Posted by Christ_empowered on January 15, 2016, at 13:46:46
In reply to Re: why SSRI's don't work for so many?, posted by Lamdage22 on January 15, 2016, at 13:30:48
for whatever reason, ssri drugs became the standard pills for depression. Thing is...they do work, if you need some calming, if you have obsessive thoughts, if you're agitated, etc.
If you get tired, having trouble concentrating, eat too much, sleep too much, etc...not so much.
Depression covers a lot of ground...the diagnosis isn't very specific. In fact...good docs focus more on symptoms than on diagnosis, generally. If you read the older psychiatric literature, that's how most shrinks did things.
Psych drugs generally don't fix imbalances or boost low neurotransmitters. The idea is to change brain chemistry to make symptoms more manageable and (one hopes) improve functioning.
For instance...I take Wellbutrin. It lightly inhibits the reuptake of norepinephrine and dopamine. Its been great for me, because its mechanism of action gave me the "boost" I needed to get through The Blues. Did it restore my brain to pre-depressive harmony? No. If/when I go off wellbutrin, my brain will react to a missing chemical. As I write this, my brain is probably responding to the presence of wellbutrin by some sort of mechanism. Its not a cure, its not even an "anti-depressant" in the sense that Penicillin is an anti-biotic. Its a mildly stimulating mood elevator that "works" in people with some forms of sadness (depression) and isn't well tolerated by some others with the same general diagnosis.
I'm done now, lol. :-)
poster:Christ_empowered
thread:1085422
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20151225/msgs/1085427.html