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| Thoughts and opinions on antidepressants
Posted: 9/21/2009 9:40:15 PM |
Marijuana's active ingredient - THC - is endogenous to humans. We make it ourselves. I agree it is harmless. You can not OD on ganja. You don't have to smoke it, so the lung-cancer argument is moot. I love marijuana, even though I quit it after being an afficionado and grower of super dank nugs for 25 years.
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| Thoughts and opinions on antidepressants
Posted: 9/22/2009 3:47:30 AM | Msg: 98
Vanaheim Says:
...
Again, you've avoided answering my question yourself. I come to these forums to ask people questions. If I wanted something Googling I'd do it myself, OR at least request links from someone, for example when I asked NothingLeftToBurn about LSD (To be honesst I strongly doubted there were any 30+ year studies).
I don't make elaborate elusive posts to avoid answering questions.
So once again, my hypothesis:
Both sadness and depression are adaptive traits; they are part of our motivation and drives (which in turn is neurochemical in nature). It makes sense that we avoid becoming depressed or sad, by raising/maintaining our status in comparison to others, having predictable relationships, providing safety, engaging in copulation, etc, etc. Those needs and other needs were vital to our survival and the reproduction of our genes. Having the ability and skills to fulfill all of those would increase Darwinian fitness.
Therefore feeling bad or depressed about not having those needs fulfilled, does not necessarily constitute a broken, or a neurochemically diseased/disordered person. Those neurochemical states are part of a reward mechanism and possibly (another hypothesis) also intergraded into the workings of social hierarchy.
If my hypothesis is wrong, so be it. If it’s an accurate description of what’s going on then good for me for pointing it out. | |
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| Thoughts and opinions on antidepressants
Posted: 9/22/2009 7:47:19 AM | ^^^^^^ Many people with cats are the subject of a parasitic organism infecting thier brain and altering thier behaviour. There is a parasitic worm, that can be caught from close contact with cats, that alters the brain structure (They literaly eat certain parts of the brain and reduce thier function) to make the host more friendly and sociable. This infection can also be shared by mice, and causes the mice to loose all fear of cats.
Its also pretty much a gaurantee that no one on this planet is not host to some parasites. there are thousands, maybee trillions of them, on or in your body right now. there are species of mould that are comon world wide, thats can become parasitic, liing in the lungs, but still effect behaviour by chemical action. they can cause people to become more lethargica and listless, whilst inciting them to seak out certain conditions where the spores can spread more easilly, such as dark enviroments with little to no breaze and a nice constant warm temperature (like a bedroom with a clossed window for example).
In the medical profesion, there is no doubt as to the reality and severity of depresion. Did you know you are 6 times more likely to kill yourself than to be killed by someone else? (UK murder rate is around 1000 anually, suicide rate s around 6000 anually.) This is a VERY serious problem, it is not something you can simply shrug off.
There are many difrent types of depresion and none of them work on the body in the same way. There are also many causes for each difrent type of depresion. This is what makes depresion so hard to treat. We have a variety of drugs, with many difrent varients of each one, because each case is difrent.
In most casses of depresion, the drugs are ussed as a stop gap measure to aleviate the symptoms so that the underlying illness can be treated before the patient dies, just like ussing a cold compress to relive a fever before you identify and treat the underlying infection. This can be very quick, and some people only need to be on medication for a very short time, just a few months, but others can present complications that make identify the root cause very dificult, or the treatment might be very slow and not necicerily 100% effective, so it can take others years to come off the medication.
Not all casses are this straight forwards though. Some casses do not respond to medication at all. Others can show symptoms of one illness, but infact be caused by a difrent unrelated illness. And some can simply be untreatable. There are many diferant formas of depresion that are cronic, caused by actual deformities or damage to the brain. The symptoms can sometimes be aliveted by medication but rhe cause will never be cured. For some, it is not a simple case of getting excercise. Exercise generally only works with reactive depresions. | |
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| Thoughts and opinions on antidepressants
Posted: 9/22/2009 10:56:41 AM | I am not sure ive posted on this one. According to the latest bbc science article (look that site can be trusted 99% of the time) on this one there is no proof they alter various brain/hormonal chemistry
I like to be serious for once :)
Ive had a few measured and they always come bk within normal parameters, most people arnt even afforded this common courtesy.
