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PLEASE do not read any of these people's advice. Talk to a MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL, preferably a DOCTOR. DO NOT trust your mental health to strangers on the intern

• TameAntelope 4y ago
  https://www.betterhelp.com/ https://www.betterhelp.com/ An option if you prefer an entirely-online experience. But yes, your mental help is not worth asking strangers on the Internet for help. You deserve better than what we here can offer.
• kappuchino 4y ago
  I DISAGREE. For this reason: I was given antipressants by my (former) doctor for a moderate anxiety "phase". It was escitalopram. And it did well for me - within a day! When it came to end the medication, I was told to just stop taking it. Which I did. But I should not have - I had anxietiy "echoes" over the following YEAR, really weird stuff. So I started to read about the medication: Studies have shown the longer you take time to reduce it in steps (like 10% of the former dose) the better is the time after. But since this is burdensome, its rarely suggested and also people need to "cut" pills to have the exact dose for their reduction. My current OPINION is: Until you have read studies and got some plausible experiences from people with the same medication, one doctor alone isn't a good source for taking medication. I will only take medication in the future if life wouldn't managable without, but not for issues that just take time.
  • inter_netuser 4y ago
    You had an incompetent prescriber. Tapering doses for all sorts of medications are routinely done, and any pharmacy can handle such an rx. If they can't - you don't want to go to such a pharmacy anyway.
    • deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    • aaaaaaaaata 4y ago
      Easy to say when you're in a major city/within the 100 mile border zone.
      • inter_netuser 4y ago
        Unfortunately, you often have to travel at times to find good talent/expertise. Some people move permanently, in order to obtain medical care. Sometimes, to another country. Most compounding pharmacies will ship, and most physicians will only require one visit in person in 12 months.
  • SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
    But as grandparent suggests - talking to a forum full of strangers is not doing research.
    • jnwatson 4y ago
      No, but it does give avenues to research.
  • TameAntelope 4y ago
    • MisterMower 4y ago
      The past two years opened a ton of eyes regarding the fallibility of the medical community. Turns out most doctors prescribe what is recommended by the professional organization they’re a member or the CDC. I can’t count the number of times I’ve been at my daughter’s pediatrician’s office and the doctor either hands me a print out of the CDC website or actively googles something in front of me during a visit. Sometimes I’ll ask her “what do you think about…” and she’ll parrot back “well the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends…” And guess what? These clowns are fine with it. They jump through ridiculous hoops in school to get cushy high paying jobs, and their professional organizations work very hard to keep any competition out. My brother just got prescribed anti-depressants this week. All the doctor did was give him the standard DSM “are you depressed” test. His score was barely on the depressed spectrum and so the doctor gave the standard dose. “See you a month from now, call me if you feel like killing yourself.” No probing questions about why he might be depressed. No questions about past his past experiences with seasonal depression in Michigan where he lives. No other alternative remedies. Just a prescription, next patient please. These doctors are just very highly credentialed monkies. They have vast knowledge of when to prescribe what and at the recommended dose. But ask them any kind of thought provoking question and inevitably you’ll get “the [trade organization I belong to] recommends…” When my wife was in labor with my firstborn, the doctor and I were hanging out chatting. I asked him what the machine that printed out the intensity of her contractions was measuring. I kid you not: “well… it measures… it’s like how tight her uterus is… like, the intensity of her contractions.” No doc, what physical phenomenon is it measuring. It sits on her belly. What is it doing? Crickets. Guy couldn’t even tell me what the units were on the chart. Try it sometime. Ask them a knowledge check question. Something simple, like “why do you administer this vaccine at four months old instead of, say, six months old?” or “what do these SSRIs do to my brain chemistry that helps manage my depression symptoms?” Watch them squirm. Almost as interesting is the fact that none of them have ever admitted “you know, that’s a great question, I’m not sure, let me go research it and get back with you,” a completely valid answer. The hubris among these folks is something. I’ll warn you though, if you try this you’re going to lose a lot respect for these medical “professionals”, I guarantee it.
