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Anti-depressants literally saved my life. I tried to manage my anxiety / depression for years with diet, exercise, therapy, mindfulness, and meditation without

by seibelj 10y ago

Anti-depressants literally saved my life. I tried to manage my anxiety / depression for years with diet, exercise, therapy, mindfulness, and meditation without great success. 2 weeks of lexapro was a night and day difference. Don't be afraid of medication if other options fail.

khaannn 10y ago
This is also my story. Tried everything and only the meds helped.
ghk 10y ago
Same here. Lexapro made most of my depression and anxiety go away. With that initial chemical help, I was able to double down on my exercises and good dieting. Before SSRI's, I did not have enough "drive" to exercise hard or eat well.
otto_ortega 10y ago
I concur. Don't be afraid of the medication, just make sure to consult a (good) qualified professional that helps you figure out the right prescription for your particular scenario, and don't fall in the overuse/abuse trap.
tcj_phx 10y ago
> 2 weeks of lexapro was a night and day difference. My girlfriend thought that lexapro had helped her years before she met me... She escaped from the psychiatrists who only cared about making her feel worse with their "anti-psychotics", and got her new medical providers to prescribe lexapro instead. After a week she realized that her new rapid heartbeat was certainly caused by the lexapro. She took her last benzo (class of "anxiety" drug that makes anxiety worse over time), and it was all downhill from there... SSRIs were approved on the basis of fraudulent science. The legal profession was recently able to secure a $3 million verdict against Glaxo Smith Klein - a rather successful lawyer jumped in front of a train after a few days on Paxil. Here's a writeup: https://www.madinamerica.com/2017/05/change-in-chicago-the-dolin-verdict/ https://www.madinamerica.com/2017/05/change-in-chicago-the-d...
- zwwwdr 10y ago
  So Glaxo Smith Klein misrepresented adverse effects of paroxetine. This doesnt mean at all that the science behind SSRIs is "fraudulent". SSRIs are among the best researched psychopharmaceuticals. And it is true that benzos make anxiety worse, long term, but that doesnt mean that they arent a valuable medication to treat anxiety.
  - tcj_phx 10y ago
    Prozac was always defective too. The German FDA refused to approve it, way back when. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14281643 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14281643 The drug industry has a habit of coming out with a new "class" of drugs as soon as the patents for their old drugs expire. Or they patent a new combination for old over-the-counter chemicals. My father recently got prescribed something with a retail price of >$1000. He said he could buy the two OTC pills for about $15... this was something for his stomach + an nsaid, iirc.
    - tptacek 10y ago
      The "German FDA" has certainly approved of fluoxetine (Prozac), which is simply sold under a different name there.
      - tcj_phx 10y ago
        maybe they eventually approved it, but they passed on it in 1984: – Three years before Prozac received approval by the US Food and Drug Administration in late 1987, the German BGA, that country’s FDA equivalent, had such serious reservations about Prozac’s safety that it refused to approve the antidepressant based on Lilly’s studies showing that previously nonsuicidal patients who took the drug had a fivefold higher rate of suicides and suicide attempts than those on older antidepressants, and a threefold higher rate than those taking placebos. [1] [1] http://www.baumhedlundlaw.com/media/boston_globe_prozac_revisted.htm http://www.baumhedlundlaw.com/media/boston_globe_prozac_revi... Two more links from this site ("note-to-self"): https://www.baumhedlundlaw.com/prozac-time-line/ https://www.baumhedlundlaw.com/prozac-time-line/ https://www.baumhedlundlaw.com/our-successes/advocacy-campaigns/ssri-documents/ https://www.baumhedlundlaw.com/our-successes/advocacy-campai...
CodeWriter23 10y ago
In the presence of the medical industry's status quo of "we have no studies demonstrating any harm from this drug", and the presence of next to no safety studies at all, all you can really say is you lucked out in the genetic lottery. The fact is, these drugs do harm people. There's a reason homicide and suicide are listed as a side effect in the drug insert of all SSRI's. Your testimony is correlation. But that in and of itself does not establish causation of a positive outcome for everyone.
- seibelj 10y ago
  So? I hear all sorts of bullshit from armchair psychiatrists trying to scare people from using SSRI's. I'm saying, it might work for you, like it did for me. Or it might not. Might as well try if other things don't work.
  - CodeWriter23 10y ago
    You zealously omitted the "it might not" part from your comment.
_acme 10y ago
Do you have a way of knowing whether the Lexapro was more effective than a placebo would have been?

