Posted by morganpmiller on June 30, 2009, at 21:55:03
In reply to Re: SSRI's and sudden cardiac =(just had a TIA), posted by ihatedrugs on June 30, 2009, at 15:50:29
Have you ever tried any kind of therapy? You don't have to have anything to be depressed about on the outside for something lingering underneath the surface on the inside to come back and keep bringing you down. The best explanation for depression is the bio/psycho/social dynamic. Psychiatrists and big pharma would rather us not delve into the past and deal with things, because if we did, we may not eventually need to be medicated as much.
There is neurofeedback, EMDR, CBT, and other alternative therapies/treatments that may help you address the rest of your depression that medication alone will not address.
I hear your concerns about medications. I often feel the same way. I do believe that if I had just stayed on zoloft, continued with therapies and kept working out and eating right, I would not feel as bad as I do today.
Your so right about psychiatry being in the dark ages. Still, considering how young psychiatry is, it is pretty amazing that the medications that are available today work as well as they do for so many.
> >
> > I'm sorry to hear that you have not had much luck with SSRIs or other antidepressants.
> >
> > I believe that sometimes it is not one antidepressant that is causing our problems, but the fact that we have been on and off and on and off so many. One thing we have to understand with antidepressants is, if it gives us 70 percent relief and we don't have any unbearable side effect or no noticeable side effects, that is a successful trial. At that point we can do all of the other things to try to get 100 percent relief like working out, yoga, meditation, therapy, improving relationships, etc.
> >
> > Also, If we are not giving the antidepressant a good 2 month trial, we may never know if it would have worked for us. If the medication is causing unbearable side effects within the firs 4 to 6 weeks and they do not go away with time or dosage adjustment, it is reasonable to stop the medication.
> >
> > Many times we think a medication is pooping out. Maybe it is, maybe not. I believe we need to give it at least a month and try to make sure that other things in our life are not causing the depression. It is a common misperception that a medication is supposed to relieve all of our depression and anxiety. Unfortunately this is not true. We have to relieve all of our depression and anxiety. A medication will just enable us to do that. Sometimes a medication will nearly wipe out all symptoms. This hardly ever lasts. And if we find ourselves only getting 50 or 60 percent relief, it usually means we have to start doing all the work to get 80 to 100 percent relief.
> >
> > Not sure if I articulated things well. I guess what I am trying to say is that we may find ourselves hurting our brains and bodies by being on so many different medications. If we had only been on one or two, and did everything we could to make sure we didn't go through too many trials, we may find ourselves feeling better and healthier in the long run.
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> > Then again, some people just do not respond well and have terrible side effects to these medications. To those people I truly have sympathy and compassion.
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> > I do have a theory about medication response. If you are healthy to begin with and eat right and stay in great shape, you may be more likely to respond well to antidepressants. And, you will be less likely to suffer any health issues in the long term.
> >
> >
> The reason for all the different trials is because of the drugs' inneficiency to improve symptoms or severe side effects. (30 lbs weight gain in 45 days). I do not take switching from med to med lightly. I always weigh the pros and cons and do this with my doctors full support. I believe that the main problem is that scientists are still in the dark ages in terms of what is happening to our brains and are just "shooting" at "whatever moves" to come up with something. So if a med seems to work, let's throw it out there and see how people respond. I understand that this is the best they can do but that does not mean that we are taking possibly dangerous substances at dangerously high levels in dangerous combinations while the scientific establisment waits and sees.
> I have absolutely nothing to be depressed about. I am happily married 22 years, have a great family and two wonderful very smart daughters (one goes to MIT). We are financially successfull, take plenty of vacations,(most of which I can't derive any pleasure from) but I do not seem to get this monster completely off me. I have resigned to live with this disease expecting partial response from meds and celebrating my life to the best of my abilities. Perhaps the TIA was just a coincidental event and has nothing to do with my meds but it shouldn't be ignored either. It there is noise out there about some correlation between ADs and some cardiac/vascular incidents then we need to speak up and let researchers know that it may be more prevalent than they believe, and also make the medical community and patients aware of this risk.
> Unfortunately, I can't stop taking Ad's as I suffer from refractory depression so I want to know everything I can about the meds I am taking.
> I would love to think that these meds do more good than bad but honestly, I am not so sure about that...only time will tell.
> Thanks for your post
> ihatedrugs
poster:morganpmiller
thread:903591
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20090630/msgs/904094.html