“It’s really hard to withdraw from antidepressants,” said New York psychiatrist and pharmacology expert Julie Holland. In some cases, “people feel like cold water is running down their spine. They can feel their brain sloshing around, or electric zaps in their head.”
Dang.
If it's true as claimed that medications only help half the time, this seems like a strong encouragement to try things like exercise, yoga, and lifestyle changes before going the medication route.
Unless you're so depressed you honestly can't make those changes... as commenters have mentioned, sometimes medications are absolutely helpful, needed, and life-saving. I've heard of cases where being on a medication just for a short time helped people break out of a rut.
If you're getting a prescription, it seems worthwhile to ask docs for options that are less problematic to get off of.
Especially for depression, prescribing medications is about stabilizing a patient's mental health and building a safe platform from which the patient can work to minimize the negative consequences of their depression (or many other mental illnesses, for that matter) on their daily life. No psychiatrist is going to suggest that there's a magic pill, dosage, or regimen that will make the depression go away. What medication can do, though, is help keep a patient's depression from overwhelming them. Ideally, medication gives the patient both time and enough separation from those negative emotions and consequences to make changes that become well-reinforced habits. That can be through traditional talk therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, simple exercise, changes in diet and sleep patterns, etc. Medication can serve as a sort of barrier between emotions that can overwhelm you and keep you from getting out of bed at all. It doesn't make those feelings go away entirely, but it gives you the breathing room you need.
Of course, the public doesn't necessarily see things that way. There's a common belief that the right medication will 'cure' the problem for you or, barring that, make it go away. After all, that's how other medications work! Blood pressure problems? Take a pill. Bacterial infection? Antibiotics, and poof, it's gone! That's a huge problem for psychiatry, and it's one that's probably not going to go away anytime soon. Your GP might be willing to prescribe an antidepressant, an ethical psychiatrist is almost always going to be the better choice precisely because treatment isn't about just receiving a script and heading to the pharmacy.
It can be chicken and egg. I imagine that for many personal lifestyle changes are more difficult than popping a pill. Once they start to feel the benefits of medication then doing things out of the norm may come easier. In my own anecdote, it was over the counter stuff like St John's Wort and valerian that helped me do the life change stuff. Also, no one lives in a vacuum. If your husband/wife and kids are all used to you not doing things like yoga, exercise, and whatever else they may subtly make comments or behaviors that make lifestyle change difficult to near impossible.
Medication works best in combination with therapy. A med check takes 15 minutes once a month while therapy might be 2 hours a week. You can guess which insurance covers.
I tried a low-dose of anti-depressants for a year while I was going through a rough patch. They helped quite a bit but the withdrawal symptoms -- especially the brain zaps -- were quite unpleasant.
May I note there is one drug that is relatively safe from addiction and unhealthy side-effects, and it is good that since last Tuesday, it is becoming legal in more places.
There is a lot you can do with diet and other lifestyle approaches. Though this site is mostly about managing my physical health that way, I blog some about managing mental stuff that way here: http://miceats.blogspot.com/
I am posting this here in hopes of making it available to people reading comments here who wish they had alternatives to medication, but just do not know how to make that work. It isn't guaranteed to work, but it's a place to start getting more informed.
> If it's true as claimed that medications only help half the time, this seems like a strong encouragement to try things like exercise, yoga, and lifestyle changes before going the medication route.
Medications help pharmaceutical companies make money all the time.
There is a huge incentive for this path and it's hard to come-by adequate science, since a large percentage of funding for long-term and expensive studies comes from the very same pharmaceutical companies.
All I can say is, I was fit, ate well, while living healthy, and I still needed the medication to help me get through a tough spot. Living a healthy life, and needing medication are not mutually exclusive.
"nearly 1 in 4 white women ages 50 to 64 is taking an antidepressant, according to federal health officials."
This is the saddest thing. My wife remarked that there was a weird sense of expectancy that if you were a white female of middle age you were expected by your peers to be taking anti-depressants.
Out of the other 3 in 4, how many are self-medicating with something else?
Coincidently, my mother has three sisters, and all of them are in this age range. Two are on antidepressants. Two of them drink a bottle or two of wine a day. There is some overlap there.
I'm just going to throw this idea out - although I have no evidence either way, but: is there something in the water?
Durango's water supply is the Animas, which is downriver from Silverton, and many old, abandoned mines and basically SuperFund sites (even though there's pressure to not call them that - or get that Federal $$$ to fix the problem, for fear of tourist dollars leaving). Are there known correlations between the types of acidic chemicals and heavy metals found in this type of polluted water and mental health?
I ask because Durango is a beautiful, sunny place. It's hard not to be there in the summertime and not feel wonderful. Yes, in the winter, it's a little more clausterphobic, and you ARE in the middle of nowhere, but it doesn't have the depressive anxiety feeling of a place like Leadville used to have, when their main Moly mine closed down.
The city of Durango does not normally pull its water supply from the Animas River but rather the Florida River which is not known for a large heavy metal load. Animas river water is used as a backup supply.
