Should we take meds?

[Bill]

I feel it's a personal choice because some people do need them but other feel well enough to cope without.

However, I feel we are too often "unintentionally misled" into thinking they are the cure when they're not and in some circumstances can actually cause additiveness or even make us feel worse.

Meds I feel "can" help when we have reached rock bottom when we need a boost but that they are most effective when used in the short term.

The old meds such as diazepam I think were more effective in reducing symptoms because they acted as a sedative whereas the new meds (the Anti-depressants), I feel lift the mood which is what they're supposed to do but don't actually ease symptoms. I feel sometimes if we feel better taking them it "could" be because they give us more belief in ourselves because we feel if the doctor prescribed them they must be the cure.

Going back to being misled, when we approach the doctor, the GP is confronted by a sufferer who feels desperate but all the doctor has to hand are AD's which will help to lift the sufferers mood. However, the actual "cure" for anxiety lies in therapy which has long waiting lists and takes much longer to work but the GP feels they have to do something for their depressed patient.

Often the symptoms for anxiety mimic the symptoms for depression but the doctor only sees a depressed patient so prescribes AD's to lift the patients mood because they are unaware the patient is actually suffering from anxiety because we often realise ourselves!

Once we are on meds, there are then dangers. We could feel even worse due to the side-effects. We could become addicted but not because the new meds are addictive but because we fear our anxiety will re-surface if we try to stop them. The old AD's such as diazepam Are very addictive so there is a real danger of becoming addicted if taken for too long. We could also think the meds aren't working so the dose is increased or the meds are changed when in fact our symptoms just re-surface due to other underlying causes.

Before we decide to go down the meds route, we need to understand the causes to our anxiety........

In our general make-up we suffer from Fear, Worry, Stress, Lack of Confidence, being Intense, being Sensitive, Perfectionism etc which make us vulnerable to too much stress.

Stress shows itself in more than one form and often we are unaware of it creeping up on us.

Such examples would be....

Emotional Stress due to bad experiences in our past which causes anxiety in the present.

Too much stress in the present due to pressures at work or at home.

Phobias.

Stress can trigger OCD due to our perfectionism and intense nature.

Too much stress can also make us focus on health worries.

We then need to consider the symptoms of too much stress....

Once we reach the boundary of too much stress, the symptoms that result can in themselves cause us more stress because we develop a "fear of feeling fear" i.e. panics, palps etc.

When considering meds, what we're really trying to do is find a way to stop these feelings when we "feel fear"....

If we were confronted by a lion, we will feel Fear and Worry which in turn causes the mind and body to create adrenalin to prepare us to fight or run. However, modern day stresses also cause adrenalin to be pruduced but whereas we would burn the adrenalin off in running from the lion, we feel unable to escape our modern day stresses.

This adrenalin then sits in the body causing us to feel anxious but with no way of burning it off and therefore we feel "trapped" which is why anxiety feels worse in a shop or crowd because it taps into the stress we're experiencing which is already causing us to feel trapped. Often I feel we then feel like a parrot in a cage so we turn on ourselves to pull our feathers out in the form of creating health worries.

So then you have to ask yourself, can a med stop you feeling afraid? It could lift your mood to ease stress but can it frighten a lion away or will the lion still be sitting there in the form of too much stress because the underlying causes have yet to be dealt with?

Personally, I tried most meds because the professionals thought I was suffering from depression. In their words...it was only when the meds had NO lasting effect did they accept my symptoms were being caused by anxiety which created a "depressed state".

I've now been free of meds, including diazepam, for around 8 years but I find on the whole I'm able to cope with my anxiety by finding ways to reduce the amount of stress in my life and by accepting that
anxious symptoms are Natural and Always pass on their own in time Once we allow them by treating them as a perfectly natural reaction to prsent day lions!

