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Extreme side-effects of antidepressants

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Extreme side-effects of antidepressants

#61

Post by Pigo »

MichaelMoser123 wrote: post #57
Confusion wrote: post #7

Many meds have extreme side-effects in part of the population. Often we call those 'allergies', but those are just the tip of the iceberg. There's nothing new here, just a reminder that a specific medication may not work for you or may work but still make things worse by causing side-effects.

>Many meds have extreme side-effects in part of the population My daughter was given Montelucast/singulair for treatment of asthma; now it turns out that it can have severe side effects with kids - anxiety and suicidal behavior [1]. The funny thing is that these side effects are not listed on the medication guide, as these are supposed to be 'known risks'. What exactly were they thinking when they omitted this inform…

Is there other medications she could take instead of these? Asthma is scary enough for children, I couldn't imagine having to worry about the effects of the medication as well.

Re: Extreme side-effects of antidepressants

#62

Post by khed »

qrybam wrote: post #6

Some thoughts from someone who's been prescribed anti depressants in adolescence but never took them because I believed the doctor misdiagnosed: * Do these drugs genuinely help or is it just a strong placebo response? * If the anecdotal evidence increases the odds from 1 in 100 to 1 in 4, would this be considered normal in medicine? Of course the symptoms could be attributed to the wrong thing here but they sound pre…

They are almost all placebo response. The real effect is so small it's probably not useful clinically. They also cause suicidal ideation and sexual dysfunction is a large minority of patients.

Re: Extreme side-effects of antidepressants

#63

Post by _98fj »

ada1981 wrote: post #53
_98fj wrote: post #34

Just a couple of unordered facts here, because discussions about this topic tend to get very confused: 1. Serotonin is a very basic, very old transmitter found in all bilateral animals. Humans have two sites of serotonin-production, one in the body, one in the brain. 90% of serotonin resides in the body. 2. Serotonin in general regulates "activity". It affects hunger, gut-movement, sleep, cell-growth, mood, body-temp…

Some good info here, however just want to point out that feeling sad / angry is not te result of a brain circuit malfunctioning. All of our emotions are useful signals and it's often our learned responses to those emotions that are the problem.

I agree, that was bad wording on my side.

Re: Extreme side-effects of antidepressants

#64

Post by khed »

rtpg wrote: post #22
qrybam wrote: post #6

Some thoughts from someone who's been prescribed anti depressants in adolescence but never took them because I believed the doctor misdiagnosed: * Do these drugs genuinely help or is it just a strong placebo response? * If the anecdotal evidence increases the odds from 1 in 100 to 1 in 4, would this be considered normal in medicine? Of course the symptoms could be attributed to the wrong thing here but they sound pre…

I can't comment on anti-depressants, but for a similar case (ADHD meds), where societies attitudes regarding meds are similar. ADHD has by far the most successful medical treatment of any mental illness. Something like 90% of cases get positive response out of medication, with 35-40% of people having all their symptoms handled. My understanding is that for treatment of clinical depression, medication helps around 75%…

You are over stating the case for what stimulants can do in ADHD. They probably do make kids more docile. They do not improve grades over a meaningful time span. They do not improve broad and important outcomes like graduation rate (there is some evidence that ADHD kids on stimulants have lower graduation rates than ADHD KIDS that aren't medicated), increase earnings, or decrease chance of going to prison.

Re: Extreme side-effects of antidepressants

#65

Post by khed »

mickronome wrote: post #39
adamweld wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There's a lot of research showing the positive effects of medication (and in ADHD's case, the futility of non-medication-based treatments), but there's still a major fight for acknowledging the validity of this form of treatment. Is this really relevant considering the extremely rapid rise in prescription and use of ADHD medication? In my anecdotal experience with friends who take these pills, they very quickly crea…

They can be harmful, but diagnosed ADHD/ADD is almost guaranteed to be harmful, maybe especially in todays society. More than doubled risk of depression is only one of the risks of the above diagnoses, and while many of the risks could be said to be more of a societal issue - at least in the beginning - they tend to cause actual health problems over time. Overprescription can always be an issue for any medication, bu…

I am a physician with training in neuroscience. There is no scientific consensus that stimulants help the problems you are talking about. There is some preliminary evidence that stimulants may make some problems worse (graduation rates).

Re: Extreme side-effects of antidepressants

#66

Post by khed »

threeseed wrote: post #18
qrybam wrote: post #6

Some thoughts from someone who's been prescribed anti depressants in adolescence but never took them because I believed the doctor misdiagnosed: * Do these drugs genuinely help or is it just a strong placebo response? * If the anecdotal evidence increases the odds from 1 in 100 to 1 in 4, would this be considered normal in medicine? Of course the symptoms could be attributed to the wrong thing here but they sound pre…

Antidepressants in general work. However they have a range of side effects and efficacy profiles depending on the person. Then have saved far more lives they they have killed. So no I don't think we will be negatively looking back at this era.

