Many People Taking Antidepressants Discover They Cannot Quit
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Re: Many People Taking Antidepressants Discover They Cannot Quit
#2The use of these anti-depressants is extremely irresponsible. Most people who use them dont even have an inherant chemical problem. This will all be looked back upon as very stupid indeed.
Re: Many People Taking Antidepressants Discover They Cannot Quit
#3My heart and sympathy goes out to anybody who's on antidepressants and is trying to get off. From what I've seen and heard, it is just an incredibly painful and unpleasant experience, compounded by the fact that you need to be constantly negotiating with your insurance to cover the changing prescriptions as your dosage lowers. The withdrawal symptoms can be incredibly oppressive and disruptive. I wish there was more research into this, because I think it could help a lot of people.
Re: Many People Taking Antidepressants Discover They Cannot Quit
#4The use of these anti-depressants is extremely irresponsible. Most people who use them dont even have an inherant chemical problem. This will all be looked back upon as very stupid indeed.
> Most people who use them dont even have an inherant chemical problem.
Which leads to another issue that worries me: this kind of thing will end up with a backlash that likely screws over those who really do need the medication.
Re: Many People Taking Antidepressants Discover They Cannot Quit
#5The use of these anti-depressants is extremely irresponsible. Most people who use them dont even have an inherant chemical problem. This will all be looked back upon as very stupid indeed.
I take Wellbutrin and Lamictal (a mood stabilizer) every single day for PTSD and I wouldn’t really be able to function without them. I really wouldn’t call myself or the psychiatrist who prescribed them irresponsible. I’d say it’s equally irresponsible to make a blanket statement about something that does actually help people in certain circumstances.
That being said, there are a number of GPs out there who prescribe things without fully understanding the consequences. I’ve always had a GP refer me to a psychiatrist for any mental health issues, however.
Re: Many People Taking Antidepressants Discover They Cannot Quit
#6This shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone. Modern medicine is not in the business of curing diseases. It's all about disease and symptom management.
Re: Many People Taking Antidepressants Discover They Cannot Quit
#7The use of these anti-depressants is extremely irresponsible. Most people who use them dont even have an inherant chemical problem. This will all be looked back upon as very stupid indeed.
I take Wellbutrin and Lamictal (a mood stabilizer) every single day for PTSD and I wouldn’t really be able to function without them. I really wouldn’t call myself or the psychiatrist who prescribed them irresponsible. I’d say it’s equally irresponsible to make a blanket statement about something that does actually help people in certain circumstances. That being said, there are a number of GPs out there who prescribe…
I think the "irresponsibility" was aimed at the medical field, not at the patients. At least that was how I decided to read it.
EDIT: Also, I think that even for the patients where the cause of the depression is not "chemical" in origin, that does not reduce the severity of the illness in the slightest. It just means that the causes may lie elsewhere (for example externally). I have been depressed as an indirect result of the troubles I got myself into due to undiagnosed ADD. In my case, yes, I needed medication to treat my condition, as well as therapy. But I did not need antidepressants, I needed medication for ADHD (and I just checked: lisdexamfetamine is currently not considered an effective anti-depressant[0]).
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisdexamfetamine#Depression
Re: Many People Taking Antidepressants Discover They Cannot Quit
#8My heart and sympathy goes out to anybody who's on antidepressants and is trying to get off. From what I've seen and heard, it is just an incredibly painful and unpleasant experience, compounded by the fact that you need to be constantly negotiating with your insurance to cover the changing prescriptions as your dosage lowers. The withdrawal symptoms can be incredibly oppressive and disruptive. I wish there was more…
It varies wildly by person, even moreso possibly than antidepressant efficacy.
I've been...fortunate, if you can call it that, that while I've taken a great many antidepressants and other psychiatric medications, the worst side effects I've ever faced from stopping have been screwed up sleep/wake cycles, irritability, and a few days of headache.
I've had friends and family members who have had much worse, and I've had to carefully consider it each and every time, because we lack any kind of monitoring or ways of informing us how bad it might be.
Re: Many People Taking Antidepressants Discover They Cannot Quit
#9This shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone. Modern medicine is not in the business of curing diseases. It's all about disease and symptom management.
> Modern medicine is not in the business of curing diseases.
I know enough people in the field of modern medicine to know that that is hyperbole. At least in the European countries that I have lived in.
EDIT: I am sorry to hear from the responses to this that this may not be quite so hyperbolic in the US. I hope that trend will be reversed somehow.
Re: Many People Taking Antidepressants Discover They Cannot Quit
#10This shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone. Modern medicine is not in the business of curing diseases. It's all about disease and symptom management.
Are you saying that people are not trying to cure diseases? And instead they are only trying to manage them? If so, that is unequivocally wrong and misinformed.