Friends and family on SSRI's.

OK, who is Jordan Peterson and Peter Hitchens? You guys just throw out names like everybody knows them. I just want the short version. Are they credible sources? Are they doctors?
Peterson is a psychologist. He's been on the front lines of battling crazy woke people for a while now.

I'd consider him credible.

I don't know who Peter Hitchens is off the top of my head.
 
@Dench, 100% right on Ketamine. I've seen adds for clinics offering K treatments. It looks very promising but it's not a money maker for Big Pharma so it's probably not going to go mainstream. Most people could afford K treatment if they prioritized their mental health. That's another facet of the problem. People will wallow in depressed misery, but go spend their money on iPhones and monthly streaming subscriptions and sneakers instead of a treatment program.
It's promising, but there isn't much research on its use for depression. While there is a lot of experience for use as an anesthetic, that use is very different -- a large dose given once, versus smaller doses given repeatedly. How much should the dose be for depression? How often? What are the long term risks? How durable is the response? It would take a large, expensive set of trials to determine that. And what's the payoff afterwards for a pharma company? Not much, but lots of liability.
 
Black market prices are $30 a gram, that's enough for 12 therapeutic doses.
The cost of giving it isn't just the cost of the drug. It's usually given as a 40 minute infusion. So there is the cost of the office, the cost of the nurse to administer it, etc. I'm not saying that justifies $4k, but there are a lot more costs bound up in it. It isn't like a pill.
 
Actually, there has recently been some research into the use of psychedelics as treatment for depression. I’ve seen some advertising for research subjects on a study of ketamine.

Personally, I noticed a huge mood change for a couple days after having surgery that involved full anesthesia. So I think there may be something there.
I was serious.
 
I love the whole ketamine thing....K-holing people legally for fun and profit. Yes I'm bitter that I don't own one of those clinics or the clinics giving B12 and banana bags to millennials who can't handle a hangover.

Ketamine has been around forever.... It just seems to be trendy now in a "Let's try it for this and write a paper about it" kinda way.
 
Keep in mind, you probably know about 10% of what he is really feeling and/or thinking. Its hard for people suffering from something mental or emotional to admit it. And in many cases the people who are closest to them are the last ones to find out. I think you probably aren't ever going to get the full picture, and you really need to rely on a good doctor's advice. In my opinion the best thing you can do is make sure he is in the best care from that perspective and let the doctor make these types of decisions along with your son.
 
It's promising, but there isn't much research on its use for depression. While there is a lot of experience for use as an anesthetic, that use is very different -- a large dose given once, versus smaller doses given repeatedly. How much should the dose be for depression? How often? What are the long term risks? How durable is the response? It would take a large, expensive set of trials to determine that. And what's the payoff afterwards for a pharma company? Not much, but lots of liability.
very true. It's experimental at this point, but it seems that patients report major improvements with even a single "breakthrough" dose. Anecdotal evidence is no substitute for empirical evidence but most indications are positive.

For people with really stubborn depression that no other med has touched, experimental meds are the last resort before eating a bullet. At that point, it's surely worth a try.

The $$ issue / clinical trials cost is why I doubt it will ever be on-label, agree with you there. But with enough peer reviewed journal entries supporting it, some limited number of practitioners who care about actually helping their patients over just making coin will work with it off label, unless the Feds shut it down.

The liability thing is certainly interesting even in the current way it's being introduced. The place I posted that charges $89 a week for K treatment...the K probably costs $0.50 and the majority of the rest probably goes to liability insurance. Giving people high doses of K to take at home for off label use....hard to believe any malpractice insurer would even touch that. I'm interested in how these online/at home ketamine clinics are navigating all the legalities and liability.
 
SSRIs are like antibiotics. Useful meds in the right circumstances, but way overprescribed.

My brother has severe OCD, major depression, and an anxiety disorder. SSRIs help. Talk therapy doesn't, at all.

