Prozac Nation ..

Docs dished out 50 million in England alone last year, up from nine million in 1991, and they are partly blamed for prescribing the powerful drugs too readily.
Mental health charity Mind wants more therapy instead of a reliance on tablets .

There are arguments for and against depending on the severity, diagnosis and coping abilities of the patient. Medication in my view is OK if a person came in as psychotic needing immediate help for the shortest term possible but should then be monitored and once back within a stable mind to be eased off the medication with therapy from the outset..

Overall I tend to go with MIND.

BRITAIN is becoming a nation hooked on happy pills — with a huge rise in prescriptions for anti-depressants like Prozac.

But is there less depression?

It seems that whatever America does, we catch up about 5 years later and so it is with anti-depressants. This is a short promotional video about his book, “The Emperor’s New Drugs: Exploding the Antidepressant Myth,” (mods, I have no connection to his book - though do remove the link if you wish to!) by a US doctor about how he has come to the conclusion that the effect of anti depressants is actually the placebo effect. and is worth considering:

[url]“The Emperor’s New Drugs: Exploding the Antidepressant Myth,†with Dr. Irving Kirsch at the ISEPP 2012 Conference | ISEPP 2013 International Annual Conference Hope, Healing and the Human Spirit:[/url]

I've also shared a link to two healings of depression (and panic attacks) through prayer on the Mental and Emotional pages.

Judy

Hi Guys .

BRITAIN is becoming a nation hooked on happy pills — with a huge rise in prescriptions for anti-depressants like Prozac.

Any thoughts??

x dazzle x

Really don't know why they are referred to as 'happy pills' as most people I know who have taken them seem to be walking zombies. Doctor's should be ashamed of themselves, they are a disgrace to their profession just dolling out antidepressants willy nilly, nice little bonuses from the drug companies thrown in. What we need is more talking therapists and holistic therapies in/on the NHS plus a little more sense of community spirit and friendly neighbours. All this keeping oneself to oneself sickens me. Lets reach out to each other more.

Agree with you entirely Chriselda. Drugs are rarely the answer! And they can be disastrous for some prople.

One thing that really miffs me is when someone presents with a load of minor symptoms that don't fit one of alopathic medicine's boxes, the patient is told it is depression and put on antidepressants to shut them up! 😮 Then they are told it is 'all in your mind'. In fact it makes me furious!

[url]Phillip Day's The Mind Game[/url] is a shocking expose of mental health treatment and the actual generation/invention of 'mental illness' in both adults and children.

Regarding treating depression - I don't know how widely available CBT is i.e. cognitive behavioural therapy. As some may know, this successfully treats depression through examining negative thought patterns and replacing them with a positive mindset.

Aside from the fact that there is probably a long waiting list for this, not everyone who is depressed would want to subject themselves to this and do the work. It takes commitment, patience and faith. Easier to pop a pill and try and escape/avoid issues I guess.

Well, depression is one of those things that is hardly understood even by the medical community or the pharmaceutical companies.
There's an interesting article in the current New Scientist magazine (it's the cover story) about how anti-depressants don't really work... so much so that pharmaceutical companies have, in some cases, stopped researching them. (the start of the article is here: [url]Sign in to read: Fixing broken brains: a new understanding of depression - health - 29 July 2013 - New Scientist[/url] though you'd have to subscribe or buy a hard copy to read the full thing). Interesting the article states the fact that the FDA in the US only requires two positive studies, showing an antidepressant drug to be more effective than placebo to actually approve it, but as it says in the article, that doesn't mean that the pharma company hasn't carried out numerous studies that didn't prove positive for the same thing, they can just pick out their two best studies and use those... now that's got to be morally fraudulent, even if it is permitted.

What recent studies are showing, according to the story, is that the belief that it's the serotonin levels that are the problem in needing to help the neurotransmitters in the brain to fire, is not actually the main cause of depression. It appears that the thing that is more a cause is damaged neurotransmitters and studies have shown that katamine (use for treating horses?) has helped people with depression in the rebuilding of the neurotransmitters, and that seems to come down to glutamate. (Best read the article for the actual details - I'm recalling from memory).

So it seems that the medical community is putting their hands up and admitting they got it wrong, and further research needs to be done.

Amy,
CBT, as far as I know is available on the NHS to people, though not everyone gets along with the methods... well.. everyone is different I guess. For some people it can be very hard to try and replace negative though patterns, and I think it's perhaps unfair to say they would rather pop a pill... some are just at the end of their tether and are looking for something to help them quickly, especially as the depression can be such a distraction they cannot focus on CBT techniques.

For some people, the use of anti-depressants has been successful, whether that was placebo or not who knows. In "The Happiness Hypothesis" by Jonathan Haidt, he tried various techniques from meditation and CBT to Prozac. He found with the pills that at first it made him feel worse, but then after a number of weeks it was like a switch had been flipped and all of a sudden he woke up to find everything bright and wonderful, and this gave him the chance and time he needed to start sorting things out. Saying that, he also found great benefit from doing meditation and being more mindful/present, especially after he came off the pills.

Depression is an interesting subject and one that is little understood.

All Love and Reiki Hugs

p.s. forgot to say...

The other interesting fact in the article is how people who didn't find pharma pills worked for them were labelled as 'treatment resistant patients', as if it's the patients fault, rather than acknowledge that it is the pills that are actually ineffective. And the number of patients who didn't find pills worked was near on 50%.

All Love and Reiki Hugs

With my background this is something I am very interested in. Anti-depressants DO have a place in moderate to severe depression. But all the evidence shows that in mild to moderate depression talking therapies are just as good. NICE came out with this several years ago.

The reasons drugs still get prescribed is because the NHS cannot afford to fund the talking therapies . Sadly drugs are cheap - but talking therapies need staff - and staff are expensive. But things ARE improving. One of my patients who has booked for hypnotherapy - has booker BECAUSE he GP suggested it could help her. GP's know what is needed - but sadly they don't have the resources to provide the services 🙁

Amy,
CBT, as far as I know is available on the NHS to people, though not everyone gets along with the methods... well.. everyone is different I guess. For some people it can be very hard to try and replace negative though patterns, and I think it's perhaps unfair to say they would rather pop a pill... some are just at the end of their tether and are looking for something to help them quickly, especially as the depression can be such a distraction they cannot focus on CBT techniques.

You are misquoting me....I said it was easier to take a pill NOT that they would rather do that - slight difference don't you think?

Not sure there is much difference Amy. In the way it read, "Easier" or "Rather" amount to pretty much the same thing. It was simply an observation... no offence intended. :hug:

All Love and Reiki Hugs

Not sure there is much difference Amy. In the way it read, "Easier" or "Rather" amount to pretty much the same thing. It was simply an observation... no offence intended. :hug:

All Love and Reiki Hugs

But it IS easier for a patient to pop a pill - and some patients prefer that. CBT, hypnotherapy etc require the patient to take steps themselves. Drugs can actually get patients to the point where they CAN take steps themselves so they do have a genuine place in therapy. But as I tell people very often anti-depressants don't cure depression. they can get you to a stage where you can think more resourcefuly about your issues.