[magilla]

I take so many meds it's ridiculous. My mental meds are prozac, ativan, and wellbutrin. Honestly they don't seem to help at all.

[gayleggg]

I take a lot, too. If it's not helping maybe a change is in order. I didn't think I could be helped until my last med change and it has helped me immensely.

[Altered Moment]

Three psyche meds is actually not a lot. If they are not working try something else. My last med change has helped me immensely too.

[vital]

Originally Posted by magilla

I take so many meds it's ridiculous. My mental meds are prozac, ativan, and wellbutrin. Honestly they don't seem to help at all.

Ugh. I don't know if this exactly describes you, but I see this so much at this site. You complain of depression to your MD or therapist, you then get put on an antidepressant. That makes sense, right? Except that antidepressants usually don't work

Why Antidepressants Don't Work for Treating Depression | Mark Hyman, MD

so what do you do next? Try more antidepressants. This is a trap. Not only do these drugs mostly not work, they are toxic, they can have serious side effects, you can end up dependent on them and they are difficult to withdraw from. So what should you do instead? I think that the best plan for dealing with depression is

1. Check for underlying medical or nutritional issues. This often isn't considered, but there are quite a few common medical conditions like hypothyroidism, vitamin B12 or D deficiency, gluten allergy, and others that can cause depression. For inspiration about what this can do, see this thread in the "Depression Success Stories" section

http://forums.psychcentral.com/depre...r-give-up.html

For a video about this (from Mark Hyman) and a partial list of issues, see post #45 in this thread

http://forums.psychcentral.com/depre...n-escaped.html

2. Try every non-drug way to improve your depression including exercise, meditation, improving your diet, supplements, light therapy, CBT, brain training, yoga... The thread above describes an easy thing to try called "SNAP CLUB", for instance that had a tremendous effect on me and is very easy to try. Keep trying new things until you find what works. Most of these things are great for your health anyway, so you've got nothing to lose.

3. In the event that all of the above fails go to the next step with a professional.

- vital

[vital]

Originally Posted by vital

Ugh. I don't know if this exactly describes you, but I see this so much at this site. You complain of depression to your MD or therapist, you then get put on an antidepressant. That makes sense, right? Except that antidepressants usually don't work

Why Antidepressants Don't Work for Treating Depression*|*Mark Hyman, MD

so what do you do next? Try more antidepressants. This is a trap. Not only do these drugs mostly not work, they are toxic, they can have serious side effects, you can end up dependent on them and they are difficult to withdraw from. So what should you do instead? I think that the best plan for dealing with depression is

1. Check for underlying medical or nutritional issues. This often isn't considered, but there are quite a few common medical conditions like hypothyroidism, vitamin B12 or D deficiency, gluten allergy, and others that can cause depression. For inspiration about what this can do, see this thread in the "Depression Success Stories" section

http://forums.psychcentral.com/depre...r-give-up.html

For a video about this (from Mark Hyman) and a partial list of issues, see post #45 in this thread

http://forums.psychcentral.com/depre...n-escaped.html

2. Try every non-drug way to improve your depression including exercise, meditation, improving your diet, supplements, light therapy, CBT, brain training, yoga... The thread above describes an easy thing to try called "SNAP CLUB", for instance that had a tremendous effect on me and is very easy to try. Keep trying new things until you find what works. Most of these things are great for your health anyway, so you've got nothing to lose.

3. In the event that all of the above fails go to the next step with a professional.

- vital

p.s. In case you don't know, I understand that it can be dangerous to stop taking your meds suddenly, so if you want to do that, please do it with your M.D.

[Altered Moment]

Vital I still really think you should find another article other than this one about antidepressants. This article doesn't say anything about why they work or don't work. All it talks about is how they found big pharma hiding studies that didn't benefit them. This was all at the original clinical trial phase and they only last six to eight weeks. Again it is real world experience with a med that counts. That has always been true with all meds. Not much is known about any med until it is on the market for ten years. Early clinical trials for approval only tell you so much.

