[Apologies for this long and (mostly) off-topic post.]
Sorry aokoye, but I don't understand the intent of your first response to me. Are you expanding upon what I said? Criticising it?
aokoye wrote:Ingaræð wrote:vogeltje wrote:In the countries where I have lived (belgium and England) the psychiatrist prescribes the meds, not the psychologist, or nurses, or others. Your GP can prescribe after the specialist has decided, and the GP does the things like the blood tests etc.
This isn't strictly the case in the UK. GPs can prescribe a drug that is not classed as a 'hospital drug', i.e. virtually any anti-depressant. Dentists can prescribe anti-depressants that have subsequently been approved for treating pain, e.g. amitriptyline. 'Mood stabilisers', anti-psychotics and lithium are classed as 'hospital drugs' and can only be initially prescribed by a doctor in secondary care, i.e. a hospital or Community Mental Health Team.
vogeltje wrote:For some people, like aokoye wrote, they wouldn't be alive without the meds. Personally, I am fed up that I'm so drugged up (ok I will say this), but at the same time, the meds do some things which make my life possible.
I'm glad they're helping
someone here!
So here's the thing. There are drugs that can treat different issues. There are ton of antiepileptics that are also mood stabilizers, bupropion has been successfully used in both depression in smoking cessation, pregabalin is used to treat epilepsy, fibromyalgia, and anxiety, lamotrigine is used for both epilepsy and bipolar (and sometimes depression), and so on. What's important to note is a. that this is not unusual (if anything it's pretty logical in terms of mental health issues and epilepsy) and b. the doses prescribed are often radically different. Is a dentist going to be prescribing amitriptyline for pain or are the going to be doing so for depression? That's what's actually important.
In the context of my post, that's completely unimportant - I'll use my example of amitriptyline to explain myself (for those who have less knowledge of these medications, the principle also applies to aokoye's examples). It is primarily a serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor (SNRI), but it also has many other mechanisms of action, and multiple effects resulting from those mechanisms.
It does not stop being an SNRI depending on whether you take 10mg or 25mg, whether your doctor prescribes it for the mechanism treating clinical depression, or your dentist for the mechanism treating pain from temporomandibular joint dysfunction. The box of tablets has the same list of side-effects.
aokoye wrote:I still think it's unwise for GPs to be prescribing psychotropic meds (for mental health issues) as opposed to say, psychiatrists though.
I completely agree.
aokoye wrote:Again, while I'm not someone who has personally gained much from psychotropic drugs I think that maligned them ignores the fact that for some people they literally are a life saving measure. This also isn't a particularly small group of people. I would also say that saying that X drugs are overperscribed is different than saying that X drugs are bad.
If this is directed at me, I have not maligned psychotropic drugs, nor have I said whether I believe they are bad or overprescribed (and this is deliberate on my part).
In regard to your second post, I'm loathe to get into an off-topic debate about this, but as my chosen words have not conveyed my intended meaning, I'll try to clarify things for everyone.
aokoye wrote:Ingaræð wrote:Find the cause of the problem
In my opinion, depression and anxiety are not illnesses: they are either symptoms of a physical problem (hormones, stress, vitamin/mineral deficiencies, thyroid, neurology, auto-immune issues, medication side-effects), or an inner-caveman sign that part of your life is less than great and you should change it. If you can't fix the cause, at least you've identified it and can try to make the rest of your life more positive.
For some of us they are illnesses and that's just fine. It's not shameful to have an illness. It's also interesting because there are plenty of hormone imbalances, autoimmune diseases and neurological issue that are classed as illnesses. Why shouldn't depression and anxiety? Again, what's so bad about being diagnosed with an illness as opposed to being diagnosed something someone calls depression but that that same person doesn't want to call an illness. Unfortunately when I stopped meds my treatment resistant depression didn't actually disappear, my sleep got a bit better but my depression didn't change at all (both my opinion and that of my therapist's). I also can assure you there are people who have depression and anxiety and for whom none of the above (in your quote) are true.
I neither said nor implied it was shameful to have an illness. If you want to call depression an illness, call it an illness. In my opinion, doing so hinders the ability of medical professionals to accurately diagnose and treat medical problems and disorders where patients are experiencing varying degrees of depression, and hinders the education of the general public. Depression itself already has multiple medical classifications (Major Depressive Disorder, Bipolar depression, Seasonal Affective Disorder, Post-natal Depression etc.) because they have different causes, different symptoms, different biological markers and different treatments. Depression is typically diagnosed subjectively by symptoms. We are often told the problem is in our brain, yet how many of us have had
any kind of brain scan to verify this? I don't know about the US, but in the UK doctors do not routinely perform
any physical tests when diagnosing depression and prescribing anti-depressants (the menopause may be an exception, I don't know). Too many people are not given the correct diagnosis as a result, which can range from Asperger's, to brain damage, to coeliac disease, to Hashimoto's. Pain is not an illness, it is a symptom of an underlying condition, with varying severity. If a brain cannot feel pain, perhaps it is using emotion to say, "ouch!" instead, with varying severity. All that said, I believe my original statement remains valid.
