Posted by musky on October 3, 2006, at 1:42:43
In reply to Re: Returning to antidepressants? Above for » musky, posted by SLS on October 2, 2006, at 7:45:55
> > > > > >First of all, diabetes and high blood pressure are KNOWN diseases.. they have blood tests SPECIFICALLY for measuring levels of blood glucose and blood pressure. The drugs developed for these conditions are SPECIFIC and then shown to work by further measuring these levels.
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> > > Ok.
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> > > > Antidepressents are NOT specific and affect MANY downstream pathways in the brain...
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> > > How do you know whether they are upstream or downstream? Scientists haven't decided that yet.
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> > * Exactly my point .. they dont know ...
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> I was just curious how you came to identify downstream pathways when scientist had not done so yet, that's all.# I was using the term downstream to make a statement , not a conclusion.. thats all. As I work in a research lab that studies signalling events in a cell , it makes sense and yes there are upstream as well as downstream events.
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> I think this will help a lot:
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> It is not the objective of medicine to understand biology. It is the objective of medicine to get people better. Very often, this means using a drug that it doesn't understand how it works. Actually, this has been the whole history of medicine up until the last 50 years or so. People couldn't wait around for biological science to figure out how penicillin worked when it was first discovered by accident. That wasn't to happen for many years. There are still many, many drugs for which the exact mechanism of action is not understood. Just open up the PDR and have a look. Should people wait around and die while these medical discoveries are researched by biologists?# Well I think it better be the objective of medicine to understand biology after all, we are biological systems. And how can you get people better if you dont understand the biology of the system in the first place.. Using a drug that we dont understand exactly how it works or just plain how it works is dangerous.. giving people drugs and not knowing how it works is just using humans as guinea pigs.. Drugs need to be further tested. As for penicillin the proof was right there that it worked.. by killilng the bacteria in culture.. and they did find out how it works, they know the mechanism of action.
If you read the PDF manual as well most a/d that are in there they do not say how it works or the long term effects of the drug.. Im curious as to why they dont follow up on the thousands of patients that are on the drug.. LONG term I mean or follow up on patients that are coming off the a/d.. You never see reports of this.. hmmm
And no people shouldnt wait around and die while waiting for medical research,, but guess what they are already dying by drug hopping and overdosing and the sheer anxiety surrounding trying to find the right cocktail.. so we cant come to the conclusion that people will die if they wait for research.. there are alternatives to waiting... alternative treatments..
Another example is ecstasy .. it has killed more youths and caused more addictions.. yet it was a FAILED antidepressant.. so much for not wanting to wait and research the drug further.. no.. they wanted totry it right away... "save people from depression"" now look what it has done..
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> Very often, people want to discontinue medication precicely because it has worked. It is not the proposition upon the initiation of drug treatment that it be for a lifetime.# Then why do so many doctors tell a patient they have to reamain on the drug indefinitely or for the rest of their lives... if its not the intention??
??//
It is often agreed that a patient will discontinue drug treatment after he feels well for a certain number of months. Of course, we are going to see so many people wanting to discontinue their antidepressants. They worked.
# Then why are there so many postings saying they want off because they didnt feel right on the drug.. you never see a post saying they feel great , so their stopping the meds.. they are saying that they cant stand the side effects and that they dont want to be on them anymore.or They are not feeling , thats the problem here.. no feelings/numb=translates into feeling well in a doctors perspective or to the family of the patient.. if they dont see you crying they think you are well. And if they worked then why are so many people trying more than one kind? I think its more it didnt work so WhY take the drug..
With penicillin it works because you take it once and then your done.. the infection is gone.. that bacteria was killed by the antibiotic.. you dont have to keep taking it .. and also usually your immune system does the job for you and if u are stressed or immune suppressed that is only when you need the xtra pencicillin/antibiotic. So with a/d it seems that people are on it for months /years and still feel/not right.. so this doesnt make sense to keep taking the drug.>
> > > If it works, it works. Right?
