February 28, 2008
The Medicated Americans: Antidepressant Prescriptions on the Rise
From Scientific American:
I am thinking of the Medicated Americans, those 11 percent of women and 5 percent of men who are taking antidepressants.
It is Sunday night. The Medicated American—let’s call her Julie, and let’s place her in Winterset, Iowa—is getting ready for bed. Monday morning and its attendant pressures—the rush to get out of the house, the long commute, the bustle of the office—loom. She opens the cabinet of the bathroom vanity, removes a medicine bottle and taps a pill into her palm. She fills a glass of water, places the colorful pill in her mouth and swallows. The little pill could be any one of 30 available drugs used as antidepressants—such as Prozac or Zoloft or Paxil or Celexa or Lexapro or Luvox or Buspar or Nardil or Elavil or Sinequan or Pamelor or Serzone or Desyrel or Norpramin or Tofranil or Adapin or Vivactil or Ludiomil or Endep or Parnate or Remeron. The pill makes a slight flutter as it passes down her throat.
Julie examines her face in the mirror and sighs. She hopes that by some Monday morning in the future—if not tomorrow morning, then some mythical, brilliant and shimmering Monday morning a month from now, or two months from now, or three—the pills will have worked some kind of inexorable magic. Corrected a chemical imbalance, or something, as the Zoloft commercial had said. “Zoloft, a prescription medicine, can help. It works to correct chemical imbalances in the brain,” the voiceover on the ad had intoned. Julie didn’t know she had a chemical imbalance, nor does she actually know what one is, and it had never really occurred to her that she could have a mental illness (could she?). But she does hope, fervently, that her life will become a little easier, a little less stressed—soon. She hopes, desperately, that the pills will make her feel better—that the little white powder hidden in the green capsule will dissolve in her stomach, enter her bloodstream, travel to her brain and do something. Brushing her teeth, she hopes that one day she will simply feel better.
More here.
Posted by Azra Raza at 05:44 AM | Permalink
Comments
Plus ça change:
What a drag it is getting old
"Kids are different today"
I hear ev'ry mother say
Mother needs something today to calm her down
And though she's not really ill
There's a little yellow pill
She goes running for the shelter of a mother's little helper
And it helps her on her way, gets her through her busy day
"Things are different today"
I hear ev'ry mother say
Cooking fresh food for a husband's just a drag
So she buys an instant cake and she burns her frozen steak
And goes running for the shelter of a mother's little helper
And two help her on her way, get her through her busy day
Doctor please, some more of these
Outside the door, she took four more
What a drag it is getting old
"Men just aren't the same today"
I hear ev'ry mother say
They just don't appreciate that you get tired
They're so hard to satisfy, You can tranquilize your mind
So go running for the shelter of a mother's little helper
And four help you through the night, help to minimize your plight
Doctor please, some more of these
Outside the door, she took four more
What a drag it is getting old
"Life's just much too hard today,"
I hear ev'ry mother say
The pursuit of happiness just seems a bore
And if you take more of those, you will get an overdose
No more running for the shelter of a mother's little helper
They just helped you on your way, through your busy dying day
(Jagger/Richards) 1966
Posted by: Thinkerer | Feb 28, 2008 9:17:01 AM
As a nurse I don't think I've ever seen the marketed benefits of these glam/money-maker drugs.
I see a lot of people who they help briefly by numbing their feelings (and who wouldn't want their depression numbed at some point?), but as far as relieving depression...?
Then again,
Let us take the daring step of calling life problems what they are and what they were up until about 20 years ago: life problems.
I applaud the author for that, but the article should have gone into more detail about explaining it's by-line.
It's only been a couple decades since Prozac hit the scene and it's quite telling to have watched SSRI sales rise in tangent with 'diagnoses' of depression.
Posted by: beajerry | Feb 28, 2008 10:10:01 AM
The article emphasizes something that those who treat depression and eating disorders --- as psychiatrists --- find with great and sad frequency: that antidepressants and pills in general, are not the world's panacea that we are lead to believe by the pharmaceutical companies.
Three recent books make the point more effectively than any article can achieve:
1. Shyness: How Normal Behavior Became a Sickness by Christopher Lane.
2. The Lost of Sadness: How Psychiatry Transformed Normal Sorrows Into Depressive Disorder by Allan Horwitz e.al. and
3. The Medicalization of Society: On the Transformation of Human Condition Into Tratable Disorders by Peter Conrad.
The fact remains that --- in my experience --- the human touch offered by psychotheray is quite often, and sadly overlooked, in favor of the "magic" of a pill, whether one is applicable or not.
And, to make things worse, for all its captive users in the field, DSM---Etc. is a sham.
Well said, nurse beajerry!
Posted by: Felix E. F. Larocca MD | Feb 28, 2008 11:06:00 AM
The article emphasizes something that those who treat depression and eating disorders --- as psychiatrists --- find with great and sad frequency: that antidepressants and pills in general, are not the world's panacea that we are lead to believe by the pharmaceutical companies.
Three recent books make the point more effectively than any article can achieve:
1. Shyness: How Normal Behavior Became a Sickness by Christopher Lane.
2. The Lost of Sadness: How Psychiatry Transformed Normal Sorrows Into Depressive Disorder by Allan Horwitz e.al. and
3. The Medicalization of Society: On the Transformation of Human Condition Into Tratable Disorders by Peter Conrad.
The fact remains that --- in my experience --- the human touch offered by psychotheray is quite often, and sadly overlooked, in favor of the "magic" of a pill, whether one is applicable or not.
And, to make things worse, for all its captive users in the field, DSM---Etc. is a sham.
Well said, nurse beajerry!
Posted by: Felix E. F. Larocca MD | Feb 28, 2008 11:07:23 AM
Oh, it is true, it is true -- these pills are tools, nothing more, nothing less. They do not fix people who are profoundly broken simply on their own; this also requires a "handyman" of sorts, a psychiatrist or invested caregiver who will administer other kinds of care (behavioral cognitive therapy, talk therapy, etc.) while the patient is on meds. And, unfortunately, some people are broken in ways that the pills simply can't fix.
I have a family member who has a life-long eating disorder, and no amount of anti-depressants or therapy has ever really made that neurosis go away, unfortunately. Both have made it less bad -- we can all eat meals together -- but it's never *gone*.
Posted by: ecp | Feb 28, 2008 3:08:18 PM
Though many new drugs have great value, the way they are flogged on US TV is disgusting. This is the sure sign that the drug companies have profits and not people's health uppermost in their minds. In general, the US health care system is a 4 trillion dollar racket, second only to the military/paranoia racket. I am just recovering from a bad cold. I took no drugs but stayed in bed and rested for 2 days. In most cases, that's all it takes.
Posted by: Jared | Feb 28, 2008 3:25:13 PM
It seems doctors are unwilling to say "you are chronically miserable because you lead a pointless and unfulfilling life".
Posted by: Sagredo | Feb 28, 2008 5:07:31 PM
Depression is a commonplace event in modern times, taking on many different forms, including physical, sexual, emotional, and verbal abuse, occurring in many different contexts.
Posted by: Antidepressants | Oct 22, 2008 11:44:11 PM
Post a comment