Long ago, a cousin of mine and her husband raised their family in Durango. I think they all felt it was a great place to grow up, especially because they were passionate about exploring the wilderness around them. Attempting to settle there as an adult with only a high school education and build a life is another matter. Three of their four sons moved to the Front Range to go to college, raise their families, and pursue careers.
Having traveled through this area of colorado, I'm not surprised that depression runs rampant. There is literally nothing out there, no industry, no jobs, nothing. When travel through these towns it's as if you travel back in time and the majority of these people are stuck there. They have no way out. I'm not sure what solution is for towns like these.
I'm curious how significant this is. The article sounds like it might be abuse of subgroup analysis as in https://xkcd.com/882/ i.e. check every state, check a dozen demographics in each state, and one of those is going to have higher suicide rates than the rest. Doesn't mean it's some feature of that demographic instead of random chance.
Am I the only one who react when they write in the article
"Although more men than women take their own lives, the rate of suicide has nearly doubled among middle-aged white women since 1999..."
And the whole article is about women who take suicide. The writer is a woman but this is typical for big publishers like Washington Press. They very seldom write about mens problems and challenges.
Men die more often than women. But women have started using more lethal methods than they used to, and women make more attempts. This combination - increased lethality of method and greater number of attempted suicide is worrying.
Newspapers often report the fact that rates of death by suicide are rising. (It's a bit more complicated than how they report it - there was a decline in rates for many years). Most of the rise is in women. In the UK rates of death for men have dropped a bit, but rates for women have risen a bit, causing the overall number to rise.
Washington Post has written before about the disproportionate number of male deaths by suicide, so they're not ignoring it.
Altitude apparently shows up both as an increase in depression and a decrease in ADHD. One researcher hypothesizes that altitude affects both serotonin and dopamine production, decreasing serotonin and increasing dopamine.
There is really no substitute for family, and for coming to know God. The government or this-or-that philosophy will not give our lives purpose and direction. The Mormon missionaries can help. Really.
Do you have any evidence that there's a lower rate of death by suicide for people in the LDS church?
One group at increased risk of death by suicide are LGBT people (at all ages). Religious groups tend to do badly by these people, and anecdotally there's a few news article about deaths by suicide of LGBT teens who were part of LDS church.
No, men die of suicide at 3.5x the rate of women. But there have been similar articles about the general trend of increasing suicide rates, and the highest rate being among white men. Whenever there's a gender or race break-out, there's opportunity for specific articles as people dig deeper into the data and start finding out the rates for other sub-populations.
But women attempt suicide more often than men. And women have started using more lethal means than they used to. And the combination - more suicide attempts, more lethal methods, is worrying.
Please, I beg you not to let go of your compassion for human life. These people obviously had troubled lives and went through great amounts of pain. There is a time and a place for debates about gender equality, but I don't feel like it is helping anyone to do it here. With that said I understand your frustration and sincerely wish you well.
Depression is a label for a wide range of complex illnesses. I am sure that what you say is true for some people, but in some cases it simply isn't. I've got friends who have been helped by medications, and I've got friends who have tried medication and it didn't help. One thing that is counter productive is to assert that these medications don't work ever, because they do appear to be extremely effective in some cases. Which figuratively and factually is a life saver.
I have excessive hope, and that is one of the many causes of my depression. Another cause is apparently a chemical imbalance in my head, which certain drugs have helped with.
How would you suggest I go about curing my hope problem? I have too much of it. It's a double-edged sword in that it keeps me down, but it is also the only thing that stops me from 'pulling the trigger'.
Feeling depressed is a valid emotional state and a necessary one at certain times. It can help prompt change. Feeling hopeless or negative about the future can jolt you into action, overcome ingrained behaviors, etc.
Like many other things too much depression for too long becomes clinical depression. Then it is no longer serving its proper function and becomes a pathology. People with clinical depression can't "hope" their way out of it anymore than someone with eczema or cancer can "wish" those conditions away.
Imagine we used the term "stomach bug" for both food poisoning and stomach cancer. Now imagine you have stomach cancer and everyone keeps telling you to drink plenty of fluids, rest, and it will go away. That's basically what your post is saying.
[+] [-] xherberta|9 years ago|reply
Dang.
If it's true as claimed that medications only help half the time, this seems like a strong encouragement to try things like exercise, yoga, and lifestyle changes before going the medication route.
Unless you're so depressed you honestly can't make those changes... as commenters have mentioned, sometimes medications are absolutely helpful, needed, and life-saving. I've heard of cases where being on a medication just for a short time helped people break out of a rut.
If you're getting a prescription, it seems worthwhile to ask docs for options that are less problematic to get off of.
[+] [-] Bluestrike2|9 years ago|reply
Of course, the public doesn't necessarily see things that way. There's a common belief that the right medication will 'cure' the problem for you or, barring that, make it go away. After all, that's how other medications work! Blood pressure problems? Take a pill. Bacterial infection? Antibiotics, and poof, it's gone! That's a huge problem for psychiatry, and it's one that's probably not going to go away anytime soon. Your GP might be willing to prescribe an antidepressant, an ethical psychiatrist is almost always going to be the better choice precisely because treatment isn't about just receiving a script and heading to the pharmacy.