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> > ****If it worked we wouldnt have so many people still trying meds on and on.. and we wouldnt be here debating on this post.
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> As we could also say of psychotherapy.
# psychotherapy will work if u practice what yu learn... theres a difference between popping a pill and thinking... psychotherapy gets at the root of your thinking therefore getting the issue solved ,,not bandaging it up.
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> Of course, there are treatment failures. 30-40% of people will need to discontinue their first drug to go on to a second drug. 30% of those will need to go on to a third drug or have drugs added as combination treatments. Still others who are extraordinarily treatment-resistant end up here. These people switch drugs frequently in a desperate effort to find something that works for them.# which again is my point.. the continued switching of meds is proof enough that this way isnt working for the patient.. why subject them to the continued anxiety and frustration of stopping and starting meds , not to mention the toll it takes on the physiological aspect of the body.. this cant possibly be healthy.. this in turn will affect the mind...
its like if you were making stew and just kept adding who knows what ingredient to get the taste"just right" and it just kept getting more and more stuff added into it, yet the taste just got worse and you couldnt get it right,, why would yu keep adding all the ingredients senslessly.. to me yu would throw it out and start with a NEW RECIPE or in the case of meds.. try other methods... not more meds.
This is unfortunate, but it is not unprecedented in the field of medicine. Even antibiotics are sometimes applied in a trial-and-error format.
## antibiotics dont mess with the brain/cognitive aspect of the person. and this trial and error is because there are more than one strain of bacteria out there. They dont know how the mood / chemical interactions work..
its like how can you know where you are going in a foreign country without a MAP??//
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> That a series of drug therapies fail to treat an ailment does not prove that the ailment doesn't exist.#Oh the ailment exists allright, but the treatment is what is the problem..and I wouldnt say its an ailment, rather a manisfistation of a deeper rooted issue.. like i say.. there is more than one way to treat mood/ imbalances in the system. Alternative.. which just means OTHER THAN meds, etc.//
believe that my ailment is biological.#If you believe this then u have cornered yourself.. if you really believe you dont have a choice about your illness, then you have lost the battle.. Im not saying denial here, im saying just think outside the box..//
There is finally overwhelming evidence to demonstrate this, in my opinion. Although I didn't need to see this proof, it does help to know that it helps fuel research into finding biological cures for a biological illness.
## Biological cures mean natural not chemical and safer not harmful side effects.. have you noticed the black box warnings on the a/d rx these days?? Obviouslly there is a real danger out there. Especially to the adolescent population that are rx so readily too... increase in suicidal thinking and actions .. to me this is just another form of child abuse.. rx this stuff to teens.. again look at the ECSTACY drug hype.. Doctors "thought " it was safe..
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> You are entitled to believe differently.
# yes I am as so are you.. enjoy your meds my friend.. and thanks for the debate.
After all its what we perceive as our own reality.. to me life is to be lived, not just exist... and thats what meds doo.. sure maybe they keep you alive.. numbed out but well alive...so this is something we should cherish???
like I said to each their own, but I hate to see the next generation after us all spaced out on meds all the time and not facing reality.
dont get me wrong.. I was down deep too.. very deep and if someone had said then to me just stop feeling that way i would have hit them too.. but on the other hand I needed to get tough on myself to survive.. yes you have to go through the emotions to heal, but there comes a time that you just have to get tough against the depression . anxiety.. and fight it not fear it .. ACCEPTANCE but not in a negative way like viewing oneself as a victim of mental illness, etc.. I dont like that term, I think of it as more of a dissarray of the soul, and we just need to be complete spiritually, physically, and emotionally. that is a journey we all take.
The very fact that they dont know alot about how the brain functions is all the more reason to PROCEED WITH CAUTION in the use of any meds affecting thought behavior.. ask all your drug addicts out there on the streets .Musky
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> - Scott
poster:musky
thread:689668
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/wdrawl/20060809/msgs/691386.html