Fat?

I wasn't talking about causing his cholesterol. What I meant was, that he mentioned earlier being sure that the meds didn't cause his weight gain (which obviously plays up ones cholesterol) , that he's just genetically inclined to do so after 40.... (?)

I know its not at all alike but it's the only personal example I have;

Lithium made me stupid, I could not spell anymore, I could not process thoughts as fast anymore, I could not form intelligent sentences as I had the vocabulary of a 10 year old me. Then also please lets not forget the spectacular memory of a goldfish it handed to me on a silver platter.

Try as I may, I was still dumb as a doorknob after numerous cognitive exercises, I couldn't even read a book to relearn words because my attention span just died with it.
Brain games didn't do shyt for my memory because I was still ingesting the med daily that caused the problem.

Pdoc and even peers here were convinced lithium could not do such a thing, my symptoms were too extreme, it HAD to be something else

Soon after I chucked those pills away I started to improve, some things took about 2 years though, like retaining information, the tremors, the acne, and to top it off, I had to basically build my vocabulary from scratch.

So eliminating lithium proved it caused me to suddenly become stupid, that's a sure way to tell what caused what. But I'm not saying that's a viable option for everyone.

My point is, I never would have recovered had I still been ON lithium right now, so I'm hoping that if his weight gain is independent of meds, that meds won't interfere with him taking steps to improve his cholesterol or hinder any desired weight loss.

If I misunderstood his post then my apologies for typing out 2 redundant posts.

Just one type of cholesterol is harmful anyway and they don't test for it. Also it does seem like statins don't really prevent heart attacks. Very iffy science.

I don't know if I can agree with that. I am going to have to research a whole new area that I would rather not look at.

No way to know for sure but I started psyche meds at 32 and was on a lot of different ones. No weight gain. Started gaining weight around 43. Been 225 to 235 ever since in spite of many med changes. Never noticed a difference in weight because of any change or med. So I think I can rule out psyche meds as a cause.

I have had high bad cholesterol levels and low good cholesterol levels for a number of years. I can't remember what they were 10 years ago and how fast they went up with weight or what ever without looking at all my records. The fact is high bad low good. Highly probable genetic factor based on my parents. My Mom is the healthiest person your could ever meet yet had artery disease a stint and is on zocor. I am much more like my dad, triple bypass heart, procedures to fix arteries in both legs. Can't loose weight. goes to gym everyday, rides his bike all over. On zocor.

I have no doubt that my diet and life style has played a role. Although I did get a ton of exercise at work in my forties. So diet and genetics is probably the biggest factors.

Can I change my diet to help. Of course I can and I am trying. Can I exercise much more and get more aerobic exercise. Of course I can and I will try. I have to factor in the reality of my depression. Being in a severe depression for 15 months of the last 20 wrecked havoc on my body. I atrophied but didn't lose weight. I hate this because I have always been a very muscular guy. Now my muscles are atrophying and I am getting more fat. i am sure the percentage of body fat is going up.

Risk factors - high bad, low good, high triglycerides, genetic history, hypertension, the unknown future factor of depression on life style, over weight, sedentary when depressed, stress due to mental health issues, stress hormones that cause mental health issues and cardiac issues, etc etc hmmmmmm.

Your damn right I am going to take a statin. I will take it along with whatever I can do when able to improve diet, exercise, and life style. I normally have very low stress levels but good ole anxiety had to come along. And the depression has forced massive changes in my life the last two years so lots of stress.

I will take Zocor. I am sure it will work to get the levels down with no side effects as that has been the case with both my parents. No guarantees. I have had to many docs tell me they are miracle drugs in reducing plaque build up on walls. I had a psychiatrist in CA tell me to just get on them if you have any history at all, they are a miracle in reducing cardiac and arterial risk. Teflon coating on the arteries and reduce plaque build up that has already occurred. I guess you could argue plaque doesn't cause increase risk of heart attack but I don't think I will buy it.

I was not disparaging big pharma at all. the opposite. big pharma came up with a miracle drug.

Now we are going to argue about studies and whether they reduce risks and the side effects and so on. First place I will go to look is the Cleveland Clinic. 54% lower risk of having a heart attack.

side note- I only mentioned the low body fat percentage because someone was just telling me, and I can't remember who, that their brother was such a work out fanatic and had such low body fat percentage that he started having bad joints problems. Fat isn't all bad.

As soon as I read "Lithium made me stupid, I could not spell anymore, I could not process thoughts as fast anymore," it all came back. Yep. I felt like my cheeks were slow too. Hard to explain. I did stay on them long either. Then when I was in the hospital the doc tried to put me on them again and I didn't want to argue so I took the rx and threw it in the trash. A friend of mine got trunk shakes and his doc swore it wasn't that but given the timing, dose and other meds he was on it had to be. He was stupid already so hard to say on that point.

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There is no miracle drug!

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What diseases?