I remember getting some, after a practicality nasty car crash 9oh and a few before they diagnosed cfs me fm etc or lurgy as i prefer to call it)..and my dreams twere always aboot muffins boots neophytes and corsets
and fk me, i forget there name, i now now what a chemically altered state of mind is with howwible scaree bed wetting monsters, with dribbling mandibles no doubt, and troubled thoughts
And yet. I need to say, if they work for some sure why not.
slipper note....and average or medium is ecaxtly that and ones persons, wont always be others - but this is used as a specification/range so to speak.....
i worked in labs for eons and cos it made a specification in no way meant it was fit for pupsose in all cases ;) | |
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| Thoughts and opinions on antidepressants
Posted: 9/22/2009 11:18:12 AM | | A quick note about marijuana or ganga. While THC has been shown to elevate mood and increase hunger and you cannot OD on it there does seem to be one dark side effect. As a college student I have tried marijuana and found it to be a fun experience. However at the current time when I was smokeing the funny grass I was in a more or less happy state of mind. Marijuana seems to elevate touch, taste, sounds, and yes feelings as well. When I was in a happy mood my elation was only elevated and I felt great. However when I started to experience depression it hightened the negative feelings I was having and made me feel at least as twice as worse. Im by no means knocking smoking marijuana I am warning agianst it though if you find yourself sad or depressed. | |
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| Thoughts and opinions on antidepressants
Posted: 9/22/2009 12:25:10 PM |
Again, you've avoided answering my question yourself. I come to these forums to ask people questions. If I wanted something Googling I'd do it myself, OR at least request links from someone, for example when I asked NothingLeftToBurn about LSD (To be honesst I strongly doubted there were any 30+ year studies).
- There are no 30+ year old studies on lsd research because lsd research was made illegal in the 70's. | |
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| Thoughts and opinions on antidepressants
Posted: 9/22/2009 1:01:29 PM | I used to be on anti-depressants. I think that some drugs really do help. The real problem I think is misdiagnosis or people that think they have a Chemical Imbalance when they really don't. Not to mention Drug companies pushing their drugs onto your local M.D. - dscshift
That combined with the fact that almost all research is done or funded by the drug companies, skews things in "their" favour. And it's obvious that if you
DON'T have a chemical imbalance, what kind of havoc can such a drug cause, perhaps creating an imbalance, instead. Also I think the profit motive factors in,
& doctors are just being too damn lazy. Much more profitable & quicker to scribble out a quick prescription, rather than to take the time to actually help your
patient
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It simply acts as a magnifyer. It intensifies what is. - Bluesman2008
That's it exactly! It enhances the feelings, in a similar way to how salt enhances the flavours of other ingredients & spices, in food. So yeah, good idea to
avoid it when you are depressed. I stopped smoking for several years, for that very reason. | |
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| Thoughts and opinions on antidepressants
Posted: 9/22/2009 6:02:49 PM |
Much more profitable & quicker to scribble out a quick prescription, rather than to take the time to actually help your patient
I think crappy and irresponsible doctors are the reason so many people think that's what happens. My university's health center didn't let people see a psychiatrist until after they had seen a counselor several times. The person who compared antidepressants to a cold compress is exactly right. I honestly don't know why people call antidepressants "Happy pills" because if that was the case I'd be walking on sunshine whoaaaaa at this very moment. I had to be on the med merry-go-round for 2 years before I found the right medications and doses but now I feel more stable than I have in a very long time. It doesn't completely eliminate anything, not by a long shot, but it definitely helps. It's nice to be able to stop crying once you start, or having short panic attacks instead of ones that last several hours, and make you feel even worse, sometimes to the point of physical illness because you have no idea when it is going to stop.
