Overprescription Of Medication.

[Aylion]

Hello, I wanted to share the following thoughts here;

I have always been an anxious guy (maybe genetics and a not-so-easy childhood) but my anxiety got worse and started to be mixed with depression after some years of traumatic events.

In my lowest moment I was prescribed prozac, the so-called wonder drug, my doctor said "this is very mild, I prescribe it to deal with headaches" "life is short, you are very young, take prozac because you need to hurry up and enjoy your life now". I completely disagree with both of those statements now.

After 2 periods of prozac of 4 months each one, I feel like my personality is changed, my emotions numbed and my libido non-existant, those side effects are bothering me more than my anxiety did, because at least the anxiety was MINE and not drug induced.

Why nobody told me to just wait?, that everything was going to be ok?, that time heal almost all the wounds?, that it is ok to be myself? that going slower than other people does not mean I was a failure?

Teraphy helped me very much, but prozac in the long term has harmed me.

Taking drugs that you don't need is harmful, and I think maybe 70% of the people who take this drugs don't need them.

 

[Friday]

Taking drugs that you don't need is harmful, and I think maybe 70% of the people who take this drugs don't need them.

That's a bizarre number to just kind of throw out there. Any kind of research to back that up? I'd be interested, if very surprised, to read it if so.

***

Why I would be surprised:

Where I live, they discontinued psychiatric drugs from those receiving state medical insurance several years back while I was still in school (not just the poor, but all state jobs; teachers, first responders, govt. etc.). The direct result of that was that in less than a year our city's homeless population increased by 800%. A relatively stable homeless of population of nearly 2500 increased to over 20,000 inside of a year. In other areas it was far worse, but my university took up some of the slack in writing the drug companies begging for 12mo supplies of necessary medicine to help rebuild these people's lives. That's how fast things can go down hill. From parents raising children, working jobs, paying mortgages, paying taxes, productive & active members of society... To off meds, lost their jobs, lost their homes, lost their families, and on the streets. Those numbers don't account for all of those people who swelled our jails and hospitals to capacity, nor the tens of thousands who had family to fall back on. It doesn't account for the severe spike in suicides, nor for the 30 day wait list for social services being extended to over a 3 year wait. All told, in my city alone, over 200,000 people's lives were directly and severely affected by the state making a similar conclusion; that "most" people don't really "need" their psychiatric medication, and that discontinuing funding could save the city's budget. Far more were indirectly affected. Politicians making medical decisions, instead of doctors. Never a good idea.

The decision was eventually reversed. Our "numbers" have improved considerably from the clusterf*ck that happened during the previous administration. It was an ongoing project of the psych & neurology dept at my university in conjunction with the police, hospitals, & social workers to document these numbers to present to the city council to prove that their idea of "most" was not only wildly inaccurate, but also costing the city millions. Even so, it took years. That's still nearly 10% of our city's population who lost years of their lives, in a totally unnecessary & completely preventable struggle & hardship.

 

[Aylion]

I understand you point, FridayJones, and yes, 70% was a guess that I just made up.

But the fact that someone get bad after discontinuing a drug does not necessarily mean that he needed it at the begining, it means that he needs it now.

For example, I know one girl that started taking antidepressants for bulimia at a high dose in her teen years, and 8 years later, when she wanted to discontinue her medication, she did it too fast and ended up completely disabled with symptoms very different and worse than the ones that she had before drugs and needed to come back to her meds to try a slower tapper. Does that mean that she needed it at the begining? I don't think so, it just means that she needs it now. Could she have overcame her bulimia by teraphy? I think so.

She wants off her meds to get pregnant, so now the quick fix that meds were 8 years ago are a poblem for her.

 

[joeylittle]

8 years later, when she wanted to discontinue her medication, she did it too fast and ended up completely disabled with symptoms very different and worse than the ones that she had before drugs and needed to come back to her meds to try a slower tapper.

Had she tapered slowly (correctly) she also probably would have come off them just fine.

You're not going to find me defending SSRIs, particularly - they are not always as effective compared to SNRIs, the older tricyclics, etc...

But I can tell you without a doubt that I need medication to keep me alive, and no amount of therapy will change that - at least, not in the near future, and I'm prepared to take them for the rest of my life. Taking them gives me a chance at living my life.

If anything, in judging over-prescription, you also have to account for patient error - people sometimes want there to be a pill, a medication, something that will work the way penicillin works on an infection. But mental illnesses are serious, and like anything serious, you do your research, you get a second opinion, you push through and eventually get to a doctor you can work with.

Your doctor did you a disservice, @Aylion, by not referring you to a psychiatrist or discussing all your options with you.

You did yourself a disservice by not looking into other options available.

I think it all comes down to a serious lack of understanding about the brain, depression, anxiety, cognition, the whole nine yards...

I took a medication that gave me irreversible side effects: abilify. I pushed really hard for information, researched, and debated it for a few months. In the end, it seemed worth trying. It helped enormously, worked better than anything I've ever taken. But when it started to change my metabolism (which I knew could happen), and I couldn't correct it with extreme diet and exercise (which I didn't know would happen), I had to fight like hell to get off it safely. Now, they know it can cause permanent damage. Then, they didn't. Do I regret it? Absolutely. Would I be sitting here writing about how I regret it, if I hadn't taken it? No, I'd be dead. So, I don't know if it did more harm than good.

And I work my ass off in therapy. Always have.

Sorry for the rant. I do appreciate that there are people who have very negative viewpoints on medication. I just need to say, some of us need it. And I resisted taking it for the vast majority of my life. After I started it, I mostly regretted not trying it sooner. It has been that important to me.