However, if someone feels happier taking meds and it's enabling them to lead a happier life then all well and good because that's all that really mattters. All I'm trying to do is provide an informed choice rather than being misled into thinking meds are the cure when they "can" only ease symptoms but "can" also make mattters worse and that the actual "cure" lies in tackling the underlying causes. (in my personal opinion.):hugs:

[guitarpants]

Bill, I've been following your recent threads and posts lately, and they are insightful. Much of the time I feel the same way. I don't feel meds are the answer. I do realize they can be helpful and can provide relief for some, but I don't believe anyone ever "needs" them. I've been struggling for weeks about whether or not I want to take the zoloft I'd been prescribed. The FIRST time I went in to see a new doctor when these symptoms started, she didn't even order any blood tests or anything, no tests to determine if I might have a medical issue instead. But she sent me home with a prescription for Zoloft. Frankly it pissed me off quite a bit and I switched doctors.

I will say though, when things got really bad, I hesitantly took Xanax for about a week and a half. I was having terrifying panic attacks and couldn't sleep anymore so I broke down and took half a tablet before bed each night. I must say, it did it's job, I was able to sleep and it calmed me down. I walked like I was drunk, and it messed up my short term memory and I felt hungover in the morning, but it helped me get through a bad time. Once I was through that, I stopped taking them and I felt even better.

[ash1807]

Bill, have read some of your posts. Itoo am of an increasing belief thr meds are not a long term anser to our prblems, but accptance andd new natural was of living a simplified life

[boobs1967]

I have been prescribed Citalopram a week ago they are still in the cupboard have not touched them i also have Diazepam to calm me down which i took a 5mg over 2 weeks ago, i have always been panicky for years but i managed to take control of it and deal with it myself without meds and i am going to try damn hard again this time without the meds. I need CBT but always the same excuse there is a long waiting list or pay for it myself which is very expensive. It is not fair when people need therapy sraight away you have to wait. So far i been managing ok without meds dont get me wrong still have my bad days but that will always happen but i am a fighter and will keep fighting.

[chickpea]

I'm on citalopram, but really wishe I'd found this place before asking the GP to prescribe me something.

I agree with everything you say, Bill - meds CAN break the cycle long enough for us to find the answers within ourselves, but for some people, they become the whole answer...and then they wonder why the anxiety comes back when they stop taking them.

I am taking the pills as a bandage to stem the flow of blood, while I find a way to fix the wound underneath.

I'm reading self-help books, examining what led to this point in my life and changing my thinking of just about everything.

Anxiety is all about fear and is of our own making. Once we realise there is no monster to fight, we can only recover.:)

Thinking that it is only the meds which are keeping fear at bay, takes away our confidence...and a lcak of confidence leads to fear.

Feel the fear and do it anyway!:yesyes:

[SleeplessFog]

I feel meds are helpful if you cannot do it with Therapy and coping alone. The meds help kick start you to get where you need to be with Acceptance.

SSRIs scare me, and when I took them I was a mess. I am very sensitive to meds, the only med I could tolerate was 0.25mg of Diazepam, and that was because I was so anxious I couldn't sleep.

For myself, I know that meds are only a temporary fix in my situation (again, me only). I have to accept the feelings that I have or else I won't get anywhere.

[chrisl]

No meds are not for every one , my situation is probably different to a lot of people on hear.MY wife left me after 31 years of being together , its only been 3 ore 4 months and it hit me hard . the doctor put me on citalopram 20mg strait away , with in a week i took an overdose, im not just blaming the meds but they did make things a lot worse for me. I have tried to go back on them but they just make things worse . So now i just take diazipam when things get a bit to much and they work. Dont get me wrong i have a constant battle with anxiety and feeling down every day , but i would rather do it this way than go back on meds every day. I do understand that not every one can do it this way and alot of people do need meds every day. But for some people it can make you feel alot worse.

