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Vitamin D and Omega-3 have a larger effect on depression than antidepressants

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Re: Vitamin D and Omega-3 have a larger effect on depression than antidepressants

#411

Post by dghlsakjg »

isoprophlex wrote: post #43

Because it's common to hate on antidepressants, I've always personally had a bias against them. For the past 15-20 years, november thru february are basically a writeoff due for me due to seasonal affective disorder. Cold showers, exercise, no alcohol, strict sleeping rituals. Vitamin d. I can still sleep 11 hours and feel like reheated cat shit. Enter citalopram. "It will take up to six weeks to dial in" they said.…

As someone that falls on the side of “depression is real and antidepressants can help” it is very clear that there are people in this thread that need to hold their tongues because they know not of what they speak. (Not you OP)

There are some forms of depression that you cannot think or act your way out of. If you haven’t experienced that, I promise that you do not understand what it is like. You cannot really understand unless you have experienced it. Your opinion on it is irrelevant, and frequently offensive.

The same is true for people that say that antidepressants are mostly placebo. They are not. When people say that antidepressants saved their life, they aren’t joking or exaggerating in the least.

Yes, I understand that other therapies are also effective, and that some people are non-responsive to some drugs.

Keep your pet theories to yourself if you are not a subject matter expert or someone who has experienced it first hand.

Edit: I understand that the placebo effect is still an effect. My point is that there are a lot of people being incredibly dismissive of real lived experiences and outcomes on a VERY serious issue.

Re: Vitamin D and Omega-3 have a larger effect on depression than antidepressants

#412

Post by b800h »

marginalia_nu wrote: post #291
b800h wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to say that I don't find this at all. I've been off caffeine for years, and I'm perfectly able to focus without it.

Stimulants (of caffeine is one) are the de-facto treatment for ADHD, not entirely unlikely caffeine is keeping me subclinical.

Some stimulants are a treatment for ADHD. Caffeine is not one of them, and whilst there are suggestions it can act as a short-term treatment for some people, it's not recommended.

Re: Vitamin D and Omega-3 have a larger effect on depression than antidepressants

#413

Post by throwaway314314 »

isoprophlex wrote: post #43

Because it's common to hate on antidepressants, I've always personally had a bias against them. For the past 15-20 years, november thru february are basically a writeoff due for me due to seasonal affective disorder. Cold showers, exercise, no alcohol, strict sleeping rituals. Vitamin d. I can still sleep 11 hours and feel like reheated cat shit. Enter citalopram. "It will take up to six weeks to dial in" they said.…

Thank you for saying this, I wholeheartedly agree. Antidepressants have an excessively bad reputation.

I'm sure they have their problems too on occasion, but for me the decision to start taking Escitalopram was one of the best things I've ever done.

The side effects were totally negligible compared to the benefits.

I've stopped taking it a year ago or so and... it's basically cured me.

I'm not saying antidepressant are a literal pharmaceutical cure for depression, but in my case it simply put me in a position mentally to change habits and patterns of thinking in a sustainable way.

My only regret is not doing this 10 years earlier; the poor reputation contributed to that.

Re: Vitamin D and Omega-3 have a larger effect on depression than antidepressants

#414

Post by ncasenmare »

isoprophlex wrote: post #377
ncasenmare wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi, author of the blog post here! Thank you for sharing your experience with antidepressants, I'm really glad it worked for you & made your life better. I did mention the following at the end of the "antidepressants" section, but reading your comment convinced me to move it further up. The intro now reads: > The "standardised effect size" of antidepressants on depression, vs placebo, is around 0.4. (On average; some…

My personerino let me be ridiculous and fawn a bit, and tell you that you're one of my internet heroes. Don't take it as criticism, more of a personal take on figuring out what antidepressants do for me. Furthermore, since posting that parent comment I've converted my vit. D dose to IUs and I realised i'm only taking 800 IUs daily. So a thank you for clueing me in on that, and who knows what happens if I up that. May…

Aw, thank you for your kind words! I hope the extra D helps! ^_^

Re: Vitamin D and Omega-3 have a larger effect on depression than antidepressants

#415

Post by FuriouslyAdrift »

andai wrote: post #373
cameronh90 wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suffer from severe crippling OCD and anxiety. Years of therapy and psychoanalysis have failed to find any cause, and, if anything, made it worse. The best explanation has been it's probably because I'm autistic, and these things tend to happen to autistics. Luckily, sertraline was an almost instant cure. I can come off it for periods, but it tends to reoccur after a while. So, it does mean I have to take a drug ind…

I'm not an expert so maybe someone else can clarify further, but in relation to sleep medications I've heard that they should not be used for more than two weeks, or they can permanently fuck up your sleep cycle. They also give you low quality sleep, because they just knock you out. It's not a natural kind of sleep. At least that's how it was a while ago. Maybe the situation has improved.

