I don't know, Nez. I'm going to have to disagree with you on this one. My g-grandmother essentially lived in a closet for two years during menopause b/c of depression. My grandmother had, at last count, 16 children b/c she only felt "normal" during pregnancy. My mother attempted suicide twice and only got some relief through Prozac and later other anti-depressants. I also was suicidal (and homicidal) with both clinical depression and postpartum depression after the births of each of my children and Wellbutrin saved both my life and theirs any number of times. I tried the "pull yourself up by the bootstraps" technique and it almost killed me. Therapy will not fix a chemical imbalance in the brain any more it will cure a chemical imbalance in the pancreas.

I can agree that these things are over-prescribed for anyone who is feeling a little blue or having any kind of negative emotion. I heard of someone getting a scrip b/c her father just died and she was feeling down about it. I mean, really. Now, if she was still feeling that way a year afterward and couldn't seem to break out of it, then yeah, but 2 weeks? No. And anytime a child is put on a maintenance drug, I twitch.

no problem with your disagreeing, christina. my biggest issue is with the trend and the reflex to prescribe heavy brain medicine first, ignoring other treatments (such as non-western ones. i said nothing about bootstraps, you'll note). ultimately, i may disagree with SSRIs in general, but its never been an area i've felt comfortable arguing someone on. and won't now.

Amigo, I am compelled to add dos centavos. I am not arguing your point, but your spot is so influential I am concerned that someone struggling with depression will refuse trying medical intervention even if it is offered by someone reputable and in addition to talk therapy and perhaps behavioral support. I just remember the shame I felt when I agreed to try Effexor and how my life bloomed into colors with the first dose. Both my mother and I have been helped to live through the use of SSNRIs and my mom did use and was helped greatly by Prozac. We are very, very strong and positive women. But it was not enough to get us off the couch sometimes. My mom continues in therapy, and I meditate and see a Chinese medicine Dr. regularly. We do not now take any drugs. But even my Chinese medicine Dr.(9th generation healer) believes that these drugs can be used to help the brain learn a different way, as a transition. I am so concerned about the mental health crisis particularly among women of color who feel "they just need to be strong and keep their head up" instead of seeking help.

always appreciate your input, carmen.

again, i am not against the seeking of help. not by any means. but i feel that 9 times out of 10, a pill is not the answer. i mean, hey, i know about drugs and colors blooming! and i hear you on that. but therapy, meditation, chinese medicine—all these you state and more—i feel are a preferable start, and a brain cocktail a last resort.

however, this is just my opinion, and i am neither a doctor nor a scientologist.

I completely understand a distaste and disbelief of the drug based on how it's marketed as an easy answer (if the world is so hard that so many people need to be on drugs for it, the answer is not more drugs, but make the world better). I am not proud that I'm on an anti-depressant, but I think for some people it's necessary, as the Carmen explains above. Sadly, my pills cost $10 a month, whereas my therapy would cost $175 a week. Currently, I am forced to go with the former. I don't think this is right, either.

Yes Nez, a preferable start indeed. When I started working through my depression (which took hold in childhood) in my early teens, my mom refused to allow my doctors to give me meds of any kind. It was talk therapy only - even in the darkest times. Now, in the pathetic state this country is in, insurance, if you can get it, will cover the pills but not talk therapy. That, in my opinion, is a sin.

for the massive drug-pusher system set up in our nation and in our minds, i do not blame unhappy people looking for light in their lives. never. and this post is really about two things. my opinion (not necessarily worth much), and this new study from the UK that shows a placebo would be just as helpful for treating depression.

Perhaps too many of the people they studied didn't actually have depression.

from the linked article:

The study examined all available data on the drugs, including results from clinical trials that the manufacturers chose not to publish at the time

so its not as if they advertised for volunteers in the back of the village voice. they used the manufacturer's own data!

The pattern they saw from the trial results of fluoxetine (Prozac), paroxetine (Seroxat), venlafaxine (Effexor) and nefazodone (Serzone) was consistent. "Using complete data sets (including unpublished data) and a substantially larger data set of this type than has been previously reported, we find the overall effect of new-generation antidepressant medication is below recommended criteria for clinical significance," they write.

i'm not sure their results can be dismissed so casually as your comment suggests. or should be.

Nezua, thanks for posting this. I should check out the study. I'm another of the folks who feel that finding "the right pill" really did help me out of depression.

