22 ms·
Experimental depression treatment is nearly 80% effective in controlled study
- giantg2 5y agoI wonder what the underlying mechanism is. With the prevalence of magnetic fields in everyday life, I wonder if these could be affecting people negatively from prolonged exposure at lower doses or frequency.
- zarmin 5y ago"Fuckin' magnets, how do they work?"
- giantg2 5y agoNot how magnets work. What are their physiological effects that cause these improvements?
- driverdan 5y agoIt has no impact thanks to the inverse square law. This is a much stronger field, very close to the brain, done in a targeted way.
- eru 5y agoTo provide an analogy: wifi has more or less the same kind of radiation as a microwave oven. But wifi is much weaker and not inside a faraday cage. So it doesn't cook you.
- giantg2 5y agoOk, so we know that lower exposure doesn't cause the acute effects. What I'm asking about is chronic lower exposure. To continue your analogy, there is inconclusive data showing that RF exposure could reduce sperm count or be a risk factor for certain cancers.
- giantg2 5y agoDo you have some data on that? How about for people on a degaussed ship? I understand the inverse square and that this is a very strong field. I was wondering about chronic exposure to weaker fields.
- fnord77 5y agois this any different than the theta-burst TMS that's being trialied by other outfits?
- jokowueu 5y agoTBS is just a higher dose TMS in a short period This is TMS but they specifically targets the subgenual cingulate uniquely for each patient with help of fmri . Usuially they target a location at r13 which is easier but the location of the subgenual cingulate is unique to each person sometimes u are lucky and it's r13 sometimes it's not
- jokowueu 5y agoI meant the f3 method not r13
- waffle_maniac 5y agoTreatments that can’t be done at home are very expensive. My friend couldn’t afford to continue TMS even though it was working.
- EndedSojourn76 5y ago
- webinvest 5y ago> “The treatment, known as Stanford accelerated intelligent neuromodulation therapy (SAINT) or simply Stanford neuromodulation therapy, is an intensive, individualized form of transcranial magnetic stimulation. In the study, remission typically occurred within days and lasted months. The only side effects were temporary fatigue and headaches.” > “Twenty-nine people with treatment-resistant depression participated in the study: About half received SAINT, and the rest underwent a placebo procedure that mimicked the real treatment. After five days of treatment, 78.6% of the participants in the treatment group were no longer depressed, according to several standard methods of evaluation. “It’s quite a dramatic effect, and it’s quite sustained,” said Alan Schatzberg, MD, the Kenneth T. Norris, Jr. Professor in Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, who was a co-author of the study.” Makes me wonder what percentage of the placebo group improved? > The transcranial magnetic stimulation treatment currently approved by the Food and Drug Administration requires six weeks of once-daily sessions. Only about half of patients who undergo the treatment improve, and only about a third experience remission from depression.
- carabiner 5y ago> Within four weeks after treatment, 12 of the 14 participants who had received the treatment improved, and 11 of them met FDA criteria for remission. In contrast, only two of the 15 participants who had received the placebo met the criteria for remission.
- ggm 5y agoWithin four weeks after treatment, 12 of the 14 participants who had received the treatment improved, and 11 of them met FDA criteria for remission. In contrast, only two of the 15 participants who had received the placebo met the criteria for remission From the article further on.
- argsv 5y agoThe two mentioned in the article met the FDA definition of remission. It doesn’t say, how many improved in general. This is important specifically since the sample size of the trial is small.
- cowpig 5y agoThere are surely enough trials on depression per year that a result with 15 participants in the treatment group is to small to start bringing this to public attention? With a sample size this small I don't think it should be in the news at all
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- mlyle 5y agoSmall sample size, but: - Building upon mounting evidence of TMS efficacy in patients with severe, intractable depression. - 79%-- 11 of the 14-- no longer meeting diagnostic criteria for depression after treatment, and another was improved. - It's an RCT showing both massive efficacy and statistical significance. (2 of 14 in placebo group entered remission). I know we like to chant "more n"-- but this is very likely to be both real and a clinically useful finding.
