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You know it's odd: in all those years I spent helping my dad with his knees shot from zoloft induced weight gain or waking my roommate up because she drank too

You know it's odd: in all those years I spent helping my dad with his knees shot from zoloft induced weight gain or waking my roommate up because she drank too much to counteract the stimulants they prescribed to balance the benzos or sleeping next to a partner with a permanent, random, violent parkinsonian tremor caused by antipsychotics, I never considered doing a frequency analysis against the myriad of unrecommended non-psychiatric drugs and treatments out there. Unfortunately, neither did any of their doctors, it would seem.

vonmoltke 10y ago
You know, it's odd: I don't recall asking you if you had personally done a study or frequency analysis. I recall asking a rhetorical question as a follow-up to a specific question about your claim in order to head off anecdote poker. Seems like you decided to jump straight into it, though. So, how many people have you had to deal with who had night terrors due to Chantix? Who became addicted to opiod pain medications? Who developed T2DM as a result of corticosteroid use? Who nearly bled out because of blood thinners? You specifically demonized psychiatric medicine. You know people who have had pretty bad experiences with psychiatric medications but none who have had similar with non-psychiatric medications. My point is not to doubt that these side effects exist, but to illustrate that they exist for a host of non-psychiatric medications as well. Many of those are just as over-prescribed as psychiatric medications, and often by the same general practitioners over-prescribing them.
- intopieces 10y ago
  How does the existence of side effects in other medicines affect the status of psychiatric medicines and their percieved (in)effectiveness or their overprescription status? You claim I'm 'demonizing' (i.e., being unfair towards) a subset of the medical profession when in fact I'm only relaying my personal experience and skepticism based on that. I don't doubt that there are a whole host of other medicines whose effictiveness is unknown and whose popularity is primarly due to its availability as free samples in doctor's offices and the U.S.'s notoriously effective prescription drug advertisement industry. But to make that a point in this discussion seems like a misdirection more than an counter-argument. Two things can be bad at the same time independently. To answer your questions: I dated someone with night terrors from Chantix, have a relative who is addicted to opoids (but who thinks no one knows when he's high at Christmas dinner), but have thankfully never had to deal with the last two. Even still -- none of those latter series were prescribed to treat disorders discovered after the invention of the drug itself. This is the primary point of skepticism: horrible side effects for well-advertised drugs for disorders we just recently discovered affecting, what was astutely noted by another commentor, the most complex organ of the body. Many psychiatric medications are an excellent example of 'when you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail.'
  - vonmoltke 10y ago
    > How does the existence of side effects in other medicines affect the status of psychiatric medicines and their percieved (in)effectiveness or their overprescription status? > You claim I'm 'demonizing' (i.e., being unfair towards) a subset of the medical profession when in fact I'm only relaying my personal experience and skepticism based on that. I don't doubt that there are a whole host of other medicines whose effictiveness is unknown and whose popularity is primarly due to its availability as free samples in doctor's offices and the U.S.'s notoriously effective prescription drug advertisement industry. Because you singled out and attacked psychiatrists and psychiatry as if there were something inherent to that field of medicine and that class of medications that is not present in other fields and types. You specifically said: >> Every other medical revolution -- such as the rise of antibiotics, the pioneering of complex surgeries, and the advancements in medical imaging -- have resulted in a net reduction of people suffering from the ailments those tools are involved in treating. >> Not so with psychiatry. The more drugs that are developed, the more illnesses are discovered to use them on. That is not merely relating your experience. That is throwing a particular medical specialty under the bus for what are in fact widespread issues with medical practice. > Even still -- none of those latter series were prescribed to treat disorders discovered after the invention of the drug itself. This is the primary point of skepticism: horrible side effects for well-advertised drugs for disorders we just recently discovered affecting, what was astutely noted by another commentor, the most complex organ of the body. Are you claiming that there were no mental disorders until the advent of psychiatric drugs? That a subset of disorders are just marketing ploys by a psychiatrist-industrial complex?
    - intopieces 10y ago
      It's here you might benefit from the book: Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness To explain further the unique situation that mental health drugs present. You might benefit especially from the notes section, to which his citations refer. Am I saying there is a conspiracy between psychiatrists and pharmacuetical companies? Were it only so simple! There are a myriad of complex reasons why we're in the situation we're in -- but claiming that the situation is not unique, that my discussion of my personal experience and the research behind it is somehow a 'demonization' of an otherwise unremarkable industry belies both the thesis of the article and experiences of millions of patients.

