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Medications that change who we are

bbc.com

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Re: Medications that change who we are

#201

Post by heavyset_go »

sugarkjube wrote: post #40

Definitely 100% true, first hand experience here. I had mild medication prescribed for regulating blood pressure. Supposedly without psychological side effects. I found out a year later that it dramatically affected my personality. More or less like in the article, but in the opposite way. The frightening thing is, I didn't know !!! I found out a year later when temporarily stopping the medication, my kids started to…

Drugs like propranolol, clonidine, nitrates etc that are commonly prescribed for their effects on blood pressure, also exert action on the peripheral and central nervous system.

Re: Medications that change who we are

#202

Post by dpark »

heavyset_go wrote: post #198
dpark wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not some special thing that sits apart from it. It is an integral part of the whole, no different than your kidneys or liver. Except it is. The brain is a part of your body and the two are tightly integrated. Yet the brain is also not simply another organ. If you lose half of your liver, your personality might change due to the trauma, but you will still be you. If you lose a kidney, you’ll live on as if littl…

> If you lose half of your liver, your personality might change due to the trauma, but you will still be you. If your thyroid is damaged, it effects who you are through depression, lethargy, anxiety and significant behavioral changes. If your adrenal glands are overactive, it effects who you are through chronic stress, psychological conditioning and panic. Disorders of the gut effect who you are similarly, as does re…

Yep. The body is not independent of the brain. Your other organs and especially the hormones they produce absolutely affect it.

But the brain is still not “just another organ”. The brain is special, as evidenced by the fact that the body gives it a special blood barrier. The brain also is you, to a greater extent than any other organ. This is why your thyroid can be removed and with appropriate hormone replacement, you’re mostly unaffected. No amount of hormones will replace the loss of your brain.

Re: Medications that change who we are

#203

Post by dpark »

allovernow wrote: post #200
JimboOmega wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a huge family of "Neurosteroids"[1], which impact various receptors in the brain in lots of super complicated ways that aren't entirely understood. They are synthesized in all kinds of ways naturally, and when it comes to "what they do" in terms of personality... "probably something" is the best we can do. There is massive complexity in all these things, all kinds of feedback mechanisms, genes and enzymes inv…

When we know so little, is it really ethical for a psychiatrist to prescribe these drugs to make people slightly more like the opposite gender, rather than teaching them to accept who they are and deal with the disorder like any other incurable condition?

What “other incurable conditions” do doctors not even attempt to treat and simply tell patients to “accept who they are and deal with it”?

Re: Medications that change who we are

#204

Post by douglasmurray12 »

Terretta wrote: post #130
crimsonalucard wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blood pressure medicine does make you more calm and this is known anecdotally among the medical community. I know this because I know of medical students taking it before giving a speech. Literally the medicine is well known for making you perfectly calm. You know that magic pill that can get rid of your approach anxiety? I hear, this is it, though I never tried. I'm wondering if anyone more in the "know" can comment…

> You know that magic pill that can get rid of your approach anxiety ... wondering if anyone more in the "know" can comment on it. BLUF (bottom line up front): Try biofeedback to regulate level of emotional arousal before an anticipated stressor or critical decision or event. COMMENTARY You may be referring to “Propranolol” “Propranolol is occasionally used to treat performance anxiety... benefits appear similar to b…

Can you tell us more please? How would a regular person go about using bio-feedback to reduce anxiety and stress?

How have you observed people in the hedge fund industry using Propranolol? How would they acquire it, use it, and was there any talk of negative side effects?

Re: Medications that change who we are

#205

Post by creamynebula »

jp555 wrote: post #102
dpark wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not some special thing that sits apart from it. It is an integral part of the whole, no different than your kidneys or liver. Except it is. The brain is a part of your body and the two are tightly integrated. Yet the brain is also not simply another organ. If you lose half of your liver, your personality might change due to the trauma, but you will still be you. If you lose a kidney, you’ll live on as if littl…

do you mean the brain as in what's contained in our skull or also the central nervous system which would include controlling (both automatically and consciously) everything else, as well as sensing all of what we define as reality?

I don't think there is proof that consciousness originates in the brain, or in anything material for that matter.

Re: Medications that change who we are

#206

Post by carbocation »

blithedale wrote: post #170
carbocation wrote: post #126

This article provides no meaningful references (but some useless ones). This is a really interesting question, but essentially left unaddressed.