It's a problem with pubescent teens with normal pubescent teen problems and bouts of the pubescent teenie blues are put on these drugs while their brains are still developing. f***s them all up.

@Dench, 100% right on Ketamine. I've seen adds for clinics offering K treatments. It looks very promising but it's not a money maker for Big Pharma so it's probably not going to go mainstream. Most people could afford K treatment if they prioritized their mental health. That's another facet of the problem. People will wallow in depressed misery, but go spend their money on iPhones and monthly streaming subscriptions and sneakers instead of a treatment program.

MDMA/LSD/Psilocybin also showing incredibly promising results in PTSD, depression, anxiety, migraine and cluster headache care. But super easy and cheap to mass produce so will never get FDA green light for widespread use. Gotta float big pharma.
Rick Doblin is almost there on FDA approval with MDMA. He wrote his thesis on the FDA process 50 years ago and raised over $100mm from private philanthropists to fund the process over the years.

How to Change Your Mind on Netflix covers in-depth.

There are many articles if you search for MDMA FDA approval.
 
Rick Doblin is almost there on FDA approval with MDMA. He wrote his thesis on the FDA process 50 years ago and raised over $100mm from private philanthropists to fund the process over the years.

How to Change Your Mind on Netflix covers in-depth.

There are many articles if you search for MDMA FDA approval.
cool. I watched the show but dozed off during the MDMA episode. will have to rewatch.

Kind of a bummer DMT wasn't included in the series.
 

Antidepressants Work Better Than Sugar Pills Only 15 Percent of the Time​

Five years ago Mark Horowitz seemed an unlikely skeptic of psycho-pharmaceuticals. He had been taking the popular antidepressant Lexapro virtually every day for 15 years. He was so fascinated by the drugs that he spent three years hunched over a dish of human brain cells in a laboratory at King's College London, measuring the effect of human stress hormones and drugs like Prozac and Zoloft.

Then, when he tried to wean himself off the medication, he suffered panic attacks, sleep disruptions and a depression so debilitating that he had to move back to his parents' house in Australia—symptoms that he says were far worse than anything he experienced prior to going on the drugs. He went online and found thousands of others in a similar pickle. They had been unable to kick one of the psychiatric drugs known as Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors, or SSRIs, which include Lexapro, Zoloft and Prozac, among others. Since withdrawal symptoms were thought to be mild and temporary, many of them, like him, had been told by doctors that they were experiencing a relapse of their depression.




The experience galvanized Horowitz to dig deeper into the claims that pharmaceutical companies, and the scientists they fund, have been making about these popular antidepressants.

Continues...
 
To expand on this, I first started avoiding news coverage after 9/11. A colleague of mine died on American flight 11. After watching a lot of the coverage, I came to the decision that I never again wanted to watch a video of the towers collapsing. So when I was watching the news, if they put that clip on I just changed the channel. In the couple years after 9/11, they played that clip of the towers collapsing for all sorts of stories and I just don’t want to see it again. After a while, I expanded my filtering to not watch the tv news at all.

I was still subscribing to the Boston Globe online until a couple years back when one of their op-Ed columnists basically said all white people are racist. At that point I had enough and called them up to cancel — you can’t cancel your online subscription online, you actually have to call them up. I assume that is so they can try to talk you out of it. The guy I spoke with didn’t even get to go down that line of questions because I was so spitting mad. I’m not going pay someone to call me a racist.

Long story short: think long and hard about the news you are consuming and how it is effecting your mental health.
The opposite rings true too.

I'm a lot more on edge in my 30s now that these dickheads affect me in gov
 
While it is prudent to research and ask questions about medications, when it comes to mental health meds it is critical to work with a healthcare professional and start 'plan B' if 'plan A' is causing problems. This is absolutely critical for anti-psychotics. You don't want to F around with these (as in dropping them) based on internet garbage. Some of these drugs (not just SSRI's) can actually cause terrible daily withdrawal symptoms for some individuals, yet work perfectly for others. Lots of grey area when working with grey matter, so don't go DIY nor should you encourage others to go DIY.

