Medications that change who we are • Hacker News Board

Re: Medications that change who we are

#71

Post by crimsonalucard » Sat, Jan 11, 2020, 2:13 PM UTC

spodek wrote: post #51

Let's also consider the other direction -- how fresh vegetables and fruit, plus whole grains, beans, nuts, seeds, and herbs improve mood, behavior, resilience. Throw in some vigorous exercise, and for most people, drugs can't do better, without the drugs' side effects and cost. For many people, switching from a standard American diet to largely those ingredients would register as changing who they are. I just finishe…

This is a biased conclusion.

The most logical answer is this: Anything we ingest can change our personality. Whether it's for the better or worse is an opinion.

The causative nature of how ingesting A causes a personality change of type B, must be investigated experimentally. You cannot just say eating veggies improves mood. Where is your data and what do you mean by "improve"?

Re: Medications that change who we are

#72

Post by derekp7 » Sat, Jan 11, 2020, 2:14 PM UTC

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 read that as They don't just affect our hardware, but also our software.

Re: Medications that change who we are

#73

Post by hprotagonist » Sat, Jan 11, 2020, 2:15 PM UTC

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 used to think that the brain was the most important part of the body. Then i realized who was telling me that...”

Re: Medications that change who we are

#74

Post by PragmaticPulp » Sat, Jan 11, 2020, 2:16 PM UTC

truth_be_told wrote: post #4

I have long wondered about this. 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. We really…

> 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 have significant side effects. It's not accurate or helpful to describe this as Eastern vs. Western medicine. All significant supplements and medications are bound to have side effects to some degree.

Good, evidence-based doctors don't care if the practice is Eastern or Western. If the practice or supplement has reasonable scientific evidence, a good doctor will incorporate it into their recommendations. I've had plenty of "western" doctors prescribe practices like acupuncture, yoga, meditation and traditional TCM supplements like ginger and turmeric.

The real problem with the Eastern vs. Western medicine false dichotomy is when it leads people to choose a side and stick with it. I've known a few people who suffered far too long with ineffective TCM or alternative medicine treatments before accepting proper, evidence-based treatment. The problem isn't limited to Eastern medicine, of course. For example, many depressed patients take Saint John's Wort for its herbal anti-depressant properties and are surprised to experience as many, if not more, side effects than highly targeted SSRI medications. Just because it's natural doesn't mean it's safer or more effective.

Re: Medications that change who we are

#75

Post by TazeTSchnitzel » Sat, Jan 11, 2020, 2:16 PM UTC

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #18

The world is in the midst of a crisis of over-medication, with the US alone buying up 49,000 tonnes of paracetamol every year – equivalent to about 298 paracetamol tablets per person Shocking, I knew it was bad but this is madness.

I wonder how much of that paracetemol is actually consumed? Maybe a lot of it just sits on a shelf and expires?

Re: Medications that change who we are

#76

Post by crimsonalucard » Sat, Jan 11, 2020, 2:17 PM UTC

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #52

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…

> I found out a year later that it dramatically affected my personality. More or less like in the article, but in the opposite way. So the blood pressure medication made you more calm? You didn’t specify the medication they prescribed, but that’s a common effect of certain types of blood pressure medication. In fact, certain blood pressure medications are prescribed off-label for their calming properties. One blood p…

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 on it.

Re: Medications that change who we are

#77

Post by koheripbal » Sat, Jan 11, 2020, 2:18 PM UTC

kerkeslager wrote: post #36

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 think the problem goes at least as far back as Plato and the allegory of the cave. Plato spread this concept that there was a difference between the body and mind or soul, and Western culture has never really recovered from the stupidity of that idea. There's really no evidence or justification for it. Your mind and your body are the same thing.

Plato's allegory of the Cave is about the liberation provided by education, and self-awareness.

How gaining understanding of your environment freed you from the limited reality it presented you.

The initial usage of the story was to illustrate how political indoctrination could present a false reality to ardent followers "the shadows of cave fire for those raised in the cave", and how education could "open the eyes and show them the true light" (the fire in the sky/sun vs the fire in the cave). "...even if one was dragged out of the cave".

This was later extended to demonstrate that if humans learned about their own emotions, they could learn to reason decisions, rather than allow emotions to guide them exclusively.

Tangentially, this rough concept in early western philosophy evolved into the religion of the Sun, and had significant influence on early Christianity.

Re: Medications that change who we are

#78

Post by jotm » Sat, Jan 11, 2020, 2:21 PM UTC

elil17 wrote: post #2

I’d be curious to hear the experiences of people who take/have taken some of these drugs such as L-dopa. With alcohol, I feel different but I don’t feel like a different person. Is it like that, or is there a larger feeing of difference?

I've taken Levodopa, not prescribed, I do not have Parkinson's. Just had access to it and decided to try it as mood enhancement/anti depressant.

It did nothing noticeable. At higher dosages for 1 day I felt somewhat dizzy/nauseous, so I never tried that again (there is some research mentioning it can damage receptors irreparably). At the prescribed dosage, after a month I dropped it, as there was no improvement, no change.

Really, the only things I tried that had an actual effect were alcohol, cannabis, phenylethylamine (with nicotine! Does not work without it. And can probably kill you with alcohol, beware!), cocaine, aniracetam and sulbutiamine.

No wonder they're mostly banned, because they exhibit actual effects, but are not for any specific sickness. Sad, I'd say lack of alertness and a bad mood should be treated as sickness.

Re: Medications that change who we are

#79

Post by Mistletoe » Sat, Jan 11, 2020, 2:23 PM UTC

I had never heard of this link between statins and aggression and Tylenol and lack of empathy before. Interesting. Maybe this is why Boomers act so strange now. “Former flower children lost their empathy and caring for the world and the next generation when their doctors put them all on statins and they started gobbling Tylenol” would be quite an interesting story. Both my parents are on statins, it seems every person past a certain age is, the doctors think statins are something everyone should be on. I have my doubts.

>“Should people at low risk of cardiovascular disease take a statin?”

https://www.bmj.com/content/347/bmj.f6123

Re: Medications that change who we are

#80

Post by PragmaticPulp » Sat, Jan 11, 2020, 2:23 PM UTC

elil17 wrote: post #2

I’d be curious to hear the experiences of people who take/have taken some of these drugs such as L-dopa. With alcohol, I feel different but I don’t feel like a different person. Is it like that, or is there a larger feeing of difference?

> I’d be curious to hear the experiences of people who take/have taken some of these drugs such as L-dopa.

L-DOPA's significant side effects and risks are very well known to doctors. No one should be prescribed L-DOPA unless they have severe Parkinson's disease, and even then the L-DOPA dose should be actively minimized.

The impulsive behavior side effect of L-DOPA is so well known that it has its own Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dopamine_dysregulation_syndrom...

We should all be aware of potential side effects, but it's also important avoid the false dilemma fallacy. These patients aren't choosing between being healthy or taking L-DOPA. They're forced to choose between suffering from severe Parkinson's disease symptoms or risking the side effects of the medication. When the side effects outweigh the benefits, the medication should be discontinued. When the side effects are less than the underlying disease, the medication should be continued.