Just listened to a broadcast about treating people who have depression with KETMINE
I read about what it does to the body and the unnatural effects it has.
I know that my Daughter in law uses it in her vets practice to render an animal unconscious for operating !!!!
The 'doctor' spoke quite knowledgeably about how good it is
Jesus wept and wept
Ketamine. Typo
I've just done a quick Google and looked briefly at one or two articles. That is SCARY!!!!!
But if a GP prescribes it, there will be side effects, which means prescribing something to deal with those, which keeps Big Pharma happy.
Cynical??? Moi???
You're not kidding, that is scary!
drugs.com/sfx/ketamine-side...
I wonder how many people who are experimented on with this stuff have had their thyroids tested and/or have tried T3.
It was on radio 4 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣Lol
Having suffered w depression for many years and having been faced w the choice of remaining depressed or undergoing ect (I recovered in the end w/o ect) I think we have to accept that there are folk who have depression w no apparent organic cause and they need options to help them live and recover.
I had been screened for physical causes (incl thyroid and adrenal causes) in a mental health care environment as a teenager and no primary physical cause was found. That is not to say that if I looked at those test results now that I would not find over time that the parameters had changed, but at the time this was state-of-the-art stuff where the intention was to take a fine tooth comb to find any health imbalance that could be responsible. I was very lucky, my mum had excellent private health insurance.
I would not have been in a hurry to sign up to treatment w ketamine (it was used recreationally in the 90s and I never liked the sound of it then) but often clinical use takes a different form to a different end.
Of course we should be better at diagnosing and treating depression caused by hypothyroidism and other illnesses, no one would advocate treating the depression and not the cause, but in some cases it is a standalone dx.
People w depression need good health care and reasons to feel hopeful. I feel like sometimes on this forum it is treated like it is nothing more than a symptom of some unknown (or known) physical problem, and that is not always the case.
puncturedbicycle,
I very much agree with you - I am certainly in no position to judge the doctors or the patients in this report.
If it works, and every sensible alternative has been tried, then it is up to the sufferer and their doctors to discuss and decide. It couyld be the only thing that would ever work - or the worst thing they have ever tried.
Obviously, in the context of this forum, we would hope and expect liothyronine to have been properly trialled, most especially as it is a well-known medicine with a very high level of safety.
Link to abstract:
thelancet.com/journals/lanp...
The reluctance of doctors to consider that hormonal treatment (such as liothyronine) might be effective is a problem. We know it can be used in euthyroid folk for treatment-resistant depression. And of course a percentage of those people will not be helped and will need to try something else.
We should remember that we're envisioning a theoretical rosy future whereas if t3 was out there on the market being used in the same way ADs are (ie prescribed by people who often don't know much about them) it's not unreasonable to assume we'd have similar horror stories about people having strokes and heart attacks after being prescribed the wrong dose, or people who have terrible side effects (not all of us thrive on it) begging to be taken off it.
Just as some find their mental health improves on thyroid hormone replacement some find it gets worse. It would be interesting to see what would happen if the market was dominated by thyroid meds instead of ADs.
I took more than a dozen different ADs over time (not all together lol, maybe someone should have suggested it), stopped counting after that. I do regret that I didn't try liothyronine earlier. I had recovered by the time I introduced it into my thyroid treatment so it's impossible to say if it would have been effective.
So I think in most ways I am in agreement w others here, just pointing out that not all depression diagnoses are frivolous and myopic misdiagnoses of what should be a uat dx.
And just to be even-handed about it, nothing I ever tried was the worst anything, generally drugs were either ineffective or had some side effects I didn't love. Fluoxetine was an absolute game-changer for me - the best thing I ever tried - and gave me temporary access to a different way of being entirely. If it hadn't stopped working for me I'd probably still be on it. Not to invalidate the experience of others, just to contribute my own.
puncturedbicycle,
Completely agree about potential for misuse of liothyronine - or pretty much any other medicine.
We need to see personal experiences such as yours. Thank you.
Research has shown that low fat diets can cause depression in some people.
Further research at Bristol recommended fatty foods for brain metabolism such as fish and chips. Perhaps we are eating too much lettuce and spinach depriving ourselves of foods that we are told are not good for us?
I went on the Cambridge diet for a month. I felt awful. As soon as I went back to carbo foods and some fat I felt much better. Think the myelin sheaths in the brain are affected some how.
I was there giving ect
It was barbaric then
It is now.
For a very small number of people it is their only hope and what would be barbaric would be to deny it to them.
I was lucky enough to have had a wonderful psychiatrist, utterly compassionate, well-informed and respectful, and if liothyronine had been on his radar and/or permitted at the time I have no doubt he would have offered it.
Thanks for this honest comment. People with irritable bowel syndrome are not permitted to have ect but many people may not know they have this condition or if they do know, nobody takes any notice. This treatment was around over a hundred years ago - there was even a museum of methods of treating the mentally ill for entertainment, but it was closed down. How degrading and humiliating if people were filmed gratuitously by some old government propagandists with ethnic
and social prejudice, creating inequalities in people and making the victims
the stuff of horror movies.
I'm sorry, why are people w ibs 'not permitted' to have ect?
I don't really understand the rest of your comment. Vulnerable people have always been exploited, that's true, but the asylum system came about as a means of protection as long ago as the 18th c, and a more progressive way of thinking and treatment for people with mental health problems became widespread in the 19th c.
For all the pitfalls of the current system, and there are many, it is no longer considered appropriate to treat vulnerable people as a source of entertainment, but we do the best with what we have when we have it.
It is because of the involuntaty muscle spasm in the colon with IBS, which might affect the bowel condition. You are right saying that the mental asylum was present in the 1800s. In those days there was little understanding of endocrine and hormone imbalance on the nervous system. Leeches were in vogue - and the stigma was present concerning mental ill health, - so much so that even King George 111, was satirised,
as a madman even though he had long periods of good mental health
and a brilliant mind. His liver disorder, gave rise to his mental health symptoms, so the affect on another body system, from porphyria
was an organic cause of hsi mental health problems.
I think current stigma still arises from mental health problems
and not enough attention is paid to other diseases including thyroid, and diabetes which can give rise to mental disturbance. Has the manner of treatment today changed much since the 18th century? People were in chanins then. I recently saw a news information on conditions in a far eastern asylum - the manner of treatment was the same - segregation,
and outdated methods of treatment. Who would employ someone
with the current popularity of soaps and documentaries, and films
sensationalising mental health issues.
Heartbeat in my ears
Buzzing Ears?
STILL can't find my dose 
Do GPs have ears?
Blocked ears??
