To be staggered at how many people are prescribed Anti-depressants.

[TheoriginalLEM]

People who seem to be pretty much on the ball with ok lives.

At my place of work there are four of us, that i know of, on the same medication (There are only about 20 employees in total)

Another mother at Dd's school, my friend who i met at dd's playgroup.

My friend from a previous job and both of her children.

So these are people who i know are on meds. People who have been happy to disclose this information to me. I don't have a large circle of friends or aquaintances so the sample group, if you like, is small.

Both my mother and my eldest Dd have both been offered Ad's.

I suffer from long term anxiety and depression and feel like the ADs help me. My Dr has expressed the view that this is something I will need for life.

Thats a lot of people who i KNOW are medicated. Why is this ? is it because life and expectations are such that people are suffering from mental illness or are people being given drugs when they are dealing with life events and should be offered strategies to cope. My personal experience is long waiting lists for counselling that wasn't that effective and given drugs to help in the absence of therapy.

I can't help but wonder why this is, what the statistics are.

It may not just be cost, Posie - it may also be down to the differences in access to treatments. If a doctor knows that referring a patient for psychotherapy or counselling is going to mean months on a waiting list (if these services are available in their area) just for an initial appointment, and then even longer to wait for a slot in group therapy/CBY/counselling, but ADs will start to have an effect within 4 weeks, it makes sense to give the drugs.

In an ideal world, the drugs would be given to help someone get through the wait for therapy - like being given painkillers or anti-inflammatories whilst you are waiting for a hip replacement - but mental health services have been so badly cut (and always were the Cinderella service) that sometimes the drugs are the only realistic option available to GPs.

newbrummie when I had PND, my life was very far from shit.

I was newly, and very happily married. We'd just moved into a luxury, barn conversion and I had a brand new VW Golf parked on the drive. DD's nursery was straight from the pages of the Mamas & Papas brochure, and she had a wardrobe full of Monsoon Baby outfits. We had a cleaner twice a week, and my Mum batch cooked for me, so I didn't even need to cook...

...and I still could not cope, at all. I felt filled with inexplicable despair and depression, every single day. Absolutely no reason for it.

Except that my hormones had crashed causing chaos with the neuro transmitters in my brain. Totally chemically caused.

Can we quit with the old diabetes cliché? I have bipolar disorder and diabetes (type 2, probably caused by the medication for the bipolar disorder…) and it is Not The Same At All. It feels very different, emotionally. But mostly I'm just really really bored of people comparing diabetes with mental health. Can't we come up with a different disease to use for a bit?

I did. Two more, to be precise.

Can we quit with the old diabetes cliché? I have bipolar disorder and diabetes (type 2, probably caused by the medication for the bipolar disorder…) and it is Not The Same At All. It feels very different, emotionally. But mostly I'm just really really bored of people comparing diabetes with mental health. Can't we come up with a different disease to use for a bit?

Early intervention services for psychosis are modelled on early intervention for diabetes services. It's such a good service many mental health services are modelled on diabetes care, hence the comparison. Sorry if that offends, it's not intentional.

Yes MaQueen I know tyere will be millions of examples just like yours v's mine. The tricky bit is deciphering between the two, glad I'm not a GP tbh

Is there any other medical treatment which people who, presumably, have either not needed it, or have found it doesn't work for them, feel entitled to say that other people don't really need and/or to say that, even though people taking it say it helps them, that it has no effect. I am struggling to think of another, any suggestions?

The insistence of antibiotics for viral infections is a good example of this.

Fruit, it's not the same. Antibiotic are ineffective against viral infections. Ads are effective for many people with depression.

Meanwhile there are stacks of people on blood pressure medication, when hypertension can be controlled by diet/exercise/stress management, and nobody is criticising them for a "quick fix".

PeteSwotatoes nobody is critiquing individual patients, more the system

Can I ask any of the pps who think too many ads are handed out by GPs, to try to explain why this bothers you enough to post?

So for me, I really don't think I would have the life I have now were it not for ads. I think I would have lost the things that are most important to me. So I think it's important to help reduce the stigma of taking ads, and make it easier for others to get help and it is something I feel very deeply and strongly about.

If other people think the ads are helping them, as they presumably do or else they would stop, and as ads are on the whole (correct me if I'm wrong) fairly cheap, why are you concerned enough to be arguing that people don't need them and they don't work? What is it about it that bothers you?

Is it a moral issue? Or intellectually upsetting to you because you believe so many people are believing in little magic pills? Or do you believe it is a symptom of a degenerate society and if we all stopped taking them we would rise up in revolt? Or what? Why does it bother you so much?

Fruit, it's not the same. Antibiotic are ineffective against viral infections. Ads are effective for many people with depression.

They are only effective for clinical depression, and even then they don't work properly for 30-40% of those with clinical depression, with the statistics varying from study to study. This paper is good reading on the subject.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3363299/

And I have actually heard a GP say that they do not treat hyper tension. A life threatening condition. I hope to god the patient is still with us

By complaining about "the system" you are making patients who've had their lives saved by anti-depressants feel like shit. Is it worth it to feel like you're better than me?

That was not my intention PeteSwotatoes.

TheOriginalLEM she's doing great, but they work better if I use Feliway as well which is what the vet recommended. I was already using Feliway, but she was still sick. The stuff is called Cystease and I have to open the capsule and sprinkle it onto her food each morning. The Feliway and Cystease definitely work together.

She still argues a bit with her rival (my other female cat), but she's far more chilled out and her cystitis is gone now.

Hormones do fluctuate in everyone, but some people (like me) are ridiculously sensitive to it. Other women aren't affected at all.

My consultant is very concerned that far too many women are being grossly misdiagnosed with bi polar, or BPD when, in fact, they suffer with hormonal depression/anxiety.

fruit it's actually only the first AD they try which doesn't work for 30% - 40% of people. The second AD is often more successful.

Can I just say that ds1's life was going down the toilet due to his social phobia. It was threatening his entire future. He's now happy, relaxed and achieving what he sets out to achieve thanks to his meds. He'll come off them when he's ready. They have literally transformed his life and he's really thankful that he was prescribed them.

Ds2 is on them due to severe anxiety and autism. He was also being bullied at school and wasn't coping.

I'm on them for life because, every time I withdraw, the depression returns. I'm also autistic and they help me to survive in the world.

Perhas they are 'over prescribed', but it's better than the alternative - drug abuse, alcohol abuse, violence, being totally apart from society, murder and suicide

It may not have been your intention, Newbrummie, but it is what you have done. I found myself near to tears, when I was writing my 16:52 post, in response to your post.

If you didn't read my post, please will you go back and do so - it may help you comprehend the impact your word have.

fruit it's actually only the first AD they try which doesn't work for 30% - 40% of people. The second AD is often more successful.

Again this isn't necessarily true. The first AD alters the chemicals in the brain, and weirdly the cells "remember" the first one. So if they first one isn't a good fit, it's likely there will also be an inadequate response to subsequent ones. At least that's a theory of a consultant nurse that I have met anyway! No hard evidence.

SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius then I apologise profusely, that was not my intention at all

they don't work properly for 30-40% of those with clinical depression

Or to put it another way:

they work for 60-70% of people with clinical depression.