Some kind of wonderful -

[kyburg]

You'll hear me rant about overmedication a lot - well, it's a sore point. Giving pills is cheap - compared to long-term talk counseling with active therapy. Trouble is, the pills stop working. Oh, you can cycle through a ton of stuff - it's out there - but the expensive, labor-intensive-with-a-real-person is where long term results lie (unless you're one of the people who truly HAVE a chemical issue, and one of the hallmarks of THAT is the pills don't stop working and you don't have to cycle, yadda ya).

Then I hear about Cymbalta. Holy chrome. This stuff is being prescribed off-label right, left and center for things OTHER than depression...and damn if it isn't doing some incredible things, mostly related to pain relief (and we all know I think that's going to be HUGE when it happens).

But for depression? *wiggles hand* Not so much. Read about coming off it and UH.

...and so many, many reports are from people who came to this medication because - you guessed it - they needed to cycle from something else.

I have to wonder about what this all about - and if the cycling is a Good Thing, or a sign that this is not the right way to treat depression, period.

Yeah, maybe I do more than wonder. Like - NO.

Here's a thought for the day - isn't it still addiction when it's legal and you don't have to worry about getting it on a daily basis? You go without and you're not going to feel good, yanno. But get your drug and everything is fine.

What makes that okay?

As for me, I'll pass. And yes, I know that's a privilege.

Comments

[tomlemos.livejournal.com]

I am a firm believer that medications alone cannot treat a mental illness.

That being said, I am lucky that I had help when I needed it. I would probably still be on medications if I had not both medication and therapy and the will to be medication free at the end of my treatment.

Of course, this is just my opinion.

[machineplay.livejournal.com]

Is it addiction when a diabetic takes their insulin? I've seen the blood tests and EEGs and other brain scans from family members before and after Prozac. This post is pretty offensive.

ETA: Also this "feeling okay with it and not without" == addiction is the same kind of thinking that lost me a decade of my life to crippling pain before someone had the mercy to give me something for it. It's not addiction. And it is just fine to take medication to help you survive.

ETA2: Actually, it's not just pretty offensive. It's really offensive. Extremely. And it's the kind of attitude that makes people who need help less likely to get it, and to feel ashamed that they do. How dare you accuse people struggling from a known illness of being addicts because they need medication to function and live normal lives. "Not going to feel good"? Try suicidal. Homicidal. Infanticidal. I lived with an unmedicated mother for my first 18 years. How dare you suggest that she's only a good mother and grandmother now because she's an addict. Seriously. Get the fuck over yourself.

[zpdiduda.livejournal.com]

It's addiction, unquestionably. And I'm a Cymbalta addict. I hate the fact of addiction, not to mention the cost of the co-pays -- but I'm enormously grateful for what it's done in my life.

I'm one of the chemically-imbalanced, though. Cymbalta is actually prescribed on-label for two conditions: depression and peripheral neuropathy (PN). Along with Lyrica, the only other med specifically designated for treatment of PN, Cymbalta has alleviated my chronic pain on a long-term basis. It works for me, too, as an anti-depressant.

Some side effects suck. I truly believe that I've had memory loss from long-term Cymbalta use. The sexual side effects are more difficult to quantify. Longer to reach orgasm, and sometimes I'm non-orgasmic -- but when I do ring the bell, it's like a switch has turned on and I can lather-rinse-repeat for hours.

[spydielives.livejournal.com]

I am one of those who needs psychotropic medications to make it more than a week; less for depression and more for mania, but I did want to point out that even for those of us whose brains need the chemical fixing, the medications can and do stop working eventually. Because we don't know why the brain isn't functioning properly in the first place, drugs are steak knives trying to perform microsurgery.

Eventually, all the places they might work become points of failure. A new medication or medication combination is needed to exploit alternative trigger points.

I do not want to wade into the debate on addiction. I know which drugs I can... and can not... take without suffering "side effects" if I stop again.

