leejosepho wrote:
impulse94 wrote:
If it's the right one for you, it will work. Those who say they are placebos are wrong.
The article I had linked does not say they are placebos, but that their effect is typically the same ...
Quote:
Several studies have concluded that antidepressants are only marginally effective over placebo. And when you factor in UNPBULISHED trials, they become LESS effective than placebo.
For example, a 2002 meta-analysis of published clinical trials indicated that 75 percent of the response to antidepressants could be duplicated by placebo. Similarly, in 2008, a meta-analysis published in PLoS Medicine concluded that the difference between antidepressants and placebo pills is very small—and that both are ineffective for most depressed patients. Only the most severely depressed showed any response to antidepressants at all, and that response was quite minimal.
This makes sense when you consider that these drugs don't address the cause, which likely has its beginnings in nutritional deficiencies, and in "emotional short-circuiting."
But rather than accepting the fact that antidepressants are missing their mark, add-on drugs like Abilify are marketed as the "solution." It's a perfect example of the old adage that "insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results." Rather than solving a problem, the polypharmacy strategy compounds it.
The word 'polypharmacy' means "many drugs," and essentially refers to instances where an individual is taking too many drugs--either because more drugs are prescribed than clinically indicated, or when the sheer number of pills simply becomes a burden for the patient. Polypharmacy is a significant problem, as the more drugs you mix together, the greater the chances of serious side effects, and people taking psychiatric drugs appear to be particularly prone to polypharmacy.
I've had over sixty years of experience with my own biochemistry and psyche, and Clinical Depression, which I now believe to have arisen from the Asperger's. I'm quite certain that my roots aren't in nutritional deficiencies, because for many years I was a Health Food and Supplement nut, and I've persistently tried many vitamins, including in megadoses ( of the ones that are generally harmless in overdose), and sometimes they've helped the depression a little, but not much. Likewise, though mine cycles with SAD when unmedicated, light boxes in winter never did much, except maybe a feeling that I was actually doing something, as in Placebo.
A combination of Zoloft and Pamelor do work for me, unlike some of the other antidepressants, and _they_ don't do anything for stress and panic attacks. For those, I use Xanax.
But I never do take many drugs at one time: I'm all too aware of the unpredictable effects of combining things: a person I knew died in her sleep one night because she had taken an OTC cold pill for her sniffles, on top of her daily dose of anti-seizure medication. When I first try things, it's in the summer when my system is clear of antidepressants, and even if they do what I want, like a cold med, I still don't take them in combination with the antidepressants.
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Asperges me, Domine
04 Nov 2011, 1:48 pm
