The specific fact pattern I’m referring to hasn’t happened in other branches of medicine, no, so in a truly exactingly pedantic sense it is the case in psychiatry alone. In a more general sense, I didn’t make the specific claim you appear to be arguing with, and asking me if I really think a position that you invented is not a reasonable line of discussion.
In a general sense, being wary of any claims from any medical professional about how amazing a cure is when the cure is new and testing doesn’t support the broad claims they’re making is a good idea. I certainly haven’t said that one should only ever be skeptical of claims for psychiatric cures and that one should just accept miracle cures as fact if they come from a non-psychiatrist.
[quote=“Jackmannii, post:322, topic:739052, full:true”]
The wait continues for a single concrete example of any health professional or drug company ever proclaiming that SSRIs were a “miracle cure” for depression.[/quote]
That’s because you don’t understand basic English, as I’ve already pointed out. No one argued that they used the literal words “miracle cure”, and your insistence on such just highlights the intellectual bankruptcy of your position.
Except that no one currently arguing in the thread is arguing that they’re worthless, much less ‘automatically worthless’. You’re making up a strawman, beating it up badly, and hoping that people believe you even though none of the active people in the thread are saying this and people keep pointing out that your claim is false.
It occurs to me now that all “specialties” are focused on a different aspect of our health. They all have unique areas to be vigilant about, which may not pertain to the others.
This thread is about psychopharm meds. They are designed to alter the brains of patients when they report problems that are not organic.
In this respect it’s not “just another” specialty, unless your brain is “just another” organ. Mine isn’t.
MY claim was that there was a public perception that these drugs were miracle cures. The public doesn’t read respected medical journals. They read things like USA Today, and sometimes the Weekly World News. And they watched an endless series of commercials that didn’t CALL these drugs a “miracle cure”, they just showed really sick sad people taking the drugs and turning into healthy happy people.
You are concerned that a discussion of this subject might stop people from trying these medications. I see that concern, but I’m also concerned about doctors telling people with mild or moderate depression, without evidence, that they have an organic brain disorder that needs to be corrected with medication - especially in light of the fact that medication doesn’t seem to be particularly effective in those cases.
Because who would try to cure an organic disorder with things like diet, exercise and psychotherapy? It would be like trying to wish away diabetes or something. At best it sounds like a second rate coping strategy.
But exercise and therapy can really work, it can be absolutely 100% curative. It was for me and I’d be better off today if I’d tried it sooner.
Ann_Hedonia: “You are concerned that a discussion of this subject might stop people from trying these medications.”
Far from it. I’m concerned that blanket denunciations of SSRIs and conspiratorial-type ravings about horrific complications and the sinister motives of prescribers* will scare people away from potentially valuable and even life-saving medication.
“Because who would try to cure an organic disorder with things like diet, exercise and psychotherapy?”
Psychiatrists and other physicians routinely encourage non-pharmacologic interventions** that include exercise and talking to experienced professionals and support groups (not all of this constitutes “psychotherapy”). It’s a myth that “doctors just want to put you on drugs”, a gripe that we also hear [I]ad nauseam[/b] when it comes to treating heart disease, diabetes etc. (as if physicians aren’t constantly advising patients to lose weight, exercise more, stop smoking, limit alcohol intake, get good sleep, find ways to lower stress levels and so on). It’s why uncontrollable eye-rolling ensues when the woo crowd starts in with their claims of “holistic” medicine and “treating the root cause of disease, not the symptoms”.
Pantastic: “Except that no one currently arguing in the thread is arguing that they’re worthless”
Yo, babe. Check out the thread title and multiple posts thereafter. Or continue in that alternate reality you cling to so desperately.
*i.e. drad_dog telling us “Drs and Drug Companies are going to sell you down the tubes and ruin your life if you let them…It is a completely amoral profession.”
**The idea that adjusting diet is going to bring someone out of a serious depression or make a major contribution in that regard is considerably more tenuous.
***As said before (with no takers), I’d welcome a link to any newspaper story, in USA Today or other publication at the time SSRIs were coming into use which claimed ''miraculous" cures of depression. After the fact, people’s memories can become highly…selective. It’s akin to the latter-day belief that troops returning from Vietnam were routinely spat upon and assaulted in airports. Just because some publications and groups many years later suggested such, doesn’t mean it can be accepted as fact.
The rise and fall of all those ads for anti depression meds is evidence to me that the companies were looking for fresh markets among marginally interested people, and that it had more to do with business than health.
I made that post some years ago. It’s a little strong even for me.
But these are not alternate realities. They are your fellow dopers real experiences. It would be absurd to just want folks never to hear bad stuff because it will scare them away from something. Those are the things that need to be heard first.
Fine. I’ll just continue to suffer.