Posted by Dinah on January 5, 2008, at 15:50:49
In reply to Re: STAR*D confirmed what patients already knew, posted by linkadge on January 5, 2008, at 15:24:47
SSRI's clearly have an effect on emotions.
I'm not saying I am immune to the placebo effect. Often just going to a doctor and hearing what's wrong with me cures me with physical ailments. I have funny shaped external ear canals, and was trying to use earbuds and got an awful ear-ache. All the doctor had to to was peer in, tell me it was only an exterior irritation, not an infection, and I barely needed the drops he gave me.
But I was on Luvox long enough to catalog the effects, good and bad, it had on me with reasonable assurance of accuracy. Why can't it be true that those effects ease depression in some or many people? Not that Luvox necessarily targets the illness "depression", but that the effects it produces are helpful in ameliorating the symptoms of depression or possibly mitigating the contributing factors?
And I have to say that the SSRI effect was helpful for me at the time I was taking it. The emotional numbing was a relief after the overstimulation of postpartum depression and a normally stimulating baby. If overstimulation is a large part of someone's depression or contributes to depression, why wouldn't SSRI's help?
Not for everyone maybe, but that doesn't negate the value for those for whom it works.
Most people would probably agree on a set of objective tangible results of being on an SSRI, wouldn't they?
I was put on mood stabilizers to counteract the Luvox originally, and kept on them and had the mood stabilizers adjusted by my neurologist for migraine prophylaxis. Yet I still see that they have an effect on my emotional regulation system. My guess is that they do exactly what they were meant to do as anticonvulsants. And that some people find the result helpful to them for mental health.
I occasionally take Risperdal as a major tranquilizer, as an alternative to being on long term medication for anxiety. I like it better because I'm not consistently anxious. I like to use as needed medications because I can control them to a greater extent. I know what Risperdal does, and I've known what antipsychotics do in terms of tranquilizing since I was a teen and my parents and pdoc lied to me about what medication they were giving me, for sleep terrors it says in my chart. They definitely have an effect, and it's an effect I find helpful at times.
Isn't it possible to say that none of these things is a cure for depression, particularly since depression is likely not a monolithic entity, and still say that different people will find different medications helpful for different aspects of their well being?
And isn't it just as possible for any given person to say that they don't find this or that medication helpful to them, given the underlying needs of their specific condition?
I'm not a genius in medications. I don't even particularly like taking them. But I do know what suits me, and I'd be happy for others to find a medication or group of medications that addresses their specific needs.
Can't that be phenomenon that the study is witnessing?
poster:Dinah
thread:804126
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20080105/msgs/804481.html