I used ambien for sleep and provigil for mindfullness (the go/no go packets) during long deployments in the military and it took me years to get back to anything normal after leaving the Army. These are very powerful medications.

Re: Vitamin D and Omega-3 have a larger effect on depression than antidepressants

#416

Post by francisofascii »

sschueller wrote: post #87
r1ch wrote: post #4

Please do not take 5000mg/day of Vitamin D. The author confuses IU and mg which is very dangerous.

If you don't have an underlying condition it is way better to get the Vitamin D from the sun in 10-30min increments per day after which you are saturated for the day. Overdose is not possible via the sun (excluding sun burns of course). > A single, optimal sun exposure session might produce the equivalent of 10,000 to 25,000 IU from a supplement, but it will not keep increasing with more time in the sun. That's your…

I would argue to do both in the winter, since sunlight has other benefits than just Vitamin D synthesis, like mitochondrial health and better circadian signaling for better sleep quality.

Re: Vitamin D and Omega-3 have a larger effect on depression than antidepressants

#417

Post by sambuccid »

citrin_ru wrote: post #204
sambuccid wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess there are different types of "life sucks" that can or cannot contribute to depression, my current understanding is that a lot of it depends on whether you feel you have some control over the situation or if you think you have absolutely no power over it

Isn't people in the past had less control? There were dying from infections and not only had no vaccines and drugs they didn't understand how infections are spread. They also suffered from various natural disasters not having a protection a modern civilization gives us.

I don't know enough about how people lived in the past but I would tend to agree with you that they might have had less control than us on many things. But what I meant was that it depends on how much control you *think* you have rather than the control you actually have. So I think a lot of it is about perception, in 100 years time people might wonder why we weren't all depressed because we had a life expectancy of "just" 80/90 years, but for us it's just normal and expected

Re: Vitamin D and Omega-3 have a larger effect on depression than antidepressants

#418

Post by fwipsy »

arghwhat wrote: post #318
paufernandez wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree. But sometimes there is no "root cause", the brain is still a mystery. If you had been depressed even when you knew there was nothing to worry about, you would see it differently, because then you deduce that the black cloud is produced within. Chemistry trumps psychology. Good enough chemistry enables cognitive treatments. But to fix the wrong chemistry you need chemistry.

> Chemistry trumps psychology To nitpick: The mind is applied biochemistry. Psychology intervenes in the chemistry, like many other activities do. The goal of that is to solve the root cause so that your future levels will be maintained at the right level, instead of just forcing the level by sourcing the respective chemicals externally. A good rule of thumb in biology and particular any kind of hormone production an…

Psychology can change neurochemistry but only in certain limited ways. Many people are on antidepressants long term because that's the only thing that works for them. Taking antidepressants is already stigmatized enough. People should just do what makes them feel best over the long run. Your rule of thumb does not trump hard-won personal experiences.

We don't really know how SSRIs work, but there's some evidence that it's through desensitizing serotonin receptors, not directly addressing the lack of serotonin. If so, "use it or lose it" doesn't apply; long-term adaptation is the point, and SOMETIMES does persist after quitting.

Re: Vitamin D and Omega-3 have a larger effect on depression than antidepressants

#419

Post by wojciii »

isoprophlex wrote: post #43

Because it's common to hate on antidepressants, I've always personally had a bias against them. For the past 15-20 years, november thru february are basically a writeoff due for me due to seasonal affective disorder. Cold showers, exercise, no alcohol, strict sleeping rituals. Vitamin d. I can still sleep 11 hours and feel like reheated cat shit. Enter citalopram. "It will take up to six weeks to dial in" they said.…

It takes a 10 min talk with a doctor to get antidepressants around here. Perhaps a test which looks like multiple choice score of symptoms with some weights.

I had an old gf receive two different drugs each with terrible side effects. To me it looked as poison.

I decided that I would rather hurt myself myself than fuck with my brain chemistry this way.

During the dark northern Winters I lack vitamin D (your doctor can measure this using a blood test). The symptoms are some physical issues and probably something that can be described as light depression which goes away if I remember to take the vitamins.

We are all different. Some people might need anti-depressants. I just need some vitamins.

Re: Vitamin D and Omega-3 have a larger effect on depression than antidepressants

#420

Post by sowbug »

grumbelbart2 wrote: post #77
RandomTeaParty wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is "IU" another case of xkcd 927?

No, it's to make it easier to dose different kind of biologically active substances. They can have significantly different "recommended weight to eat of this per day", IUs make that sort-of comparable and easier to remember. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_unit

The usability issue with IUs is that people are used to scales measuring weight and containers measuring volume, but an IU is different for each substance.

Another issue is insulin syringes are labeled in "insulin units," which hapless folks reasonably assume can be abbreviated "IU."

If you are measuring out a certain number of IUs, and your calculator or formula hasn't asked you which substance you're working with, you're gonna have a bad time.

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