by seibelj 10y ago

khaannn 10y ago

This is also my story. Tried everything and only the meds helped.

ghk 10y ago

Same here. Lexapro made most of my depression and anxiety go away. With that initial chemical help, I was able to double down on my exercises and good dieting. Before SSRI's, I did not have enough "drive" to exercise hard or eat well.

otto_ortega 10y ago

I concur. Don't be afraid of the medication, just make sure to consult a (good) qualified professional that helps you figure out the right prescription for your particular scenario, and don't fall in the overuse/abuse trap.

tcj_phx 10y ago

> 2 weeks of lexapro was a night and day difference. My girlfriend thought that lexapro had helped her years before she met me... She escaped from the psychiatrists who only cared about making her feel worse with their "anti-psychotics", and got her new medical providers to prescribe lexapro instead. After a week she realized that her new rapid heartbeat was certainly caused by the lexapro. She took her last benzo (class of "anxiety" drug that makes anxiety worse over time), and it was all downhill from there... SSRIs were approved on the basis of fraudulent science. The legal profession was recently able to secure a $3 million verdict against Glaxo Smith Klein - a rather successful lawyer jumped in front of a train after a few days on Paxil. Here's a writeup: https://www.madinamerica.com/2017/05/change-in-chicago-the-dolin-verdict/ https://www.madinamerica.com/2017/05/change-in-chicago-the-d...

zwwwdr 10y ago
So Glaxo Smith Klein misrepresented adverse effects of paroxetine. This doesnt mean at all that the science behind SSRIs is "fraudulent". SSRIs are among the best researched psychopharmaceuticals. And it is true that benzos make anxiety worse, long term, but that doesnt mean that they arent a valuable medication to treat anxiety.
- tcj_phx 10y ago
  Prozac was always defective too. The German FDA refused to approve it, way back when. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14281643 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14281643 The drug industry has a habit of coming out with a new "class" of drugs as soon as the patents for their old drugs expire. Or they patent a new combination for old over-the-counter chemicals. My father recently got prescribed something with a retail price of >$1000. He said he could buy the two OTC pills for about $15... this was something for his stomach + an nsaid, iirc.
  - tptacek 10y ago
    The "German FDA" has certainly approved of fluoxetine (Prozac), which is simply sold under a different name there.
    - tcj_phx 10y ago
      maybe they eventually approved it, but they passed on it in 1984: – Three years before Prozac received approval by the US Food and Drug Administration in late 1987, the German BGA, that country’s FDA equivalent, had such serious reservations about Prozac’s safety that it refused to approve the antidepressant based on Lilly’s studies showing that previously nonsuicidal patients who took the drug had a fivefold higher rate of suicides and suicide attempts than those on older antidepressants, and a threefold higher rate than those taking placebos. [1] [1] http://www.baumhedlundlaw.com/media/boston_globe_prozac_revisted.htm http://www.baumhedlundlaw.com/media/boston_globe_prozac_revi... Two more links from this site ("note-to-self"): https://www.baumhedlundlaw.com/prozac-time-line/ https://www.baumhedlundlaw.com/prozac-time-line/ https://www.baumhedlundlaw.com/our-successes/advocacy-campaigns/ssri-documents/ https://www.baumhedlundlaw.com/our-successes/advocacy-campai...

CodeWriter23 10y ago

In the presence of the medical industry's status quo of "we have no studies demonstrating any harm from this drug", and the presence of next to no safety studies at all, all you can really say is you lucked out in the genetic lottery. The fact is, these drugs do harm people. There's a reason homicide and suicide are listed as a side effect in the drug insert of all SSRI's. Your testimony is correlation. But that in and of itself does not establish causation of a positive outcome for everyone.

seibelj 10y ago
So? I hear all sorts of bullshit from armchair psychiatrists trying to scare people from using SSRI's. I'm saying, it might work for you, like it did for me. Or it might not. Might as well try if other things don't work.
- CodeWriter23 10y ago
  You zealously omitted the "it might not" part from your comment.

_acme 10y ago

Do you have a way of knowing whether the Lexapro was more effective than a placebo would have been?