I have said this a number of times here already. You hear what you want to hear and disregard the rest:
They are distinctive because trials of the efficacy of psychiatric drugs are based mainly on patient self-reporting and experiential factors. Other drug trials do not have that as their reason for being.
This is the reason I overposted before. You said you don’t want to read links that are scary.
Except you conveniently ignore that drug trials for pain medicine are also self-reported. As are drug trials for lots of other stuff, like viagra, stomach acid, migraines, etc. Hmm, I guess those last two are sort of “pain”, but they are very specific types of pain, that are addressed by preventing the event, not by just deadening the pain. Still, the efficacy is measured primarily by self-reporting, just as with drugs for depression.
I don’t know if someone didn’t want to read “scary links”. Wasn’t I. But I think I didn’t want to read tedious links about a topic I already know a lot about. Oddly, I don’t want to read tedious block-o-text about such topics, either.
Ran across this today
It’s an expose about drug trial results not being reported to the government agency created to get all results, good or bad. Points relevant to this thread are:
The gov’t entity was created in 2008 after a suit started in 2004 about side effects of Paxil not being reported.
All drug trials trials in the US are supposed to be reported there (not just psych drugs. The example given in a similar article I read in print was re a study on Avastin, a cancer drug.)
Compliance with the law sucks, with major research universities worse than industry.
There are lots of other venues for information to get out, notably journals, but everyone knows journals prefer to report on successful trials. That’s just more interesting. Doctors quoted don’t think the database gets used much by prescribing physicians, either. So there’s a chicken and egg problem there.
Over two weeks into this thread, and did anyone ever bother to cite the Master? And I’m quite sure Cecil isn’t a Scientologist.
The fact of the matter is, the efficacy of antidepressants usefulness, is, well…fucking depressing.
As to the FDA approving these drugs for their effectiveness, Cecil says the FDA sets the bar very low. He notes that the FDA * requires that clinical trials show a significant difference between a drug and a placebo but doesn’t limit the number of trials, enabling drug manufacturers to keep rolling the dice until they get the desired result. *
The book Overdiagnosed and others, also bring this out. They don’t have to report any of the negative results, no matter how many times the drug failed.
Interesting, and maybe things have changed since I have last read into all of this. It’s long overdue, and what many doctors have been advocating for some time, is that all trial studies be reported. Doesn’t seem like many are compliant though.
These are the same Drs who are giving you your SSRIs.
Puzzlegal also said: “Oh, and I’m not going to read all your links. Sorry. I actually have a lot of second-hand knowledge of how drugs are tested, and did a lot of research specifically into SSRIs before I took any.** I really have no interest in reading a bunch of scare journalism**.”
To spare anyone else the trouble, the cited article is entirely about valium and benzos, and has nothing at all to do with SSRI’s long term effectiveness. Again.
Drad Dog, why don’t you start a new thread about benzos instead of repeatedly trying to hijack this one?
“scare journalism” doesn’t mean “scary”, it means bad journalism that tries to make things sound much worse than they are. It’s a form of insult, or disparagement.
For example:
http://www.realclearscience.com/2013/05/24/scare_journalism_everything_you_eat_is_a_drug_253175.html
You’re ignoring one very relevant piece of Cecil’s article: " The review found that, on average, antidepressants didn’t meet the criteria for “clinical significance” — in other words, technically they didn’t do anything, except for one group: patients rated as extremely depressed."
There is little doubt that anti-depressants are over prescribed. In many cases people would be far better off with lifestyle changes: eat better, get outside more, have a better social network, do more exercise. But those things are hard, while swallowing a pill is easy. No argument there, but the people that are extremely depressed, really need anti-depressants and these are the people they actually work on the best.
What you were describing as “scare journalism” was from the New York Times, and other reputable sources.
By calling it it that I took you to be saying you don’t want to see things that upset or “scare” you in the news at all and you will deny it’s validity if you don’t like the message, which you have done.
This thread has gone to a lot of places other than SSRI effectiveness, and a lot of that wasn’t my doing: like that I was a scientologist, the meaning of my not denying it, the meaning of my denying it, that all Drs are moral and competent in their behavior because yours are, whether they are the same people who prescribe other psych drugs, whether it was your GP who prescribed them or not etc. and that this makes a difference to this discussion, which it doesn’t.
I only came in here to say be careful when altering your brain chemistry. Drs and drug companies are much closer to and concerned with the wellbeing of each other than either of them are to you. Drs and business are more important than individual patients and you will only find that out when it is bad for you.
