clinical depression, that which has been around since I can remember is a friggin anchor that you drag around (and it occasionally drags you).
There was nothing in a ten year olds behavior that has them walking around in a cloud.. That kid was a straight A student, eventually an Eagle Scout, a college grad, and youngest Senior VP in his company’s history. Married 32 years, and two well adjusted, self sustaining children.
Trust me...I’ve been tested every which way to Sunday. I wish it was something I did.
Life without faith in God is hard for many people. Drugs are not the answer for daily maintenance.
That said, I have had to actively resist doctors trying to hand out antidepressants when they were too lazy to identify my actual physical illnesses, on three occasions. They were indifferent to finding out what was really wrong and tried to push pills to make me go away. I had to wait until the illnesses worsened before I could get a proper diagnosis. Leaning on being able to write anti-depressant prescriptions has been addictive and negative for the medical profession.
I think many doctors, both male and female, have a bias about women and treat them as if they are neurotic, when in actuality many doctors feel they are too busy and important to be bothered with finding out what is wrong in the early stages. I’m not a dramatic complainer; I speak in a matter-of-fact tone; consequently I nearly died twice from lack of a proper diagnosis, and definitely lost income from having to have more serious treatments at a more advanced stage of illness.
This happens to a lot of women, when what they need are clinical doses of certain vitamins, and to restore their depleted Omega-3 acids with fish oil. I was vegetarian for a decade before I had my first child, but had mad cravings for fatty pork and fish after he was born, and went ahead and ate them. And felt better!
Look, folks: I’ve commented here prior about this. Someday soon I hope to publish my book which has a quite different view of health than the popular one promoted by the AMA.
You CANNOT restore hormonal balance by tweaking with your biology via the ingestion of chemicals. As a clinical tool, if you feel better taking a drug, it’s a red flag that action is required, and I’m not referring to a prescription.
Pharmaceuticals in this era - in most cases - are irresponsibly-lazy on the part of both doctor & patient alike.
You may be provided your ‘scrip’ but it is solely your responsibility to choose to do something about your health.
Depression - like anxiety - is a result of hormonal imbalance. A symptom of a larger problem meriting action, not ignorance.
Stay strong my dear FRiend, that is inspirational knowing you fought off the pills.
Still, it is not at all clear that everyone on an open-ended prescription should come off it. Most doctors agree that a subset of users benefit from a lifetime prescription
This is true, too.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.