Withdrawal from Antidepressants
madinamerica.com
Withdrawal from Antidepressants
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Re: Withdrawal from Antidepressants
#2On a related note, there's no good half-life calculator on the web for people tapering off SSRIs. The issue is that in order to actually have as gentle a taper as possible, you need to halve your dose only every few weeks because of how long the half life of these drugs is. So ideally you'd want something where you would enter your starting dose and how much of the drug you plan on taking each day, and it would show you your projected concentration of the drug each day as well as the percent change.
I made this in Excel for someone a few years ago, but it would make a good weekend project if someone wants to learn react or whatever.
Re: Withdrawal from Antidepressants
#3We think of doctors and medications as being scientific and precise. But it's more like just throwing some food coloring into a black garbage bag full of all sorts of stuff and shaking it up in hopes of getting it to get to a specific color... but not really being able to see the color through the bag.
The drugs all have side-effects, different for each person who takes them. And often those side-effects are as bad as the original ailment. But you trust your doctor, and you're in a bad spot... and you figure, "Fuck it, maybe it'll work and I'm willing to try anything at this point..." And ugh, it just all sucks.
It's so hard to fix once you start down the medication path. Testing drugs, trying to find the right dose... deciding if the side-effects are worth the gains... withdrawal from drugs... drugs to help with the side-effects... drugs to help with the withdrawal... (often a few loops)... all of this can fundamentally change your personality and motivations, or have just no impact on you what-so-ever and leave you beyond frustrated.
If you had cancer, everyone would be there to support you. If you have a mental illness, there's not much chance of getting support from peers... or friends -- it's tough, it's not their job to support you -- sure... but a lot of times mental health issues are exacerbated by feeling of isolation... which leads to medical treatment because you don't have other options... and the doctors all seem confident that drugs will help...
Anyway, anything you can do to avoid mental health issues in the first place... do that. And if you don't have mental health issues, be thankful and humbly accept you're one concussion, bad breakup, car accident, death in the family, death of a pet, loss of job, or bad decision away from it if you aren't careful.
Re: Withdrawal from Antidepressants
#4The article seems sound, but the source does look a bit biased.
Re: Withdrawal from Antidepressants
#5Not sure if this supports the article or is just a warning, but going off of anti-depressants can be fatal. If depression relapses anti-depressants that once worked can prove ineffective. (edit: wrongly said SSRIs and not anti-depressants)
David Foster Wallace:
Wallace died by suicide on September 12, 2008, at age 46. Wallace's father reported in an interview that his son had suffered from depression for more than 20 years and that antidepressant medication had allowed him to be productive.[42] When Wallace experienced severe side effects from the medication, he attempted to wean himself from his primary antidepressant, phenelzine.[43] On his doctor's advice, Wallace stopped taking the medication in June 2007,[42] then the depression returned. Wallace received other treatments, including electroconvulsive therapy. When he returned to phenelzine, he found that it had lost its effectiveness.[43] His wife kept a watchful eye on him in the following days, but on September 12, Wallace went into the garage, wrote a two-page note, and arranged part of the manuscript for The Pale King before hanging himself from a patio rafter.[49]
It's something to be very careful about...
Re: Withdrawal from Antidepressants
#6We think of doctors and medications as being scientific and precise. But it's more like just throwing some food coloring into a black garbage bag full of all sorts of stuff and shaking it up in hopes of getting it to get to a specific color... but not really being able to see the color through the bag. The drugs all have side-effects, different for each person who takes them. And often those side-effects are as bad a…
In Australia (or at least NSW), the health system doesn't know what to do with you. About 7 months ago I had a mental breakdown and experienced thoughts of suicide. When the health system found out, I had finished having the thoughts, and was at home trying to sleep, being supported by my loving family having been awake at the time for over 14 hours.
I was ripped out of my bed by ambulance officers with police present, despite my protests and my wife's - eventually agreeing to go voluntarily with them in their ambulance. Then after I got into the ED itself I discovered I'd been sectioned and not allowed to leave. After I realised this was what had happened I got placed in an isolation room, with no explanation as to why, and there I sat quietly rotting for the next 5.5 hours. In other words, I got no care, had my rights stripped and was treated like a criminal because after a sustained period of incredible stress I had a breakdown. I was then sent back home as they decided I shouldn't have been there in the first place.
I was then sent a bill for $600.
The system sucks.
Re: Withdrawal from Antidepressants
#7The home page of the site hosting the webpage submitted here, "Mad in America: Science, Psychiatry, and Social Justice" looks to put a lot more emphasis on the social justice, as the authors published on the site define that, than on science in general or psychiatry in particular. This is more a site that advocates for a particular policy point of view than a site that neutrally reviews the latest methodologically careful research.
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Re: Withdrawal from Antidepressants
#8Not sure if this supports the article or is just a warning, but going off of anti-depressants can be fatal. If depression relapses anti-depressants that once worked can prove ineffective. (edit: wrongly said SSRIs and not anti-depressants) David Foster Wallace: Wallace died by suicide on September 12, 2008, at age 46. Wallace's father reported in an interview that his son had suffered from depression for more than 20…
phenelzine is an MAOI
Re: Withdrawal from Antidepressants
#9The article seems sound, but the source does look a bit biased.
The source isn't just a bit biased, it's hugely biased. Mad in America has an open editorial viewpoint, which is opposition to "the current drug-based paradigm of care" in psychiatry [1]. It's headed by Robert Whitaker, probably best known for his book Anatomy of an Epidemic that questions the routine use of psychiatric drugs [2].
Of course, that doesn't mean the article is useless or not addressing real phenomena. Antidepressant withdrawal is real, and IME it's something you're more likely to hear about as a horror story from a patient (especially if they tried to stop Effexor cold-turkey) rather than as part of standard descriptions of depression treatment and its risks/shortcomings.
Re: Withdrawal from Antidepressants
#10We think of doctors and medications as being scientific and precise. But it's more like just throwing some food coloring into a black garbage bag full of all sorts of stuff and shaking it up in hopes of getting it to get to a specific color... but not really being able to see the color through the bag. The drugs all have side-effects, different for each person who takes them. And often those side-effects are as bad a…
> If you had cancer, everyone would be there to support you. If you have a mental illness, there's not much chance of getting support from peers
Because most people have no clue what to do about psychological illness, are afraid of doing more harm than good (not wrongly) and have pathology of their own that they're having trouble dealing with. And if mental illness as tied to family dysfunction as I think, then the people who would most want to help you are those you should trust the least to do so.