There is no well done study I have heard of that supports your position. In general SSRIs have an effect size that is so low it is not clinically relevant. There are multiple meta analyses that demonstrate that.

Re: Extreme side-effects of antidepressants

#67

Post by _98fj »

khed wrote: post #60
_98fj wrote: post #34

Just a couple of unordered facts here, because discussions about this topic tend to get very confused: 1. Serotonin is a very basic, very old transmitter found in all bilateral animals. Humans have two sites of serotonin-production, one in the body, one in the brain. 90% of serotonin resides in the body. 2. Serotonin in general regulates "activity". It affects hunger, gut-movement, sleep, cell-growth, mood, body-temp…

I am a practicing physician with 2 years of graduate level course work in neuroscience. Point 3 and 4 are wrong. There is no evidence that SSRIs work by fixing a chemical imbalance. There are multiple metananlyses in top tier journals that indicate that SSRIs have an irrelevant clinical effect. SSRIs are almost all placebo with the downside of causing serious side effects. The small effect that isn't due to placebo i…

I know these things from a friend who is a doctor and works with these neurotransmitter tests since about 10 years.

I asked her how accurate these tests were and she said that, while you can't read everything off a sheet, there are patients, where she can already guess the result of the tests from the bodily symptoms the patient is describing (energy level at which times of the day, feeling of hunger, insomnia etc.).

Quite often serotonin is low and once it has been boosted (verified by an additional test a couple of month later) the patient is feeling a lot better.

Which, like I said, doesn't imply that that's all there is to mental well-being.

These tests also measure stress hormones, which usually are out of bounds as well.

> There is no evidence that SSRIs work by fixing a chemical imbalance.

I don't even know how one would define "chemical imbalance" in such a complex system as the human body.

All I know is that there are average ranges for transmitters and the more somebody's results are inside these ranges, the better he typically feels.

Re: Extreme side-effects of antidepressants

#68

Post by JBReefer »

khed wrote: post #64
rtpg wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't comment on anti-depressants, but for a similar case (ADHD meds), where societies attitudes regarding meds are similar. ADHD has by far the most successful medical treatment of any mental illness. Something like 90% of cases get positive response out of medication, with 35-40% of people having all their symptoms handled. My understanding is that for treatment of clinical depression, medication helps around 75%…

You are over stating the case for what stimulants can do in ADHD. They probably do make kids more docile. They do not improve grades over a meaningful time span. They do not improve broad and important outcomes like graduation rate (there is some evidence that ADHD kids on stimulants have lower graduation rates than ADHD KIDS that aren't medicated), increase earnings, or decrease chance of going to prison.

Can you cite that? You're opposing mainstream medication usage all over this thread, so it's hard to take each comment as gospel.

Re: Extreme side-effects of antidepressants

#69

Post by mveety »

tcj_phx wrote: post #29
impossiblegame wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think that SSRIs don't affect serotonin, you should halt your amateur medical career now. I send my best wishes for you and your girlfriend and I hope she feels better soon, on her terms and not via a formula. However, SSRIs are highly specific to serotonin receptor bindings. LSD is specific to a relatively sparse type of serotonin receptor, and MAOIs will bind with anything in your brain which is why they are…

> If you think that SSRIs don't affect serotonin I didn't say that, I said that "increasing serotonin" is not why these drugs sometimes help people feel better. > Honestly, her coke habit is the lede here, Yes. In the long term, cocaine use wrecks the mitochondia, which contributes to exhaustion. The proper therapy in this case is to restore the mitochondria density. Etiology (" a branch of medical science concerned…

> In the long term, cocaine use wrecks the mitochondia, which contributes to exhaustion. The proper therapy in this case is to restore the mitochondria density.

In mice, when given super high doses. The data for humans is much shakier and the effects of this are unknown, or if there are any, or if it even matters. AFAIK, none of the long term studies from reputable sources have shown long term effects on wakefulness or motivation past the initial withdrawal syndrome. This is just some new "meth neurotoxicity" hysteria bullshit to scare people into thinking drugs are bad.

Re: Extreme side-effects of antidepressants

#70

Post by [deleted] »

khed wrote: post #60
_98fj wrote: post #34

Just a couple of unordered facts here, because discussions about this topic tend to get very confused: 1. Serotonin is a very basic, very old transmitter found in all bilateral animals. Humans have two sites of serotonin-production, one in the body, one in the brain. 90% of serotonin resides in the body. 2. Serotonin in general regulates "activity". It affects hunger, gut-movement, sleep, cell-growth, mood, body-temp…

I am a practicing physician with 2 years of graduate level course work in neuroscience. Point 3 and 4 are wrong. There is no evidence that SSRIs work by fixing a chemical imbalance. There are multiple metananlyses in top tier journals that indicate that SSRIs have an irrelevant clinical effect. SSRIs are almost all placebo with the downside of causing serious side effects. The small effect that isn't due to placebo i…

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