- herodoturtle 5y agoThank you for saying this. More n is required, yes, but small n results like this are a noteworthy step in the right direction. There is often good reason why n is small. Statistically significant results like this one pave the way to future experiments with larger n.
- esyir 5y agoI'd also like to chime in on "effect size matters". After all, you don't need particularly large N to conclude that decapitation is going to be fatal.
- mlyle 5y agoYes--- Small n studies are often the most exciting. If you get a p<0.01 effect in 10 people vs. 10000 people... the lower bound of the effect size is similar, and so for the same prior each study should change our belief by a similar amount... but the upper bound of effect size is much larger in the large study. The only thing that messes this logic of mine up a bit is publication bias. There's a much larger chance that small studies sit on the shelf unpublished if there's no clear effect.
- derbOac 5y agoSo the controls got a sham TMS, but not a control location?
- cassonmars 5y agoWouldn’t it be risky to perform TCMS in a region unknown in impacts of TCMS?
- derbOac 5y agoProbably although based on my understanding maybe not as risky as it might seem based on what's been done. I agree it's an issue and I don't mean to minimize it, but at the same time there's good evidence location is much more fuzzy than it seems. At some level it's nontrivial because it has implications for actual causal mechanisms.
- dougb5 5y agoLink to study PDF: https://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/pdf/10.1176/appi.ajp.2021.20101429?casa_token=ZCVtmUNp8cQAAAAA:MgpKRrx3WAEEV-EzY34TJVoMnYAxkWcrzH4M9m9aa0gsuyOCdFKeBiqdauFjgR1PRwF7N9hrSg https://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/pdf/10.1176/appi.ajp.20...
- beaconstudios 5y agoweird how people can often become depressed due to actual real-world experiences like grief or loneliness, but slap a magnet on em and they can go into remission. Makes you wonder whether they'll go into remission for a while and then slip back into depression if the environmental factors are still there. I guess if it can knock you out of a depression where the trigger is no longer present but the trauma persists, that's incredibly valuable, even if the mechanism seems very strange.
- treeman79 5y agoAt one point I was in ER close to death from large clot. Doctors had been treating my clotting disorder with Prozac. Since clearly I was just making up symptoms due to my “depression” Anyway Doctor was explaining the damage to lungs and odds of survival, but I was totally chill about it thanks to Prozac. Plus side doctors finally believed me that I wasn’t making up stroke symptoms. Sometimes depression has a real cause that needs dealing with.
- teucris 5y agoIt’s not just environmental factors that cause chronic depression. Sometimes the environmental factors are the “trigger” that start depression in a person predisposed to it.
- Nbox9 5y ago> environmental factors Actually being depressed can worsen environmental factors. Depression can make it hard (or impossible) to maintain work, relationships, hygiene, sleep, diet, and exercise. Losing the things can make the depression worse.
- beaconstudios 5y agoYeah I know - it's a vicious cycle. I meant in cases where the depression trigger was an event like a death in the family, but where the person managed to keep it together despite their depression. In those fortunate cases, the only problem that needs solving is the person being "stuck" on a trauma - not a self perpetuating cycle.
- Daunk 5y agoI've been dealing with depression for over 15 years. I can only hope that this becomes available to the masses.
- jcims 5y agoNote that this is an enhancement to an existing therapy. Depending on where you are in the world and the healthcare providers you have access to, the existing therapy called Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) may be an option.
- carabiner 5y agoSome TMS clinics are offering the SAINT protocol off-label. Not covered by insurance of course, supposedly runs around $6k.
- jcims 5y agoThere's a used TMS machine on ebay for $8k (and $70k) and clinical instruction videos on YouTube. Could be a good side hustle haha. Unfortunately for SAINT it looks like you also need fMRI to correctly target the therapy...that's going to be a bit tougher to DIY.
