• Science behind commonly used anti-depressants appears to be backwards, researchers say
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[url]http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/02/150217114119.htm[/url] [QUOTE]The authors of the paper, posted by the journal Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, combed existing research for evidence to support the theory that has dominated nearly 50 years of depression research: that depression is related to low levels of serotonin in the gaps between cells in the brain. The low-serotonin theory is the basis for commonly prescribed anti-depressant medications called selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors, or SSRIs, which keep the neurotransmitter's levels high by blocking its re-absorption into the cells that release it. Those serotonin-boosting medications actually make it harder for patients to recover, especially in the short term, says lead author Paul Andrews, an assistant professor of Psychology, Neuroscience & Behaviour at McMaster. "It's time we rethink what we are doing," Andrews says. "We are taking people who are suffering from the most common forms of depression, and [B]instead of helping them,[/B] [B]it appears we are putting an obstacle in their path to recovery."[/B] When depressed patients on SSRI medication do show improvement, it appears that their brains are actually overcoming the effects of anti-depressant medications, rather than being assisted directly by them. [B]Instead of helping, the medications appear to be interfering with the brain's own mechanisms of recovery.[/B] "We've seen that people report feeling worse, not better, for their first two weeks on anti-depressants," Andrews says. "This could explain why." It is currently impossible to measure exactly how the brain is releasing and using serotonin, the researchers write, because there is no safe way to measure it in a living human brain. Instead, scientists must rely on measuring evidence about levels of serotonin that the brain has already metabolized, and by extrapolating from studies using animals. The best available evidence appears to show that there is more serotonin being released and used during depressive episodes, not less, the authors say. The paper suggests that serotonin helps the brain adapt to depression by re-allocating its resources, giving more to conscious thought and less to areas such as growth, development, reproduction, immune function, and the stress response. Andrews, an evolutionary psychologist, has argued in previous research that anti-depressants leave patients in worse shape after they stop using them, and that most forms of depression, though painful, are natural and beneficial adaptations to stress.[/QUOTE] Quite an important article if you ask me, considering that antidepressants have been on the rise for the last decade: [t]http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VlieYrEWJoo/UpJe0kNO_jI/AAAAAAAADMo/3JF0MyaGHBw/s1600/antidepressant-consumption.png[/t] In the US, it went from 10mil in 1998 to 25mil in 2010, a 2014 statistic was talking about 30mil people on antidepressants. And this is from a 2013 news article, I'm just quoting because it's relevant: [QUOTE]In 2011, 36 million people in China suffered from depression, but only 10% accepted treatment. Despite that, sales of antidepressants had reached 2.61bn, up 19.5% from the previous year.[/QUOTE]
Well of course they want you to take more of their product. Instead working out the cause well just give you a pill to fix a symptom.
this article doesn't say why they believe this other than they have "the best available evidence". additionally, the lead guy behind this is an evolutionary psychologist, and they don't exactly have the best track records. i sincerely doubt this one paper in decades of research is going to completely contradict how depression is treated.
I know I was on a terrible downward spiral before I got on SSRIs, but so many different things cause depression, so I can't really say that proves anything.
Think it depends on the person. Personally every drug I've been on to help just ends up causing me to not care and get really suicidal. Stuff that smacks my dopamine though makes everything much better.
Well considering how badly SSRI's kill your sex drive, I'm not surprised to hear they can leave people feeling worse
[QUOTE=Ericson666;47167675]Well considering how badly SSRI's kill your sex drive, I'm not surprised to hear they can leave people feeling worse[/QUOTE] A possible side effect, not a certainty
The window for theraputic effect of many psychiatric drugs is 6-8 weeks, while the window for side effects is almost immediate, so its not surprising that people say they feel worse in the first 2 weeks. They have not yet waited long enough for the drug to have its full effect.
[QUOTE=Ericson666;47167675]Well considering how badly SSRI's kill your sex drive, I'm not surprised to hear they can leave people feeling worse[/QUOTE] Yeah, considering sex is a big part of intimate relationships, and relationship are a big part of life. The very low sex drive, impotence and anorgasmia are very common side effects, the reason SSRIs cause it is (somewhat) known. It gives people anxiety about intimacy, what's the point in pursuing a relationship if they'll leave you when they realise you can't have sex?
