Posted by Cherry Carver on February 7, 2010, at 11:32:49
In reply to newsweek: antidepressants all placebo effect, posted by pegasus on February 3, 2010, at 12:46:49
I just read the Newsweek article--thank you for the link! Here's what I think:
First, I really don't like the high-and-mighty tone of Sharon Begley, the person who wrote the article. In all likelihood, she has never been a victim of depression or mental illness. She seems to feel disdain for anyone who requires medication, and wishes to disabuse us all of the notion that drugs can help alleviate depression. Aside from a shallow review of a few classes of drugs, she really doesn't know the bigger picture: that there ARE other drugs besides tricyclics, SSRIs, and NSRIs.
While none of those worked for me (most of them made me sick), it's not helpful for Begley to dismiss all antidepressants out of hand. I take Klonopin, a benzodiazepine, to control panic disorder. Unless I missed something, Begley doesn't discuss that class of drugs. Long before Prozac, there was Valium. It's still a very popular drug, and definitely not a sugar pill by any stretch of the imagination.
It's true that a lot of these newer antidepressants are prescribed too freely by family doctors who don't know enough about mental illness or pharmacology to be handing out prescriptions to clinically-depressed patients. However, in many cases these drugs have helped enough people to validate their efficacy. We are all wired differently. For instance, Cymbalta made me throw up all day after one dose, but other people say it gets them out of bed in the morning without pain.
My opinion: The problem is not so much that some of these drugs may have a placebo effect, but that some doctors think one size fits all, and it simply isn't so.
poster:Cherry Carver
thread:935850
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20100204/msgs/936249.html