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Old 04-01-2011, 10:03 PM
 
Location: state of procrastination
3,485 posts, read 7,285,302 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ra23 View Post
I'm sure there are also many studies that say they do help. You can find a "study" for any topic to say what you are looking for it to say.
Yea... the studies funded by pharmaceutical companies
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Old 04-06-2011, 03:29 PM
 
Location: Nantahala National Forest, NC
27,074 posts, read 11,745,284 times
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Default They help ME!

MY "study" () states: I was miserable for most of my life (since a child), with untreated depression....as an adult, once I found the right med, ( it is a combo of 2), my life so changed! For now I feel wonderful every day...just awesome! YOU JUST CANNOT IMAGINE the improvement.

If you have consistent low levels of neuro-transmitters, mod-severe depression, ADT is the standard treatment and many of us live amazing lives with the assistance of these meds...much like a diabetic/insulin.

I am so grateful they exist.....









Quote:
Originally Posted by Greenchili View Post
Very true!
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Old 04-18-2011, 12:45 AM
 
977 posts, read 1,106,718 times
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You know, I've been wondering about the effectiveness of AD myself......I have been on one or the other kind (or combos) for about 40 yrs out of the last 60. All kinds. All combinations. And yes, they have helped when nothing else did or when I was not strong enough to attempt to help myself. I have been told enough that I NEED antidepressants, as my brain chemistry is so haywire. (Hm-mmm-m, interesting adjective--almost factually descriptive) I have experienced a few times without meds, and that awful feeling of being pulled down into the pit again. So I've been scared to even attempt to do without. Until now.

I am going thru hell trying to taper off an AD that gives me horrible side effects. I can't get off the stuff!!! I get so sick and have severe withdrawal problems. (and yes I'm under a dr's care) I have never been so scared of anything before. Even the thought of sliding back into depression doesn't scare me as much as this med does. So, I wonder, just what have I been doing to myself all these years putting all these powerful psychotropic drugs (all entirely legal and prescribed by docs) into my body. I wonder how my life would have been different. I wonder if my marriage would have survived. I wonder if I would have been more productive.

So i am trying to get off these AD's and try naturalpathic (sp?) supplements like 5HTP and Sam-E. Wish me luck! And pray I can get off this evil drug that was prescribed for me 2 mo. ago! (yes, some people have been helped by it, I know---but many, many others have suffered severely and needlessly----while others have no side effects).

Not sure I trust these meds any longer. Guess I'll find out, huh?

Last edited by artangel; 04-18-2011 at 12:48 AM.. Reason: clarity
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Old 04-18-2011, 05:32 PM
 
2,709 posts, read 6,298,836 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by artangel View Post
I am going thru hell trying to taper off an AD that gives me horrible side effects. I can't get off the stuff!!! I get so sick and have severe withdrawal problems. (and yes I'm under a dr's care) I have never been so scared of anything before. Even the thought of sliding back into depression doesn't scare me as much as this med does. So, I wonder, just what have I been doing to myself all these years putting all these powerful psychotropic drugs (all entirely legal and prescribed by docs) into my body. I wonder how my life would have been different. I wonder if my marriage would have survived. I wonder if I would have been more productive.
I'm sorry for what you're experiencing. It sounds scary and nerve-wracking.

1) You can't ever play the "what if" game. That's a sure-fire way to drive yourself insane. Seriously. What's done is done. All you can do is start from where you are in this moment and move forward. So try not dwell on wondering about how your life might have been if you'd never taken the drugs, etc. That kind of thinking is a trap and will just keep you locked in your depression because it will fill you with doubt, outrage, resentment, etc. Let it go. I know that's far harder than it sounds, but I urge you to try.

2) My suggestion for you is that while you are weaning yourself off your ADs, pay PARTICULAR attention to your physical health. If you're not exercising, start doing so. If you're not getting a full 8 hours of sleep, adjust your schedule so that you are. If you're drinking alcohol and caffeine, stop. If you're eating a diet high in sugar and processed carbs, stop. If you're not drinking 2-3 liters of water per day, start. I'm not suggesting that you go on a diet -- who needs that kind of stress when you're trying to wean yourself off those meds?! -- but I am suggesting that you just pay particular attention to how you nurture your body at the moment.