- olliej 5y agoHow do the blind any form of TMS? you absolutely feel it so it's not just a matter of faking the sound
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- sanxiyn 5y agoThis is apparently a difficult problem. I found an article titled "Rethinking the role of sham TMS" which goes into some details. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00210/full https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.0021...
- guerrilla 5y ago> Tommy Van Brocklin, 60, has suffered from depression since he was 15. wow, ouch.
- carabiner 5y agoRemember this when people say depression is a temporary illness.
- pcurve 5y ago“I don’t procrastinate anymore,” he added. “I’m sleeping better. I completely quit alcohol. I’m walking my dog and playing the guitar again, for nothing more than the sheer joy of it.” Most importantly, he said, “I’m remaining positive and being respectful of others. These are big changes in my life.” Serious question: are these typical signs of depression? Now I'm wondering if I have depression.
- cconstantine 5y agoYes, they can be. Self-diagnosing isn't a great idea; lots of non-depressed people have some symptoms of depression. It would probably be a good idea to find someone to talk with though.
- mikepurvis 5y agoWhere "someone" is a therapist or counsellor. They can refer you on to someone who works with pharmaceuticals if necessary, but there's a lot to try before going that route.
- rolleiflex 5y agoHeads up, ‘There is a lot to try before going that route’ is a medical opinion that is hard to notice. Exactly what the treatment plan would be and in what order is entirely up to the doctor and sometimes (often) the best thing that works is the actual drugs. I’m just conscious of this because I’ve seen this argument used to justify delaying actual treatment in favour of ‘alternative medicine’.
- mikepurvis 5y agoTrue, yes, but nothing you hear in a CBT session should be super surprising. It may help you see things in a new way or understand the motivations of the other people involved in your life situations, but they're not going to tell you sleep with crystals or wear a magnetic bracelet or something. Basically the counselling/therapy part of the process would be identifying if there's a "real world" root cause to address ahead of going the pharma route and facing potential side effects, and/or the reality of having to go off it later and immediately regressing because the root cause hasn't been fixed. In any case, I'm obviously not a doctor; neither this post nor the GP should be construed as medical advice.
- endisneigh 5y agoI'm curious what this treatment would do to people who are "not depressed." What's the downside?
- lovemenot 5y agoPerhaps the next Timothy Leary will have an fMRI in the basement and a line of customers running down the street.
- a_f 5y agoI remember reading a while back a article on how a US military research group was looking at improving focus and some particular test scores using TCS. Which sent me on an investigative rabbit hole of people that are using it at home in a diy manor. So I don't think you are too far off! A quick google pulls pack a couple of interesting links: A subreddit https://old.reddit.com/r/tDCS/ https://old.reddit.com/r/tDCS/ and an article https://www.wired.com/2014/05/diy-brain-stimulation/ https://www.wired.com/2014/05/diy-brain-stimulation/
- mslate 5y ago"Soma", ladies & gentlemen
- motohagiography 5y agoSearched comments for this. Found at bottom, battered and faded, but yes, that is exactly what it would be, I agree. However, I also accepted that being glib about it and calling it soma ignores what it's like to live with clinical, total physiological depression and that this is real hope. I'm not scolding either, I literally laughed at this myself and came here to say something along those lines, but giving a generous sop to some people I fundamentally disagree with - it was a laugh that signalled an opportunity to empathize with the subject of it. Feels gross even saying that, and I believe the soma thing is a legit question, but even at the risk of arming enemies, it's worth elevating the commentary a bit because of what is on the other side of it. We don't make b-movie zombie references whenever there is a new chemo treatment with promise against cancer, and if someone depressed said to me, "hey thanks and f-you for making my need for the first viable treatment just as stigmatized as the disease," I would have earned the criticism honestly. I also realize this is what only a truly master soma propagandist would say as part of a campaign for the coming change, but my realization was sincere, and anyway, there's also no way they're this good.
- donkarma 5y agoI wonder how many of these people are depressed because of their environment instead of chemical imbalances
- eru 5y ago'Soma' makes you happy. We have drugs that make you happy. This is something to snap people out of depression.
