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11782 Posts
On May 31 2009 04:34 zulu_nation8 wrote:
i think i can say for certain lexapro has done nothing to to me, I feel the exact same now after stopping as I did before I started taking it.
That happens, SSRI's have a significant effect on a pretty decent percentage of users but not nearly everyone, you're just gonna have to try alternative ones, like MOA's, or Tricyclic medicine, they still have a decent chance of working. The reason doctors usually start with SSRI's is because they have the mildest side effects and are the least dangerous unlike the other ones which are lethal in overdose I believe. The chance of another medicine working is pretty large though and when you find one that does you'll feel great again.
Also if you are depressed you might want to consider, (cognitive) behavioral therapy or interrelational therapy from a psychologist, which are as effective as medicine. Though the best treatment for depression is both medicine and therapy, which have even better effects since you're dealing with both the cognitive and biological aspects of depression. The beauty of these therapies is that they decrease the chance of getting depression again by a great deal, unlike medicine.
I actually wrote a paper on this last month, too bad it's in Dutch.
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translate it to english please
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11782 Posts
Dude it's like 2000 words and mostly stuff about conducting research anyway, the important parts are summarized in my post.
If you have a social sciences faculty near you you might want to check their library for Abnormal Psychology (I think that's what it's called, by Nolen-Hoeksema, 2007), namely the chapter called Mood Disorders which provides great insight.
One more thing about therapy: The reason why it's so useful is because if you have depression you often engage in self destructive thought patterns, which can be fixed through therapy. Don't ever consult a psychoanalyst about depression by the way, psychoanalysis hardly does anything for depression, not to mention it takes ages while CGT/IRT takes about 6-12 weeks to have noticable effects.
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11782 Posts
Yeah about the sketchy thing: I don't think the medicine is regarded at all sketchy, just the way monoamine systems are affected in depression. You can't predict/test which antidepressant is going to work so the best way is just to start off with SSRI's and wait 2 weeks at which point you should start seeing effects. In any case it's not really fair to condemn anti depressants because the way they effect the brain is pretty clear.
The only sketchy 'anti depressant' I know of is ECT (electroconvulsive therapy), which is hypothesised to reset the neurotransmitters I believe. Anyway you only have to worry about ECT if you're very severely depressed and medicine/therapy has no effects on you.
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On May 25 2009 05:21 Ingenol wrote:Show nested quote +On May 25 2009 04:01 ghermination wrote:
Wow i love how they prescribed you these knowing you would have withdrawal troubles. There are no medicines that have no side effects in 100% of people. In fact, all prescription medicines come with a laundry list of reported side effects, the vast majority of which occurred in very few people but are listed anyway. The entire point is you weigh the benefits against the costs and decide for yourself, knowing full well that you are incurring some risk (side effect/potential withdrawal) by taking them. If you expect prescriptions or any medical treatment for that matter to be flawless, without side effects and without risk you might as well forgo ever visiting a doctor.
Yeah but the efficacy of these meds have been widely discussed. They have gotten lower success rates than placebo against depression as well in studies
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On May 31 2009 04:34 zulu_nation8 wrote:
I feel the exact same now after stopping as I did before I started taking it.
This.
SSRI:s don't solve shit, they just cover up symptoms. The idea that a single transmittor substance like serotonin controls your well-being without outside influence is quite retarded in fact.
Working out, being in love and swimming in the ocean also boosts your serotonin levels.
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On May 31 2009 04:47 Frits wrote:Show nested quote +On May 31 2009 04:34 zulu_nation8 wrote:
i think i can say for certain lexapro has done nothing to to me, I feel the exact same now after stopping as I did before I started taking it. That happens, SSRI's have a significant effect on a pretty decent percentage of users but not nearly everyone, you're just gonna have to try alternative ones, like MOA's, or Tricyclic medicine, they still have a decent chance of working. The reason doctors usually start with SSRI's is because they have the mildest side effects and are the least dangerous unlike the other ones which are lethal in overdose I believe. The chance of another medicine working is pretty large though and when you find one that does you'll feel great again. Also if you are depressed you might want to consider, (cognitive) behavioral therapy or interrelational therapy from a psychologist, which are as effective as medicine. Though the best treatment for depression is both medicine and therapy, which have even better effects since you're dealing with both the cognitive and biological aspects of depression. The beauty of these therapies is that they decrease the chance of getting depression again by a great deal, unlike medicine. I actually wrote a paper on this last month, too bad it's in Dutch.
I don't know if you know about this, but there was a huge meta-review on SSRI efficacy that came out like 1-2 years ago. It gained alot of media attention and was a collection of all trials on the most basic SSRI:s that had been made like in the last 10 years.
Anywho there was some quite disturbing results of the meta-review. First of all the medicine (different SSRI:s) was less effective than both placebo and psychotherapy in a vast majority of cases.
Second of all, the medical companies that manufacture the medicines, manipulated stats and results in order to make the medicine look better.
Anti-depressants are lousy imo. Our environment and the way we deal with it is what causes depression, the serotonin-theory (yes it's a theory) is just a result of this interaction with your surroundings, and just boosting those levels won't make your life better. This medical paradigm in psychiatry sucks imo, it lacks perspective and tries to treat people like you'd treat someone with a physical wound. It's just not the same.
I have written papers on the history of psychiatry and modern day psychiatry is a result of an over-medicalized society. Kids are prescribed Lexapro, Zoloft, Ritalin, Concerta more and more. It's sickening imo.
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On May 31 2009 05:00 Frits wrote:
Don't ever consult a psychoanalyst about depression by the way, psychoanalysis hardly does anything for depression, not to mention it takes ages while CGT/IRT takes about 6-12 weeks to have noticable effects.
Ok this is a bit wrong though. Just because you can't easily measure the effects of psychoanalysis like you somewhat can with CBT, it doesn't mean there aren't positive effects. This is important to keep in mind. Feelings, changes in moods, thoughts, subtile things like these are impossible to measure in a quantitative scientifical way imo.
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EPT
