Antidepressants - Why Doctors prescribe them?

[Despe]

articles.mercola.com/sites/...

An excellent article for those on Antidepressants.

[GBAMIGOD]

Hi Despe, interesting article,but why does doctors keep prescribing antidepressants if they don't wok?Do all the alternatives work?

[Despe in reply to GBAMIGOD]

Dr. Mercola's post is very informative. . . I believe natural therapy works better, with almost no side effects, but not fast enough so people try the easy way out. Doctors don't profit from supplements. . .

[Hikoi]

So Mercola is our source of evidence now.

[Despe in reply to Hikoi]

No, he is not the only one.

[Hikoi in reply to Despe]

Mercola (who uses ghost writers) makes millions peddling this type of false news. He is very successful at saying wat people want to believe

[Despe in reply to Hikoi]

Thanks for your opinion. However, my main source is Dr. Mark Hyman.

[justhavefun2 in reply to Despe]

I just purchased Dr. Hyman’s cookbook. Omg what yummy food! We tried the Thai curry...looking forward to more healthy meals! 😁

[Despe in reply to justhavefun2]

He is good! I bought his book "What the Heck Should I Eat" but haven't had the opportunity to finish reading it. He is the Medical Director of Functional Medicine, Cleveland Clinic.

[justhavefun2 in reply to Despe]

Ohhhh...I want to read that! Thanks for the suggestion! Best wishes for a terrific day!

[Despe in reply to justhavefun2]

justhavefun2,

I am not sure if you are aware that he is a Neurologist, who had had it with pharmaceuticals and doctors and he became Functional Medicine Doctor. He suffered a lot of neurological problems, too.

[justhavefun2 in reply to Despe]

I see a functional neurologist, so I am familiar with his breed. Lol I will look forward to a good read! Thanks for mentioning it!!

[Despe in reply to justhavefun2]

Any time.

[Despe in reply to justhavefun2]

PS. Would you please share the protocol he/she's got you on? Pharmaceuticals?

[justhavefun2 in reply to Despe]

May I please have your email and I will be happy to share. It’s quite a list!

[Despe in reply to justhavefun2]

Absolutely, in a private message.

[rebtar]

I'd have to disagree. I struggled for years trying one alternative treatment after another, anti-depressants literally saved my life. It's (please excuse my strong language) ignorant and disrespectful to say that anti-depressants are "the easy way out". For many of us they have been a last resort. And the do work, just not for everyone, and not all the time. It's hit and miss, and a sometimes long process to find what works. AD's have kept me afloat for many years. I'm now able to reduce them after starting Sinemet (carbidopa-levodopa). Interesting, the main issue may have been low dopamine all the while.

I understand the desire to keep things "natural", that has been my inclination as well, it's just that the reality of depression and anxiety is much more complex than that.

[Despe in reply to rebtar]

I have no personal experience, a close relative of mine has, and it's not very pleasant. I posted this link for informational purpose only.

[Maxjc in reply to rebtar]

Hi rebtar,

I have personal experience of anti depressants and, like you, they took me thru a very difficult time, and yes, have been largely replaced by sinemet now.

I believe in the importance of a natural existence, but sometimes Mother Nature needs help. Natural remedies are sometimes just not enough to address an imbalance...and quality of life is too important when u have to wait for a natural remedy to click

I wish you well

[Chicafromchitown in reply to rebtar]

rebtar

Depression and anxiety are something serious, especially when you start thinking that you don’t want to live anymore 😢 I couldn’t wait for the “natural stuff” to work, believe me I’ve tried everything under the sun nothing worked, I am still alive thanks to Lexapro and Wellbutrin. I know people mean well, but if you haven’t been there is difficult to understand.

God Bless 🙏🏽

[Despe in reply to Chicafromchitown]

Hi Chcafromchitown,

Are you on C/L meds? If you are, aren't they helping? Thank you.

