Why

[BigBG]

Why do anti depressants make you have suicidal thoughts? Any voices on that?

I stopped taking what the VA fed me cuz I wanted to kill myself more and more. Been off the VA meds almost a year and feel ok...what gives?

B

 

[Friday]

Wrong meds.

I'm gonna try and condense my rant on this (wish me luck).

1) Everyone's neurochemistry is different. Even inside of the same Disorder, but things get all kinds of different just looking at "everyone's" brains. Case in point: I'm ADHD. Which means stimulants relax me. Yep. If I'm not on a PTSD anxiety trip, a nice 6-12 shot venti espresso is the perfect bedtime treat. Ahhhh. Same is true for most stimulants (amphetamines, cocaine, etc.). I also need the mellow when I wake up... Unless I'm burning a ton of adrenaline to wake up, instead. Most people's brains? That's simply not what happens when you add a stimulant. They get jittery, can't sleep, etc. And that's just one disorder.

So on the list of "possible side effects" will always always always be the exact opposite of what it's supposed to do. Depressants that act as stimulants, stimulants that act as depressants, sleep meds that cause insomnia, etc. There's simply no way to tell how your individual brain chemistry is going to react to a drug until you try it. Might be in the "most" category, might be the opposite, might be something else, entirely.


2) Big Pharma doesn't compete against itself. They sped up hundreds of millions creating a new drug. Turns out, it's the best antidepressant, ever. But they already have a best selling anti-depressant. So there is no way on earth they're going to get it "labeled" as an antidepressant. Nope. Instead they'll look at what else it does. Maybe it's an okay mood stabilizer, or mediocre antipsychotic. If they don't have a best selling one of its other uses? That's what they get it labeled as.

"Labeling" is an expensive process in both time and money. Zillions. (It's a word. A made up one, but a word). There are only a handful of drugs on the market that the company has seen it worth the cost of changing the label... And you know 1. Viagra. And that's the bar / standard a medication has to reach to be "worth" relabeling.

It's not a huge deal, though, from a medical standpoint... Because labels are more guidelines than anything else. If it's to treat absolutely any mental health issue, whatsoever, (good) docs will use a medication "off-label". It's a big part of why Psychiatrists don't usually do counseling, but 5-15min med management apps., instead. They're keeping up on peer review journals, published studies, med-recalls and releases, and what's having clinical / anecdotal success off-label. I've yet to meet a good psychiatrist who isn't spending 40+ hours a week reading.

It's a big deal from a patient standpoint, though... Because if your problem is depression? Taking an antipsychotic sounds crazy. Even if it's the best antidepressant, ever. And it was just labeled in a non-compete category.

A good psychiatrist... When you go in and say XYZ drug is increasing my ideation... Will now have a lot more data. Okay. This family/class behaves this way with 20% of people. 15% of those people respond really well to ABC, and 5% to EFG. As each med "fails", they have more data to work with.

The trick is that we have to be honest (and willing to ignore what a drug is "for" / labeled as... & they have to be good. I've known some idiots who keep prescribing gone drug after another after another, all with the same intolerable side effects... From the same family of drugs. Dude! Clearly that person's brain doesn't respond well to that family! It's like being lactose intolerant, but switching from milk to cheese to yogurt to whipped cream. If the problem is the family? They'll each make you sick. However, sometimes it will be one side effect with one, a different with another. So you stay in the same family. Work your way through all the ugly stepsisters until you find Cinderella. So to speak.

Looks like I did a crap job of keeping this short. :/

 

[BigBG]

Wrong meds.

I'm gonna try and condense my rant on this (wish me luck).

1) Everyone's neurochemistry is different. Even inside of the same Disorder, but things get all kinds of different just looking at "everyone's" brains. Case in point: I'm ADHD. Which means stimulants relax me. Yep. If I'm not on a PTSD anxiety trip, a nice 6-12 shot venti espresso is the perfect bedtime treat. Ahhhh. Same is true for most stimulants (amphetamines, cocaine, etc.). I also need the mellow when I wake up... Unless I'm burning a ton of adrenaline to wake up, instead. Most people's brains? That's simply not what happens when you add a stimulant. They get jittery, can't sleep, etc. And that's just one disorder.

So on the list of "possible side effects" will always always always be the exact opposite of what it's supposed to do. Depressants that act as stimulants, stimulants that act as depressants, sleep meds that cause insomnia, etc. There's simply no way to tell how your individual brain chemistry is going to react to a drug until you try it. Might be in the "most" category, might be the opposite, might be something else, entirely.


2) Big Pharma doesn't compete against itself. They sped up hundreds of millions creating a new drug. Turns out, it's the best antidepressant, ever. But they already have a best selling anti-depressant. So there is no way on earth they're going to get it "labeled" as an antidepressant. Nope. Instead they'll look at what else it does. Maybe it's an okay mood stabilizer, or mediocre antipsychotic. If they don't have a best selling one of its other uses? That's what they get it labeled as.

"Labeling" is an expensive process in both time and money. Zillions. (It's a word. A made up one, but a word). There are only a handful of drugs on the market that the company has seen it worth the cost of changing the label... And you know 1. Viagra. And that's the bar / standard a medication has to reach to be "worth" relabeling.

It's not a huge deal, though, from a medical standpoint... Because labels are more guidelines than anything else. If it's to treat absolutely any mental health issue, whatsoever, (good) docs will use a medication "off-label". It's a big part of why Psychiatrists don't usually do counseling, but 5-15min med management apps., instead. They're keeping up on peer review journals, published studies, med-recalls and releases, and what's having clinical / anecdotal success off-label. I've yet to meet a good psychiatrist who isn't spending 40+ hours a week reading.

It's a big deal from a patient standpoint, though... Because if your problem is depression? Taking an antipsychotic sounds crazy. Even if it's the best antidepressant, ever. And it was just labeled in a non-compete category.

A good psychiatrist... When you go in and say XYZ drug is increasing my ideation... Will now have a lot more data. Okay. This family/class behaves this way with 20% of people. 15% of those people respond really well to ABC, and 5% to EFG. As each med "fails", they have more data to work with.

The trick is that we have to be honest (and willing to ignore what a drug is "for" / labeled as... & they have to be good. I've known some idiots who keep prescribing gone drug after another after another, all with the same intolerable side effects... From the same family of drugs. Dude! Clearly that person's brain doesn't respond well to that family! It's like being lactose intolerant, but switching from milk to cheese to yogurt to whipped cream. If the problem is the family? They'll each make you sick. However, sometimes it will be one side effect with one, a different with another. So you stay in the same family. Work your way through all the ugly stepsisters until you find Cinderella. So to speak.

Looks like I did a crap job of keeping this short. :/

Friday,

NOT SHORT by any means but full of info! It makes perfect sense to me now that you explained it that way to me.

I was starting to discover some of that through my own research and it's good that someone on here can validate it.

I haven't had thoughts for almost a year, pretty much after I stopped taking the meds, my thoughts stopped! But it bugged me for a long time and I couldn't figure out why something for "depression" would make you MORE depressed

Thanks