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How are all your blood levels now compared to before the statin?

Amitriptyline helps me a little with sleep and mood stabilization, but I am guaranteed to gain 5-8 pounds within a week. I stop taking it, and the weight falls off. Not worth it.

I have to agree on the stress thing. The last 20 months have put a huge amount of stress on me due to mental illness. Its a ***** because of all the muscle, fat, exercise effects it has had that we have been talking about plus the stress.
They are learning more and more about stress hormones like cortisol, adrenalin, and nor epinephrine that have a huge impact on inflammation, mental illness, cardiac.......inflammation and the causes is a huge area of research and may have very significant impacts on many systems of the body.

Whatever reduces stress reduces disease. If psyche meds work they reduce disease, no doubt. If I am in a depression I can't exercise. My inability to earn money and function creates huge amounts of stress that adds to the depression. Viscous cycle.

What diseases? all of them.

I worked a lot in the Bay Area. That was bad enough. As beautiful and cool as it is I could not live there. Hard enough to just go to the city to visit.

I will point out that there are many ways to reduce stress. Psyche meds working is a great reducer but we should also exercise, meditate, process, therapy, journal, mindfulness, smoke pot......etc etc

psilocybin and psilocin = miracle drugs.

good question! I surrendered to the fat, because I was in so much psychic pain from my mental illness. Zyprexa really ravaged me - I didn't just gain a TON of weight, but experienced significant hair loss, as well! Y'know, it's crazy, but I was so freaking happy on zyprexa, even looking like Ben Franklin's sister. My meds were changed due to the complications caused by the excess weight (and the hair loss!), but I sometimes look back on the total, complete happiness I had during my Zyprexa days and sigh a little. I have never been that happy before or since.

(See post below)

Excellent post...I agree...yes, ALL diseases.

Wow, it's too bad you had such severe side effects. Are you on any meds now?

THANKS for that I was trying to get that over , you don't get arthritis from meds , that goes with years of hard physical work. you carnt ask people to do things like yoga when its physically impossible. If your fat when young and not on meds then that's down to you get off you bum and exercize. if on AP expect to put on weight , but if your capable of going to the gym ore running miles the do it I would . I do max I can now at 66 most would sit on the couch and veg. I didn't put any weight on till I was 50 years old and started AD,S . I started to put weight on then and I was running up a 3 story ladder 500 time a day with a 1 cwt of cement on my shoulder , I should not of put on any weight but I did . I tolerate weight gain because the meds make me feel ok and if I don't take them I feel **** .

If I couldn't handle a place without drugging myself to handle it....I would get the f--- out and move to somewhere that is still suited for humans.

And seriously... CALIFORNIA? Try Syria. Try any places low on HDI charts. Try ****ing Slavjansk.... (not just now... it sucked before too...). Try any place with more and more real problems then California. And it's not like you have to buy fake passport and run through snipers to get out, if you feel it's derimental for your well-being.

I am sorry, but with civil war looming in my backyard, I am even less tolerant to "Life in California is SOOOO hard".

Extra weight makes artritis worse. And it's generally rough on body. And I am not speaking of "not looking like Twiggy anymore". I am speaking of unhealthy gain.

And everybody can do yoga. You don't have to put your legs behind your neck and do crazy stretching. You just do what you are able to... with gradually increase range.
If you have some degree of mobility, you can do yoga.

Let WHO know the secret! SSRIs cure everything! If that were true we wouldn't need therapists. I'm sorry, you two are great but this is reaching.

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Indeed.

What is next? APs prevent diabetes and metabolic syndrom? Do psychmeds also cure sexual dysfunction? Do they protect your liver too?

And really to rely on psychmeds to descrease stress as a way to prevent diseases... it just doesn't sound right. Every drug, whenever needed or not is rough on the body. Psychmeds play a role in the fact that mentally ill die 25 years earlier.

If the part in bold is true then they are very beneficial you would think.

No one even suggested taking psyche meds to prevent disease. Sister Rags pointed out that it could have this effect by preventing stress and thus disease. No one said SSRI's are a cure. Obviously me saying ALL diseases is a total exaggeration.

The whole point we were making is that stress and related hormones are known to cause and contribute to disease. They are learning more and more that inflammation and cortisol play a large role in many diseases. Even obesity and diabetes ironically. So if AP's prevent stress by playing a role in treating mental illness it may very well have an impact on diabetes. A lot of the research is new.

Are you going to argue that stress doesn't play a role in disease? Or that mental illness doesn't cause an enormous amount of stress because of the real life problems it creates for us? Or that successfully treating mental illness doesn't reduce stress are therefore reduce the risk of other disease? Seems pretty obvious and common sense to me.

yes, our problems cause stress and reducing stress is good.

But I doubt that simply taking a pill will really help, especially when most of our stress comes from real situations.