- ciphol 5y agoSoma, in Brave New World, made you more passive (as well as happier). Curing/alleviating depression makes you more active. It gives more meaning to life, not less.
- aantix 5y agoHow can I duplicate this at home?
- driverdan 5y agoFirst you'll need an fMRI machine.
- sjg007 5y agoAwesome. I think there’s a risk of inducing mania but it really looks like we have a lot of new treatments for depression that are safe and effective.
- kayodelycaon 5y agoDepression treatment is known to cause mania in people who are predisposed to being bipolar. Some medications can also cause mania without any predisposition.
- tombert 5y agoHuh, I've been talking to my therapist about my antidepressants not being terribly effective anymore. Is there a way to sign up for a clinical trial for this?
- willhinsa 5y agoOr you could look into psychedelic medicine. On the legal side, ketamine has helped a lot of people with treatment resistant depression. You could also look into participating in clinical trials of MDMA or psilocybin. The clinical trial results for those medicines are phenomenal, too.
- bufferoverflow 5y agoKetamine is ~70% effective at treating depression. https://www.yalemedicine.org/news/ketamine-depression https://www.yalemedicine.org/news/ketamine-depression
- DannyBee 5y agoclinicaltrials.gov will give you all the clinical trials going on. A basic search for clinical trials that are recruiting for TMS + depression are in the hundreds. (You need to further filter by location, etc)
- shbooms 5y agoYes--per the last line of the article: If you're interested in participating in a study, please email sainttmsstudy@stanford.edu.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- jes 5y agoYears ago I found the video by Dr. Robert Sapolsky[1] to be a good introduction to the topic of depression. I also suffered a major depression of my own about six years ago. It was a horrible time in my life. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOAgplgTxfc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOAgplgTxfc
- anonnyj 5y ago[flagged]
- rincebrain 5y agoI'm surprised nobody's linked to the recent time this was on HN [1]. Having tried TMS pretty extensively, I do not think this will help me, but I am hopeful that it might prove useful for others. [1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29562785 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29562785
- librarianscott 5y agoWhich machines did you use for your rTMS? Or did you do something besides rTMS of the clinically available noninvasive types[1]? [1] https://www.uptodate.com/contents/unipolar-depression-in-adults-overview-of-neuromodulation-procedures https://www.uptodate.com/contents/unipolar-depression-in-adu...
- rincebrain 5y agoLooking it up, they used NeuroStar machines, though (obviously) not for 10 hour stretches.
- xqcgrek2 5y agoN=29
- dmarlow 5y agoThere was a good piece on 60 Minutes about this type of treatment. It looked very promising for those looking to get more information about it.
- jayp1418 5y agoThis Pranayama along with yoga does help too : https://youtu.be/vhmbnsXOhx8 https://youtu.be/vhmbnsXOhx8
- serverlessmom 5y agoHey! I didn't under go SAINT TMS specifically, but I have undergone TMS therapy. Reading this article I'm not sure how different what I received actually is compared to SAINT, but TMS absolutely changed my life. I was referred to TMS after a rash of different medications and years of talk therapy fell short on relieving the worst of my symptoms. Many of the benefits the patients in this article discuss are ones I received as well. I really do suggest it to anyone who is able to access it and suffers with severe depression.
- mysecretaccount 5y agoI have some questions if you don't mind: Was it expensive? Are there any downsides? Do you think TMS is, like psychedelic therapy, potentially useful for people without depression (i.e. the "betterment of well people")?
