Posted by SLS on October 27, 2010, at 17:42:32
In reply to Re: various bipolar meds » SLS, posted by 49er on October 27, 2010, at 15:31:24
> I don't mean to sound like a smart alleck but if polypharmacy is as wonderful as you say it is, why haven't you found the right combination?
That is a horrendous question to ask me.
It is a cheap shot against me, the doctors whom have treated me, and the efforts of medical science to cure me. I don't understand your need to invalidate psychiatry as it is currently practiced, despite the limitations imposed upon it by a fundamental lack of understanding in a field that is still in its infancy. Neuroscience is working feverishly to gain knowledge and understanding so as to cure mental illness.
What does the validation of the rest of psychiatry have to do with me or the difficulties medical science has had in treating me? Do you think that all of the cases of cancer are responsive to the polypharmacy administered? Does one failed attempt to treat in this manner indicate a condemnation of the use polypharmacy in oncology? Of course not.
I don't think it serves well that you should use your own experience with psychiatry as a standard by which all other cases are to be compared. Mental illnesses are extremely variable in their presentations and treatment responses. What are the odds that all cases of mental illness should mirror your own? You didn't relapse when you discontinued antidepressant treatment? You are fortunate, but not unique. It happens. I think it depends upon the individual's endophenotype. It happens quite often that the discontinuation of psychiatric drugs allows for relapse. Greater chronicity and recurrency in the presentation of an affective disorder seems to indicate long-term treatment.
How is it that I never responded to monotherapy, yet reached remission with polypharmacy? The doctor discontinued my medication after only 9 months. I relapsed within 2 months. To treat this relapse, the doctor elected to use only one of the two drugs that got me well previously. By the time I had tried and failed to respond to a bunch of other drugs as monotherapy, I was no longer responsive to the previously successful combination treatment when it was reintroduced. There is more to my case history that leads me to believe that my chances of remitting spontaneously are nil. After 33 years of unrelenting chronic depression without spontaneous remissions, I think it would be irresponsible of me to neglect polypharmacy as an alterative treatment just because the idea is unpallatable to some authors who fail to demonstrate any science behind their conclusions.
- ScottSome see things as they are and ask why.
I dream of things that never were and ask why not.
poster:SLS
thread:966733
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20101020/msgs/967157.html