I COULD HAVE TOLD THOSE RESEARCHERS THAT YEARS AGO! "Scientists" have found that Prozac and three similar commonly prescribed antidepressants work no better than a placebo and are only worth prescribing for the very most serious cases of "clinical" depression... Yahoo News reported: "'The relationship between initial severity and antidepressant efficacy is attributable to decreased responsiveness to placebo among very severely depressed patients, rather than to increased responsiveness to medication,' the researchers wrote."
How very depressing!
Wah-waah!!
I never got on that well with antidepressants in the past.
I vividly recall picking up my first ever script in the tiredness of the late evening. The pharmacist handed me a blank white box containing two strips... I walked away into the night, pushing one out of the strip as I went.
I vividly remember staring down at the big red sugary pill and despairing because it had come to popping this every day for a month. And then, I might, if the drug happened to be effective in me and there was no guarantee that it would be, begin to pick up feeling happy.
I look back to that time... you might think I post a load of miseries up here but let me tell you my misery then was in an alltogether different league. I wouldn't have been able to explain any of my feelings on a blog, for one thing... Couldn't explain anything to anyone.
Anyway I did soldier on with that pill. I think the psychiatrist had chosen it because I'd complained of not sleeping. Well you took this one and initially nothing happened. I say "initially" advisedly, for it merely took a while to kick in. About two hours later the most incredibly potent knock-out effect came on... and this was only a side-effect... not even the major effect of the drug. Of all the drowsy-making tablets I've ever come across I must say that one (Prothiaden/dothiepin) was the most potent by a long way. Far stronger than Rohypnol or anything like that... And I was supposed to get up for university seminars the next day! Gimme a break!!
Next one was a smaller pill that gave me constipation. And made me hallucinate tigers walking down the street. Only for split-second gleams. But enough to disorientate me. Only thing I did seriously use it for was to try and kill myself and it didn't even work for that. Lofepramine ~ trade name Gamanil (can you get much more Franensteinian-sinister-sounding than that?)Altogether useless!
Oh I can't reel through everything in chronological order that is even more dullardly than scribbling my dratted memoirs (which I'm still very slowly and unenthusiastically doing).
Suffice it to say that with antidepressants I've tended to have either 1. no discernable effect whatsoever or 2. just side effects or 3. an over-enthusiastic lovely enhanced feeling (probably the pills kicking in more excitedly than they're meant to... but at least the pills are doing something...)
So that's my life in antidepressants for ya!
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Do you like vintage, second-hand items?... with other people's stories to tell? If so go to this blog: shabbyinthecity.blogspot ~ fantastic stuff!
Ice Covered... this has some of the most wonderfully atmospheric snow-at-evening shots I've ever seen...
Attic Full of Clutter keeps a marvellous blog... reminds me of my own mental state most of the time...
STOP PRESS: here's some 0.5-baked thoughts I cobbled together on the role of cognition in the aetiology of affective disorders ... in other words whether you THINK yourself into depression or FEEL depressed and utterly despairing, loathesome etc and the dreadful thoughts consequently follow?
I remember STOPPING antidepressants; a weird intriguing thing happened whereby I felt my old negative ways spring back behind every thought...
... which is why I have some doubt in that cognitive therapy. because they say thought CAUSES emotion whereas when I pulled myself up I had thought something pretty neutral "I will go up the rd to the shops~" in POSITIVE mental state = a good secure feeling comes over... in NEGATIVE mental state a feeling of defeat and dread creeps over following such a thought... I caught myself out feeling this one time when I was on antidepressants but stopped taking them not sure quite why I ceased taking them (what with all else I'd been popping/hitting/etc-etc.ing!) but hey!!
Well, right now I'd like to have an overly enhanced feeling! I'm bored senseless with what I'm doing.
ReplyDeleteDo you know that when I pull up your blog, a chime sounds?
Why on earth does a chime sound? Oh I know what THAT is it is YOU appearing on my chatroom which you shall find if you scroll down about 1/3 of the way down the RHS... and so on...
ReplyDeleteman! i am hungry i really need some fried fish in batter type bits. honestly, i do!!
ps the overly-enchanced feeling was quite an irritable hyperactive restless state as well as being rather expansive at times... wow! and all down to the wonders of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors!! ;->...
Ah glad I checked back one more time today! I was on prozac years ago and it did nothing for me.
ReplyDeleteI recently have been on Paxil CR but changed to a cheaper generic version a few weeks ago and feel much better on that. Have more energy, feel more "up" and have about $75 more dollars in my pocket. It's a win-win!
Thank you for visiting my blog..
ReplyDeleteThe Emerald Ashborer is a terrible invasive species..we have to deal with now or the whole country is loosing precious trees.
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Now to your question about our underground shopping..yes you can..
According to Guinness World Records, PATH is the largest underground shopping complex with 27 km (16 miles) of shopping arcades. It has 371,600 sq. metres (4 million sq. ft) of retail space. In fact, the retail space connected to PATH rivals the West Edmonton Mall in size.
The approximate 1,200 shops and services, such as photocopy shops and shoe repairs, found in PATH, employ about 5,000 people. Once a year, businesses in PATH host the world's largest underground sidewalk sale.
More than 50 buildings/office towers are connected through PATH. Twenty parking garages, five subway stations, two major department stores, six major hotels, and a railway terminal are also accessible through PATH. It also provides links to some of Toronto's major tourist and entertainment attractions such as: the Hockey Hall of Fame, Roy Thomson Hall, Air Canada Centre, Rogers Centre, and the CN Tower. City Hall and Metro Hall are also connected through PATH.