One of the best things I ever read is "Antidepressants can't change the way you think" and I believe it. That is why people need both medication and therapy, or in some cases only therapy. People who say it turned them into a different person or made them think bizarre things were not on the right medication.
That's it exactly! It enhances the feelings, in a similar way to how salt enhances the flavours of other ingredients & spices, in food. So yeah, good idea to
avoid it when you are depressed. I stopped smoking for several years, for that very reason.
I totally agree with you on that part. My ex kept trying to get me to smoke so I would cheer up but I just felt and thought about everything more deeply and felt even worse. | |
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| Thoughts and opinions on antidepressants
Posted: 9/22/2009 6:13:34 PM |
However, most good ADs are abused. I'm not a doctor but I don't think Xanax and Clonoipin should be taken daily. I think they should be used when they are needed, they don't take that long to start working. So these people that take xanax just because they are presribed it are exactly what is wrong with ADs.
That's because those are anti-anxiety medications, not antidepressants. I think some people get dependent on Xanax and similar medications because they have a short half-life, and they start to get anxious again as soon as it wears off and they immediately take it again.
Again, this goes back to doctors who are just being lazy. I have PTSD and panic disorder, but I've never been prescribed Xanax. In fact once I was prescribed Vistaril, and its on-label use is an anthistamine like Benadryl. It takes a while to work, but it's a central nervous system depressant and can help calm you down.
As for Klonopin, I was prescribed that once before I had surgery. I definitely wouldn't take it every day because it made me sleep 13 hours straight, but some people don't even get tired at all when they take it. It just depends on the person and how bad their anxiety is.
* There is no real test that shows a chemical imbalance in brain chemistry. This is just something used by the pharm industry to push pills.
Wow. Have you ever heard of an FMRI?
Not to mention, how would they know that different neurotransmitters cause different disorders? For example, I know from experience things like Effexor make my anxiety worse, because they are SNRI's (Serotonin and Norepinephrine Reuptake Inhibitors) instead of SSRI's, meaning that they are stimulants and that is not a good combination for someone who is anxious and easily startled. But if people didn't know which neurotransmitters and areas of the brain caused which problems, then how would they be able to develop different types of medication, or even treatment like Vagus Nerve Stimulators in extreme cases, in the first place? | |
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| Thoughts and opinions on antidepressants
Posted: 9/23/2009 12:35:46 AM | Many people with cats are the subject of a parasitic organism infecting thier brain and altering thier behaviour. There is a parasitic worm, that can be caught from close contact with cats, that alters the brain structure (They literaly eat certain parts of the brain and reduce thier function) to make the host more friendly and sociable.
Really. Again, you have taught me something. I was first befriended by the species felix domesticans when I was 7. I also believe that I am definitely a cat person. I am not challenging you, but I do have skepticism regarding this claim. I may have an affinity for cats because of their nature of eliciting relationships passively compared to dogs and aggressive humans who have a propensity to pursue, rather than engender, relationships.
Could you point me to any sources of this parasitic worm? If you could show me this I may be able to "figure out" some of my nature.
This is the last I will broach the OP here. This is an interesting turn and I couldn't leave it. Seriously Bright1, I am asking. | |
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| Thoughts and opinions on antidepressants
Posted: 9/23/2009 8:06:24 AM | Certainly vichycycl. The parasite is called toxoplasmosis gondii and is potentially the most commonparasite in the western world (based on SWAG figures {scientific wild assed guesses} because we have no true values for the exact amount of most types of parasite). I did make a mistake in saying that T Gondii was a worm though, its actually a protozoa.