I would also suggest that you ask your doctor, since you're under a physician's care at the moment, to test your levels of Vitamin D. Vitamin-D deficiency is widespread in American adults, and the farther north of the equator you live, the more likely you are to have the problem. Especially if your job keeps you indoors. Vitamin D deficiency can play into a whole host of physical and psychological conditions.

I found this book to be informative: Amazon.com: Depression-Free, Naturally: 7 Weeks to Eliminating Anxiety, Despair, Fatigue, and Anger from Your Life (9780345435170): Joan Mathews Larson: Books I warn you that the regimens she includes are pretty time-and-effort intensive, not to mention a little expensive due to all the supplements. But I found them to be helpful.

Good luck.
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Old 04-22-2011, 05:33 PM
 
Location: Maplewood, NJ
160 posts, read 197,587 times
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People react so radically differently to the same anti-depressant, as I have seen with my own eyes, it is almost unbelievable. Which among other things means prescribing them is more of an art than a science; and that SSRIs will only work on people who depression is unipolar and not mild or circumstantial or distorted thinking only but mostly a serotonin problem (and not all of those; but they do help many of those; they are not a cure, as depression is a relapsing disorder almost always; but, given the side effects, people wouldn't take the things if they didn't help -- who would put up with sleepiness, loss of libido (a sure relationship-dampener), nausea, headache, etc. if they weren't getting anything in return?) They're certainly not happy pills; for the person for whom they are the right AD and who needs an AD and not a mood stabilizer or an anxiolytic or an ADD medication or a new life or a revised childhood, they're less-constantly-and-reasonlessly-miserable-and-in-savage-emotional-pain pills. Which I think you have to have experienced constant and reasonless misery and savage emotional pain to quite appreciate; any lessening of that is a blessing.
If nothing else, I have found they allow me to do cognitive-behavioral therapy. (Before the ADs, I could form the correct answers to my distorted thoughts, but I would have heard a lot more truth had I been speaking Latin to myself; Latin makes a little sense to me and can express truths; telling myself "I don't need love to be happy" (or anything involving my being happy) was like telling myself the moon is made of cheddar cheese. It parses as a sentence, but nothing I knew or had experienced gave me the slightest justification for believing it to be anything resembling a true sentence.) And, yes, as usual, I had to try about 6 different ADs before finding a combination that works for me, which is more typical than not; that the first one prescribed doesn't work is more to be expected than remarkable.
But now, aside from the CBT sounding true, not a recognizable statement that can be constructed in English but is still nonsense, I am experiencing a personal miracle: I no longer, and have not for years, fantasized about suicide longingly as something forbidden but also the only conceivable relief from pain so bad that oblivion seemed a healing I could not wait for a natural death to bring, except that I knew that suicide kills one's loved ones, too, and if life can be endured at all, it must be, rather than do that.* I used to do that about twice a day, because it was about the only relief I could get besides unconsciousness; now I have not done it in months, and then only fleetingly and once and knowing I didn't really mean it, I just had really bad PMS, of the "utter if temporary desolation" flavor, and that it would pass and so suicide was an utterly dumb impulse in that circumstance.
That's worth something. It really is. I wouldn't have given up orgasms for much less. Truly. But it's worth even that; and that is saying something.
(I do fit the criteria "moderate to severe," and my depression was not a dearth of ability to deal with normal life problems. I certainly inherited the vulnerability from my father, who had bipolar disorder and was depressed from childhood to the end of his life, despite being hospitalized twice for six months at a stretch for particularly severe episodes that manifested as psychotic depression. He died of depression, in the form of a smoking habit that killed him at 55 -- his parents lived into their 80s -- that he could not kick because it is very often the case that people for whom smoking is a necessary self-medication whose alternative is unending agony cannot give it up, not to save their own lives. Or spare their children depression -- his early death meant my vulnerability was not allowed to remain a vulnerability; one event that inevitably turns a predisposition into the reality is the death of a loved parent before one is 18; and so he died of depression -- possibly for lack of medication; incredibly, it was never tried on him, probably because VA care sucked at that time and that was all he could afford. And I wasted too many years longing that somehow something would kill me in a way nobody would have to know I was grateful about, or would have been if I had enough time to see it coming but not enough to avoid it. Losing a turf battle with a bus, say. Also I don't take just an SSRI; I have to take an SNRI too, as neither works alone. So I am not one of the people the study covered. I am, however, a person helped by antidepressants; unless it's not being helped to not long to die anymore, nor regret I was born at all. I'm content a fair amount of the time and, Good God be praised, happy not infrequently. Happy. Suicidal ideation at least twice daily ----> happy; = helped. IMHO.)