[feyandstrange.livejournal.com]

What makes that okay? The fact that I'm a sane and functional human being on drugs, whereas without I am not. I consider it no different from someone who needs insulin, and I don't like the 'addiction' and anti-pill mentality which prevents a lot of people from ever trying meds - which leads to suicides and ruined lives. I take birth control to keep from going psychotic and hitting things, too. If that's an addiction, I'm okay with being addicted to sane functionality, because it's a lot better then psychosis and suicidal depression. But calling it an addiction just adds to the burdens people face in getting help.

Which isn't to say that I think meds are under-prescribed. But I think a lot of mild to moderate cases of mood issues are getting pills when they need therapy - not to mention a ton of people with biological health issues, like pain, which get called 'depression' as a convenient label.

Cymbalta actually has an on-label for fibromyalgia now. I am not convinced that it's any more effective than the handful of cheaper, older antidepressants which many fibro people take offlabel for nerve pain, but this lets the Cymbalta people make money. Still, I'll take the research and add it to the stack; we'll take all the pain research we can get, even funded by chemical salesmen.

There are different chemical flavors of depression. In my case, my depression appears to be norepinephrine rather then the usually assumed dopamine. Dopamine antidepressants make me worse, and if I hadn't done my research I'd have been either cycling or off the drugs and not getting the help I needed, because therapy never made a dent. Cycling doesn't mean the drugs aren't right, but it may. There's also a lot of people who cycle through meds saying that the first one didn't work, when in fact it's likely to be a compliance issue.

[muimi07.livejournal.com]

I've refused to be put on medication for my depression. I KNOW my depression has a psychological, not physiological, root and giving me happy pills wont fix my thought process. I'm not saying medication isn't necessary for some but I do agree that it is all too often treats the symptoms but not the cause.

[bronxelf-ag001.livejournal.com]

(unless you're one of the people who truly HAVE a chemical issue, and one of the hallmarks of THAT is the pills don't stop working and you don't have to cycle, yadda ya).

I'm one of those people who for sure, absolutely has a chemical issue. And the drugs don't stop working.

They never work in the first place. So I take nothing. Same result, fewer side effects.

Frankly, I wouldn't wish that on anyone.

[drlaurac.livejournal.com]

I agree, if you have anything other than a simple chemical issue, pills alone are not enough. And everyone can benefit from a little therapy now and then. I call them "tune-ups."

But it's not addiction, it's dependence. Which is actually different. You can see either dependence or addiction with pain meds, one is the natural consequence of chronic use, and the other is a problem and involves abuse and not following the proper instructions. But there's other meds people are dependent on as well, it's just that antidepressants are WAY overused.

[amanda-nye.livejournal.com]

I guess I'm one of those good cases. It took me forever to find a pain medication that worked. It only took one try for a depression medications, though. I've been on both for... 8 years or so now? No signs of them no longer working. On the other hand, if I'm off the depression med for 3 days or longer, it's noticeable. The longest I was off it was 6 months when I was out of work and couldn't afford it. The pain med I can go longer without, but problems get cumulative until I'm in constant pain.

[elfwench.livejournal.com]

That's a lot for me to think about right now, as I'm on medication holiday and really depressed. However, I also found out I have low thyroid, so maybe Dr. H. will see what thyroid medication does for the depression, since he's the one who decided to wean me off my meds and then revisit the idea of medication tomorrow.

For myself, yes, there's something obviously chemical going on. How much is thyroid and how much is neurochemistry, who knows at this point? Therapy has never done much for me. Lexapro was a godsend, as was Celexa (which I went on only because it was cheaper) to a lesser extent. Don't know why he put me on Trazodone, but glad I'm off of it.

That's not to say that there aren't issues to deal with, but dealing with them is less effective without medication of some type.

Just so you know, though, I'm hoping that thyroid meds help the moods without the need for an actual antidepressant.

I don't know if that makes any sense.