There are thousands of studies on the subject because it is quite interesting and shows a lot of detail about how parasitic organisms hyjac the brains of thier hosts. You can find thousands of websites on the subject, but here are just a few I like.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-08/uoc--cpm080206.php
http://www.livescience.com/animals/070402_cat_urine.html
http://www.livescience.com/technology/060210_technovelgy.html
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Toxoplasma_gondii.jpg
Oh and this is not actually off topic vichycycl, because T Gondii and many other parasites, have been linked to depresion and other neurological disorders. T Gondii in particular, has been very strongly linked to schizophrenia and hypermanic depresion.
The chances are, if you have had a cat, then you are probably infected with T Gondii, but for most people, it makes no difrence at all, only making them like cats more than they ussed to, it is only harmfull to a miniscule amount of people, those with imune systems compromised in particular ways.
There are some VERY nasty brain parasites out there as well, such as Taenia solium, a tape worm caught from undercooked pork. Imagine having a tapeworm growing in your brain! Everyday it gets bigger and eats more of your brain! Ugh, I just made my self shuder with that thought! | |
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| Thoughts and opinions on antidepressants
Posted: 9/25/2009 8:11:57 PM |
Therefore what kind of negative effects could a person experience from long term use? Are these meds really safe for use in just the short term? Says the side effects on the leaflet inside the packet. Doesn't distinguish between the long term and short term. For escitalopram, common symptoms are nausea. The symptoms that require immediate visit to a hospital include jaundice (a sign of liver failure), seizures and hallucinations. Most people taking them, either haven't read the label, or are so in pain and turmoil, that almost anything is better than that, even with the possible side effects.
And is it bothersome that large corporations are messing with the chemicals that are response able for mood in the brain without understanding fully all the interactions of there medication with the brain? Not really. Took us several years before the author of Silent Spring revealed that DDT had affected most of our countries' ecosystem. Last I heard, it still was, and I've never really heard that DDT ever stopped screwing us up. There are countless cases of chemicals causing unexpected side effects. It's a side effect of a seriously chemical-dependent society.
And the ultimate question are AD's even effective at all in both the short term and long term curing or lessing of depression? They're really not used to cure depression, or even to lessen it all that much. The main aim of SSRIs seems to be to stabilise patients, so they don't need to be locked up, or watched permanently, and can settle into some semblance of a life. From what I've seen, the effects vary depending on the severity of the illness. Some are able to return to work, to date, and to live a normal life on them. Others are basically numbed out by them, and just vegetate for the most part. They seem to me to be more severe, as when they do speak, they can be quite odd, and when angry, can really start losing it and do things like throwing chairs around. Still others are even worse, and though they are bombed out of their skulls by the drugs, so much so that they can barely speak, they have to be watched permanently, and can be a real danger to others if left unsupervised.
They can blank out the mind, and make it hard to form the negative thoughts that bring on a depressive state, and that can lessen depression, But for the most part, therapy seems to still be regarded as the only way for medicine to help cure depression. I say "help", because it's seems to me to the be the general belief in psychiatry and psychology that the patient is really the only one who can help himself get better, as it is believed that some get better without any therapy, and if a patient doesn't want to get better, he won't, and he has to be the one to do the work. Imagine if a doctor told you that the only way to fix your broken leg, was for you to set it and bandage it yourself! Well, that's very much what it feels like when one starts therapy. It sounds crazy, because to need therapy, you have to have several screws loose, and if you have several screws loose, then you really cannot be expected to either know what to do, or understand what you are told to do, or even have the presence of mind and the willpower and determination to carry it through, and yet you are. Now imagine that you have seriously burned hands, and the doctor says you have to get the gauze and bandage them yourself. You don't even know where it is, and you are in no state to bandage them, as your hands are messed up. That's a lot of what it feels like to have been in therapy for a few months.
