Posted by bluedog on November 14, 2002, at 5:46:30
In reply to prozac/effexor=dendrite shrinkage?, posted by reb on November 13, 2002, at 23:30:56
First of all DO NOT become overly focused on the medication side of your treatment and beat yourself up with the possible long term effects of the medications. This is a VERY easy trap to fall into!!!!
I doubt that there is not a person on this board who has not had concerns about the possible long term side effects of the medications that they are taking.
I am currently taking generic Prozac but.... not so long ago I made a decision when I was in a particularly depressed state of mind to stop taking my medications (If you do decide to decrease or stop your medications DO NOT do this without medical supervision as you will need to taper down gradually) . At the time I wrote the following to a close friend of mine
"I am now frightened of the anti-depressants because they seem to f*#k with your body and your mind to such a degree. I keep finding information on the net that lists certain side effects of ssri's such as permanent negative changes in brain chemistry, and other permanent side effects like cell death at various sites of the body especially in the brain, liver and kidneys and severe negative interference with the body and brain's natural chemical processes(they say that all of the foregoing points are the reason that ssri's have side effects). A lot of these internet sites have there own agenda's (or sales pitches) just like the drug companies. It gets to the point that you don't really know what to believe and you have ongoing propaganda battles between the drug companies and third parties both citing this or that (seriosly flawed) study to support their arguments. It seems impossible to get accurate and unbiased information on the true long term side effects of the ssri's. My personal opinion is that nobody really knows the true side effects of the ssri's that perhaps it is better to be safe than sorry and to stop taking them. (in other words.... "where there is smoke there is fire") What do you think of the above situation and do you have any information or sites on the net where I can get truly unbiased information? I don't want to find out in several years that taking ssri's interfered with some natural antioxidant process in my body or brain allowing cancer cells to get a foothold or leading to accelerated mental decline etc etc etc (I'm sure you get the picture!"
My friend who has worked as a psychiatric nurse and who has also recovered from depression in her life gave me the best advice I could ever have received. She very simply wrote back back and advised me that I was over-focused on the medication side of my treatment. I would personally advise the following:1. Yes, the ssri's have not been around so long and the long term side effects are not not really known and there is little or no long information available about the long term side effects, HOWEVER
2. At this very time in your life you have to question whether your life is better with or without the medication. If you function better with the medication to allow you to work better on all aspects of your recovery so that you can eventually cease the drugs then I would not worry about some imagined catastrophe about the possible side effects of the drugs. Worrying about the medication is not going to help you.
3. The side effects of depression are far more immediate and devastating to your life than the possible long term side effects of medications with loss of self esteem, possible loss of job, problems of self medication by drug and alcohol abuse, and possible loss of life through suicide. I found out very quickly that at the stage of my illness I was at that I was not ready to stop my medication and I am still not ready but I keep making some slow progress.
4. Be aware that neither the drug companies nor the third parties who are vehemently anti-medication or anti-psychiatry are ever truly unbiased and often have their own sales pitches and agendas. For example the following website http://www.prozactruth.com/index.html appears very factual and scientific as an anti ssri site until you realise that the entire web site is actually set up as one big sales pitch for their product "immunocal". I found it difficult to find any references in the entire site to any published and peer reviewed studies to support their views. Again any studies they do cite are not really on point and possibly taken out of the context of the original purpose of the study.
In other words the studies they cite are twisted around to fit their sales pitch.5. Whether you take the medications or not is a very personal decision but take the decision with a balanced consideration of the alternatives.
Good luck
poster:bluedog
thread:127552
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20021108/msgs/127571.html