*I except euthanasia for intractable pain from mortal illness; or any other that one's loved ones would agree is the best thing for one and would willingly grant their permission for, however sorrowfully, out of the mercy of love.

Last edited by sywi; 04-22-2011 at 05:58 PM..
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Old 04-28-2011, 07:19 AM
 
Location: Elsewhere
88,224 posts, read 84,144,315 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by sywi View Post
People react so radically differently to the same anti-depressant, as I have seen with my own eyes, it is almost unbelievable. Which among other things means prescribing them is more of an art than a science; and that SSRIs will only work on people who depression is unipolar and not mild or circumstantial or distorted thinking only but mostly a serotonin problem (and not all of those; but they do help many of those; they are not a cure, as depression is a relapsing disorder almost always; but, given the side effects, people wouldn't take the things if they didn't help -- who would put up with sleepiness, loss of libido (a sure relationship-dampener), nausea, headache, etc. if they weren't getting anything in return?) They're certainly not happy pills; for the person for whom they are the right AD and who needs an AD and not a mood stabilizer or an anxiolytic or an ADD medication or a new life or a revised childhood, they're less-constantly-and-reasonlessly-miserable-and-in-savage-emotional-pain pills. Which I think you have to have experienced constant and reasonless misery and savage emotional pain to quite appreciate; any lessening of that is a blessing.
If nothing else, I have found they allow me to do cognitive-behavioral therapy. (Before the ADs, I could form the correct answers to my distorted thoughts, but I would have heard a lot more truth had I been speaking Latin to myself; Latin makes a little sense to me and can express truths; telling myself "I don't need love to be happy" (or anything involving my being happy) was like telling myself the moon is made of cheddar cheese. It parses as a sentence, but nothing I knew or had experienced gave me the slightest justification for believing it to be anything resembling a true sentence.) And, yes, as usual, I had to try about 6 different ADs before finding a combination that works for me, which is more typical than not; that the first one prescribed doesn't work is more to be expected than remarkable.
But now, aside from the CBT sounding true, not a recognizable statement that can be constructed in English but is still nonsense, I am experiencing a personal miracle: I no longer, and have not for years, fantasized about suicide longingly as something forbidden but also the only conceivable relief from pain so bad that oblivion seemed a healing I could not wait for a natural death to bring, except that I knew that suicide kills one's loved ones, too, and if life can be endured at all, it must be, rather than do that.* I used to do that about twice a day, because it was about the only relief I could get besides unconsciousness; now I have not done it in months, and then only fleetingly and once and knowing I didn't really mean it, I just had really bad PMS, of the "utter if temporary desolation" flavor, and that it would pass and so suicide was an utterly dumb impulse in that circumstance.
That's worth something. It really is. I wouldn't have given up orgasms for much less. Truly. But it's worth even that; and that is saying something.
(I do fit the criteria "moderate to severe," and my depression was not a dearth of ability to deal with normal life problems. I certainly inherited the vulnerability from my father, who had bipolar disorder and was depressed from childhood to the end of his life, despite being hospitalized twice for six months at a stretch for particularly severe episodes that manifested as psychotic depression. He died of depression, in the form of a smoking habit that killed him at 55 -- his parents lived into their 80s -- that he could not kick because it is very often the case that people for whom smoking is a necessary self-medication whose alternative is unending agony cannot give it up, not to save their own lives. Or spare their children depression -- his early death meant my vulnerability was not allowed to remain a vulnerability; one event that inevitably turns a predisposition into the reality is the death of a loved parent before one is 18; and so he died of depression -- possibly for lack of medication; incredibly, it was never tried on him, probably because VA care sucked at that time and that was all he could afford. And I wasted too many years longing that somehow something would kill me in a way nobody would have to know I was grateful about, or would have been if I had enough time to see it coming but not enough to avoid it. Losing a turf battle with a bus, say. Also I don't take just an SSRI; I have to take an SNRI too, as neither works alone. So I am not one of the people the study covered. I am, however, a person helped by antidepressants; unless it's not being helped to not long to die anymore, nor regret I was born at all. I'm content a fair amount of the time and, Good God be praised, happy not infrequently. Happy. Suicidal ideation at least twice daily ----> happy; = helped. IMHO.)