- serverlessmom 5y agoHi! TMS is at a baseline very expensive. Luckily(hah, sort of) because I had both suffered terrible side effects with several medications and I carry a sustained diagnosis from a very young age that was documented as being massively detrimental to my ability to function, my insurance was willing to cover the treatment. The head coordinator of the program actually advocated very heavily on my behalf for me and spent a lot of time working with my insurance to get me covered. The main downside of TMS is simply that you have to be fully dedicated to the treatment. For six weeks I had to go Monday through Friday to a special clinic that was a half an hour drive from my house. This was a point that they brought up repeatedly in my interviews to get the treatment, so I think it must be common that people decide that it is too much dedication. For me though, by the time I was interviewing to receive TMS I had really tried everything and I was absolutely desperate to follow any path that would offer relief from my symptoms. I had gone through multiple medications, had been in talk therapy for several years, tried CBT, DBT, self medication, meditation, yoga, exercising three times or more a week, different diets, spiritualism... Really the works. I could sometimes stave off my symptoms but eventually I would suffer a huge crash and totally burn out again. One of the other possible side effects is also seizure during treatment(very rare) and because of this they ask that you abstain totally from substance use during the time as it can lower your seizure threshold, which I agreed to happily. While the idea of having a seizure was scary, I had already experienced so many horrible side effects from medications that didn't even alleviate my symptoms I was willing to try anything. I am not an expert in the field but I do think that there is a lot of use that could be gained for any person who decided to try TMS, for me some of the things I noticed was that my brain fog started to lift and suddenly I was able to learn much more quickly. I started practicing languages and instruments to really help foster this growth in my brain. The TMS helped me break the patterns of my mental illness and start forming healthier ones...I really do credit it with saving my life.
- grouphugs 5y ago
- grouphugs 5y ago
- causi 5y agoCost (and availability/wait time for nations with public healthcare) are a concern. I know several people who received conventional TMS for 30 minutes a day for six weeks. That cost them, with insurance, about $1500. It was effective for an average of six months. This treatment is an order of magnitude more time spent in the machine, even if over a shorter period. What will it cost? Will it be accessible to those who need it?
- geysersam 5y agoDepression has an enormous economic impact. Fatigue and pain (depression related symptoms) are some of the most common reasons people can't work in the wealthier part of the world. If the treatment costs $4000 dollars yearly and makes the difference between debilitating depression and functioning taxpayer that is self financing for the public healthcare. Not to mention the personal suffering.
- photochemsyn 5y agoPsychedelic mushrooms are far less expensive and have a similarly effective result in similarly sized trials: https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/newsroom/news-releases/psychedelic-treatment-with-psilocybin-relieves-major-depression-study-shows https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/newsroom/news-releases/...
- eru 5y ago> If the treatment costs $4000 dollars yearly and makes the difference between debilitating depression and functioning taxpayer that is self financing for the public healthcare. That's a good bargain for people who pay out of pocket as well.
- tgv 5y ago$1500 is cheap. I know people who’ve been receiving therapy 1 hr/wk plus medication for years. Even here, where the medical costs are a lot lower than in the US, that’s probably €5000/yr, and that excludes the indirect costs of depression.
- 5y ago
- ck2 5y agowho the heck figured this treatment out because that is some incredible "debugging" > They applied the stimulation in a subregion that has the strongest relationship with the subgenual cingulate, a part of the brain that is overactive in people experiencing depression. The transcranial magnetic stimulation strengthens the connection between the two regions, facilitating dorsolateral prefrontal cortex control of the activity in the subgenual cingulate.
- jokowueu 5y agoThe story behind subgenual cingulate and mood had long been known . DBS targets it as well for depression https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/articles/PMC2729429/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/articles/PMC2729429/ Only difference here is that normal TMS targets a part of the brain that is not the same for every one. subgenual cingulate location for every one is a bit different . With help of fmri they can know exactly where it is instead of just using a default location
- air7 5y agoIts quite marvelous to consider that we are hard wired to be happy, and depression is a "bug" that can be fixed with a crude electric jolt and not, in contrast, some complex intricate inner state. Perhaps God likes us after all...
- eru 5y agoThe paddles they give your heart an electric shock with don't "fix" your heart. All they do is snap it out of a bad attractor. They sort-of reboot the system. That sort of shock doesn't need to be very sophisticated, like fixing a clock work would need to be. I imagine it might be similar for this treatment.