You're a cardiology fellow, so you're likely much better versed in this than me, but take a look at the paper cited here: Sure looks like they were doing multiple comparisons until they found a happenstance significant subgroup. : | "Several studies have supported a potential link between irritability and statins, including a randomised controlled trial – the gold-standard of scientific research – that Golomb led, in…

Yeah that sentence is very yikes:

“Among (postmenopausal) women, a borderline aggression-increase on statins became significant with exclusion of one younger, surgically-menopausal woman (N=310) β=0.70(SE=0.34)P=0.039.”

Re: Medications that change who we are

#207

Post by dpark »

dpark wrote: post #114
dragonwriter wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you lose half your brain, you’re probably dead, and if not, you’ll be drastically impaired the rest of your life. You’ll also likely experience drastic personality changes. That's...not at all what the actual results of a hemispherectomy, in which you literally lose half of your brain, show.

That’s rarely performed on adults because the risks are so high. Even in children it’s a last resort reserved only for the most severe and morphine seizure cases.

What the heck autocorrect? Morphine -> Nonresponsive

Re: Medications that change who we are

#208

Post by crimsonalucard »

truth_be_told wrote: post #105
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the Asian world, traditional Systems of Medicine focus on "holistic" treatment and the general public often calls Western Medicine, "Allopathy with side-effects". I had intuitively felt that these medicines must have an overall effect on behaviour which may always not be obvious to the observer unless the difference between the before and after were stark and noticeable. Many traditional herbal medications also…

You make some good points. However that is not what i meant when i said "holistic". As an example, in Ayurveda/TCM, "prophylaxis" is given greater importance than symptomatic treatment. We are what we eat and how we live. The beauty of Western Medicine is that it is highly targeted and therefore provides immediate relief. However, people go overboard with no thought to other factors, consequences and ramifications. T…

I'm asian myself and I am intimately familiar with eastern medicine.

You are largely right on western medicine, it is holistic as far as the scientific evidence is relevant. That means if there is no unbiased experiment on the 20 year effects of some effect of some drug then there is no science behind it and therefore no knowledge and no treatment. Causative treatments are established to a degree as close to absolute as possible using the scientific method. However, because scientific experiments are biased towards things that are easily observable and measurable, treatments are also biased in this direction.

In other words it is very hard to run an experiment on the 10 year side effects of some drug therefore there aren't much treatments of this nature among western medicine.

Eastern medicine is the opposite. It has no basis in science in the sense that none of it's tenants were established in scientific measurement and observation. More it's adhoc trial, error, a lot of bias and a lot of fraud. This kind of treatment can definitely be more "holistic" but this holisticness is based off vague and anecdotal evidence and is very inexact. Some eastern medicine may work and some may not and you may be being lied to.

In fact, the logical theory behind eastern medicine is utter crap. The logic talks about chi flows going through your body of both hot and cold and the logic is to eat medicine to help control balance in the chi flows. These chi flows are a fantasmic concept not observable by scientific experiment.

This does not mean eastern medicine doesn't work. THe reasoning might be off but the effectiveness of the medicine may still be valid because cultural selection would have virtually eliminated this field if it did not actually aid with survival in some form or manner. Just know that every time you ingest some medicine based of of eastern philosophy know that you are making a gamble on evidence that is anecdotal and possibly placebo induced or even fraudulent.

Re: Medications that change who we are

#209

Post by 1996 »

bemmu wrote: post #48

I've had trouble falling asleep for a long time, and at some point years ago started taking ambien for it. It took a long time to realize just how strong an impact it was having on me (could write a long blog post about it). Stopping wasn't easy, but now year+ later I'm basically back to normal, and feel like I have superpowers compared to the time when I was still on it.

which effects? drowsy in the daytime? walrus in the nightime?

Re: Medications that change who we are

#210

Post by copperx »

sugarkjube wrote: post #40

Definitely 100% true, first hand experience here. I had mild medication prescribed for regulating blood pressure. Supposedly without psychological side effects. I found out a year later that it dramatically affected my personality. More or less like in the article, but in the opposite way. The frightening thing is, I didn't know !!! I found out a year later when temporarily stopping the medication, my kids started to…

Do you mind sharing the name of the medication? Was it a beta blocker, which are known to have anti anxiety properties?
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