4 ms·

SSRIs saved my life, I don't like such wild claims. Don't be afraid of psychiatric drugs if you are hurting.

by seibelj 7y ago

codingslave 7y ago
Are you still on them?
- seibelj 7y ago
  8 years and counting, same dose, 10mg lexapro / day
Pfhreak 7y ago
+1, antidepressants are not magic and don't work for everyone, but they worked amazingly for me. I was put off for so long because I had read so many people saying that antidepressants were evil or bad or whatever. I wish I asked my doctor about them earlier. It's OK to take them. It's ok to not want to take them. I wish they were less stigmatized because they do help some people a lot.
samatman 7y ago
These things are not mutually exclusive: > studies showed that children and adolescents taking antidepressants were almost twice as likely to have suicidal thoughts or to attempt suicide, compared to patients taking a sugar pill. http://www.center4research.org/antidepressants-increase-suicide-attempts-risks/ http://www.center4research.org/antidepressants-increase-suic...
- filoleg 7y ago
  Not arguing either way, as I don't think I am knowledgeable enough on the subject to do so, but I feel like there is a lot of potential to confuse correlation and causation. It simply could just be that "children and adolescents taking antidepressants" are already in a high risk group that is 3 times as likely "to have suicidal thoughts or to attempt suicide", and antidepressants reduce that number to "twice as likely".
  - samatman 7y ago
    This is, of course, the very first thing any reputable study tries to control for; presumably the placebo and active populations are both taken from populations with comparable diagnoses.
  - codingslave 7y ago
    Right and this is where plausible deniability comes in from the point of view of the pharmaceutical companies. Drug studies are problematic because nothing happens in a vacuum.
- Domenic_S 7y ago
  Ironically, this happens because the medicine is working. FTA: > When a person’s depression starts to lift, he or she may feel less hopeless and helpless. That sounds like an improvement, but when people feel less helpless but still feel depressed, they may think about suicide as a way out, whereas before they were too immobilized to make a suicide plan. For that reason, a decrease in the symptoms of depression can increase the risk of suicidal thoughts or actions.
  - samatman 7y ago
    While plausible, that paragraph is speculation; it's also plausible that antidepressants push some subgroup of patients toward suicidal ideation. I'm unaware of any study that answers this question definitively, but I'm interested, so if anyone sees something useful, please chime in.

SSRIs saved my life, I don't like such wild claims. Don't be afraid of psychiatric drugs if you are hurting.

codingslave 7y ago

Are you still on them?

seibelj 7y ago
8 years and counting, same dose, 10mg lexapro / day

Pfhreak 7y ago

+1, antidepressants are not magic and don't work for everyone, but they worked amazingly for me. I was put off for so long because I had read so many people saying that antidepressants were evil or bad or whatever. I wish I asked my doctor about them earlier. It's OK to take them. It's ok to not want to take them. I wish they were less stigmatized because they do help some people a lot.

samatman 7y ago

These things are not mutually exclusive: > studies showed that children and adolescents taking antidepressants were almost twice as likely to have suicidal thoughts or to attempt suicide, compared to patients taking a sugar pill. http://www.center4research.org/antidepressants-increase-suicide-attempts-risks/ http://www.center4research.org/antidepressants-increase-suic...

filoleg 7y ago
Not arguing either way, as I don't think I am knowledgeable enough on the subject to do so, but I feel like there is a lot of potential to confuse correlation and causation. It simply could just be that "children and adolescents taking antidepressants" are already in a high risk group that is 3 times as likely "to have suicidal thoughts or to attempt suicide", and antidepressants reduce that number to "twice as likely".
- samatman 7y ago
  This is, of course, the very first thing any reputable study tries to control for; presumably the placebo and active populations are both taken from populations with comparable diagnoses.
- codingslave 7y ago
  Right and this is where plausible deniability comes in from the point of view of the pharmaceutical companies. Drug studies are problematic because nothing happens in a vacuum.
Domenic_S 7y ago
Ironically, this happens because the medicine is working. FTA: > When a person’s depression starts to lift, he or she may feel less hopeless and helpless. That sounds like an improvement, but when people feel less helpless but still feel depressed, they may think about suicide as a way out, whereas before they were too immobilized to make a suicide plan. For that reason, a decrease in the symptoms of depression can increase the risk of suicidal thoughts or actions.
- samatman 7y ago
  While plausible, that paragraph is speculation; it's also plausible that antidepressants push some subgroup of patients toward suicidal ideation. I'm unaware of any study that answers this question definitively, but I'm interested, so if anyone sees something useful, please chime in.