[Chicafromchitown in reply to Despe]

Despe

Yes I’m on c/l 25/100 3 tablets a day. Are they helping me with Pd or with depression? yes for pd

[Despe in reply to Chicafromchitown]

Thanks for your reply. It appears that Sinemet help with depression and anxiety, a PD symptom.

[rhyspeace12 in reply to Despe]

Sinemet and Rytary did not help my husband with depression. Only anti depressants did ,and by doing so, they helped me too. His life was awful without them. Nothing "natural" ever did a darned thing for him.

[4000Nights]

FYI -- My neurologist prescribed the antidepressant Nortriptyline because 1) it helps treat excess saliva, 2) it has been associated with slowing progression, and 3) helps to get me to sleep. He had me at 2).

I have no side effects.

[Despe in reply to 4000Nights]

Good to know, and glad they help you.

[aspergerian13]

Agree, excellen,. Important !

[MarionP]

Mercola has been doing this sort of false advertising for years. Don't fall for it or the other tripe about Trazodone. Trazodone gives me the worst nightmares and night punchings and other aggressions, and disturbed drugged sleep and 10 hour hangovers...it is so damn easy to be taken in because of our fears and hopes, it even gets me hooked on occasion...please learn how to discern real science from the fake and then how to critically think through the science that you do read. I know, that is near impossible to start from scratch when it can take decades to develop, but really, you have to "be from Missouri" on this stuff, you simply must have a "prove it!" mentality.

There are a million PT Barnums out there. A relatively sizable proportion of our species is evolved and genetically programmed to kill in order to not be killed. The scientists at Harvard are now demonstrating that with real science with their collected "inherent bias" projects, which are genetically based and demonstrate in real-time judgments under study. Science is finally catching up to what many of us have long suspected from lifetimes of observation and encounter.

[Gioc in reply to MarionP]

emh ... Marion You know this thing that evil depends on genetics doesn't seem like a great idea, it's also a bit outdated.

[MarionP in reply to Gioc]

Dated is what I used to do before I got married.

Well no, it it's perhaps not so outdated as updated. You may want to do a little updating homework. I'd first refer you to the Harvard Implicit Bias project, which is run out of their experimental labs. Whilst you're at it, look up the personal statement and background on her harvard site there of the chief scientist in that lab, Dr. Banaji. Few have published more legitimate scientific works and peer reviewed studies than her. Look at her book, which itself is now about 6 years old but also covers work prior to that. Listen to her 2015 interview on Fresh Air (they've done considerable work since then, and they aren't the only ones), and a few since. You will also find work done at Hopkins and Columbia. Believe me, science is moving and what it is confirming now were some of the things, a bit harder to develop hard science around back then, concepts some of the psychiatrists and psychologists were developing in the pathology side of the just beginning new field in personality work in the 1960s, to go along with the Milgram and Zimbardo studies back then, and Hare and Levinson in the 1990s, originally forensic but popularised to sociopathy of business and corporate (and of course, government) achievers, much of which was determined to be far more widely applicable in the general public as previously supposed. In fact, so widely applicable that it may be statistically more "normal" then "abnormal," again, in the strict statistical distribution sense of the term. Outdated? No, definitively not. "Uncovered," and "finally biologically revealed" is more like the current developing trend...but see for yourself.

And if you might note, I never said evil depends exclusively on genetics, I think you added that interpretation beyond what I actually said. For whatever reasons you did that. I have mentioned other places where virus infections and environmental load of heavy metals and complex pesticides which accumulate with ever increasing intensity in both our developmental and later periods of life add a great deal to the equation...but the tabula rasa isn't so rasa...as you will discover.

[Gioc in reply to MarionP]

Excuse me , but what does species, evolution and genetics have to do with the awareness and personal responsibility to distinguish between good and evil ? if I understand correctly... I quote you : "A relatively sizable proportion of our species is evolved and genetically programmed to kill in order to not be killed."

I understand that some people are interested in subverting the judicial system and have control of it, but even if they did, it would be the end of a civil society, it would not last long.

