Posted by SLS on July 22, 2012, at 9:28:40
In reply to Re: Correcting an Imbalance or getting high?, posted by huxley on July 21, 2012, at 23:37:35
Hi Huxley.
> > What lies?
> All of the above. My whole point for this thread.
> The lie that we are carefully tuning the brain to 'rebalance' certain things.
How do you know that this is a lie? Balance applies to things other than the storage pools and amounts released of neurotransmitters. What do you think about the balance that must be maintained between postsynaptic G-coupled protein neurotransmitter receptors, second messengers, protein kinase C, cFOS, nuclear gene transcription, mitochondrial support for endoplasmic reticulum, and the ultimate set points of the depolarization voltage necessary to propogate an action potential. I hope that stuff dazzles you. It does me. Scientists do a lot more than just measure serotonin levels. My best guess is that their level of sophistication in approach, amount of data collected, knowledge and understanding surpass my own by a degree that I cannot fully appreciate. Neuroscience is a pretty amazing field of study, and continues to yield information that is likely to make it unnecessary for doctors to tell "lies" about simple chemical imbalances.
> When the doctors are clearly not in control of what they are doing.
Is this just psychiatrists? Oncologists, too? Oncologists use shotgun approaches with their drugs, don't they? I hope you give oncologists more time to get it right than you seem willing to give psychiatrists.
> This is fine, but they should tell people this.
I believe we concur that more information should be conveyed from physician to patient, although I don't think the dynamics of second messenger systems should be a critical topic.
> Also the drugs are presented as a safe treatment.
>
> When they are not.For what percentage of patients are antidepressants unsafe?
> Yes they come with some literature of side effects (which are again cherry picked) but I think more should be done to inform people of the risks.
Yeah, we've already been there, Huxley. I agree with you...
> I don't know how about sharks with lazer beams on their head?
How very novel. Do you think it would work?
How about using microarrays to ascertain gene activity to help choose antidepressant treatments that are most likely to work for a given individual. Perhaps using biological probes and imaging the results with PET scans is a way to go. Already, genotyping can help predict side effects and responsivity to some degree. It's a great big world out there.
> The long term side effects of ADHD drugs is that they induce psychotic episodes. Have seen it first hand.
They can also produce tics and other nice things. The question is, for what percentage of people do these things occur? Peanuts kill. For what percentage of people with ADHD do these drugs give a quality of life that most people take for granted?
- ScottSome see things as they are and ask why.
I dream of things that never were and ask why not.- George Bernard Shaw
poster:SLS
thread:1021755
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20120718/msgs/1021923.html