It's not all doom and gloom at all. Much benefit can be gained from therapy. But ultimately, the therapy is complete, when the patient stands on his own 2 feet, with no prompting from the doctor to do so. It's very much a matter of taking control and responsibility for your own life, and learning how to deal with life on your own. So the process might begin with doctors giving you pills. But it ends with the patient being the one in control, whether the doctor likes it or not. That's one reason why therapy can often result in so little success. To really be successful, it requires a coup d'état, and no doctor is keen to have his authority usurped by the person he is trying to help, even if it's what he needs. | |
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| Thoughts and opinions on antidepressants
Posted: 9/26/2009 2:59:57 AM | | Well for me they just havent worked. I have tried five diffrent antidepressants and all five of them made me horribly sick. Sick to the point where all I could do was lay on my bathroom floor getting up only to vomit and having bright light or any light pierce my head like I was hungover(actually thats starting to sound like a seizure almost although I wouldetn know it as I have never sizeied before). This includeing taking some of the most popular brands includeing escitalopram. Maybe there are a small percentage of people who cannot take antidepressants due to the negative reaction of their body. As far as therapy goes it does work. The problem with it is that it can get very expensive and take a long time years even. And doctors not being psychiatrists will just write someone a perscription for an antidepressant and then reccomend then to a psychologist or counselor(at least a decent doctor should do this). But they make no effort or attempt to see if the patient follows through on talking to a psychologist. This is maybe why we might be in need of more social workers or psychiatric nurses in this counrty. | |
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| Thoughts and opinions on antidepressants
Posted: 9/26/2009 6:41:46 AM | | You just haven't found the right one yet. Until you try at least three dozen, it is unfair to say that the drugs are ineffective in any way, shape, or form. | |
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Sannia
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Joined: 9/11/2009
Msg: 119 | |
| Thoughts and opinions on antidepressants
Posted: 9/26/2009 12:36:32 PM | GreyeyedGator:
I am sorry, darling, But I do believe you need to talk to a good Psychopharmacologist. It could be that you react nicely to something else, that is not an antidepressant. Nowadays they try with different kind of agents, some of whom could work. My mother, for instance, would turn 'normal' with haloperidol, even though she was not schizofrenic, just atypically depressed.
I would suggest not to give up till you find what works. Or you have the choice to fully accept your condition as it is. ( some people do better that way....). It is an illness , not any different than a liver desease....you put up with it and come to terms with it. If you can, try to do therapy with A psychiatrist, not just a councelor. A medical doctor has a different perspective on it. Some councelors do not accept to view it as a medical condition. In my opinion, this is wrong.
Good luck to you
Now imagine that you have seriously burned hands, and the doctor says you have to get the gauze and bandage them yourself. You don't even know where it is, and you are in no state to bandage them, as your hands are messed up. That's a lot of what it feels like to have been in therapy for a few months .
I agree. The aim of therapy is to make 'self-acceptance' possible. That's all. They are just there to confirm that such a thing is possible. That's all, in my opinion.
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| Thoughts and opinions on antidepressants
Posted: 10/1/2009 6:47:47 AM | OP, we live in an age where internet accessibility allows people to 'diagnose' their own problems and then visit a physician to convince them to prescribe medication. In other words, a person who thinks they might be depressed, may go online and find a 'checklist' of symptoms, and more or less attribute themselves to each of them. Then, when they visit their psychologist, they can rattle off symptoms from this list, and lo and behold, the psychologist diagnoses depression. I think that's a primary factor related to why antidepressant medications are so common nowadays.
In terms of my support for the medications -- I have heard my fair share of success stories. Supposedly, the drugs are highly addictive, and after X amount of time, you're supposed to be weaned off them. After you've ended your medication, the chemical imbalances in the brain attributed to depression are 'supposedly' balanced out.
I'm not a big believer in prescription drug use, especially as it pertains to psychology. While positive benefits can be drawn from antidepressant use, there are also many negatives. I'd like to think that the connection between mind and body is a fairly powerful one, and that depression can be conquered as a matter of individual will. For a very long time, I considered myself to be depressed - to the point that I had several appointments with psychologists. However, I made a personal decision to try to overcome the depression by changing my general lifestyle and outlook on life, rather than medicating - and it has worked out incredibly for me. Most of my friends agree that 'depressed' is one of the last words they'd associate with me.
