i have a friend who takes "Prozac" for depression, and she went to see her dr to see if she can come of the drug because she feals a lot better, she has been on it for 16yrs now, and he said, "well you can stay on prozac all your life without any set backs" but she has been told by the primary care trust that prozac should only be used in short bursts because you can becomme addicted to it. who is right the dr or the primary care trust? she said to the dr that she wanted couselling for the depression and he asked her why was she taking prozac in the first place, (i wont tell anyone here the reasons for it, its not for me to say) but he said to her that "she should have a british stiff upper lip" so again who is right the dr or primary care trust!
As I understand it certain members of the SSRI (selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitor) family of anti-depressants - of which Prozac (fluoxetene) is one, can cause withrdawal symptoms if someone stops using them suddenly - particularly if they have been taking them for prolonged periods. In the past I have been prescribed Sertraline (aka Zoloft or Lustral) which as I understand it is considerably milder that Prozac (fluoxetene) but even that isn't recommended for prolonged use without fairly strict specialist supervision, and a gradual weaning down through lower dosages before stopping altogether. GP's treatment of depression in the UK seems to consist of 2 extremes - "here's a prescription for an SSRI now sod off and come back in 6 months" or "get over yourself". Like your friend, I had a GP with the latter when I was suffering (indeed that was my attitude with myself for quite some time before seeing him) - but when my condition continued to worsen, with persistence, I managed to get a referral to a psychiatric specialist - after which getting whatever treatment I needed was pretty much plain sailing. I think in your friend's case getting straight on to a program of counselling should be straightforward as drug therapy has apparently been unsucessful. I would advise you friend to harangue her GP to get a referral to a specialist - if she's persistent I wouldn't expect it to take more than a month or so. It might help if she contacts some mental health charities as well to see if they provide any counselling services http://bubl.ac.uk/link/h/healthcharities.htm Hope that helps
thanks SP i'll show her what you wrote, and your right, dr's in the uk do just 2 things, here is a script for antidepressants, or get over yourself, go and get some fresh air, but some people need help with depression
I agree with the stiff upper lip advice. Drugs such as these should be, more or less a last resort. But sometimes they are necessary so maybe you can be on low dosage without negative effects for the rest of your life (not sure) and at that point addiction becomes a moot point. So long as taken as prescribed but depression is somewhat normal, IMO the patient needs to come to terms with a possible chemical imbalance. Such as, does patient something is just not right? Most imprtantly to remember is try not to take drugs to forget problems because i cannot see how that would work.
I'd think that the person taking a medication should be the final judge of what they take and for how long. If medications don't work well then people should stop what they are taking and find something that does work talking with their doctors of course.
so in your opinion, if a woman is violently attacked and she gets really really depressed, she should have should take the stiff upper lip approach?
I cannot say what is right or wrong for a specific individual but what else can you do? The person is still alive and you cannot change what has already happened. I suppose, in a sense, this is why one doc told the person to get used to being on them forever. I am not sure anything has been invented to just erase bad memories.