  • SkyPuncher 4y ago
    I just want to echo the other commenter. You had a completely incompetent prescriber. Tapering SSRIs is the normal unless a provider has alternative indication it shouldn't be done.
• alienalp 4y ago
  You may be correct about not trusting mental health with strangers. But at the and taking anti depressant or not taking it up to you. Doctor cannot weight pros and cons of taking anti depressant for you.
  • oneplane 4y ago
    A doctor can definitely weigh it for you, that is practically the whole job... A doctor can (most of the time) not "make" you take medicine, but again, that is not the point either.
    • alienalp 4y ago
      You can't know that. By listening you he will be trusting you with his mental health.
• R0b0t1 4y ago
  There's enclaves of doctors who e.g. think everything is some obscure type of bipolar disorder. Listening to doctors above all else is, surprisingly, not a good idea. For everyone who had their life turned around by medication I have met two or three who either did not see improvement or had negative side effects on all options tried so they gave up. Some drugs, like the typical or atypical antipsychotics that treat bipolar or rapidly oscillating bipolar, have the side effect of reducing your energy and making you more passive. It's hard to pick out the effects of some drugs from actually solving the issue or just making you more likely to not cause a fuss.
• loteck 4y ago
  Am I the only one scratching my head over people, who are themselves giving advice on this website, saying not to take advice from people on this website? Seems self-defeating.
• Trasmatta 4y ago
  Doctors aren't always effective at treating depression. Especially if they use a therapy modality or medication that doesn't work for you. That doesn't mean you shouldn't talk to them, but it's also helpful to read experiences from from other people. My opinion, doing both is good. Consult a professional and read about other people's experiences. At the very least maybe somebody mentions a form of therapy that you've never heard of that you can ask your doctor about, or find a therapist that specializes in. If you ignored everyone's advice online you'd never even hear about that. Personally, I'm starting Internal Family Systems therapy, which has seemed more promising for my psyche than many other modalities. But there are countless others. CBT is a good place to start, but doesn't work for everyone.
  • inter_netuser 4y ago
    50% of doctors are by definition below the average. In reality, roughly 3-10% are good, the rest just go by standard guidelines only and/or punt you off to someone else.
    • amirhirsch 4y ago
      50% are below the median.
      • heavyset_go 4y ago
        Median is a type of average.
      • inter_netuser 4y ago
        Grades are normalized on a gaussian curve. What's the difference between mean and median in a Gaussian distribution? Looking forward to your contributions to mathematics.
        • selcuka 4y ago
          > Grades are normalized on a gaussian curve. Are we talking about grades? Honestly when I see "50% of doctors are below average" I intuitively think of some other metric, such as the correct/incorrect diagnosis ratio, or the number of people that died because of their errors. Maybe it's just me but their uni (?) grades never comes to my mind.
• dimal 4y ago
  Sorry, you are very very wrong about this. Have you ever talked to a _medical_ professional about depression or any mental health issue? They generally don't know what they're doing. Medical professionals only have one tool in their arsenal for depression: antidepressants. So a medical doctor will likely prescribe them, whether that's appropriate or not. Antidepressants are no joke. Sometimes they can help, but they can also cause really strange side effects, like increasing the possibility of suicide. And does the average doctor monitor all their patients regularly to make sure they're not having suicidal thoughts? Nope. And doctors generally won't know anything about the difficulty of getting _off_ the antidepressant if it didn't work. Asking for advice on the internet is a very valid strategy, given the terrible state of mental health care in the US.
  • frankincense 4y ago
    You're a frontend engineer, not a doctor. You're not qualified to give advice on medicine.
