Antidepressants, Miracle Drugs, Poison or Placebo?

Like all medications they work great for some people, have no effect on others, and make matters worse for the rest. Like the doctor told my parents when he recommended that my brother take medication for his ADHD. "If you don't like the effects, just stop taking it"

 

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You haven't in this thread, but there was that business of yin/yang. Very damaging to your credibility on a forum such as this.

 

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Lol, calling a hail mary, eh?

Well I guess if you don't have any good arguments for the points I presented here then I suppose it's only logical for a sophist to do something such as this. You're a hack and you know it.

 

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Says the person who dismisses the existence of Asperger's syndrome. LOL, i know more than those dopes with their advanced degrees and fancy book lernin.

 

Says the guy who seems to be basing his entire argument on anecdotal evidence

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Of course one should not just blindly accept whatever "the experts" say, especially if it seems contradicted by logic or evidence. But when a large group of experts reach a conclusion after spending their careers carefully studying something, and you reach a different conclusion based on your casual observations and anecdotal evidence, you should seriously consider the possibility that maybe the experts know something that you don't.

 

There must be something in the air because this morning I flipped through a Newsweek and found an article which is exactly about this discussion we're having.

"Talking to Hall, I was acutely aware just how much their stance reflects on the rest of us—the "normal" minds that can't read through a book undistracted, the lightly depressed people, the everyday drunks who tend toward volatility, the people who "just" have trouble making eye contact, those ordinary Americans who memorize every possible detail about Angelina Jolie."

"While some critics might view Icaristas as irresponsible, their skepticism about drugs isn't entirely unfounded. Lately, a number of antipsychotic drugs have been found to cause some troubling side effects."

http://www.newsweek.com/id/195694/page/1

 

I read newsweek every morning and did not see that article, going through it again now

 

Regarding the newsweek article, it seems to try to inaccurately frame the debate as "normal" vs. "not normal," and argues that perhaps people with mental illnesses aren't really any weirder than average people (hence all the stuff about 'normal' people who do weird things like memorize details about an actress). The thing is, doctors don't consider people to be mentally ill simply because they are weird; they only consider something to be a mental illness if it endangers a person or has a significant negative impact on their life.

If you are obsessed with star trek, memorize every detail about it, collect star trek crap, and spend most of your leisure time watching star trek, going to conventions, etc, that's certainly pretty weird. But it would only be considered a mental illness if it reached the point where it was interfering with your ability to hold a job, ruining your relationship with your friends and family, etc. So when a guy who has a mental illness that prevents him from being able to hold down a job says "Hey, I'm really no more weird than someone who memorizes every possible detail about Angelina Jolie," well, that might be true...but it's not really relevant.

 

Just responding to the first post.

Chemotherapy by the same logic could be considered a placebo since 96% of patients see NO impact on the state of cancer in their bodies.

curenaturalicancro .com/2-physicians-refuse-chemo.html

A ridiculous argument

 

Speak the truth West Virginia! :thumbsup:

 

Once, I've read an article that intake of magnesium is revelant during depression and often comes from deficiency of this element. Daily requirement amount to 300g and more for people training sport, or these who are susceptible to stress. Contemporary food isn't full of magnesium and person who eats very healthly can provide around 200g daily. That still too less. What's interesting doctors are rarely saying this.


This is what I've read in this article. What about same thread I think it depends from people and personal disease.

 

it is the most dangerous placebo out there.

 

If you know anyone with cancer who wants to consider alternative cures, tell them to quickly chew and then wash down with water, 1 bulb of garlic per day.

It is the most potent white-mana-vegetable that I know of!

My prostate was growing rapidly and I managed to slow it, and maybe even stop it from growing anymore with 1 bulb of hot burning garlic per day.


Also note that if you suck on a small tidbit of garlic during a sore throat or cold it will go away quickly.

There is a reason that Old Europe thought garlic got rid of vampires, that is because it fights off viruses, bacteria, cancers, parasites, black molds.... all of these are but feeble creations when compared to the power of garlic!

 

I´ve been taking Citalopram for two weeks now and feel much better. My mind doesn´t whizz around thinking about my problems (being jobless). It levelled out my mood so that I could feel confident enough to see my family and friends from my home area. I´ve had a great time and caught up with people. I didn´t feel guilty or embarrassed about being skint with sh*te clothes, just pleased that I had friends who are rich and successful. They are all stressed to some degree and have problems themselves, it´s nice to forget about everything and feel happy and relaxed. I had 5 pints last night and hardly had any hangover. Just a good time.

(I was even lucky enough to get given some designer trainers, shoes and t-shirts - cheers Craig!)