- AlexCoventry 5y agoCase size 14, control size 15. It's 2021; you shouldn't be able to publish a psychology result with statistics this weak.
- oneoff786 5y agoThat’s an aggressive take for someone who hasn’t bothered to consider the effect size when claiming to know statistics better than these authors.
- carabiner 5y agoThe heart of the middlebrow dismissal is the assumption that the dismisser understands a field/industry better than a person who's spent their entire adult lives studying it.
- rileymat2 5y agoI am curious what the proper size group is for such dramatic results to make it publishable? The results are quite dramatic, it is not a slim success.
- 6gvONxR4sf7o 5y agoUnder the null hypothesis, a difference this large is still extremely unlikely for a group this small. Sometimes, counterintuitively, you don’t need a huge group.
- Groxx 5y agoYeah, this is a fairly standard size for an early trial. Trials cost money. Even if this is a lucky outlier and it turns out to be no better than the placebo in a larger trial, having a decently strong positive result can hugely improve your chances of getting the money (and interest) needed to run a larger trial.
- InfiniteRand 5y agoBut it’s worth realizing this small of a trial size likely means there’s a long road to widespread use
- isodude 5y agoI've been dealing with depression, or rather, a couple of months with productivity where I really work my ass off producing great stuff, then have an as long downtime where I just manage to get by. Any choir was tough to start doing and completing. After being diagnosed with both ADD and ASD.1 I also was diagnosed with Bipolar 3/4. Did not even know they existed but they trigger these hypomania periods. Turns out that hypomania is pretty good for working in IT and you can hide and get by the rest of the year. On the other hand, now that when I feel that the depression is completely gone, I discover that I'm entering a hypomaniac period. What a way to ruin all the fun. The awareness around it is quite low from where I'm from sadly. I wonder how well SAINT would affect.
- pault 5y agoBipolar 2 here. I didn't get diagnosed until I was in my late 20s. I just thought I got carried away with things sometimes. I got on lamotragin a few years ago and I've been Even Steven since, but I do sometimes miss the productivity of the mania. Not worth the downs though.
- pvsukale3 5y agoYou are not alone. I also have been going through something similar. I recently quit my job to work full time on my side project. I am financially secure for another year. I am very energetic for few days, I work my ass off and ship stuff. But after that I have these periods where I just can't do anything. It is hard to get out of bed. I feel like I am never going to make it with any of my projects. I have been to a neurologists in the past multiple times and completed multiple courses of medicine. But those medicines I took had really bad side effects. And I realised the more I used them the more I was dependent on them for a normal mood. Also my brain felt foggy while working when I took them. I do take time off after a few days of working but that alone does not help. This is a cycle. Planning on going out daily and exercising, eating more healthy and having a schedule with less screen time. Let us see how it goes. These things seem trivial, but I have never them for more than a month continuously. I want to give them a try this time like my life depends on it.
- isodude 5y ago
- FailMore 5y agoWhile depression can certainly be caused by chemical imbalance and not because of how your unconscious mind impacts/limits your experience of life, I took the approach that exploring my subconscious through therapy was the way to get out. For me it worked very well and I think the journey is an amazing one to go on. Building from the ground up and understanding all the foundations within. I always wonder about treatments which don't have this benefit, although the results in terms of lifestyle change sound extremely positive. One of the hardest parts of therapy is diagnosis of what to work on. Even though an issue will be "presenting" itself clearly, it can often be a bit of a decoy. For example, a lack of self-esteem is often a useful derivative of an unconscious fear of upsetting others. Low self-esteem => avoid situations/behaviours that upset others. During therapy I found dreams, when analysed outside of the "conventional" Freudian/Jungian frameworks provided a simple and accurate method of reaching the root diagnosis (the fear of upsetting others vs. the decoy issue of low self-esteem). I got a bit obsessed by the topic and wrote a paper on it which can be downloaded here: https://psyarxiv.com/k6trz https://psyarxiv.com/k6trz And was discussed on HN here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19143590 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19143590
- agumonkey 5y agoThere are a few psychological constructs in our head that really tie deep into the mental pain I forgot who i saw recently that said we have a strong mirroring need in our brain, which means our happiness is extremely relative, if you suffer while people don't .. it hurts more; if people are in the same boat the pain gets softer. Oh and yeah unconscious fears are often the root of so many mental issues.. abandoning (to) fears is often a massive trick.
