Posted by Quintal on January 17, 2007, at 14:44:58
In reply to Re: Do people feel medications help or mask sympto, posted by bulldog2 on January 17, 2007, at 13:10:54
>As to the use of opiates or stimulants as ads that's a grey area to me. They often work right away but only work as long as you take them and often need increasing doses to maintain their effect. So maybe I would say they mask symptoms the way an opiate masks pain when in fact whatever is causing the pain (arthritis for instance) is still present.
Well for many people depression does recur when they stop taking their AD and there's often a withdrawal syndrome (which can be severe) to boot if they do so abruptly. It's also a common experience for ADs to 'poop out' and require higher doses to maintain the antidepressant effect or a switch to another drug - could this be a different manifestation of tolerance to the effects of changes in brain chemistry?
When I was taking antidepressants and benzos my life seemed wonderful while they worked. It was only when I was forced to stop them I found it was an illusion. My life had been deteriorating but I couldn't see it and didn't much care either because I was feeling so good.
The pattern of drug use was different but I in many ways I behaved in a similar way as I did when taking drugs of abuse except antidepressants and benzos are legal, obtained from a doctor's prescription and therefore tolerated, but for many years opiates and cocaine were used in a similar fashion and were recommended (and used) by doctors. Are drugs of abuse simply more rapidly acting and effective antidepressants with less abuse potential?
Q
poster:Quintal
thread:721825
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20070113/msgs/723259.html