    • vorpalhex 4y ago
      They aren't writing a prescription for op, they are sharing anecdotal data. That's a reasonable thing to do. Having had a critical infection repeatedly misdiagnosed until I finally went out of my way to pick a better professional, I don't buy the "just have faith in your doctor" argument. Doctors are more like plumbers than we like to admit. There are good ones and bad ones, and it's hard to tell the difference. They do best when you can give them direction (cooperatively) and when you are willing to get a second opinion.
    • elwell 4y ago
      Weird, did you research them?
    • andrewzah 4y ago
      So what? Everyone has had stories about misdiagnoses or not being taken seriously by doctors, etc. I had a condition that took a long time to get a fix until I changed my doctor and got a proper evaluation done. And that wasn't even for mental health, which the US is not particularly well known for. My doc would come in, listen for maybe 1-2 mins, prescribe some shit and leave. I had to take stuff into my own hands and drive 2 hours to another hospital to finally get something done. Parent comment is not giving explicit medical instructions. All they're saying is "talk to a medical professional" isn't some miracle advice that always works, particularly for mental health. It's fine to give anecdotes as long as one holds them with a grain of salt.
• danamit 4y ago
  I found strangers online to be more effective than doctors, simply because they read to much on the matter, then they interact too much with you. I basically got diagnosed online by 2 different people about 2 different issues, one is biological, and the other is mental. And they were right. This is nerds out there who read about topics constantly, way more than the average doctor, not even close. So a stranger can help. Also depends on where you are located, doctors can be dogmatic, there is countries that give antibiotics before extracting teeth, and there is those who don't. Countries who believe ADHD can stay into adulthood and go undiagnosed, and others who believe it is impossible to have ADHD as an adult. In the ADHD case, depends on who what countries are right, some group might be living a lie taking meds for an illness that doesn't exist, or the other group is suffering being undiagnosed with ADHD despite seeking help, the doctor just tell them its not possible to have ADHD. I would rather research and try to solve my issues over hand my situation to the medical zeitgeist of my country. Also I am sure if I give myself days of research, thinking, talking to people, comparing situations over some doctor talking to me for 15 minutes then giving me the two meds given to everyone who enter that door (SSRIs and benzos), I might probably be up into something. I will never stop researching my medical issues, I will never trust my doctors fully, I will always google, research, ask, ask second opinions. Some doctors care more than others, some doctors are capable more than others, you have no idea which ones the RNG gave you.
  • zephyrthenoble 4y ago
    This isn't a video game. Your sample size of one is not indicative of the greater population. Don't cause people to mess up their health by appealing to the notion that they can do better than trained medical professionals. This is dangerous.
    • sillysaurusx 4y ago
      I don’t know what you hope to accomplish by saying this, but it’s not having any effect. Trained medical professionals have to handle thousands of pathologies, each with dozens of possible treatments. The search space alone should make someone at least question whether their Zocdoc is really giving it their wholehearted effort, or if they’re just doing a day job like all of us. I agree that someone should go to the doctor. But almost everyone agrees on that, and yet very few actually go. I didn’t, for a decade, and mostly out of laziness (not going is after all the default option). Going around commanding people not to do X is only going to make them X.
• sillysaurusx 4y ago
  Must every conversation about depression devolve into yelling? There’s not even any new information here. No one with depression is going to read this and go “Oh, you’re right.” It’s self gratification disguised as help. Everyone knows they really ought to see a doctor. There are plenty of reasons to be scared to. An untimely hospital visit bankrupted me thanks to no health insurance. My sleep doctor had to cut me a deal of only $50 per visit instead of the usual $150, and she really cared about me. I was part of a lucky few. I think what rubs me wrong about your advice is that it’s positioned at the expense of all other advice. No one’s allowed to have an opinion except yours. Smart people like OP see right through such things, and it tends to push them away. Which is particularly troublesome when the advice is good, like yours is here.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• hsn915 4y ago
  This is really weird advice. Yea it's mainstream and to be expected under legaleeze circumstances. But it's not the kind of advice I would give to a friend whom I'm genuinely concerned about. Have you known anyone who was depressed and managed to get better by following the advice of a generic "profressional"? I haven't. Quite the opposite. I've seen people get worse in one dimension or another by taking medication or following other professional advice.