In any case, to each his own. Everybody is built differently and thinks differently. What works for one, may not work for another. The presence of antidepressant drugs in and of itself is not a bad thing, but I think the line between a true chemically-induced chronic depression and a long-term case of the blues is becoming extremely fuzzy, and it makes the psychologist's job that much harder. | |
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| Thoughts and opinions on antidepressants
Posted: 10/1/2009 9:05:22 PM | Im on Citalopram now. It's supposed to be an anti-depressant. I was diagnosed with depression by a Pstchiatrist.
If I lived with The CareBears. I might not necessairly need them. | |
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| Thoughts and opinions on antidepressants
Posted: 10/1/2009 10:43:42 PM | | The sad thing is that most pshychiatrists are basically acting as medical docters and just prescribeing pills. If you actually want to really talk about things with someone you have to go to a psychologist or counselor. The problem is that no one knows what the average levels of the mood altering chemicals that naturally occur in the brain are. What I mean is with an FMRI we can look at those levels. But to establish a median you would have to take a smaple from every ethnicity, gender,country, etc. to defintively say this is the average. EG. A forty five year old Japanese man might have less seratonin naturally than say a twenty seven year old Asian-American male. So what is the baseline average of the amount of chemicals you are susposed to have in the brain? No one really knows which is why when one antidepressant doesent work they switch you to a diffrent one or change the dosage. | |
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| Thoughts and opinions on antidepressants
Posted: 10/2/2009 1:55:40 AM | | tried them once.. they didn't work.. best think for depression is a good diet, exercise and st john's wort.. it isn't an anti-depressant.. but helps you atleast cope with the day. | |
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| Thoughts and opinions on antidepressants
Posted: 10/11/2009 9:52:02 AM | | Well after several trials of antidepressants with nothing to show but error I have given up trying to take them. I have instead started myself on Saint John's Wart. Which depending on the source can be eaither as benefical as an SSRI or maybe just a little less effective. And since its just an herb its all natural no chemicals or add ons. Im hopeing that it will be benfical for me. | |
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| Thoughts and opinions on antidepressants
Posted: 10/11/2009 10:19:41 AM | Try drinking Kava Kava for that peaceful zen feeling... 
The long term process of "selectively" stopping the "reuptake" damages the frontal lobes; hence, SSRIs produce a chemical lobotomy, but who will tell you that when there is so much money to be made? Since the brain has been established as a machine by modern psychiatry, who REALLY needs pills for typically very real but frequently overlooked situational sadness and depression?
The remedy for these issues is not a pill. A person who is suffering most likely has failed how to learn to fully live--or something legitmately bad has happened and only time does the real healing. Our influences can fail in teaching us how to live the best life possible--and the consequential emotions give us clues that things need to change by relearning how to care for one's own feelings. For those who have not learned how to care for themselves, there will be greater amounts of sadness and depression until self care reaches its appropriate balance. (Love your neighbor as you love yourself, see there is a balance, indeed...)
The trick is to learn how to live and pills can't teach you how to care for and protect yourself in ways that result in a greater sense of happiness. One must peel back even the cultural perspectives that keep one down too... a lot of work is involved for those who lack suitable references on living a happy life in their peers and family. Do what you love again and again and go from there. Each of us has a new starting point in our lives, even the homeless. Life and social interactions may require a redesign. Yes its work. No a pill can't repair a broken, fractured and/or a sad life. What went wrong? Try exploring...retracing the steps that left you sad...find yourself in the center of yourself and put the pills in the trash, decide to wake up from the externally induced coma and the new addiction to government sanctioned pharmacy alley street drugs. BUT realize that if you are on them now that all hell can break loose if you don't have a doctor help you stop taking them--its very, very dangerous to just drop off of them depending on your current dosage--and to those seeking to stop, please take great care!
Sometimes we humans forget to enjoy what we love during times of difficulty or transition, that's an example of poor self care to take to the bank and one that can be easily fixed with conscious effort... | |
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