Posted by SLS on October 6, 2005, at 10:28:52
In reply to Re: Professor at Med School Says Wean off All Meds » SLS, posted by Nickengland on October 5, 2005, at 10:42:10
> Hello Scott
>
> Ahh my previous post did possibly come across slightly antipsychiatry/antimeds lol My apologies, that was not my intention, just trying to cover some middle-ground :-)No, it really didn't come off that way, but I can see how my response seemed curt or defensive.
Thanks for the link to the Terrence Ketter interview. He was one of the researchers working at the NIHH while I was a patient there. He is a smart guy and does good work with imaging and bipolar disorder. He was part of one hell of a team of clinical investigators that included Mark George, Robert Post, William Potter, Mark Schmidt, Lauren Marangell, and P. Pazzaglia, and Fred Goodwin, to name a few. Most of these people have since left, but they occasionally colaborate. They make for a nice think tank.
I guess I still have a problem with the use of the phrase "treats symptoms" when it comes to the robust antidepressant response and remission brought about by antidepressants. With bipolar disorder and depression, it seems to me that there is a core pathology that produces a multitude of symptoms. Each individual symptom could be treated one at a time as a palliative measure. For instance, one can treat the anxiety with a benzodiazepine, the loss of energy with a stimulant, the impairments in memory with a PDE (Alzheimers drug), constipation with a laxative, aches and pains with an analgesic, insomnia with a hypnotic, etc. These are the symptoms of the disorder. On the other hand, when a robust response is achieved, it seems that a single antidepressant drug can somehow rectify or compensate for the core pathology in such a way that all signs of the illness disappear. Unfortunately, too many people on PB demonstrate treatment resistence or incomplete response. In these cases, residual symptoms often remain despite treatment, leading one to believe that remission of the illness is impossible, but that variable degrees of "symptomatic relief" are the best that anyone can expect.
I have not had much luck in life. However, I did get to experience antidepressant-induced remissions on a few occasions - once for as long as 9 months. Dr. Ketter is right in portraying the recovery process as a slow one. I think it took me two full months for me to feel 100%. My generalization is this, if I could experience a 100% disappearance of 100% of depressive symptoms (remission), so can others. It just doesn't "feel" like my symptoms were treated. It felt like the disease state was abolished - it went into remission. The disorder is not cured, but remains inactive.
Do anticonvulsants merely treat the symptoms of epilepsy or do they treat the pathology itself? Do these drugs make the convulsions disappear even though the brain is experiencing ictal epileptic activity? No. They prevent the disease state and all of its symptoms from manifesting. The disorder is not cured, but it has been brought into remission.
I don't think I am expressing myself very well here.
- Scott
poster:SLS
thread:562069
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20051003/msgs/563645.html