[ElizabethJane]

I would like to put over a different point of view. I agree with you Bill. If you can manage and find a way to live without meds then that is fine by me. I would like to live without my meds but I know that if I stopped taking them over a period of time I would become ill not just a bit low but sucidally depressed to the point of being catatonic and unable to do things for myself. I have been taking various meds anti depressants anti anxiety meds and sleeping pills since I was about fifteen years old. I have been in hospital several times and have had many different types of therapy. So now I don't take anti anxiety meds because I don't need them. I do need my daily dose of lithium and at the moment I'm taking mirtazapine. I suppose I am a fairly high functioning depressive as I work part time, and am a mum and also lead a fairly busy social life (belong to three different choirs) However this has taken years to achieve. I have had crippling set backs and times when I thought I would never recover. I have lost jobs, ran away from jobs been medically retired. I hold the job down that I have now because partly I work for a friend who I don't want to let down. I did have two periods in my life when I wasn't taking meds but these were both in 'therapeutic communities' where we were supported to manage without meds. I am done with therapy. I go back to see my hypnotherapist from time to time and I listen to the advice I get from my psychiatrist. Interestingly I came off dothiepin after nearly twenty years (I can't remember when I was put on it) It feels good to be off it but the old depressive feelings are there diluted but still there. So I'm interested when people say that they are not taking any meds. Unfortunately I would be very foolish to go down that route.

[NoPoet]

Personally, if I get a headache, I take painkillers! But then again paracetamol doesn't leave you feeling terrible for two months!

If someone asked me about medication for anxiety then unless they were suffering to the point where they were not able to lead a normal life, I would advise them to try inositol instead. A wider range of benefits, vastly fewer side effects than SSRIs.

I would only ever recommend antideps to someone who desperately needed them. And I would tell them to get counselling, change their diet, take inositol and consider hypnosis and self-help mp3s. Medication alone is not a cure and may make things worse.

[KK77]

Unfortunately all psychiatric meds can be addictive. Big Pharma may give fancy names for dependency like "discontinuation syndrome" but addiction implies having difficulty withdrawing from a drug and I've found that ALL these meds have that tendency, in lesser or greater degrees of course. Apart from the physical symptoms of withdrawal, which is no doubt caused by the tolerance to the drug, there's also the psychological aspect of being dependent on the drug.

I'm not anti-medication though and have been on several this year, and I never took that decision lightly. However, I've come to the conclusion that I'm better off without them, as they've made very little impact on my depression.

Also, the pharma companies say there's no evidence that SSRI-type ADs cause dependence, yet there are millions of people that have had a very difficult time coming off them and have suffered for long time afterwards. But maybe I'm being cynical - it's just a shame that not more doctors are also cynical. I think that doctors should spend a lot more time discussing the long-term implications of being on these drugs instead of just handing out another script for citalopram and hoping the patient will miraculously recover. Also, I haven't seen any long-term (ie, longer than a year) efficacy trials for these drugs. All the clinical trials seem to be no more than a year, yet there are people that have been on these drugs for tens of years. If these drugs work, then great, let's all take 'em, but us give the evidence for this.

In conclusion, I think that these drugs can be effective in the short-term (no more than a year) but in the long-term I doubt their efficacy, compared to the ultimate damage they seem to be able to produce.

[Bill]

I've always felt that the old drugs such as diazepam are extremely addictive but in years gone by they were probably the only option available so people were left on them too long which has now meant that they will never be able to come off them such as in my mother-in-law's case.

I think these days therapy has become more widely recognized and although often there are long waiting lists due to a lack of resources, I have known people who have recovered to lead happy lives. However, therapy will only work if the sufferer is prepared and feel able enough to confront their fears because therapy in itself isn't a cure. It's simply a tool that enables us to help ourselves by showing us the right way to think, restoring our confidence and enabling us to move on with our lives by coming to terms with our past, depending on the type of issues that are affecting us. I believe though that therapy can enable us to lead a happier life but it only works if the sufferer is prepared to face their ghosts. Sometimes I feel neither meds or therapy will help some people because the cost to themselves just feels too great such as in my case in my situation. People will say to me if I want to be happy then I have to make changes but those changes would be too much for conscience to bear. So many times I hear or read of couples who split up, only for one half to become so ill that they become suicidal or are left a broken person for years after. I couldn't live with that on my conscience.

