Posted by Ian on September 11, 1999, at 10:10:40
I may not be the best person to comment I'm not particularly pro drugs but I find this site interesting and comforting with a civil sense of comaradery,any drug will induce changes in the body. Anafranil is clomipramine, related to many other antidepressants like amitriptylline(triptizol),imipramine, dothiepin. They stop the reuptake of both nor-epinephrine and 5-HT by neurones that have released it to stimulate other neurones. The SSRIs are more selective for 5HT. The thing I find scarey is the neurones that are being effectively hyper stimulated(by the effect of the Meds) down size the number of receptors for these neurotransmitters to work on- Your brain effectively tries to reset the balance. If the medication is stopped abruptly then a crisis is not surprising as all things else being equal you've got less receptors to be stimulated by what was previously an inadequate amount of 5HT to keep you happy in the first place. I'm a doc I'm also interested in this site for personal reasons, after being involuntarily medicated at aged thirteen with dothiepin, what I believe has happened to me is totally contentious but the stuff above is what they taught us at medical school. Peter Breggin a rather outspoken critic of psychiatry in the US who did a lot to prevent a secondary resurgence of psycho-surgery (alias lobotmy) in the seventies recommendation is if people have been on meds for a long time (ie years) to not come of any faster than ten percent per week for your system to readjust.Also Its not just the brain that has to readjusts, the anticholinergic affect can mean rebounds from the constipating effects on the bowel, inhibiting effects on sweating and salivation, sexual funtioning.Maybe I'm being a purist a the expense of practicality but if happiness is in a pill then what does that make life experience.I'd like to think that if people are depressed and lacking 5HT in there brains then thats because the complex resultant of their conscious and subconscious cognitions are responsible for that deficiency, childhood with its relative absence of abstract thought seems to protect us from depression animals are also not as prone. I find it ironic that the very tool that has allowed man to shape the world and his own destiny is the one that leads him to question the value of his very existance. I better stop now cos I going into one
Ian
poster:Ian
thread:11407
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/19990829/msgs/11407.html