Thursday, December 20, 2007

the importance of SSRIs (or 'Whispers comes out')

I'm just saying that Tom Cruise is an idiot.

I can go months doing all the mental exercises in existence, work hard, exercise, eat right, and even swallow down St. John's Wort and still feel like crap. But a couple days back on citalopram and I'll be good as new.

SSRIs are not the end-all to avoiding depression. But having fought this battle for twenty years, both with meds and without, I think at this point, esp. as I get older, that the notion of trying to fight depression with taking meds makes about as much sense to me as a person trying to fight diabetes without insulin injections.

p.s. No, I'm not gay. I'm thin and single, but I'm not neat by any stretch of the imagination.

p.p.s. In case the p.s. seems obscure, it's a reference to a famous "Seinfeld" episode.

6 comments:

Jolene said...

You're being glib, whispers!

/Tom Cruise

Seriously, though, he's insane. Not the kind of guy any reasonable person should be taking advice from.

If meds work in ways that other things don't, seems to me that's what one should use.

Also, uh, I'm glad to hear you're not gay.

Landru said...

He's totally not gay, although his pet deer did rape my cat.

And because I'm too lazy to comment on two different posts; no, the futon will not turn into a pumpkin any time soon.

And finally: you misspelled "itinerant". But if you could spell, you wouldn't be a math guy.

Whispers said...

Hmm...I don't usually misspell "itinerant". I'll call that one a typo.

Unknown said...

This is about depression. As a long term ADD and depression guy, I have found the best advice from DR. Daniel Amen. You can find him on the web along with his brain scans which he uses as a diagnostic tool.

Also can find him on amazon.com with the title "Healing Anxiety and Depression." He identifies 7 types along with treatment strategies for each.

Anonymous said...

Just found an interesting publication:
"Selective Publication of Antidepressant Trials and Its Influence on Apparent Efficacy" at The New England Journal of Medicine (http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/short/358/3/252)

Whispers said...

Hi Antje! Yes, that's an interesting study. The possibility of "publication bias" certainly exists in any study of any type of medicine. And the article that you link to suggests that this might exist with SSRIs. FWIW, my doctor never claims that medicine is a cure: he only says that a lot of people have good results with it.

SSRIs are not a panacea for all depression-related problems. And, to be honest, my depression has usually been mild compared to what a lot of people have. SSRIs by themselves are not appropriate for more serious depression. But I know citalopram helps me.