Of course you should be careful when altering your brain chemistry. But some people genuinely need help. Whats your alternative, what do you suggest people with serious clinical depression should do?
Incorrect. I just did a google search for that article using the “site:” tag for the New York Times, and came up empty. After that, I did another search with just the articles title. It was posted to other news outlets, but none that I would consider reputable. So you can either cite your NYT claim, withdraw it, or I’ll continue to conclude you are still a lying scientologist with an axe to grind. Your call.
If you only came here to say that, you failed. That’s a fairly reasonable statement, unlikely to be argued with. On the other hand we have …
I really tried, but I can’t comment on that part without breaking forum rules and you’re not worth pitting, so I’ll just leave it at that.
My psychiatrist and her prescribing skills saved my life. Literally.
However, I recognize the privileges I have that are key in making this work:
-Though I have good health insurance, I pay for my psych myself. This gave me the freedom to shop around and find the right person for me.
-Because I can afford this expense, I have been able to work with her for several years. Over the course of this time we’ve tried all kind of drugs and drug combos. Some were horrible along the path.
-Because I have a long-term relationship with my psych, she also knows when something is inappropriate, even if I like it (or, more properly, if I like something a little too much – benzos, I’m looking at you).
If I had a choice of being able to function (and often, even be happy) over shearing a few years off my life due to SSRI/other psych drug effects, I’d choose functionality every damn time. Same with RX sleeping aids: I’d rather sleep and die a few years younger than walk around like the insomniac zombie I am naturally.
My sense is that some of us with seriously-entrenched, long-term depression and anxiety would concur.
Is exercise important? Absolutely! It gets the feel-good endolphins going (that’s a joke from a Nora Ephron film). Meditation works for some people (it doesn’t for me); chocolate and a glass of wine in the evening works for others.
I think that some folks who don’t deal with depression might think psych drugs hi-jack the brain and make one into something they’re not. When they work, and work well, they clear the brain’s static enough to enable you to be yourself.
I don’t have the patience for that; if you do, my hat is off to you!
Absolutely not. For millions of people who don’t go around announcing it, SSRIs have extended their lives and allowed them to overcome things that are biological in nature which simply cannot be reasoned away with old fashioned talk therapy. People who are given SSRI in their youth are more apt to condemn them or talk smack about them than people who started, say, after 30. It is necessary to be out in the work force dealing with treachery and disappointment to understand yourself in certain ways and whether or not you cope well or are biologically pre-disposed to “feel” knocks more harshly than others and behave poorly because of the feelings taking over your outlook. The introduction of the right medication (SSRI) can show a person who has an adult history of extreme feelings including depressive states, after a month or three that subtle changes that add up to a better ability to cope can be sustained. That is my experience.
Too many people expect SSRIs to be miracle drugs that you take and, boom, you’re fixed. These are not analgesics, they are a long term therapy which is probably permanent. That never bothered me. I’ve been taking an SSRI everyday since 1989. It changed me from a person who over-feels to one who can choose feelings and their proportions. I thank my lucky stars to have lived in a time where this is possible. I was 34 when I started.
That’s consistent with what I found. I followed a couple of his earlier links, found nothing but scare-journalism (by my definition) and no sources I’d ever heard of, and stopped bothering to click on his links or read his wall-o-text’s. No one has time to read a bunch of garbage.
Yeah, SSRIs don’t work for everyone. The first one doesn’t work for all the people who eventually find one that DOES work. But when they work, they work well. And the risks of trying them are modest and manageable.
Are other psychiatric medications more dangerous? Why yes. But that’s not the topic of this thread.
And its important to note that SSRI’s are not the only option. We also have SNRI’s , atypical antidepressants such as Wellbutrin, tricyclic antidepressants (TCAs), and monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs).
There’s also research currently being done on NMDA receptor blockers, based on the fact that ketamine can treat depression for reasons we don’t really understand. Most anti depressants have a 3 week or longer lead time before they really kick in, but NMDA blockers can potentially treat major depression within 24 hours.
That’s why, at this time, you won’t get an opioid when you go in with a broken bone anymore. Pain is under scrutiny now as are the meds for them.
Pain meds got to be a big problem because of overprescription, and mission creep. The same thing happens with any med in these situations, especially psych meds.
Just skimmed through this thread. WOW.
Anyone who is recovering from anxiety/depression shouldn’t read this garbage, and seek help from a qualified professional. And if you find yourself in a major depressive/mental episode, professional psychiatrists are only there to help and so are any drugs they prescribe.
Some of the posters on here are completely irresponsible.