Posted by SLS on July 19, 2005, at 16:20:04
In reply to Re: Here we go again..., posted by linkadge on July 19, 2005, at 15:57:46
> I totally agree with med empowered. Even the best psychiatrists
Be careful, I have worked with many of the "best" psychiatrists and psychiatry departments at major universities, although I refuse to list them. They disagree with both you and med_empowered. So, I guess we haven't settled very much by anonymous name dropping.
> believe that AD's only try and controll the symptoms of depression, as oppsed to ever targeting the root cause.
I disagree with both you and med_empowered. When I responded well to antidepressants, it certainly did "bust" the underlying illness, not just selected symptoms. It cured everything. I am led to believe by your words that you have not experienced such a thing. I am ready to challenge you for as long as it takes for you to become convinced that the illness itself goes into remission.
> Dr. Manji for instance, doesn't really believe in Antidepressants.
Show me.
> He believes in mood stabalizers, but that is a different issue entirely.
I'm glad he does. I have been on all of the major mood-stabilizers. They don't work. Manji must be wrong, then, otherwise I would be in remission, right?
> Companies have to perform like 10 trials just to get one that shows the drug was better than the placebo.
Placebo controls don't seem to make for very good trials when treating depression. This is becoming a field in and of itself. The high rate of placebo response make placebo controls almost meaningless. Take out the placebo, and these drug trials all of a sudden show robust results in favor of response.
http://www.srmhp.org/0201/media-watch.html
Check out the work of Quitkin et al. dealing with the placebo effect.
> I think that popping the drug is just a reminder that we have some support.
I have all the support I need. I don't need to take colored sugar pills to make me feel comfortable. If these drugs were so inert, how do you explain that they have such potent side effects? If they are capable of exerting side effects, what logic is there to exclude the possibility that they are also potent therapeutically?
> So if they just didn't work, that'd be one thing, but the fact that I am walking proof that they are not benign placebos is another thing.Now you've got it.
Linkadge, if you do indeed have MDD or BD, and you do finally respond to antidepressants and/or mood stabilizers, you will be whistling a different tune. I think you might be projecting your own failure to respond to drugs to an inability of these drugs to work for anybody. This is wrong.
Don't worry, you'll get there. I truly hope that it is sooner than later. I can't wait to here that new tune you'll be whistling.
Be well.
- Scott
poster:SLS
thread:530123
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20050718/msgs/530175.html