I think that the person is something more than a dog of Pawlov and that does not always react with a conditioned reflex, but is capable of discernment and has awareness and responsibility of his actions, as well as capable of loving his fellow human being. This too is statistically proven.

[MarionP in reply to Gioc]

Once again, you use rhetorical tactics to change what I say and then accuse me of it, or answer in debate using your substituted question, rather than the point I made. That is a commonly known and deceptive-minded debating trick.

I did not say there was an all-or-none proposition, that is what you changed the question to be about...without mentioning it, a typical rhetorical tactic. I said a good proportion...not everybody. Read again and please stop with the political (i.e., socially agreed upon lying...) attributions, I've no time for people who play political or rhetorical war games using rhetoric and tricks of argument and debating games, I am about facts in truthful, proportionate context...and not beliefs, since that may be your next tack. Thank you most kindly.

Though I will say, in a purely scientific context, perhaps the word "evil" could be corrected to a more technical descriptor, the non-prejudicial, non-judgmental "amoral."

[Gioc in reply to MarionP]

Thanks Marion, now I know how you think. I don't use rhetorical tricks because I don't need them. In my first post I just wanted to warn you that the claim that genetics determines human behavior was a bit strong, maybe I explained myself badly ,it's true. But I was wrong because I see that you really are convinced of this, and you don’t need advice.As long as I understand correctly. Thank you for your attention. Feel condolences for your father. Gio

[MarionP]

Why doctors prescribe them? Because they fill a need. And some of them (not all of them) are even thought to be neuroprotective.

Anti-depressants typically stimulate your serotonin-producing HT-1a receptor and may also retard uptake of that tryptophan thereby produced. Tryptophan is chemically like a back door partial stimulant for dopamine, it is a chemical precursor for serotonin, and serotonin in turn partially spins off some track of dopamine production, and that is the link to use for anti-depressant as well as anti-parkinsonism effects. So they can have some amount of a 2-for-the-price-of-one benefit. And some of them can even lessen pain and sometimes anxiety.

If you think of the old phrasing of Chinese menus (in the US at least, in the last century) of consisting of choice of one item from "column A" and a second choice from "column B," then think of tryptophan-translation-into-serotonin is one of those columns, along the way it boosts some production areas of dopamine, like say one of the twisty inter-twining threads in a cable or rope.

Actually material is the idea of three (3) such "columns" of the menu. Tryptophan-to-serotonin is one strand of the cable, and anything influencing the amphetamine-like strand of epinephrine and norepinephrine (call them the second strand), and dopamine being the third, and hopefully ultimate strand (the "dessert" column?).

Dopamine, epinephrine, and norepinephrine all three together comprise the "catecholamine" group of neurotransmitters concerned with mood and movement that relates to Parkinson and depression, related branches of the same larger tree (we'll leave the opioid and cannabinoid branches for later chatter!). All of them start at the very beginning with a chemical called phenylalanine, the translation of which eventually ends with dopamine, epinephrine, and norepinephrine (the latter two being your internally produced chemical stimulants, and once upon a time used to be called "adrenalin and noradrenalin," the fight-or-flight stimulants produced in your "adrenals").

[Despe in reply to MarionP]

From your profile, you are not a PD patient. . .and your writing is very . . .scientific for the lay person.

[MarionP]

I am definitely a PD person, among other things, and PD killed my father so I've been around it as well as in it. Now how should I return the favor of being labelled from no evidence, like you seem to do? And why do you need to place a label in the first place? Interesting. But I can tell you that your approval is not required, and your prejudice is a perfect example of some of the things I talk about. And I do hope you are not selling something, I'm pretty good at sniffing out predators.

[Despe in reply to MarionP]

You are very strong opiniated. Learn to listen to other people's opinion. I am not PwP, just a caregiver/wife.

[Hikoi in reply to Despe]

Despe

Your are not just a caregiver, you are very important. Without caring people such as you where would we pwp be.

[Despe in reply to Hikoi]

Thank you, Hikoi. Take care, my friend (if I may call you that).

[hindle1245]

Confused?