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.

Fruit that really doesn't make any medical sense. Different ADs react with different receptors or different mechanisms of the neurotransmitter cycle. It is nothing to do with cells "remembering" things.

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.

Fruit, I'm not talking about that, and you know it; no need for the "sorry if that offends" I'm talking about "you wouldn't say that about a diabetic who needs insulin" that someone anyways posts on EVERY SINGLE THREAD about antidepressants. It's really, really boring to read again and again, and it does feel very different, even sometimes for people who need treatment for both - so how is it going to help someone who's never had treatment for either?

*always posts

WrongTrousers I very much believe ADs have their place and can be life savours as evidenced by comments on this thread. But when they are prescribed almost as a default to any complaints of unexplained exhaustion/anxiety and there is an underlying condition then they're harmful because the root cause is being ignored while symptoms mount up. ADs are also not side effect free and I suffered some horrific agitation on them yet my complaint of this was never noted. I eventually reported it in a Yellow Card to the MHRA, for all the good it will do.

That's why I feel strongly enough to post.

Evidence for my previous point attached.

Depression can be caused by a hormonal imbalance. The anti-depressants that I use directly address this imbalance, and help me feel less depressed. It is no different to being prescribed medication for any other lifelong illness, a preventative inhaler for asthma or tablets to reduce high blood-pressure, for example.

Anti-depressants are not some "silver bullet" and are not suitable for everyone. They need to be taken in conjunction with CBT in order to address psychological reasons for feeling low. But anti-depressants can give someone the breathing space they need to be able to try to make changes to improve their life.

Depression is debilitating. Suicide rates are shockingly high. But depression is an illness, and can be treated with medication.

Why are "so many people" prescribed them? In my opinion, because modern life is so stressful. We are constantly told that we need to work ourselves into the ground, just to get by, and that we are never "good enough". Our diets are poor, our lifestyles are poor. Unnatural even. The rate of change grows ever faster and humans are bewildered by what they see around them, they feel no connection with their society.

A few hundred years ago, a person would live an agricultural existence in a village somewhere. They'd know everyone around them, most would spend their whole lives in the same few square miles. There was a social structure and everyone knew their place - there was no expectation on them to "better" themselves, indeed this would be actively discouraged.

Was life "better" then than what we have now? I doubt it. But it was consistent. People find comfort in consistency, no matter how mundane or dreary that may be.

I am concerned that a consultant nurse is dishing out advice on drugs without a basic understanding of pharmacology.

PeteSwotatoes the AD from the same class work the same. They affect the same pathways.

And to be frank, psych meds are not analogous to insulin; they're more analogous to metformin, or to one of the other tablets taken for type 2.

It's just so fucking dull. Every time, the diabetes comparison is dragged out. And yes STDG you mentioned others too, but out is dragged the diabetes again, which is usually the only one people mention.

Fruit, I'm not talking about that, and you know it; no need for the "sorry if that offends"  I'm talking about "you wouldn't say that about a diabetic who needs insulin" that someone anyways posts on EVERY SINGLE THREAD about antidepressants. It's really, really boring to read again and again, and it does feel very different, even sometimes for people who need treatment for both - so how is it going to help someone who's never had treatment for either?

Oh sorry I thought you were referring to my comparison now! I get your point now.

Fruit they don't work the same at all. Please see the attachment I posted. They are all serotonin reuptake inhibitors but have different affinities for receptors and transporters involved in reuptake, therefore work better for some people than others.

The painkillers for chronic pain, inhalers for asthma, or high blood pressure tablets mentioned above are a much better comparison, and less tired than "diabetics need insulin". But even with that, needing medications for your mind really does feel different to needing medications for your body. They're taken in an effort to affect your mind i.e. your actual self.

Glad we got that cleared up Fruit

SDT I think unless someone has experienced clinical depression they cannot understand how horribly hopeless & helpless it can render you.

When I had PND I could barely bring myself to speak, so any talking therapy would have been hugely stressful for me. I felt so confused and overwhelmed that I really struggled to just co ordinate having a bath and putting clean PJs on.

I was very ill.

Trying to co ordinate getting ready to go running, finding my trainers, deciding what route to run, deciding whether to take water or not...all this would have sent me into a total tail spin and panic.

Like I say, I was very, very ill. Just in the same way that someone with cancer/diabetes can be very, very ill.

Peteswotatoes have you got a link for that picture? It's going funny on my phone.

But even with that, needing medications for your mind really does feel different to needing medications for your body. They're taken in an effort to affect your mind i.e. your actual self.

Thyroid storm causes agitation/anxiety. Low dopamine in Parkinson's causes depressive symptoms. There is no fixed in/body duality in medicine.

SSRI binding affinity: www.preskorn.com/images/columns/9909_fig1.gif

There are undoubtedly lots of people who if they didn't have access to ADs might have killed themselves or been totally unable to function, and in previous times might have ended up in an asylum, but I do think that ADs are over-prescribed, partly because when people are unhappy, depressed or grieving they go to the GP demanding that their unhappiness be 'fixed'.
I do think that people don't have some of the things that helped people in past generations to cope with difficult times, such as faith and belief, extended family, long lasting friendships and a lifestyle that requires lots of physical exercise. As far as I know, ADs are supposed to be for depression that isn't shifted by diet changes, exercise or counselling but that isn't what busy GPs do, and once people are on them, the GP doesn't seem to prioritise getting them off the meds again.

I have had periodic depressions which have always taught me something important if I've been prepared to sit with them, and usually been lifted by chucking myself into cold seawater/ lots of exercise/ waiting it out while trying not to let my life implode.

perfumed Thank you, those are both good points, I understand where you are coming from.

Or to put it another way:they work for 60-70% of people with clinical depression.

60-70% is very poor to be honest. Nowhere else in medicine would accept such shoddy statistics.

Which is why I was careful to write "They're taken in an effort to affect your mind". I'm well aware other conditions and treatments can affect your mind and it's good that treatments for those physical conditions that do affect your mind will alleviate the mental effects of those physical illness. But having something "wrong" with the thing that makes you you, and having to take medication that's solely intended to change that mental problem, does feel different.

pete have you got the link for the research paper? I'll take it in to work tomorrow to discuss.

I'd be dead without them. I have Bi-polar and PTSD too.

I'm guessing my grandads gran had the same or similar. She died in Bedlam.

That was to Pete, sorry

newbrummie 'cells remembering'? Sorry, but that sounds very like woo-psycho-babble to me.

ADs work effectively for 60%-70% of people on their first try at using them. This percentage increases even more if a person tries a second AD.