Antidepressant round-up

[HungLikeJesus]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

And you know this because your advanced degree is in what.

I guess that's one way to discourage expression of alternative view points.

[infinite monkey]

I guess that's one way to discourage expression of alternative view points

Well, I didn't read this as an alternative point of view expressed about a personal experience, myself.

Especially in light of the fact that I'd just run across that "beware what you poo poo" thread I'd read just this morning.

Originally Posted by Pico and ME

Most people do not lead healthy lives, they don't exercise and their diet is horrible, and a lot of those people suffer from depression as a result. Yes, the pharmaceutical industry found a cash cow.

Now, I do think there are many ways of dealing with many illnesses. But do you not think that us 'most people' have tried various methods, that we do not know ourselves well enough, that this post was awfully preachy and condescending, and dare I say judgmental?

So it wasn't intended that way? OK. That's fair enough, but in the name of expression of alternative views, I expressed my alternative view, and pointed out in my own unique way how "most of" us have been beaten over the head with "get off your ass and fix it" mentality that keeps so many from getting help.

And much backpedaling ensued.

[Pico and ME]

It may have came off preachy, but I'm pretty sure that if I looked, I could find data to back the fact that a lot of people have horrible eating habits in the United States. (Just look at the obesity numbers). And my contention is that horrible eating habits cause all kinds of problems, and a deterioration in mental health is one of them. Which, by the way, is why the pharmaceutical companies are making a killing. I backpedaled, because I realized I was coming off 'preachy', that at least two of you were taking my stance quite personally. Im sorry for that.

[classicman]

There is no one magic bullet/pill/cure for everyone.
Some may be able to deal with it to a degree ...
Others may need medication A, B, C or whatever.
I don't see why both sides cannot have some validity here.


ETA: Leaving again - just saw what happened the last time I posted in this thread ...

[Clodfobble]

Cascella NG, Kryszak D, Bhatti B, et al. Prevalence of celiac disease and gluten sensitivity in the United States Clinical Antipsychotic Trials of Intervention Effectiveness. Schizophr Bull. 2011;37(1):94–100.

23% of institutionalized schizophrenics were found to have anti-gliadin antibodies (celiac disease,) without GI symptoms of any kind. When gluten was removed from their diet, their schizophrenic symptoms were markedly improved and in many cases eradicated. Sometimes "eating healthy" doesn't mean what you think it means. Yet no one thing applies to everyone--for example, I happen to know that when footfootfoot refers to eating healthy, he was specifically eating gluten-free at the time. For me, epileptic symptoms are only relieved when I am both gluten-free and on meds at the same time, not with either one alone. One way or the other, however, I am quite sure that the epidemic is real, not fabricated.

[DanaC]

It's probably helpful not to think of it in terms of 'healthy' and 'unhealthy' diets.

For some people, a diet rich in one food type, and lacking in another will produce few negative effects. For others that same diet might be the difference between mental or physical wellbeing and mental or physical illness. or it might just be one component part of a bigger picture.

I have found there is a definate correlation between my diet and my state of mind. But...I don't know which is the cause and which the symptom.

[Snakeadelic]

Originally Posted by footfootfoot

What are you on now? What have you been on in the past? How's it working out for you?


I've taken Zoloft on a number of occasions and today I was gently told by a friend who knows about this sort of thing and me that I might want to go see my doc about getting beack on the program again.

I'm looking for a new kick though. Zoloft just hasn't worked lately.

Suggestions?

I've known several people who have slowly but surely developed resistance to antidepressants and such, Zoloft and Wellbutrin topping the list. One drug I advise people to consider with GREAT care as a replacement is Effexor, because that drug nearly killed 3 people I consider family. My mother recovered from the 4 months it took to wean her off Effexor after about a year of random throwing up, falling down, and migraine attacks. My sweetie is permanently brain-damaged due to a bad reaction, as is one of the coastal friends I miss most from my wild and crazy urban years. It seems like Effexor is either a magic bullet that actually works, or if it doesn't work it's the handbasket straight to Hell.

I took a drug called Serzone for a while, which I think was an SSRI. They thought I was bipolar, a type-2 rapid cycler, until the Serzone showed us that my "manic" phases were actually my baseline! Serzone evened out the downer crashes a lot...and then, after 15 years of use on 2 continents, 3 people died of liver failure in which Serzone was implicated and the same FDA that keeps Effexor on the market pulled it as "too dangerous". I was pretty geographically unstable at the time, so getting back on meds had to wait until I actually acquired a permanent residence.

At one point during my time here in Montana, I was given Paxil because it is chemically the most similar to Serzone.

HUGE MISTAKE in my case. Paxil made me really, really physically ill. I laid on the couch, waking up only to pee and take meds, for three days hoping to feel better before I realized it had been three days and called someone for help. Paxil also ripped up my stomach so badly that I lost 12 pounds in 18 days because all I could keep down was water and pills. The next psych prescriber I saw, after the one I'd been working with moved out of town, says antidepressants for some reason just don't really work on anxiety. Go fig!

Shortly before moving out of Seattle in 2004, my insurance caught up with me just long enough to pay for half a dozen appointments with a reputable therapist & prescriber there. Her opinion was that based on past experience I should consider benzodiazepine tranquilizers--Klonopin, Ativan, Valium, Xanax, and the like. I'd taken lorazepam (Ativan) a few times with good results, but she chose to try me on diazepam (Valium) and the relationship I have with that medication is now old enough to vote and get married. I have never had to endure addiction or the gigantic health-paperwork mess it creates, making me one of a tiny percentage of very lucky people. There are 3 generations of alcoholics in my pedigree that I know of (since Mom and I disagree on who my bio-donor was, I have no health info on that side of my heritage), and those would be my mother, her mother, and her mother. I quit drinking for fun when it quit being fun, and have always been grateful for my ability to put down a bottle of alcohol (or Valium) and just walk away. The only drugs I ever had addiction trouble with were nicotine and meth.

The thing I advise people nowadays is to find a provider that actually listens to them and do lots of research and discussion before taking any psychoactive drug. I have severe Generalized Anxiety Disorder with side orders of OCD (mild) and panic attacks (not mild). If I had let those dorks in Tacoma-tose (The Coma of the Coast) put me on lithium when they suspected bipolar, it would have been a total train wreck.

Fun trivia fact: only 2 countries on Earth allow pharmaceutical companies to advertise directly to the public. America and New Zealand, and NZ may have changed that since I last checked. Last I did know, every other country on earth restricted the marketing of drugs to those capable of prescribing them. Every time I see an ad for some new drug to ease up a minor discomfort, the list of known and potential side effects is so much worse than what the drug's supposed to fix that I'd be scared as hell to take anything for a problem that doesn't massively affect my quality of life. Bad enough I have to have 3 allergy meds now to leave my house! I do not need, say, an anti-adult-acne drug that causes you to crap out your own spleen or something equally horrible.

And yes, 3 allergy meds. Any time I know I'm going to be anywhere near other people. The issues with my downstairs neighbor directly below (the awesome insane biker lives on the other side of the 4-plex in the ground level unit) pushed my allergy to artificial scent, probably actually an ingredient class called phthalates or some such Latin lunacy, from "annoying" to "your trachea might slam shut on you if you get stressed or run into anything you're allergic to at all." So now I have a pill at night, Flonase in the morning, and I have to carry prednisone and pseudoephedrine everywhere I go. Summers get tense, as one of my other major allergies is smoke. Anyone remember all the hoo-rah and holy-crap about the Montana fires of Y2K? I can still see the scarred, deforested mountainsides nearly 20 years later and I wasn't even here to see the burn.