Re: Do Antidepressants Cause Depression? What New Study Says

[Guest guest]

What's even more frigtening is that it seems that once a person has developed a tollerance to an antidepressant it never seems to work as well again even years after stopping the drug. Sounds similar to the damage that is caused in PSSD.

Tardive Dysphoria: When Antidepressant's Cause Depression

Can long-term treatment with antidepressants contribute to a chronic depressive syndrome? Yes, say some experts. The term tardive dysphoria is now used to describe just such a process.

With rates of depression increasing and the well-documented knowledge that antidepressants provide poor clinical benefits to people with mild-to-moderate depression, the prospect of antidepressants worsening the course of depression over time is concerning. Here are some of the key issues informing the debate:

In an article about tardive dysphoria, published in Medical Hypotheses, El-Mallakh and colleagues point to the somewhat alarming statistics that the incidence of treatment-resistant depression is increasing. In the early 1990s the incidence of treatment-resistant depression was estimated to be in the region of 10-15 percent, but by 2006 the figures reported were 30-50 percent. They, and others, now believe that antidepressant treatment itself may contribute to a chronic depressive syndrome.

Treatment response to antidepressants is under question. Various studies point to situations where initial response to antidepressants are favorable only to find the response is lost over time (known as tachyphylaxis). Once this initial response is lost it does not appear to return. In one study, patients taking MAOI medication not only didn't respond to subsequent treatment, they reported worse symptoms of depression than before.

With antidepressants, the longer they are used the less effective they appear to become and what's worse, there's a chance that depression could become more severe. Fava calls this an "oppositional model of tolerance" which basically means the brain dislikes the disruption caused by antidepressants and compensates in the opposite direction; result, a worsening of the problem the antidepressants tried to solve in the first place.

As he says, the brains of teenagers now being prescribed antidepressants will, based on current thinking, develop oppositional tolerance. What then; a lifetime of chronic depression?

http://www.healthcentral.com/depression/c/4182/141813/antidepressant

Kv

>> First I'd like to say that I agree that antidepressants, at least some of them, have far more damage than people think, including doctors. > > That said, I must say that the study has some major flaws. Patients who take antidepressants may have, statistically speaking, more severe forms of depression in the first place than those who do not: the ones with milder depression don't take drugs for it. That's a simple alternate explanation for the higher rates of relapse in those who take medications, one that the author didn't even address. > > Furthermore, in juxtapose to patients who took antidepressants and discontinued, those who are still on the drug have fewer depressive episodes, again, statistically speaking. > > It's important to challenge the conventional wisdom about antidepressants, but it has to be done properly.>

[Guest guest]

In case anyone gets worried, I do belive the brain can recover from

antidepressant induced chronic depression and there is evidence that

this happens over time. And execrise, peace of mind, a loving

relationship with someone, finding happines despite PSSD, can all heal

the brain. So don't despair, just keep working for recovery and

hopefully the PSSD will fade too..

Kv

> >

> > First I'd like to say that I agree that antidepressants, at least

some

> of them, have far more damage than people think, including doctors.

> >

> > That said, I must say that the study has some major flaws. Patients

> who take antidepressants may have, statistically speaking, more severe

> forms of depression in the first place than those who do not: the ones

> with milder depression don't take drugs for it. That's a simple

> alternate explanation for the higher rates of relapse in those who

take

> medications, one that the author didn't even address.

> >

> > Furthermore, in juxtapose to patients who took antidepressants and

> discontinued, those who are still on the drug have fewer depressive

> episodes, again, statistically speaking.

> >

> > It's important to challenge the conventional wisdom about

> antidepressants, but it has to be done properly.

> >

>