- FailMore 5y agoI'm not sure what you mean when you say abandon (to) fears. But my experience was that when I could pinpoint the fear, overcoming it by facing it was the way out. Often as infants we develop legitimate fears in the context of our vulnerable position and extreme dependency on maintaining the parental relationship. These fears made sense then and helped us keep our parents calm, but interrupt our adult lives. These fears are also extremely powerful as our infant brain associates breaking them with a risk of death (typically through abandonment). However, the brain seems to be remarkably fast at unlearning these fears when it realises they no longer are needed (I will not die/risk death by doing the "forbidden action"). So my experience was that pinpointing the fear, facing it in my life (perhaps initially in the context of the safe relationship with my therapist, and then outside in the "real world"), and watching my anxious reactions which were previously flared up in situations where I was avoiding the forbidden behaviour fade away. It leads to a calmer mind with fewer and fewer situations in daily life which cause anxiety to arise.
- angryfeller 5y agoI have simply stopped believing in depression, I do not blame this "mental illness" for my inaction. Depression is used by many (including myself a couple years back) to relieve any responsibility off oneself.
- boublepop 5y agoYou are conflating cause with diagnosis. And your conclusion is quite offensive to those living with depression, which is a well established diagnosis. You might want to consider rephrasing it, unless you really mean to imply that you believe that people suffering from depression are all collectively just making up excuses. If that is truly your belief, I have to wonder how you interpret the results of this study?
- kayodelycaon 5y agoNot the commentor, nor can I speak to their beliefs. The people I’ve known that truly believe mental illness is made up or used as an excuse to be lazy, will dismiss any evidence to contrary.
- TheDudeMan 5y agoTitle needs an "N=29".
- cnpry 5y agoThat's what they said about Prozac when it was new. No one should believe hyped-up numbers for new experimental drugs. Later they'll "discover" that it is only 30% effective, addictive and with serious side effects.
- jcmontx 5y agoWasn't this posted a few weeks ago?
- errcorrectcode 5y agoFor 10 years, I fooled myself into believing I could think my way out of severe depression without medication. It wasn't possible in my case because the physiological and psychological effects were far more extreme than any change of mood or exercise could influence. Then, I took a particular medication and it was like the clouds parted for a couple of years but its effects faded. I have what could be characterized as treatment-resistant depression. Currently on my 16th antidepressant with a 4th adjunct and they also aren't working. TMS was suggested but requiring 30 minutes 5 times a week for 6 weeks, followed by 3 more weeks of every other day. This is inconvenient for most people. Also suggest was ketamine, however it's not widely available here. I'm onto my 4th psychiatrist within a year because of a lack of bedside manner, lack of professionalism, and/or generally lack of a coherent, tailored treatment strategy. I'm finding psychiatrists appear to have worse attitudes and least evidence-based approaches compared to most clinicians. I heard a quote that stuck with me "What's the only medical discipline that treats a body system without examining it?"
- Ovah 5y agoFun fact: the number needed to treat (NNT) for SSRI, the first line medication for depression, is a whopping 11! The NNT tells us the number of people we need to give a drug to in order for just one person to receive a benefit. I.e. if 11 people with depression are prescribed SSRI, only 1 of 11 will benefit from it. At least that's what I was taught in med school. Psychiatry has in the past decades been a game changer for schizophrenia, bipolar etc. But I feel like there room for so much more to be done for people with 'mild' anxiety and or depression.
- echopurity 5y ago