NOTE FROM Ann Blake-Tracy (www.drugawareness.org):
describing here in dreaming about various ways of killing herself after starting
on Prozac is the beginning of the REM Sleep Behavior Disorder or RBD – a
condition that was not very common before Prozac hit the market.
it are taking an antidepressant. It is a condition in which people act out their
nightmares and 80% of those hurt themselves or someone else in doing
so.
asked that her name be withheld, said when she sought help for what she
considered to be minor depression, doctors immediately told her drugs
were the answer. ‘They made it seem like my world was falling
apart,’ the 29-year-old said. ‘They really pushed hard for me to
take drugs, and I didn’t want to, but they made me think
I really needed it. So I took them’.”
“She said that after a
few weeks on Prozac, she felt numb then started having
dangerous thoughts. ‘I became emotionless. Like,
things that should’ve made me happy, I was not excited about. Things that should
have made me sad didn’t upset me. I started dreaming about driving my car
into a wall.’ She said that according to her doctor, these were
all symptoms of her depression, but she thinks it was
the drugs.”
http://news.medill.northwestern.edu/chicago/news.aspx?id=154761
Researchers say that antidepressants are no more effective than placebo
in cases of mild or moderate depression.
Depressing truth about antidepressants
by Tina
Amirkiai
Jan 27, 2010
antidepressants for mild depression symptoms, you might as well be taking a
placebo.
A study released by a team of researchers led by Jay C.
Fournier, of the Department of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania,
found that the most commonly prescribed antidepressants do little for mild to
moderate symptoms of depression, having the same results as a placebo.
The study, published in the Jan.6 edition of the Journal of the American
Medical Association, combining previous studies with research from new clinical
trials, concluded, “There is little evidence to suggest that [antidepressants]
produce specific pharmacological benefit for the majority of patients with less
severe acute depressions.”
Dr. Paul Dobransky, a Chicago psychiatrist,
believes professionals need to look closely at each individual patient’s
symptoms and carefully diagnose the best treatment. He said there are three
angles that must be looked at when it comes to mood disorders, which he referred
to as the “bio-psycho-social” aspects.
“The biological or physical
symptoms of mood disorders are where medications are often useful,” he said.
“They cannot however, alter one’s character, personality or fix any external or
social stress the patient might be dealing with.”
Researchers used a
severity scale to evaluate the level of depression symptoms in the hundreds of
clinical trial patients, which ultimately helped determine that the
antidepressants were most effective for those with more severe disorders.
Researchers evaluated the 728 men and women, half of them had severe
depression and the other half had more moderate symptoms. They found that
compared to the placebos, the drugs caused a much steeper reduction of symptoms
in people who scored higher on the severity scale.
Researchers concluded
that, “For patients with very severe depression, the benefit of the medications
over placebo is substantial.”
Dobransky and other critics maintain that
the drug companies should be held accountable for all the advertising and sales
hype in recent years, leading directly to the overuse of drugs like
antidepressants.
In 1997, the Food and Drug Administration loosened the
restrictions on the direct-to-consumer advertising by drug companies. Since
then, pharmaceutical companies have spent billions of dollars advertising their
products to the general public.
Dobransky said a big part of the problem
is patients see advertisements and want to use these drugs as a quick fix.
According to him, patients often assume that mild cases of depression involving
stressful situational causes can be resolved with medicine. But he said quick
fixes like that do not exist.
“Each case needs to be set in its proper
place and in many of these cases, therapy between the patient and their doctor
is the best solution,” Dobransky said.
One antidepressant user, who
asked that her name be withheld, said when she sought help for what she
considered to be minor depression, doctors immediately told her drugs were the
answer. “They made it seem like my world was falling apart,” the 29-year-old
said. “They really pushed hard for me to take drugs, and I didn’t want to, but
they made me think I really needed it. So I took them.”
She said that
after a few weeks on Prozac, she felt numb then started having dangerous
thoughts. “I became emotionless. Like, things that should’ve made me
happy, I was not excited about. Things that should have made me sad didn’t upset
me. I started dreaming about driving my car into a wall.” She said that
according to her doctor, these were all symptoms of her depression, but she
thinks it was the drugs.
“I just felt like instead of my doctor doing
her job as a therapist, she looked to some drug to cure me, which is
ridiculous,” she said. “It’s basically a quick fix, it solves nothing, and in my
case turned mild symptoms into severe ones.”
A spokesman for
GlaxoSmithKline, who makes paroxetine, sold as Paxil, told Bloomberg News that
“the study used for the analysis in the JAMA paper differ methodologically from
studies used to support the approval of paroxetine for major depressive
disorder, so it is difficult to make direct comparisons between the study
results.”
If you think you might be depressed, the Depression Health
Center on the WebMD Web site advises relying on licensed professionals trained
to treat depression who can help you chose the best course of treatment, which
may or may not include antidepressant drugs.
©2001 – 2009 Medill Reports – Chicago, Northwestern
University. A publication of the Medill
School.