vonmoltke 10y ago

You know, it's odd: I don't recall asking you if you had personally done a study or frequency analysis. I recall asking a rhetorical question as a follow-up to a specific question about your claim in order to head off anecdote poker. Seems like you decided to jump straight into it, though. So, how many people have you had to deal with who had night terrors due to Chantix? Who became addicted to opiod pain medications? Who developed T2DM as a result of corticosteroid use? Who nearly bled out because of blood thinners? You specifically demonized psychiatric medicine. You know people who have had pretty bad experiences with psychiatric medications but none who have had similar with non-psychiatric medications. My point is not to doubt that these side effects exist, but to illustrate that they exist for a host of non-psychiatric medications as well. Many of those are just as over-prescribed as psychiatric medications, and often by the same general practitioners over-prescribing them.

intopieces 10y ago
How does the existence of side effects in other medicines affect the status of psychiatric medicines and their percieved (in)effectiveness or their overprescription status? You claim I'm 'demonizing' (i.e., being unfair towards) a subset of the medical profession when in fact I'm only relaying my personal experience and skepticism based on that. I don't doubt that there are a whole host of other medicines whose effictiveness is unknown and whose popularity is primarly due to its availability as free samples in doctor's offices and the U.S.'s notoriously effective prescription drug advertisement industry. But to make that a point in this discussion seems like a misdirection more than an counter-argument. Two things can be bad at the same time independently. To answer your questions: I dated someone with night terrors from Chantix, have a relative who is addicted to opoids (but who thinks no one knows when he's high at Christmas dinner), but have thankfully never had to deal with the last two. Even still -- none of those latter series were prescribed to treat disorders discovered after the invention of the drug itself. This is the primary point of skepticism: horrible side effects for well-advertised drugs for disorders we just recently discovered affecting, what was astutely noted by another commentor, the most complex organ of the body. Many psychiatric medications are an excellent example of 'when you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail.'
- vonmoltke 10y ago
  > How does the existence of side effects in other medicines affect the status of psychiatric medicines and their percieved (in)effectiveness or their overprescription status? > You claim I'm 'demonizing' (i.e., being unfair towards) a subset of the medical profession when in fact I'm only relaying my personal experience and skepticism based on that. I don't doubt that there are a whole host of other medicines whose effictiveness is unknown and whose popularity is primarly due to its availability as free samples in doctor's offices and the U.S.'s notoriously effective prescription drug advertisement industry. Because you singled out and attacked psychiatrists and psychiatry as if there were something inherent to that field of medicine and that class of medications that is not present in other fields and types. You specifically said: >> Every other medical revolution -- such as the rise of antibiotics, the pioneering of complex surgeries, and the advancements in medical imaging -- have resulted in a net reduction of people suffering from the ailments those tools are involved in treating. >> Not so with psychiatry. The more drugs that are developed, the more illnesses are discovered to use them on. That is not merely relating your experience. That is throwing a particular medical specialty under the bus for what are in fact widespread issues with medical practice. > Even still -- none of those latter series were prescribed to treat disorders discovered after the invention of the drug itself. This is the primary point of skepticism: horrible side effects for well-advertised drugs for disorders we just recently discovered affecting, what was astutely noted by another commentor, the most complex organ of the body. Are you claiming that there were no mental disorders until the advent of psychiatric drugs? That a subset of disorders are just marketing ploys by a psychiatrist-industrial complex?
  - intopieces 10y ago
    It's here you might benefit from the book: Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness To explain further the unique situation that mental health drugs present. You might benefit especially from the notes section, to which his citations refer. Am I saying there is a conspiracy between psychiatrists and pharmacuetical companies? Were it only so simple! There are a myriad of complex reasons why we're in the situation we're in -- but claiming that the situation is not unique, that my discussion of my personal experience and the research behind it is somehow a 'demonization' of an otherwise unremarkable industry belies both the thesis of the article and experiences of millions of patients.