I stated that my treatment-resistant depression (I'll add hypomania) disappeared when I stopped taking meds. I have no absolute proof that the variety of meds were causing my mood dysfunction, but it is a reasonable conclusion in my case. I have not advocated that others should therefore do the same, nor that they would have the same result. I cite my experience to inform others. All psychiatric medications have side effects, mild or severe (heck, lamotrigine comes with a black box warning). I
do advocate that people educate themselves about these medications before weighing up the benefits and risks of taking them. I provided a link to a website which was of great use to me, and may be to others.
aokoye wrote:Ingaræð wrote:You are how you moveYes, I've stolen that from
Katy Bowman.
Exercise and talking therapies are clinically proven to be more effective in treating mild to moderate depression than anti-depressants. Walking is the best exercise you can do, and it's also great for anxiety as it helps out your over-worked adrenal glands. I don't go outside much at the moment because of anxiety, but it seems that how you move during the day may be even more important for our bodies than what we call 'exercise' (I'll refer you back to Katy Bowman for that, as she's the expert biomechanist!). I also do tai chi, which is essentially moving meditation. I find it really relaxing, and it was the first martial art that Bruce Lee learnt, so it has bonus coolness-points.
I tried 'traditional' meditation and Mindfulness years ago, but my brain wouldn't switch off. There's also a study showing that Mindfulness can increase the creation of false memories. A long time ago a psychology-student friend did a test on me where your brain creates false memories. It freaked me out a bit, so I personally won't be doing any Mindfulness again. Counselling was less than helpful for me. Cognitive behavioural therapy can be very useful, though. Acupressure can be very calming, and you can do it yourself (I think 'tapping' basically uses acupressure points?).
I'm slightly confused as you would defer to a biomechanist as opposed to a psychologist but walking is "the best exercise" for you perhaps, not necessarily the rest of us. Additionally. You could also consider tai chi mindfulnes though. Yes exercise can help people with mild to moderate depression (there seems to be a lot of peer reviewed data that confirms this) however hearing that over and over again and being someone who a. likes various forms of exercise and b. realizes it does absolutely nothing for their depression gets really
really old. Ironically right after I press "submit" I'm going to be on my way to go swimming.
I'm not going to quote the rest of your post but I can assure you people still had mental illnesses (both mild and severe) when there weren't TVs and other screens around. This isn't some new thing. If anything what's new is that we're getting a bit better (if not at the very least more compassionate) at how we treat it.
Biomechanics is the application of Newtonian physics to living organisms: that includes how we move, exercise, and what physically happens to astronauts in space. I don't expect the general public to have knowledge of this branch of science, nor is it in a psychologist's remit. Katy Bowman a biomechanist specialising in movement, exercise and whole-body health. I don't know in what respect I need to defer to a psychologist?
Walking is scientifically the best exercise for humans. It is a necessary movement that is cardiovascular, weight-bearing to strengthen bones, aids digestion and lots of other things. You like swimming, great. If it helps you, even better. But it is horizontal and non-weight-bearing, and therefore not as good as walking. I am not telling you to quit swimming and start hiking. Again, I defer to Bowman.
If tai chi (in practice) has something in common with Mindfulness, I'm missing it.
I did not say that exercise would help
everyone suffering from depression or anxiety. Someone used the word 'outlier' - I believe that describes both of us?
The Ancient Greeks had identified several mood disorders, and treatment, despite not truly understanding them. We all know they didn't have TVs, and I clearly did not say that TV causes mood disorders. Just because some technology isn't new for us in the 21st century, doesn't mean that its biological impact on us is common knowledge. Technology has evolved, humans haven't. Science and society has made us believe that we can outsmart nature. We can't, and that has consequences - good or bad.
I am Jar-ptitsa and my Hawaiian name is ʻā ʻaia. Please correct my mistakes in all the languages. Thank you very much.
I also watch what I eat in other regards. I'm mostly on a paleo diet, ketogenic to be specific, and I notice that my energy and focus levels are best when I eat no sugar, few carbs and a lot of vegetables. I follow this philosophy a lot 
