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Medications that change who we are

bbc.com

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Re: Medications that change who we are

#41

Post by thaumasiotes »

goblin89 wrote: post #14

Tangentially (and anecdotally), not long ago I seem to have contracted what seems like a flu (or the like), and I remember feeling very healthy, social and unusually well—almost high—most of the day right until my brain went foggy and fever started. In hindsight, I did not behave quite like myself that day, especially considering I felt somewhat overworked the preceding week. This prompted me to first draw the analog…

> This prompted me to first draw the analogy with taking and withdrawing from a substance

The substance has no goals.

The flu specifically wants you to be social.

Re: Medications that change who we are

#42

Post by radmarshallb »

Spoppys wrote: post #11

It's a worrying thought. My dad has become much less empathetic and more bitter over the past decade. I'd assumed it might have been the pain that was at least partially responsible, now I'm wondering if its actually the painkillers

Chronic pain will chip away even the kindest person's ability to care about anything else.

Re: Medications that change who we are

#44

Post by infradig »

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…

Can I ask what medication it was?

Re: Medications that change who we are

#45

Post by netfl0 »

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…

Doctors are not always researchers. The mind of a good researcher is very curious. A good practitioner has to rely on heuristics for troubleshooting due to the high dimensionality of the decision space they deal with.

Re: Medications that change who we are

#46

Post by ImprovedSilence »

goblin89 wrote: post #14

Tangentially (and anecdotally), not long ago I seem to have contracted what seems like a flu (or the like), and I remember feeling very healthy, social and unusually well—almost high—most of the day right until my brain went foggy and fever started. In hindsight, I did not behave quite like myself that day, especially considering I felt somewhat overworked the preceding week. This prompted me to first draw the analog…

Yeah I always feel fantastic the day before I get sick. I don’t have any sources, but I remember reading that it’s due to your immune system ramping up and getting ready to fight. Not sure how much truth there is to that, but every time I’m sick, I can look back and see I felt great the day before.

Re: Medications that change who we are

#48

Post by bemmu »

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.

Re: Medications that change who we are

#49

Post by flavor8 »

aphextron wrote: post #32

>"It turns out many ordinary medications don’t just affect our bodies – they affect our brains." I feel like perpetuating this mindset is the ultimate sin of modern psychiatry and the entire industry of psychiatric pharmaceuticals - your brain is your body. 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. People think they can take an a…

I mean making a distinction between mind/consciousness and body is one thing, and while I wouldn't, those of a religious bent might try to justify it. Making a distinction between brain and body is just sophomoric. The BBC unfortunately seems to have content-farm mistakes like this fairly frequently in their online writing.

Re: Medications that change who we are

#50

Post by DailyHN »

tapland wrote: post #38
DailyHN wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That link does little to disprove that sugar isn't the culprit. And anecdotally, both my partner and I can recognize adverse psychological effects in myself after I consume too many high-glycemic carbs (ie, sugar).

I was pretty sure that the kids + sugar behavior change was debunked and all up to expectations from the parents. Now, this is not a study but covers what I thought was the case since years back: >The sugar-hyperactivity myth is based on a single study from the mid 1970's in which a doctor removed the sugar from one child's diet and that child's behavior improved. Since then, over a dozen larger studies have been con…

As someone who's been on the keto diet, the majority of the past five years, this seems blasphemous.
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