Why Antidepressants Don't Work for Treating Depression | Mark Hyman, MD

[Altered Moment]

NIMH · Antidepressants: A complicated picture

Antidepressants: Effectiveness, Trials, Realistic Expectations

Antidepressants: Do They "Work" or Don't They? - Scientific American

NIMH · Questions and Answers about the NIMH Sequenced Treatment Alternatives to Relieve Depression (STAR*D) Study ? All Medication Levels

Are antidepressants really no better than sugar pills? | The Johns Hopkins News-Letter

Robert DeRubeis on anti-depressants | News Center | Stanford Medicine

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/10/op...anted=all&_r=0

Study confirms antidepressant efficacy | Yale Daily News

[Altered Moment]

Neurogenesis

Neurogenesis
Unraveling the Mystery of How Antidepression Drugs Work - Scientific American

Neuropsychopharmacology - Fluoxetine-Induced Cortical Adult Neurogenesis

Fluoxetine-induced cortical adult neurogenesis. - PubMed - NCBI

Antidepressants increase human hippocampal neurogenesis by activating the glucocorticoid receptor

What bothers me about that article from Mark Hyman is that it states, "A placebo worked in 40 per cent of the cases and the AD in 60 per cent SO AD's don't work." Well, let me tell you, if you're part of the 20 per cent that didn't respond to the placebo but got relief from the AD, you're probably VERY happy you got put on that med.

[vital]

Originally Posted by zinco14532323

Vital I still really think you should find another article other than this one about antidepressants. This article doesn't say anything about why they work or don't work. All it talks about is how they found big pharma hiding studies that didn't benefit them. This was all at the original clinical trial phase and they only last six to eight weeks. Again it is real world experience with a med that counts. That has always been true with all meds. Not much is known about any med until it is on the market for ten years. Early clinical trials for approval only tell you so much.

Why Antidepressants Don't Work for Treating Depression*|*Mark Hyman, MD

Hello zinco,

I like citing that article because from the point of view of a depressed person looking for help, just the fact that antidepressants mainly don't work and are dangerous is already enough to conclude that it makes no sense to start a treatment of depression this way. If mediation, for example, would resolve your depression, it would be a foolish mistake to risk taking these drugs. Unfortunately, we see stories here where someone sees an advertisement for antidepressants, asks their MD for a prescription based on that and actually gets the drug that way. If there was a multi-billion dollar meditation industry with an advertising budget that same person would be much better off.

Sometimes I feel like I should point to something like this

that points out many dangers in detail and is, as far as I know, not at all dismissible.

I also think that antidepressants, ECT and even bilateral cingulotomy are not categorically dismissible either, certainly not by me. For each of these treatments, I have seen people, who I believe, say that that particular treatment really saved their lives. In the case of antidepressants, for instance, I've seen someone say that they were absolutely desperate and suicidal and searching for the right drug with her doctor for six years. After six years, she finally found something that worked. Her depression was resolved, she slowly came off the drug and now she is fine. I believe her story too. I've seen similar testimonials about ECT and brain surgery. My point is not that these things should never be used. I am just saying something very simple: try the healthy, safe things first.

- vital

[Altered Moment]

I understand your point. It's just that article doesn't really make your point. Initial 6 to 8 week clinical trials for approval don't yell you much. Even if big pharma hid unsupportive trials from the FDA it is not really relevant. Especially since we now know it takes 6 to 8 weeks to even work. The article is all about a New England Journal study that looked at initial clinical trials and how big pharma cheated. That doesn't tell us anything about real world clinical use and effectiveness. We have had this argument and the best study to date says 60% of the time effective but that study had problems too. From everything I have read I would put it at 50/50 of finding one that works for you.

I don't think it is fair to compare them to ECT and lobotomies. In the big picture they are proven very safe. 30 years on the market with millions of people taking them. Some people have problems, there are side effects, possible withdrawal. I have taken them for twenty years with no adverse effects. I consider them very safe.

Why not point them to Harvard and what they say about the risks.

What are the real risks of antidepressants? - Harvard Health Publications

My only point is your article is not relevant.

I agree with you that other methods should be tried first or absolutely in conjunction with all other methods. Whatever works. They shouldn't be handed out like candy as they are. In a severe case I may prescribe one right away along with all the other things such as meditation, CBT, exercise, etc. I don't think in all cases everything should be tried first and an AD only as a last resort. And I agree medical issues should be ruled out and psychiatry doesn't look at that stuff. Family history, personal history, effect on your life, symptoms, all have to be taken into account by a psychiatrist. It should be case by case. A PTSD war veteran who was fine before he left is one case and may be best treated with trauma therapy. Someone sexually and physically abused as a child is another case. A long history of alcoholism and depression in the family history and personal history is another case. Someone who presents with schizophrenia at age 13 is another case. Some cases meds are a good option.

You point to Depression Success Stories a lot and talk about how many people have said how great meditation is. There are only four who talk about meditation in that section and some as part of the answer. There are 9 out of twenty that talk about medication and part of the answer. Only three or four talk about long term recovery.

http://forums.psychcentral.com/depre...s-stories.html

Someone recently posted that they have been in therapy for thirty years now and still want to kill themselves. If that were me I would damn sure be trying AD's.