So if I popped a Seroquel right now, the economy would still suck, my employer would still have the same amount of work for me, geopolitical situation would still be the same... and my mom would be still clingy and unaccepting of my non-heterosexuality. If I want not care for a while, there's Absinthe for that (and I am a big promoter of nights-out-and-letting-go and forgetting-worries-for-now-and-acting-like-a-damn-fool-every-now-and-then...).

And eh APs potential to reduce diabetes risk is tiny if any.

Living in Syria or dodging snipers to cross a border obviously would create a huge amount of stress and doesn't compare to American lifestyle stress.

That doesn't negate the fact that California lifestyle causes many many small doses of stress all the time that add up to no good. Ever spend two and a half hours in your car in bumper to bumper traffic just to get to work. And then do it again after work when traffic is worse. And then do it everyday for years. It's very stressful and has to cause your cortisol levels to be high the whole damn commute. I have done it for different periods on different jobs. It is very common for some people to do it for years. That is five hours of your day in stressful traffic. That doesn't even include the stress at work 8 yours each day to meet deadlines, perform at a very high level, be in constant competition and comparison with your peers. Then you get home and have to deal with your spouse and kids and whatever mundane tasks you have to deal with like paying bills dealing with your kids school parent teacher conference the school carnival...whatever. You have no time to eat right or relax or do anything for yourself. The weekends are not near long enough to recover and sometimes you have to work on weekends. If you have mental illness on top of it....good luck.

You might say well just move to the country where it is calm and peaceful. Not that simple. Some people do and it makes their commute even longer so the family gets the benefits of living in the country but the bread winner suffers all the more. People have to make a living and provide for their families somehow and in CA it has become a rat race. I lived it for many years. Most of the time job sties were close to home so a lot less stress. But often they were very far away and we had to drive each day or stay in motels during the week away from out our homes and families. Often working 6 ten hours days. I have seen guys work 7 12 hours days for three months plenty of times. Very hard on your body and stress levels. You become a robot working that much with no time to recover.

You might say oh boo hoo poor you. Other people have it so much worse. True. But that doesn't change the fact that stress and coritisol levels for many people in CA are high and contribute to disease.

So you think it's normal that we create a stressful lifestyle and instead of stopping to think how to change it, we just pop a pill to handle it.

And I get it, it's stressful, but again... if you can't handle it, it's time to reconsider what you want to do with your life. Live simplier. Find a way to enjoy life. Living life you hate and taking FML pills... is sad, tragic and if people really think this way, then I weep for humanity.

And seriously, people work everywhere... but in some places,including California you actually earn decent wage. And in some places people are grateful for a ****** job because the unemployement rates are skyhigh.

Traffic, working and bills? One Czech journalist once noted that "what they call stress these days, we used to call "life".

At least they have choices they can make about their lives. We all do in the better parts of world.

I myself whine and complain, but I realize it's all white-whine. And if my lifestyle comes to the point when I don't think I can get through a day without medicating myself.... I would take that as sign that I am doing it wrong.

If my current meds are relieving the horrible depression I was in, and they are, then I am able to deal with real life situations. When in a very deep depression I stay in bed and don't deal with anything. I am not talking about global warming or the economy or the war in Syria. I do not stress about things I have no control over. I am talking about things that are very real to me and my ability to deal with them. Money, my daughter, my ability to fly across the country and drive my car back across the country with my daughter, my health, my family, my friends, my ability to maintain healthy relationships. Things I do have some level of control over. May sound trivial to you but are very real to me.

If popping a pill relieves my depression and allows me to go back to work and not lose my job then you are ****ing A right it helps. It helps tremendously. How can you possibly say you doubt it would help???

As far as AP's I said if taking and AP is part of successfully treating your mental illness and that reduces stress then it could have an impact on diabetes. It would depend very much on how much stress contributes to diabetes.

Anything you do, chemical or not to help yourself helps stress. Cold medicine helps your stress levels when you have a cold. Then again so does chicken soup. But then gaining weight adds stress whether it is self image, right or wrong, or the impact to organs and joints. The original question was about people avoiding meds because of weight gain. My takeaway is it has to do with how much pain your are in and how much you value the consequences. Different people clearly have different tolerance levels regarding weight. Having a high tolerance for weight gain due to drugs does not mean other people are foolish or vain.

Let's say a depressed person doesn't like the weight gain on a med because of how it makes them "look" as opposed to physical health concerns. So finding an alternative is bad? While too much vanity is detrimental a little vanity can be motivation to better eating, exercise and putting on a pretty face. Those are more permanent solutions for depression. If they are so depressed they can't make those changes they make the trade off. Maybe they are like me... Taking the med with a goal to replace it. Or maybe they are like Venus, learning how to adjust their world and work with herbs and supplements.

I feel you trying to justify the drugs at the expense of everything else. I'm glad they work so well for you. Being dependent on a bucket of chemicals everyday is not ok to me. I don't understand why this is hard to understand.

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