When ar you coming to go shopping??
cheers from Guildwood..
Gisela
I don't know anything about antidepressant's...
ReplyDeleteDon't need any, most of the time I am very happy and if I am not..I buy some flowers for my garden or walk along the lake.
That cheers me up,
Gisela
Gabbly Chat? Is that it?
ReplyDeleteThe only anti-depressant I've ever taken in St. John's Wort - it worked perfectly! Do you know it is the most prescribed AD in Germany apparently?
ReplyDeleteThrift shops...you guessed right both times! Some of them are charities and some are not :)
ReplyDeleteWhat I would like to experience that we DON'T have here are car boot sales...we call the boot a trunk ...
Patti: hey you mean SEROXAT the generic version is 100% the same! so you literally are throwing money down the drain or to put it another way spending $75 on just a name... I'm glad you feel better... i remember STOPPING antidepressants a weird intriguing thing happened whereby I felt my old negative ways spring back behind every thought...
ReplyDelete... which is why I have some doubt in that cognitive therapy. because they say thought CAUSES emotion whereas when I pulled myself up I had thought something pretty neutral "I will go up the rd to the shops~" in POSITIVE mental state = a good secure feeling comes over... in NEGATIVE mental state a feeling of defeat and dread creeps over following such a thought... I caught myself out feeling this one time when I was on antidepressants but stopped taking them not sure quite why I ceased taking them (what with all else I'd been popping/hitting/etc-etc.ing!) but hey!!
Guild-rez: o I see suddenly it makes sense it's not so many miles all spread out in one path in one direction it is like saying "your lungs are the size of a tennis court" which they surely are but compactly organized: and that Mall is very well organized, I'm sure, too! know whateye mean..?!? Glad I found your blog and many thanks for replying as I was dead intrigued about all that (heard it on the radio this morning)... and so on...
Tut-tut: yeah it is Gabbly makin' that noise
Akelamalu: hmmm yeah I heard about St John's wart/wort/wurt! Is it true you can't go out in the sun after administration..??
Doctors think I'm depressed when I cry in their surgery but I always cry when I'm exhausted and just need to sleep - not depressed as such. This just means I need to slow down. Only once I received a drug which I thought was going to help me sleep and it turned out to be an anti depressant which sped me up for FOUR days and nights! I almost went over the suicidal edge. It did quite the opposite to what I wanted and was the opposite to what I needed! NEVER again will I see a Doc about helping me to slow down or sleep (I still cry). Blogging is great for laughs *tickling you under your fury chin*
ReplyDeleteI've been on seroxat for several years and it changed my life. I was obsessively anxious and it was taking over my life. Now I'm fine.
ReplyDeleteThere's much controversy about anti-d's. All I can say is that a couple of times in my life I did take one. It helped me. My family doc didn't want me on it indefinitely so after a little while when the situation was better, I stopped taking it and felt fine.
ReplyDeleteBut not too long ago a friend of our family had gone into a depression over the sickness of her hubby. She was prescribed something and it didn't suit her I guess, wasn't the right kind? I don't know if therapy was introduced as well or how the monitoring was done, if she was taking it as prescribed or taking anything in addition, etc. etc.
But she ended up killing herself.
So you just never know.
p.s. I wondered about the chime sound too. LOL Now I know.
Anon: I know just what you mean about being sped up from antidepressants they have done that to me several times 2 different ones. The first one used to have this effect over the first month then if I continued with it I'd settle down into a slightly better than well (mental) state but physically I was still tired out which just goes to prove that CFS/ME/chronic fatigue type states really AREN'T "all in the mind" for the mental depression was cured yet not the physical exhaustion!
ReplyDeleteThere are some better antidepressants now like mirtazapine it's not an SSRI not a tricyclic or tetracyclic and so does help sleep (unlike Prozac-type drugs they really do NOT whatever your dr might claim you cannot pop a Prozac one night and have a good night's sleep) whereas with mirtazapine you can... also it gives the funkiest dreams!
Liz: see they do work for some people I'm glad it does something good for you
Crystal: some of those SSRIs like Prozac/Seroxat can cause an "increase in suicidal ideation" that kicks in BEFORE any mood-elevation does... which is a real poop-out, I'd say!
All of us have different DNA and different metabolisms. Some herbs and vitamins work better than others. The first thing that is needed is proper nutrition and a good physical exam. As the director of Novus Medical Detox, I often see patients who are on alcohol or opioids, central nervous system depressants, also taking antidepressants. When they detox they find they don't need the antidepressants.
ReplyDeleteThis is good news because a Swedish study showed that 52% of the 2006 suicides by women on antidepressants. Since antidepressants work no better than placebos and are less effective than exercise in dealing with depression.
There is a prescription drug epidemic and these are leaders in the list of terribe abuses.
Steve Hayes
http://novusdetox.com
~Thanks, Steve; what a fascinating answer! Antidepressants seem to be being prescribed more and more these days for common unhappiness as much if not more than for genuine "clinical" depression where body and mind are depressed entirely... not just an intermittent feeling of tearfulness or a sensation that life could be a bit better than it is... (who doesn't feel THAT way..?..??) Thanks for getting in touch rsvp again! ;->...
ReplyDeletehah! i knew it. i've been on 2 different 'varieties' of anti-depressants, and neither of them did ANYTHING. didn't make me feel different, no side-effects, nothing. so, your source is right!
ReplyDelete