  • kayodelycaon 4y ago
    I have told friends to see professionals. Mostly getting a good therapist. Medication should be a second line for the usually encountered forms of depression. It’s worked.
  • heavyset_go 4y ago
    > But it's not the kind of advice I would give to a friend whom I'm genuinely concerned about. My advice to friends and family experiencing such issues is to take those issues seriously, and to see a doctor about them.
  • jac241 4y ago
    Probably many people you know have seen a doctor for depression and gotten better, they’re just not telling that to the guy who says things like you did in your post… Very stupid take here man…
  • oaktrout 4y ago
    I would wager you know many people who have gotten better after seeing a "professional". Mental health isn't often discussed openly so you would probably be shocked at how many high functioning people are on SSRIs (doctors, lawyers, engineers, etc).
• dominotw 4y ago
  >Talk to a MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL, preferably a DOCTOR. why ? they don't really have a solution for it other than prescribing anti depressants. I don't see why they need to see a doctor.
• hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
  I think the reason you are getting so many "I disagree" responses is because many of us have had awful experiences when it comes to medical professionals and mental health. It's important to understand the economic pressures in psychiatry. I went to see a psychiatrist, who prescribed me antidepressants. They helped give be a baseline level of energy to get me out of my acute depression, but they addressed none of my underlying issues that caused me to get depressed in the first place, and a couple years later I was right back in the depths again. And I'm fine if my dr's economic model meant he couldn't do psychotherapy with me, but he never recommended I get therapy, and that's what I'm so bitter about regarding him. I've heard it said that giving antidepressants to a depressed person, without any therapy, is like giving amphetamines to a tired person: yes, they may temporarily cure your "tiredness", but what you really need is to go to sleep. So while I don't think OP should take detailed advice from random strangers, he should be aware of his options. Talk to a therapist first to see if they can uncover what some of the root cause issues are. Be open to medication - some mental issues really are largely organic in nature, but a good doctor and therapist will know they are just one tool to improve your mental health.
  • wheelerwj 4y ago
    > I think the reason you are getting so many "I disagree" responses is because many of us have had awful experiences when it comes to medical professionals and mental health. > I've heard it said that giving antidepressants to a depressed person, without any therapy, is like giving amphetamines to a tired person: yes, they may temporarily cure your "tiredness", but what you really need is to go to sleep. I don't even know where to start with this comment. This whole thread should be booted waaaaay off HN. A few people have problems with medical professionals. It's true, assuming you're in america, we're definitely not the best. But you find a few 1,000 people online with bad experiences (obviously, because people with good experiences have moved on and don't spend their time researching that issue) and assume you have a complete picture but you're only looking through a pinhole of information returned with biased search results. You probably aren't googling, "how many people have gotten their lives back after using anti-depressants?" > he should be aware of his options. Yeah fine, be aware. Talk to professionals, get second and third opinions if necessary. Take a holistic approach to your well-being. But please lets not glorify google medicine here.
• fdgsdfogijq 4y ago
  I don't trust doctors, and I have seen many people medicated for no reason at all. They basically just go by the book to avoid any sort of malpractice.
• a-dub 4y ago
  now that everyone thinks covid is over (hopefully it is), we can go back to having a healthy skepticism towards healthcare under capitalism. this is a good thing. asking for advice and personal stories regarding navigating an issue as complex as depression and the way it's treated is not only prudent, it's smart. a good healthcare provider is one that is fully willing to discuss unorthodox strategies found via independent research. take advice from the internet and find a provider who is willing to discuss it with you.
• yuuu 4y ago
  My doctor is a fucking idiot. I also went to a university counseling service and they didn’t do shit. Never followed up or anything after the one consultation appointment I had.
