151–160 of 163 posts
How did people deal with mental illness before these drugs were around? I recall that melancholia was a real diagnosis a long time ago. My personal view is that in some cases physical exercise can be helpful. I have family that are on Wellbutrin etc., and others that studiously avoid any drugs.
I find it is completely the opposite for emotions with anti-depressants. They don't suppress them but allow me to feel a wider range than just null, fear, anger, and despair. There also are some therapeutic components as well and they aren't a panacea. For one I have become more outspoken as I find repressing my emotions is a depression trigger.
This article is absolute bullshit and quite frankly dangerous. It seems to me this woman was emotionally vulnerable and taken in by a snake oil huckster masquerading as a doctor. > Shortly after I started seeing him, my new doctor had me read the book Anatomy of an Epidemic by Robert Whitaker. Robert Whitaker's theses in that book have repeatedly been scientifically disproven. It's anti-science drivel. > The pharmace…
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> Views like this are very unhelpful and help to perpetuate shame No, my view is a hard-earned perspective that I've gained through personally having the system fail me. I lost a decade of my life to the medication-first mentality and I resent your implication that trying to help others avoid the same outcome is in any way dangerous. I do concede that drugs work for some people, but views like yours that lead to over…
> I resent your implication that trying to help others avoid the same outcome is in any way dangerous. I resent bad medical advice offered on a public forum. An absolute position in anything is always bad advice when the facts are not known. Parents let their children down, I'm not suddenly going to eschew all parenting because of it. > What we need is well-rounded advice that allows patients to make informed decisio…
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Yeah, I have used psilocybin mushrooms, DMT, and MDMA (and marihuana as well) before I went to seek professional help (or, rather, after I was disappointed with a previous professional endeavour and discredited the psych scientific community as a whole). After that, I tried the psychiatrist route (got a prescription) and eventually tried chronic gaming and alcoholism. None of that helped. Until I once more went via t…
It's sometimes not enough to simply use psychedelics. A lot has to do with the way you use them, with what intention, in what context, with whom, and how you follow up on and integrate your experience. Plenty (most?) people take psychedelics without any kind of therapeutic or constructive intention -- they take them to party, to escape, as an antidote for boredom, etc. It's not surprising that such use of these power…
The usage of drugs (recreational or not) without them being prescribed and without a trained, licensed professional guiding you is indeed something different than recreational usage for which the drugs I mentioned (psilocybin, MDMA, marihuana, DMT) and A.muscaria are not licensed for anywhere AFAIK.
The recreational drug usage of psilocybin was, for me, almost exclusively done in a safe, private setting though without bright light and with a careful choice of music. Because otherwise it hurts. For DMT and A.muscaria, it was exclusively done in such setting as well. I can guarantee you my focus was inward however it cannot be compared to a licensed, educated babysitter who's getting paid.
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> Why should the solution to a negative outlook be to mess with the chemistry alone, through drugs? Well perhaps because it works? > We identified 28 552 citations and of these included 522 trials comprising 116 477 participants. In terms of efficacy, all antidepressants were more effective than placebo, with ORs ranging between 2·13 (95% credible interval [CrI] 1·89–2·41) for amitriptyline and 1·37 (1·16–1·63) for r…
> all antidepressants were more effective than placebo Comparing them to placebo isn't appropriate, you need to compare them with an active placebo and only look at studies that continue longer than two years. Of which there are all of like 2 studies.
Active placebos are designed to cause detriment to the patient - to cause side effects to convince them they're not on the placebo. Getting ethics approval to do randomised trials in depressed patients is hard enough without harming your control group.
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> I resent your implication that trying to help others avoid the same outcome is in any way dangerous. I resent bad medical advice offered on a public forum. An absolute position in anything is always bad advice when the facts are not known. Parents let their children down, I'm not suddenly going to eschew all parenting because of it. > What we need is well-rounded advice that allows patients to make informed decisio…
Sorry about your martyrdom, but you're taking an absolute position yourself right now.
Maybe you'd feel more at home at reddit.
American use of antidepressants comes up at dinner conversation every so often. Stats are readily available, but what's less apparent is why it's so widespread in the US. Does anyone have any ideas why this is?
I'm taking a wild guess based on your domain name that you're in the UK. It appears to be about 11% in the US, 7% in the UK. So, 63% more in the US, but still a reasonably small fraction of the population. Or, if 11% is sizable, so is 7%. https://www.businessinsider.com/countries-largest-antidepres... The question is how many suffer depression without medication, and how many remain on antidepressants after recoverin…
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> all antidepressants were more effective than placebo Comparing them to placebo isn't appropriate, you need to compare them with an active placebo and only look at studies that continue longer than two years. Of which there are all of like 2 studies.
You should remember that we do research on real humans. Sometime this means we can't have the evidence we'd like to have. Active placebos are designed to cause detriment to the patient - to cause side effects to convince them they're not on the placebo. Getting ethics approval to do randomised trials in depressed patients is hard enough without harming your control group.
Patients on active placebos have reduced depression symptoms as compared with patients on non-active placebos.
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Would you be able to share how you were able to solve your problem and what the actually underlying cause was? Just a brief overview. I’m currently on SSRIs and they actually do help me sleep, but it’s not really helping with the underlying problems. As for SSRIs they are transformative for some people, and science doesn’t really understand the mechanism. They seem to think that there are secondary effects that are t…
It's more of a conversation that I'm willing to have with someone to, in part, see where they're currently at and what might be best to focus on first - than putting general knowledge out there, which will require a book to adequately/fully explain everything as there are many interconnected factors. To note, I'm not a doctor and don't have a medical degree. I can say that there are non-medicative practices, along wi…
As for the hearing test,do I just request my doctor for one?
I’ve tried lots of accupuncture but never felt true relief. I went to some of the best accouncturists but no real relief.
Most of my anxiety seems to be somatic in form. My mind is hyper aware of sensations in my body and I get a lot of interrupting anxious thoughts that break my train of thought and cause an anxious symptoms.
The main somatic symptom is pressure on my chest which with meditation I’m able to dissolve a little a bit but can never fully open up, it takes too much time and patience and the sensations are too strong. There are also sensations on the left side of my head connect to the chest— mri was negative.
I think intense exercise might open up my chest but I don’t want to do too much damage to my knees.
I’ve started stretching everyday and hoping the head to kneees , hand to floor stretch might open up the chest more. It feels like when I stretching, some of emotional tension in my body gets released. I really need to push myself a little more though.