Isn't the biggest part of treating depression a combination of medicine and therapy? It sounds like they're using a study to push an agenda.
[QUOTE=Tetsmega;47168752]Isn't the biggest part of treating depression a combination of medicine and therapy? It sounds like they're using a study to push an agenda.[/QUOTE] Yeah, the SSRIs can get your life back on track, then once your off them then you use the therapy and help from other to keep your life up while being free from the SSRI side effects.
[QUOTE=Tetsmega;47168752]Isn't the biggest part of treating depression a combination of [B]medicine and therapy[/B]? It sounds like they're using a study to push an agenda.[/QUOTE] Depends on the person. Half the time they want to stabilize you with medication so that when you approach therapy you won't be in a mess in the office. The other half, therapy is seen as a better option because medication may have no direct/indirect effect if nothing is talked about to relieve stress.
I've been on SSRIs twice, for like 10 months each, and they replaced the deepest parts of my depression with a dull emotional flatness, where I wasn't feeling great, I wasn't feeling horrible, I was... just... living. Also flatlined my libido and this continued for almost a year after discontinuing meds for the last time. And I definitely suffered from the paradoxical effect where anxiety is heightened during the first two weeks, when it's doing absolutely nothing theraputically. The only benefit I derived from them is the drowsiness side effect meant that I'd be out and asleep in five minutes instead of laying awake for an hour or two being anxious about work and trying to stop my mind racing so I could fall asleep. Things have gotten better since I stopped medication. They're not perfect, but better. The funny thing is, for some people, they really work. I wonder if it's not a case of giving the brain such a challenge that it just goes apeshit on serotonin production and overwhelms the SSRI-established blockade. This also could explain why Lithium is a highly-effective but last-resort treatment, because once you start taking Lithium, you need to take it for the rest of your life. Discontinuing Lithium tends to frequently throw people into the most traumatic pits of depression, where they usually commit suicide if they don't get back on their medication. If someone's brain doesn't work properly and is dependent on this element showing up and interfering with normal operation, forcing it into the Lithium-present backup plan, in order for the person to be normal, then when it doesn't have to do that expensive work anymore, it just gives up entirely and life turns to shit.
I wonder if this is another example of the massive power of the placebo effect, like when these drugs were new people got convinced that it would make them feel better, adding to any effect the medicine had. Now years later the glamor has worn off, the truth is out and people don't exactly believe it will make them better and it only sort of works
I recently just stopped taking SSRIs, and honestly... i sort of got worse when i was on them? Even after the "two weeks" thing. Behavior at school worsened, grades went down even further. I may not have been depressed AS MUCH(i certainly still was depressed) but i just lost any reasoning to do anything. Even suicide seemed like too much effort. I didn't do any homework, hardly participated in class, failed more than one class a semester. It was a mess. Maybe now i know why... I still got help through therapy, and i'm much better now, but... Yeah.
The way I see it, there's two types of depression: there's the type that's a painful, torturous despair, and there's the type that's a complete lack of energy and no desire to do anything. In my experience what antidepressants do is they replace the first type with the second type.
Sheesh I am glad I turned these down when a doc offered me some for my trouble and had the luck I got pretty much fine naturally since then. I wish nobody would have to put up with this crap.
I thought something could be [I]off[/I] when the anti-anxiety pills I got prescribed had "suicidal depression" listed as one of the possible side effects
[QUOTE=Sableye;47169326]I wonder if this is another example of the massive power of the placebo effect, like when these drugs were new people got convinced that it would make them feel better, adding to any effect the medicine had. Now years later the glamor has worn off, the truth is out and people don't exactly believe it will make them better and it only sort of works[/QUOTE] All drugs are compared to placebos during testing and SSRIs have a demonstrable improvement over them. [editline]19th February 2015[/editline] [QUOTE=Thunderbolt;47169749]I thought something could be [I]off[/I] when the anti-anxiety pills I got prescribed had "suicidal depression" listed as one of the possible side effects[/QUOTE] Drug companies are required to list every [i]possible[/i] side effect regardless of how rare it is or whether it was even caused by the drug at all. (Unless they can prove it wasn't) Antidepressants and anti-anxiety medication seem to "cause" suicidal depression because the people taking them have a higher incidence of suicidal depression than the general public already, and sometimes the drugs don't work.
