Posted by med_empowered on October 20, 2006, at 12:04:17
In reply to Re: seroquel... » Phillipa, posted by yxibow on October 20, 2006, at 3:13:46
OK, here's the thing: with the atypicals, docs are saying "finally, we have drugs that are safe and effective for anxiety, depression, bipolar, schizophrenia, etc."...but, historically, antipsychotics have ALWAYS been used for these indications, and more.
When Thorazine and other phenothiazines hit the scene in the 50s, they were mostly looked on as "tranquilizers"; they weren't perceived as having magical anti-schizophrenic qualities until about 10years into the game. So...you see ads aimed at docs promoting Thorazine for anxiety, Thorazine for "senile agitation", Thora-Dex (that's right: Thorazine plus Dexedrine) for depression, Thorazine for "hyperkinetic children"..on and on it goes. And it was this way with the other drugs, too; Loxapine, for instance, was used in the 70s for various phobias and anxieties and depressive states. So was Moban. (I mentioned those because they were some of the later developed "typical" neuroleptics with a kinda sorta "atypical" profile).
Anyway...benzos can help depression, and so can low dose neuroleptics; the secret is that both of them can reduce anxiety, which drives up Depression Scale scores. Our concept of "depression" encompasses alot of what old-school docs thought of as "anxiety" or "psychic tension," so it makes sense that agents that specifically reduce anxiety (benzos) or induce apathy and reduced psychic intensity (neuroleptics) should reduce Depression scores, since alot of what's being measured is anxiety. ALso notice that antidepressants can reduce anxiety, and that some of them have neuroleptic-ish effects (apathy, indifference, dampening of dopamine, etc...there are even cases of AD induced EPS and TD, so the link may be stronger than we all though originally).
poster:med_empowered
thread:696107
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20061020/msgs/696292.html