You can find all kinds of individual doctors with differing opinions and some pretty extreme. This is why I stick to Harvard, Stanford, John Hopkins, NIMH, as much as I can. I put links to individual studies but they are reputable and any one study doesn't prove everything. it is just one piece of evidence. If you can find studies that say meditation is as good as antidepressants, post them.

[Altered Moment]

Vital I am sure you and I agree on 90% of this stuff. I am actually very open minded.

Check out this article I posted in a couple of other sections. It's a little out there you might say.

http://forums.psychcentral.com/curre...g-reality.html

The Power Of Our Thoughts On Water | The Mind Unleashed

Double-blind test of the effects of distant intention on water crys... - PubMed - NCBI

http://media.noetic.org/uploads/file...lind_water.pdf

masaru emoto

[vital]

Originally Posted by zinco14532323

Vital I am sure you and I agree on 90% of this stuff. I am actually very open minded.

I also think we would mostly agree except, maybe, for a couple of points. I would be great if antidepressants were safe, but I see really alarming information to the contrary. I can't personally vouch for it, but it seems credible to me and so I sort of feel obliged to point it out. I'm thinking of that video I linked to above. Maybe the other area where we differ is that for someone who has only tried antidepressants and therapy, I feel obliged to point out medical/nutritional things to check and to try safer alternatives to drugs first.

The neurogenesis stuff is fascinating incidentally. ECT also causes neurogenesis (although it also causes memory loss) and neurogenesis is also helped by exercise, low stress, getting lots of sleep, all of which are good for depression. It even suggests that whatever helps neurogenesis might also help depression, possibly including brain training, learning difficult subjects and even taking cannabinoids.

Originally Posted by zinco14532323

Check out this article I posted in a couple of other sections. It's a little out there you might say.

http://forums.psychcentral.com/curre...g-reality.html

The Power Of Our Thoughts On Water | The Mind Unleashed

Double-blind test of the effects of distant intention on water crys... - PubMed - NCBI

http://media.noetic.org/uploads/file...lind_water.pdf

masaru emoto

You've happened to hit my actual area of expertise here, zinco . These would be astounding effects if they were true, but I'm afraid that it's very likely that these effect really don't exist. I know that there is a lot of crazy stuff written about quantum theory, but you wouldn't expect such effects from quantum theory either.

- vital

[Altered Moment]

I dunno there are very bizarre effects in quantum mechanics. Instant communication, double slit and observer dependent, tunneling, quantum foam, many worlds interpretation, non locality, all kinda stuff. Not to mention string theory.

In one sense you do get those results in quantum mechanics in that you can't seperate the experimenter from the experiment. The results depend on how you look at it. This may be for only limited properties but no one has ever explained it or the other bizzare effects. It could have big implications on our view of reality. Even Feynman who's book on quantum electro dynamics I read was baffled by it all.

I don't know if I believe that guys experiments but I sure do think there is a whole lot more we don't understand to this universe than we do understand.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Altered Moment]

We will have to disagree on the safety of antidepressants. I have twenty years personal experience and millions of people have taken them for three decades. That's lots of evidence.



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[vital]

Originally Posted by vital

Sometimes I feel like I should point to something like this

that points out many dangers in detail and is, as far as I know, not at all dismissible.
- vital

I'm quoting myself here. I want to point out that AstridLovelight spotted that this video is indirectly sponsored by the Church of Scientology.

http://forums.psychcentral.com/psych...pic-drugs.html

- vital

[Altered Moment]

I read L Ron Hubbards Dianetics which the whole Church of Scientology is based on. I couldn't really buy any of it. The psychology didn't seem sound to me from what I remember. To each his own though.

[vital]

Originally Posted by zinco14532323

I read L Ron Hubbards Dianetics which the whole Church of Scientology is based on. I couldn't really buy any of it. The psychology didn't seem sound to me from what I remember. To each his own though.

I have never read any of their literature, but I have the impression that they are a pseudo-scientific authoritarian cult, not essentially different from many predecessors. I find organizations like that to be especially horrifying.

"...I have sworn upon the altar of god eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man." - Jefferson to Dr. Benjamin Rush, September 23, 1800

Jefferson Memorial - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Altered Moment]

Originally Posted by vital

I have never read any of their literature, but I have the impression that they are a pseudo-scientific authoritarian cult, not essentially different from many predecessors. I find organizations like that to be especially horrifying.

"...I have sworn upon the altar of god eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man." - Jefferson to Dr. Benjamin Rush, September 23, 1800

Jefferson Memorial - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Yeah and it is amazing how vulnerable peoples minds can be to it. "Give me liberty or give me death" is one of my favorites.

On a side note - L Ron Hubbard was actually a very good science fiction writer. I enjoyed those books.