• spaetzleesser 4y ago
  Some of the most depressing experiences I have had was to look for a therapist when I was really depressed. I went to several and never felt that they understood me or even cared about what I was thinking. I honestly think they made me worse. I have learned way more useful info on online forums from people who were going through the same experience. Yes you have to be discerning but the advice “go to a professional” is thoughtless. There are a lot of incompetent people working in mental health. I am sure it’s easier if you have tons of money or just lucky to run into a good therapist. But already being down and then being disappointed by the professionals is devastating. At least it was for me.
• ad404b8a372f2b9 4y ago
  You have an unhealthy relationship to medicine if you refuse to even read the advice of other people. I've been treated by hundreds of medical professionals and worked with dozens and I can assure you they do not hold any secret undying truth about human health. Modern medicine is primitive and brutal, we are fumbling buffoons when it comes to the human body and its ills, especially in the realm of mental health. If you don't believe me watch an orthopedic surgeon do his work (if you can stomach the electric saws and the hammers).
  • frankincense 4y ago
    There's a lot of dangerous advice in these comments.
    • ad404b8a372f2b9 4y ago
      That's just the way it goes with the internet, but you can't throw the baby out with the bathwater, you just need to weigh the advice you get accordingly. I think the increasingly common practice of forbidding medical advice in online forums is deleterious. For a lot of people professional medical care provides no solutions, hearing other people's personal experiences is helpful and comforting.
• renewiltord 4y ago
  Clueless comment. You don’t understand explore vs exploit. You are not qualified to give advice on the subject of whom to consult. Please do not try. Your advice is really bad.
  • weakfish 4y ago
    This isn’t really a charitable response imo
    • renewiltord 4y ago
      I believe it is the most charitable interpretation of the GGP: that OP is ignorant of their ignorance. They aren’t malicious, merely innocently unaware of how clueless they are on the subject. By the way, is the Hunt library still open 24x7? I remember it being a fun time when it was. Spent many a night there.
      • weakfish 4y ago
        It is! I suffered through operating systems by way of Hunt ;) If you were comp sci, Dr. Sturgill and Dr. Heckman are still making life hell for undergrads (for a good cause, of course) Anyway, I see your point and don’t really have a better reply, so shrug I tend to agree that anything that can be attributed to ignorance rather than malice is correct, but the phrasing just seemed mildly aggressive to me. Not a big deal though!
        • renewiltord 4y ago
          Hahaha, classic. OS is a fun one.
• ls15 4y ago
  > PLEASE do not read any of these people's advice. Talk to a MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL, preferably a DOCTOR. DO NOT trust your mental health to strangers on the internet, be it reddit, or hacker news, or whatever. I find this comment so overused, ignorant and dismissive. In my city it can take months to get a 20 minute appointment with a specialized doctor, while the internet is full of useful and scientific information and helpful people. That isn't even saying if the doctor really understands your problem or just dismisses it (had that often enough), like you dismiss other people's anecdotes. What are people supposed to do while they are waiting for an appointment for months with acute issues? I'd rather spend days myself and read the same information that a doctor (hopefully) would read in order to work on the problem before it gets worse or kills me. So yes, try to talk to a medical professional at least once if you have the chance. If not or if it does not help, keep doing what you need to do and try to get the best information that you can find.
• jerome-jh 4y ago
  I too can only advice the OP to seek a true medical advice with preferably a face to face consultation. Now my personal experience: anti-depressants do work and often with little or no side effects. A doctor will prescribe what is best in your particular case. Allow for a few weeks for the effects to be felt, then you can decide if you want to continue using the product or not. It is best to take again medical advice at that time. Do not self-medicate! Many plant based products have side effects for often a low effect.
• RickJWagner 4y ago
  Yes! Depression can be caused by hormonal imbalances. It's tricky to get things right-- see a doctor!