 

It seems to me that the slight overall improvement can be attributed to a statistical error. The people that go on antidepressants are at the lowest end of the depression spectrum. So, it seems that they cannot really get much worse, only improve. It seems to me that when a person that is very happy is more likely to get less happy than more happy. A person in the middle is just as likely to get depressed as get happier. A depressed person is more likely to get happier than more depressed, because there just isn't room for any more misery. Just a thought.

It certainly doesn't seem so, I know.

 

I think this is true

 

I think many people confuse 'genetics' for what are really Patterns of Behavior and emotional patterns passed from one generation to the next.

'Depression' is really just a catch-all word used to describe an infinite variety of moods and experiences that a person can experience that is really more of an emotional exhaustion and hopelessness. It's largely known it's caused after someone is under certain stressors for too much time and eventually the brain just poops out and you get depressed.

By taking action to remedy whatever the stress is that is initiating the depression you help the brain heal. This is why placebo works about as well as an antidepressant. The very fact you are taking action and moving forward let's you feel more positive and break the cycle of being 'stuck' in the same thought patterns. After a few weeks the depression lifts because the brain rebalances once again now that you're not ruminating on the same thoughts over and over creating stress.

I was on Effexor for many years and I now regret it. They made me emotionally numb, left me disoriented and feeling out of touch with the world. There are decisions I made while on the drug I doubt I would have made if I hadn't been on and there are opportunities I didn't pursue because I didn't feel any passion at the time but that now that I'm off I also feel differently about.

There's a big danger with antidepressants that is rarely mentioned and this is the change in your passion and desire in a bad way. Many people I've talked to that are on them for long periods of time talk about how they might feel 'ok' while on them but they lose the inspirational highs as well as day to day frustrated feelings that used to make themselves push themselves much harder to accomplish things. If you feel 'ok' about everything regardless of whether you succeed or not you end up just having medicated yourself into mediocrity.

 

I'm not sure I agree with you for this reason. My father and I both have a touch of aspergers or high functioning autistic traits. I'm 40 now and only about 3 or 4 years ago I started to 'come out' of what I now realize was 'living in myself' where I internalized most of my life. Spontaneous healing of Aspergers is rare but not unknown and now that I've 'come out' from inside myself I clearly see a difference in my perception of the world. My father still lives his life mostly inside of himself. He...and I when I was still sick, perceive the world differently.

For instance I can tell my father to call me on his own initiative 100 times, yet he rarely if ever does it. For a long time I used to get mad at him and think he was just a narcissist. But then I realized that when I got mad at him and yelled and screamed he really was very hurt inside and even cried. Finally after years I realize that his mind in some ways is simply not capable of showing interest outside his 'world'. It's a developmental/emotional deformity of some type.

Whether genetic or through trauma in childhood I don't know, but I see how he lives his life now and realize that much of what I use to think was just self-centeredness is actually him being completely clueless that he's even supposed to think of other people. It simply never occurs to him not because he's a bad person, but before his brain works differently. I wonder how many asperger/autistic people are miscategorized as narcissists?

 

Just FYI: I didn't resurrect this thread, Mr. 2 Posts above can claim that distinction.

Shit. If I even glance in the direction of an antidepressant, it's pretty much a guaranteed sectioning in less than a fortnight (and a heightened potential for the interminably fun status epilepticus). I can't understand how bipolar people manage to take ADs without inducing mania. Anticonvulsants and the prudent admininstration of antipsychotics (preferably the real ones, like haloperidol, not the bullshit atypicals which are little more than bastardized antihistamines--alas, there is less money to be had in prescribing a 40 year old drug that actually works) are the preferred course of treatment for bipolar: the more anticonvulsive varieties for ultra rapid cyclers and thorough wackjobs (self included), the less so for the more socially respectable bipolar 2 types.

As to the OP: is it really all that remarkable that there is such a wide range of responses to psychotropic drugs? I kinda thought that everybody was different, you know, physiologically, biochemically, and whatnots. In the past, in the absence of ergot and triptan type drugs, I've taken LSD to treat migraines--apart from possible migraine abatement, it has no other discernable effect upon me. I'm confident that at least some people find it otherwise.

Moreover, in the U.S. most especially, AD's are widely prescribed to people who aren't even depressed. Many are simply dysthymic, or if they are clinically depressed, their depression can be attributed to factors other than biochemical imbalance: substance abuse (well, that one goes both ways), being a victim of abuse, or simply being a product of shitty circumstances and shitty outlook. Cognitive or behavioral therapy would make more sense.

Even R.D. Laing did not reject the existence of psychiatric illness; he simply critiqued the methodology by which diagnoses are made solely upon the basis of observed behaviors, without a careful consideration of the social circumstances or even physiological pathologies which may have informed the behaviors.