*I except euthanasia for intractable pain from mortal illness; or any other that one's loved ones would agree is the best thing for one and would willingly grant their permission for, however sorrowfully, out of the mercy of love.
I'm glad you were able to find relief from your pain.

My former pdoc once told me, "You do know that you are all guinea pigs, right? Fifty years from now psychiatrists will look at us and say, 'what the heck were they thinking', but it's all we have right now. We're learning as we go."

I am no longer on meds, but for about five years I took an SSRI (one that is not commonly known unless you do a search on the Columbine killings, lol, where hysterical people blame Eric Harris's medications on his actions) for treatment of moderate depression and OCD symptoms. I also did therapy and learned to live with my "stuff" and eventually weaned myself off of the meds. Sometimes I miss them, though--the clarity of thinking, the effortless way I could just DO things. I can remember, after being on the SSRI for a couple of months, asking my pdoc, "Does EVERYONE get to think like this all the time??? Just one line of thought, no muddiness, no Gomez Addams trains running in all different directions in your head?" He laughed, and said yes, they do.

Sometimes I would like to experience that again.
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Old 05-01-2011, 12:25 AM
 
Location: PORT ANGELES, WA
806 posts, read 2,335,943 times
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Hi, i'm on Paxil, not sure if it is the one helping or because I have been determined to fight my depression with better eating and activity.
I have been on it several years. mostly really depressed in the winter times. My depression still comes back, so I don't think my meds are helping....
I had anxiety attacks before meds, not hardly at all now. So Paxil must work on that..

POT- nah, makes my whole body ache and unable to do simple tasks. I don't want to ignore my family but I'd rather curl up with a heating pad and sleep the high off..
BUT, I'm all for legalizing it's use, like alcohol...

Our setting and surroundings trigger depression. money troubles, weather, lack of fun or sun, etc.

I am completely uplifted when I go camping and get away from the hum drum of the home life....
Can I just camp out forever!!!!!
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Old 05-01-2011, 09:53 PM
 
Location: Lompoc,CA
1,318 posts, read 5,262,144 times
Reputation: 1529
Quote:
Originally Posted by KAILANI View Post
Hi, i'm on Paxil, not sure if it is the one helping or because I have been determined to fight my depression with better eating and activity.
I have been on it several years. mostly really depressed in the winter times. My depression still comes back, so I don't think my meds are helping....
I had anxiety attacks before meds, not hardly at all now. So Paxil must work on that..

POT- nah, makes my whole body ache and unable to do simple tasks. I don't want to ignore my family but I'd rather curl up with a heating pad and sleep the high off..
BUT, I'm all for legalizing it's use, like alcohol...

Our setting and surroundings trigger depression. money troubles, weather, lack of fun or sun, etc.

I am completely uplifted when I go camping and get away from the hum drum of the home life....
Can I just camp out forever!!!!!

I started Paxil about a yr ago for anxiety soley,and yes,it does work for that condition very well.

Greenchili
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Old 05-02-2011, 06:20 PM
 
19 posts, read 46,325 times
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One of my sons took anti-depressants, I forgot which one, zoloft? maybe. Anyway they made him suicidal! He finally threw them out and was fine. He said he's never take anti-depressants again. There are over 3600 documented cases of suicide and people killing others while on anti-depressants. In my opinion, they should be taken off the market.
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Old 05-02-2011, 07:10 PM
 
Location: The High Seas
7,372 posts, read 15,962,600 times
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Quote:
Anti-depressants don't work - study
Well, that's depressing. Isn't it?
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