Anyway, if someone is suffering from depression that makes them feel suicidal then I firmly believe that they Must get help and Should take ad's to help them recover. I can't really see any alternative because when we are That low I can't see how any therapy could help when our will is so broken that we just want to give up. A persons life is just too important and to lose them can cause too much heatbreak.

What I do feel is open to debate though is the effectivenes of ad's for anxiety because although the symptoms mimic depression, the causes can be entirely different. To me, anxiety means "severe worry" so if we learn how to control our fears, we learn how to lead a happier life. I can't see how ad's can cure fear because it would mean trying to control something that is natural and part of our make up. It's just that our make up's make us more vulnerable to experiencing anxiety but even confident people will also have their limits.

I feel that often from the moment we wake up in the morning we are already worrying about the day ahead and the fear we will encounter along the way. In this way I feel we're already preparing ourselves to expect to feel ill at some point so it comes as no surprise when we do and it's something go through in a daily cycle until we change our approach to each day by making changes in our lives.

I'm just not sure about these modern ad's. I feel they are all the doctors have to offer because they know the old breed of medications that are better for sedation are just too addictive. If ad's were produced to treat anxiety, wouldn't they be called "anti-anxiety" meds rather than "anti-depressants"? I feel they were produced to treat clinical depression that has no obvious cause whereas anxiety always surfaces due to life experiences that affect our confidence because we're so sensitive.

I know we shouldn't generalise but I feel depression and anxiety are often put under one label but often someone who suffers from anxiety is too afraid of anything, including dying, whereas someone with pure depression will have no fear but both will suffer from a low mood. It's this low mood that the doctor will see so will treat both types of sufferer in the same way because ad's "should" raise a persons mood but in the anxiety sufferers case will not treat the underlying causes which often the depression sufferer doesn't have. Therefore, the most effective types of treatment are probably entirely different for both types.

I just feel that if someone is suffering depression because they hate their job, they should change their job and not take ad's because it's the environment they're in that makes them feel so depressed whereas if someone is in a job they love, have no health or financial worries and yet for no obvious reason they feel very depressed then they should try taking ad's because there is nothing they could or would want to change in their lives which would cure their depression.

In the same way, when someone is suffering with anxiety, there is Always a cause so although ad's will lift their mood, I still feel the actual "cure" lies within them which can be accessed with a little help from outside.

One last thought- when you feel anxious, which do you feel would help you most.....an ad...........or............comfort, understanding and support? Unfortunately, I feel the doctors can only provide an ad but not a hug.:hugs:

[Danath]

I have to disagree(nicely :winks:) there Melancholia on the point abotu all of these medicnes being addictive, jsut because yo ucan get withdrawal effects doesnt necassarily mean addiction, it would be however if it was accompanied by a powerful urge/desire/need to take the drug to make one feel 'normal' again.

on the other foot, it is entirely possible I have damaged myself in some way over the past 3 years with medications I have had, however theres no proof/evidence for or against this one.

it is down to personal choice, if you are in physical pain you take a painkiller, the same goes for emotional and mental pain i feel.

Dan

[KK77]

Sure Danath, but addiction can have physical and psychological effects. If you get withdrawal symptoms then there's a degree of tolerance to the drug. People associate addiction with something like a class A drug but there are varying degrees. I was on Seroxat for 7 years and coming off it was a nightmare. My body was addicted to the drug which then affects you psychologically. It's a bit of a grey area and drug companies have taken advantage of that. Tolerance to a drug will give you a hard time coming off it - that's the main issue. If you define it as addiction or not doesn't make it any easier really. But I understand this is a controversial subject because of our subjective views about what "addiction" means. The facts remain the same however: many, many people find it very difficult coming off psychiatric meds.