I do want to thank you for getting the other side of this question out there in a way that is compassionate and easy to relate to. I usually avoid reading about this debate at all, because so many folks take an absolutist stand---on either side---and that makes it real hard to learn from what they have to say.

yes, i hear you on absolutism. i like to think that most of the time here at UMX, we are all about the good plática. y el respeto.

Then actually, Nez, we agree. They are badly over-prescribed.

I got this message last time, too.
"Can't call method "text" on unblessed reference at lib/MT/App/Comments.pm line 1189."

Could you bless my reference?

i was hoping you'd aske me that.

I remember the first time I was prescribed Prozac, I was an undergrad and it was the first time I was away from my parents. I was going to college here in Texas while my parents were in living in Chicago. During that time, Prozac was just coming out and it was being touted as a miracle drug. I was feeling rather homesick, I was starting to drink a lot, and whole bunch of other things were going on. When I spoke to the campus Dr., I was told I was suffering from a whole mess of things, so she prescribed me Prozac. The first time I took it, my body felt really really strange. I said fuck that shit and decided to flush the rest of the prescription down the toilet.

Years later, after getting into a serious car wreck, I was given Paxil for Post Traumatic Syndrome. It was the best thing that has ever happened. But, starting up on that drug, my body felt weird too, but the pros outweighed the bad, so I continued. To me it worked and maybe it was all in my mind, I don't know.

In this pill popping age, I feel there is an incentive for doctors to keep you on this stuff with no end in sight. I had a hard time convince my doc that I didn’t need to be on Paxil. However, when I weaned myself off Paxil, there were consequences. For a couple of months, I suffered many bad side effects. I would hear swooshing sounds from time to time. I constantly felt like I had electric shock running down my down my body. I could feel start from my brain and go down my spinal. My body would feel numb for several days. When that was done, the worst of the side effect began - panic attacks and fear. I would jump if somebody entered my room unexpectedly. Things that I was mildly frighten of, were 10X heighten. I am talking about extreme un-normal fear.

Then there are people who swear by them and will never stop taking them, like my father. He has a really bad case of OCD. He is taking Zoloft and honestly, I have seen a major difference.

Call it conspiracy theory, but I think some doctors are getting kick backs form the Big Pharma to peddle their shit and to keep a person on them as long as they can. What is worse is how new products are peddled. The reason they do this is not that they improved the formula; they don’t want to compete one their brand product’s patent runs out. Once their patent runs, they are forced to give out their formulas to the other companies so they can make a generic version. It is all about generic competition.

Shire, the maker of the ADHD drug Adderall, has come out with a new drug, Vyvanse because the patent for Adderall XR ends next year. Shire's revenue is based on whether a customer is using Vyvanse or Adderall. Some doctor being forced to have their patients make the switch.

Just go to Cafepharma's discussion board and you will see how these pharmreps strong arm doctors if they don't peddle the latest shit coming off the assembly line. So I am not surprised that a report has come saying that anti-depressant don't work. It is all about the bottom line, not a person's wellbeing.

"a weave of ideas and observations and scientific disclosures and pharmacological behaviors and real life patterns and personal philosophies that have added up to give me the opinion that anti-depressants, as currently described and prescribed, are a bad idea."

Thank you.
As someone who almost lost their life to these medicines I appreciate your honesty and I agree with your opinion.

I hate antidepressants and I'm very thankful the truth that they don't work significantly better than sugar pills, but do have serious negative side effects such as increase suicidality, is finally coming to light.

I know that many people are prescribed for drugs that they do not want or need, and that life would be better if our health care system provided more holistic alternatives for therapy. However, my querido has taken Wellbutrin for the last six months, and it has had a better effect than any other therapies, talk, massage, meditation, acupuncture, dietary, and also Prozac, than he has tried before. We have been together for the last four and a half years, and finally, I live with (and love to pieces) the person whom I have seen in brief glimpses in the previous four years.
We often have conversations about how this drug has changed his life, and ours together. And while I am strenuously opposed to any situation where someone is forced to take an anti-depressant or SSRI-uptake-inhibitor for a "quick fix", some people just need it. And mi mama is prejudiced, even while she has loved the new son-in-law that I have presented her with: she asks, "How can you deal with the fact that he may need this for his entire life?"

As for the study, perhaps the placebo effect, the therapy which was given to the patients who received the sugar pills (assuming that there was any, just hoping that there was some kind of follow-up for a clinical study) was helpful for those who needed an affirmation that their problems were worth consideration.