For Canadians being so stereotypical nice, we sure do take a lot of anti-depressants.. Maybe our niceness is just a placebo effect.
[QUOTE=Ericson666;47167675]Well considering how badly SSRI's kill your sex drive, I'm not surprised to hear they can leave people feeling worse[/QUOTE] For me its done absolutely nothing, maybe even boosted it, and mine is already ridiculously high (yes ha ha..). I hate it, because surprise, I "get none". I never have. I wouldn't be surprised if its a contributing factor to my depression.
I'm mostly worried this is going to be used by some people as evidence against all antidepressants; it really is important to note that despite all the harm they can possibly do, for a good number of people they are vital for keeping an even mental state. Even if the science itself is little understood, they still do save a lot of lives. I think, if anything, this just shows that careful consideration needs to be taken when making prescriptions, which maybe isn't always the case with a lot of doctors.
Yeah before I started taking Anti-depressants when I was 14 I was a nervous wreck who was scared to be alone in a room, take a shower without someone nearby, and I could never sleep due to these fears of someone "watching" me or a threat nearby. Anti-depressants stopped that immediately, instantly. [editline]19th February 2015[/editline] [QUOTE=Pythagoras64;47169980] I think, if anything, this just shows that careful consideration needs to be taken when making prescriptions, which maybe isn't always the case with a lot of doctors.[/QUOTE] This too, pretty much. The anti-depressants worked for me, luckily, but the dude saw you for like 3 minutes after 3 hour wait and threw a random medication at me.
I was on Amitriptyline for a year to help with headaches, seemed to also really help with depression. I didn't have a dullness that other people mention.
When I was 14 I was diagnosed with severe clinical depression and as borderline manic depressive. I took the 50mg of zoloft I was prescribed every night for a week like I was told to. By the end of the week I was completely batshit,hearing voices,seeing bugs,weird mood swings. I never took the zoloft again the but episodes of seeing,hearing things that aren't there and extreme mood swings have stayed.
[QUOTE=Kindashort;47170052]When I was 14 I was diagnosed with severe clinical depression and as borderline manic depressive. I took the 50mg of zoloft I was prescribed every night for a week like I was told to. By the end of the week I was completely batshit,hearing voices,seeing bugs,weird mood swings. I never took the zoloft again the but episodes of seeing,hearing things that aren't there and extreme mood swings have stayed.[/QUOTE] I took zoloft for years about the same dosage and never got any of those symptoms. Although I did lose a lot of weight around the time I got off the meds. Not sure if that's just correlation or what however.
I think it's pretty important to note that anti-depressants are NOT supposed to cure depression. Going into taking these kinds of drugs and expecting the depression to completely stop or be cured in one way or another is NOT how they work. Most anti-depressants are only supposed to relieve you from most of the symptoms of depression, allowing you to be helped by a psychologist or therapist. It eases recovery, it is not a cure.
Obviously I can't speak for everyone but personally I've been depressed before but I never soughed therapy, or anti-depressants. Everything seemed to get better eventually by itself. I look at depression as something that will probably happen to everyone at some point, a natural phenomenon that comes and goes. I mean it's a feeling that comes from within, and for me a right state of mind helps. I like putting my problems into perspective, because at the end of the day, no matter how bad I have it, some innocent kid in an undeveloped nation somewhere has it even worse.
SSRI's saved my life, and helped me with my anxiety. Been on them for a year, and I can definitely feel the negative effects some times, but you got to consider. Do you want to have anxiety/panic attacks all the time, or have trouble with coming in bed? I'll probably try to quit them gradually, but I may have to use them the rest of my life, who knows.
[QUOTE=Thunderbolt;47169749]I thought something could be [I]off[/I] when the anti-anxiety pills I got prescribed had "suicidal depression" listed as one of the possible side effects[/QUOTE] Yeah, i know someone who [I]had[/I] that side effect, going off them made 'em better. Personally i wouldn't take them because they've... always sounded like old-timey snake oil to me for some reason "Take this pill, it'll make you stop feeling so sad!"
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