Do the research, ask questions, don't self medicate.
 

Antidepressants Work Better Than Sugar Pills Only 15 Percent of the Time​

Five years ago Mark Horowitz seemed an unlikely skeptic of psycho-pharmaceuticals. He had been taking the popular antidepressant Lexapro virtually every day for 15 years. He was so fascinated by the drugs that he spent three years hunched over a dish of human brain cells in a laboratory at King's College London, measuring the effect of human stress hormones and drugs like Prozac and Zoloft.

Then, when he tried to wean himself off the medication, he suffered panic attacks, sleep disruptions and a depression so debilitating that he had to move back to his parents' house in Australia—symptoms that he says were far worse than anything he experienced prior to going on the drugs. He went online and found thousands of others in a similar pickle. They had been unable to kick one of the psychiatric drugs known as Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors, or SSRIs, which include Lexapro, Zoloft and Prozac, among others. Since withdrawal symptoms were thought to be mild and temporary, many of them, like him, had been told by doctors that they were experiencing a relapse of their depression.




The experience galvanized Horowitz to dig deeper into the claims that pharmaceutical companies, and the scientists they fund, have been making about these popular antidepressants.

Continues...




I’m surprised this is all still “new” news. I remember taking a neurobiology course in college, maybe 15 years ago. The professor explained that antidepressants such as SSRIs don’t seem to help with depression, they seemed to help with energy. By having more energy, and more stable energy levels, people are able to accomplish more in their lives which reduces stress and anxiety, as they are not constantly fighting themselves to “keep up with life” you could say. The conversation then was about suicide though, there was speculation that there may be increased suicide risks in some people, as lack of energy, and motivation, actually holds some people back from suicide. I’ve seems this in the news a bit since, but I never see much about efficacy of anti-depressants which I was told back then, was quite low. I’m not saying I’m opposed to to them, and they seem to be helpful for some. Perhaps not necessarily in the ways that doctors, and the general public believe though.
 

Antidepressants Work Better Than Sugar Pills Only 15 Percent of the Time​

Five years ago Mark Horowitz seemed an unlikely skeptic of psycho-pharmaceuticals. He had been taking the popular antidepressant Lexapro virtually every day for 15 years. He was so fascinated by the drugs that he spent three years hunched over a dish of human brain cells in a laboratory at King's College London, measuring the effect of human stress hormones and drugs like Prozac and Zoloft.

Then, when he tried to wean himself off the medication, he suffered panic attacks, sleep disruptions and a depression so debilitating that he had to move back to his parents' house in Australia—symptoms that he says were far worse than anything he experienced prior to going on the drugs. He went online and found thousands of others in a similar pickle. They had been unable to kick one of the psychiatric drugs known as Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors, or SSRIs, which include Lexapro, Zoloft and Prozac, among others. Since withdrawal symptoms were thought to be mild and temporary, many of them, like him, had been told by doctors that they were experiencing a relapse of their depression.




The experience galvanized Horowitz to dig deeper into the claims that pharmaceutical companies, and the scientists they fund, have been making about these popular antidepressants.

Continues...

And just think of all the major side effects that garbage has on people. Those medications are HARSH on peoples bodies and minds.
 
OP, I can add nothing to this thread except the hope that your son has found his happiest and most successful life. Kudos to you for being his rock.
~Matt
 
and don't forget the one that no one talks about, they eliminate the sex drive of both male and female.
Absolutely.

That will give a young man something really to be depressed about!

There have been a number of studies that show going for walks in the sun have a better effect on mood than these SSRI's.

I know from myself, that a 40 minute brisk walk makes me euphoric. A 30 minute bike ride has the same effect. It kicks in an hour after exercise. I have a great feeling of well being.

Lets just say that it really increases "circulation".

My girlfriend (who is an underwear model) can't wait for me to return! Even though I smell like a skunk.
 
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