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Prozac 'no better than placebo' for treating children with depression, experts

theguardian.com

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Re: Prozac 'no better than placebo' for treating children with depression, experts

#201

Post by ckw »

pyth0 wrote: post #153
jacobgkau wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A drug can have real effects while being no better than a placebo for doing something specific (what they're supposed to do).

Okay, so what makes you believe that about prozac (or SSRIs) then?

Here’s a paper from last year: The nature and impact of antidepressant withdrawal symptoms and proposal of the Discriminatory Antidepressant Withdrawal Symptoms Scale (DAWSS) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadr.2024.100765

‘Highlights

• Antidepressant withdrawal can be severe and protracted.

• It produces characteristic physical and emotional symptoms.

• All symptoms were more severe after stopping than before starting antidepressants.

• We identified the 15 most discriminatory withdrawal symptoms in our sample.

• Withdrawal did not differ between people with physical or mental health diagnoses.’

Re: Prozac 'no better than placebo' for treating children with depression, experts

#202

Post by [deleted] »

dekhn wrote: post #186
hintklb wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not that I agree or disagree with the underlying claim but a call to "credentialism" to dismiss someone's opinion is not as strong in 2025 as you think it is. The last few years have been a proof that even the "experts" are following strong political or personal ideology. Also we don't live in the 18th century anymore. A lot of knowledge (especially around medicine) is open to the world. People can read papers, under…

In this area, having credentials makes a difference. Experts matter. Few if any non-medical people can read medical papers and make sense of what they say. There is simply far too much context to evaluate such papers, especially in the cases of complex medical conditions.

[deleted]

Re: Prozac 'no better than placebo' for treating children with depression, experts

#203

Post by mrguyorama »

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #188
jacobgkau wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's too early to say. Obviously the idea is to get her off it if possible. You understand that the people who sold you that drug have a vested interest in making sure it's not possible and/or that you & she think it's not possible, right?

You think the pediatrician is getting a kickback for prescribing it?

I'm big on medications for brain stuff but uh yes, in the US, doctors get lots of kickbacks for prescribing drugs.

Usually this takes the form of "I'm prescribing you with instead of generic" or "I'm prescribing you this specific drug from this class of drug"

https://openpaymentsdata.cms.gov/

Re: Prozac 'no better than placebo' for treating children with depression, experts

#204

Post by ksenzee »

hintklb wrote: post #185
fgonzag wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't understand what having extreme anxiety at that age feels like. As someone who lived through that, I refuse to let him. All of memories of school are just feeling anxious about everything, just tight and suffocated, always in a panic. I started living when I started taking anxiety pills at 39 years old, and I can see my 2 year old having the exact same anxiety ticks and fits I have. I don't know at what age…

The main issue I see is that the anxiety pill is a way to treat the symptoms, not the cause. Do you think that there is a way to treat the underlying cause and not the symptoms?

How do you know an anxiety pill is treating symptoms only? What if the cause is physiological, and the pill treats that? It is entirely possible to sit in your therapist's office and mutually shrug because neither of you can find an underlying reason for your anxiety. Sometimes anxiety just is.

Re: Prozac 'no better than placebo' for treating children with depression, experts

#205

Post by jdietrich »

potsandpans wrote: post #103
lemming wrote: post #23

Our 11 year old daughter was seriously depressed recently. N=1, but fluoxetine was life changing (and potentially life saving) for her, at least.

Genuine question (which I accept may be too personal to answer): what does depression in someone that young look like? How is it different from the expected hormonal changes that an adolescent is expected to go through?

As someone who has been seriously depressed from an early age, I can tell you that it looks exactly like the DSM/ICD criteria - a lack of energy, loss of appetite, loss of interest in all activities, insomnia, feelings of worthlessness, suicidal thoughts and pervasive sadness and hopelessness.

Some people would rather believe that pediatric depression isn't real, rather than confront the reality of a loved and cared-for child who is constantly tearful, severely underweight, sleeps for three or four hours a night, spends most of their time staring into space and frequently talks about wanting to die.

Depression is an utterly dreadful illness and should not be confused with normal sadness or unhappiness.

Re: Prozac 'no better than placebo' for treating children with depression, experts

#206

Post by pinkmuffinere »

lawlessone wrote: post #166
jacobgkau wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be more interested in where your 7-year-old even learned phrases like "I feel like I shouldn't be on Earth anymore."

It sounds to me how a someone would describe feeling suicidal when they don't know the word for it.

Ya, when I'm sad I can come up with pretty creative language to express it. It does feel really tough to know that a seven year old feels like that :(

Re: Prozac 'no better than placebo' for treating children with depression, experts

#207

Post by ksenzee »

ckw wrote: post #189
robertakarobin wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to our pediatrician there are no known long-term effects of juvenile Prozac use. The effects may exist, but if they do they are of sufficiently low significance as to not have been detected yet. Interestingly the one possible effect she's aware of is that there may be a correlation with not growing as tall physically as one might otherwise. The data is not conclusive, but it gives me something to blame for…

This is one of the most shocking things I have ever read. There is a black box warning for Prozac: ‘Warning: Suicidality and Antidepressant Drugs Increased risk of suicidal thinking and behavior in children, adolescents, and young adults taking antidepressants for Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) and other psychiatric disorders’ Read the package insert: https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/drugsatfda_docs/label/2011/01... T…

Note that the black box warning has nothing to do with long-term effects of the medication. It was added specifically because kids were killing themselves within weeks of starting the medication.

> This is one of the most shocking things I have ever read.

Good grief. I hope you're exaggerating for effect.

Re: Prozac 'no better than placebo' for treating children with depression, experts

#208

Post by tjohns »

hintklb wrote: post #198
dekhn wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this area, having credentials makes a difference. Experts matter. Few if any non-medical people can read medical papers and make sense of what they say. There is simply far too much context to evaluate such papers, especially in the cases of complex medical conditions.

Sorry but strong disagree here. I have had a lot of Spinal and sleep issues. I have read almost all new literature on this niche subject and I have brought to my spine doctor some new therapy and treatments they had literally no idea about. Those treatments have changed my life. As an engineer I read a lot of deep technical paper as my day job. Medical papers are comparatively relatively simple. The most complex part…

I think it's good to read papers and be curious.

It's also good to work with your doctors (as you seem to have done), have a discussion, and mutually agree on a plan of treatment.

Experts don't know everything. But they probably know some things you don't, and can think of questions you might not to have even thought to ask. As the saying goes, "you don't know what you don't know". Experience matters.

There's also a lot of people out there without an academic background that don't know how to properly read journal papers. It's common to see folks do a quick search on PubMed, cherry-pick a single paper they agree with, and treat it as gospel - even if there's no evidence of repeatability. These skills are not something that many people outside STEM are exposed to.

Re: Prozac 'no better than placebo' for treating children with depression, experts

#209

Post by tremon »

dekhn wrote: post #160
jacobgkau wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the problem's not a "neurochemistry issue" (that theory's been debunked and the "chemicals" in play have never been known), and the solution is "no better than placebo."

[flagged]

I hope you do realize that this comment thread is linked to an article that includes the words "Prozac no better than placebo" in its headline?
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