[+] [-] ianai|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nugget|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gww|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] noobermin|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Mz|9 years ago|reply
I am posting this here in hopes of making it available to people reading comments here who wish they had alternatives to medication, but just do not know how to make that work. It isn't guaranteed to work, but it's a place to start getting more informed.
[+] [-] forgotpwtomain|9 years ago|reply
Medications help pharmaceutical companies make money all the time.
There is a huge incentive for this path and it's hard to come-by adequate science, since a large percentage of funding for long-term and expensive studies comes from the very same pharmaceutical companies.
[+] [-] the_bad|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ChuckMcM|9 years ago|reply
This is the saddest thing. My wife remarked that there was a weird sense of expectancy that if you were a white female of middle age you were expected by your peers to be taking anti-depressants.
[+] [-] douche|9 years ago|reply
Coincidently, my mother has three sisters, and all of them are in this age range. Two are on antidepressants. Two of them drink a bottle or two of wine a day. There is some overlap there.
Mother's little helper...
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] soared|9 years ago|reply
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3114154/
[+] [-] czbond|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] justinator|9 years ago|reply
Durango's water supply is the Animas, which is downriver from Silverton, and many old, abandoned mines and basically SuperFund sites (even though there's pressure to not call them that - or get that Federal $$$ to fix the problem, for fear of tourist dollars leaving). Are there known correlations between the types of acidic chemicals and heavy metals found in this type of polluted water and mental health?
I ask because Durango is a beautiful, sunny place. It's hard not to be there in the summertime and not feel wonderful. Yes, in the winter, it's a little more clausterphobic, and you ARE in the middle of nowhere, but it doesn't have the depressive anxiety feeling of a place like Leadville used to have, when their main Moly mine closed down.
http://www.cnn.com/2015/08/12/opinions/pagel-animas-river-po...
[+] [-] sertsa|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chmaynard|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] findyoucef|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DanBC|9 years ago|reply
I wish they'd released this.
[+] [-] toomuchtodo|9 years ago|reply
EDIT: I just emailed the article author asking if they'd release the data in a Github repo [1]. Default to action.
[1] https://github.com/washingtonpost
[+] [-] ikeboy|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ci5er|9 years ago|reply
- http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hestat/suicide/rates_1999_2014....
If they (WaPo) had included CDC instead of the "Federal Health", it might have been easier for you to find?
If you are generally interested in the topic, there are many other "factoids" and scattered data sets. Here are a couple:
[+] [-] kennethh|9 years ago|reply
"Although more men than women take their own lives, the rate of suicide has nearly doubled among middle-aged white women since 1999..."
And the whole article is about women who take suicide. The writer is a woman but this is typical for big publishers like Washington Press. They very seldom write about mens problems and challenges.
[+] [-] DanBC|9 years ago|reply
Newspapers often report the fact that rates of death by suicide are rising. (It's a bit more complicated than how they report it - there was a decline in rates for many years). Most of the rise is in women. In the UK rates of death for men have dropped a bit, but rates for women have risen a bit, causing the overall number to rise.
Washington Post has written before about the disproportionate number of male deaths by suicide, so they're not ignoring it.
A couple of examples:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/the-h...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/inspired-life/wp/2016/08...
If you want an anti-feminist article that mentions in passing male suicide: https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/06/30/...
[+] [-] ChrisNorstrom|9 years ago|reply
High altitutes can increase suicide and depression in certain people. While in others, they get a sense of feeling "at home".
[+] [-] jhayward|9 years ago|reply
https://mic.com/articles/104096/there-s-a-suicide-epidemic-i...
[+] [-] lcall|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DanBC|9 years ago|reply
One group at increased risk of death by suicide are LGBT people (at all ages). Religious groups tend to do badly by these people, and anecdotally there's a few news article about deaths by suicide of LGBT teens who were part of LDS church.
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865646414/LDS-Church-lead...
[+] [-] peterwwillis|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] niels_olson|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DanBC|9 years ago|reply
But women attempt suicide more often than men. And women have started using more lethal means than they used to. And the combination - more suicide attempts, more lethal methods, is worrying.
[+] [-] cowardlydragon|9 years ago|reply
But my compassion is gone after the election.
[+] [-] dang|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] throwanem|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hiou|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DanBC|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] icantdrive55|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] zepto|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sgt101|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nekopa|9 years ago|reply
How would you suggest I go about curing my hope problem? I have too much of it. It's a double-edged sword in that it keeps me down, but it is also the only thing that stops me from 'pulling the trigger'.
[+] [-] binarytransform|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] xenadu02|9 years ago|reply
Like many other things too much depression for too long becomes clinical depression. Then it is no longer serving its proper function and becomes a pathology. People with clinical depression can't "hope" their way out of it anymore than someone with eczema or cancer can "wish" those conditions away.
Imagine we used the term "stomach bug" for both food poisoning and stomach cancer. Now imagine you have stomach cancer and everyone keeps telling you to drink plenty of fluids, rest, and it will go away. That's basically what your post is saying.
[+] [-] chc|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] savanaly|9 years ago|reply