They found that a U.S. child was 15% to 20% more likely to have a chronic condition in 2023 than a child in 2011. In particular, the prevalence of depression, anxiety, sleep apnea and obesity all increased, as did rates of autism, behavioral problems, developmental delays and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.
Reports of problems such as poor sleep, limited physical activity, early-onset menstruation and loneliness also rose.
Just stop vaccinating and eliminate food additives. All will be well! (/s)
“I’ve never seen anybody come off long-term Effexor or Cymbalta and not have years of trouble,” said Horowitz, the British psychiatrist. While these two drugs are known to be harder to stop, Horowitz said he also frequently sees severe and lasting problems among patients coming off drugs with less risk for withdrawal, like fluoxetine (marketed as Prozac) and escitalopram.
OK, first off, anecdotes are not data. But they are often the trigger for data to be gathered and examined. The fact that this has not really been examined is a bit distressing. I could find some statements about short term effects of withdrawal:
In fairness, not something I run into in peds much, but certainly something that we need more info about. Especially as we are increasingly seeing mental health crises in younger and younger people, and our toolbox is pretty limited to help them. I would currently file this under “there is no effect without side-effect” and “balancing risk and benefit is why I have a job.” But to do these properly, we need to actually understand those risks. Clearly, the long-term risks are a gap in our knowledge of these drugs.
Anecdotes are not data, but it’s known that coming off effexor is awful. I did it. It was bad, though luckily not years of issues. I had a doctor who believed me about the side effects. At the end, I was opening the lowest dosage capsules and cutting the amount inside in half. The second time was easier. Likely because I was going onto buproprion/wellbutrin
It makes sense to me people would have issues after years of being on these drugs. Brains adapt and would adapt to the medications. Then they have to adapt back and might not do that well without support
Antidepressants have their place. But they are tidal waves when most people just need a gentle current. We need more research into depression! All aspects, including how these drugs really work, what happens when patients stop taking them, protocols to ease out. Would tapering off while taking a different drug and then tapering off the second drug help? Would using ketamine based therapy or TMS before and during tapering help? Could those therapies simply replace SSRIs completely for most patients?
TMS has been very effective for me. I was able to drop my second antidepressant entirely and take only Wellbutrin. Then lower the dosage of the Wellbutrin.
I am actually really excited about the possibilities of inhaled ketamine therapy, but the research is tough due to “war on drugs” type regulations. TMS has also shown great promise, but lacks consistent outcomes. I suspect this has more to do with our lack of understanding of the mechanisms of both TMS and depression writ large. There are modalities in the pipeline that are really hopeful. I just want more data on what happens afterward. And that is tough to get funded. And I suspect will get tougher. Although Junior would love to just outlaw antidepressants as a class, along with pretty much any other psych meds. I am watching for this to actually happen. The FAFO will be incredibly ugly for all concerned.
I had a similar experience coming off Effexor in the late 1990s. I was taking it with Bupropion, and my doctor decided to take me off the Effexor. I had to taper off the med with reduced dosages over a period of several weeks, ending with half-doses.
I only had one instance of withdrawal symptoms - I was at, of all places, a Toys-R-Us, picking out a supersoaker-type toy as a birthday gift for a friend. As I was walking down an aisle, my “consciousness” (vision and situational awareness) suddenly snapped into sharp focus, kind of like the effect you get when focusing a camera lens as the image shifts from blurry to sharp. This happened two or three times over a period of about 15 minutes as I walked through the store. Very disconcerting, but fortunately wasn’t repeated.
My current drug cocktail (well, the depression/anxiety/ADD part of it) consist of Bupropion, Duloxetine, and Lisdexamphetamine (Vyvanse). They have worked well for me for years.
I believe what we consider depression doesn’t have a single modality. It is a symptom of multiple different illnesses. Which is a huge part of why some treatments work for some people but not others and likely plays into the harm experienced by some people when coming off SSRIs.
I’m excited about the ketamine treatments too. If the TMS ever stops working or becomes unavailable where I live, I will probably try the guided therapy under ketamine as the next step. Though part of me wishes I could just try microdosing. But, like you said, research of ketamine and psychedelics is hard to get moving. Doesn’t help that the company doing the big study for the VA screwed it up.
The introduction of the short list of Medicare services for prior authorization will test how well technologies such as machine learning and AI can streamline the prior authorization process. “CMS is committed to crushing fraud, waste, and abuse, and the WISeR Model will help root out waste in Original Medicare,” said CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz.
Researchers don’t know why it’s being added to illicit drugs—or what it does once it’s there. BTMPS has never been tested in humans before given that it’s never been intended for use in humans.
Lovely. Let’s just do a large, uncontrolled experiment, shall we? Maybe we will develop better UV resistance? Or we could just go with
Ummm, well, this is interesting…
When given during self-administration and acute withdrawal, BTMPS treatment decreased acute withdrawal symptoms (up to 64%) of morphine use and reduced (up to 45%) drug seeking responses after six weeks of protracted withdrawal compared to control
I seriously doubt this is why it is showing up, though.
So, she began taking turmeric capsules at a dose of 2,250 mg per day. According to the World Health Organization, an acceptable daily dose is up to 3 mg per kilogram of weight per day—for a 150-pound (68 kg) adult, that would be about 204 mg per day. Mohan was taking more than 10 times that amount.
“If some is good, more must be better,” is such an American attitude. There is nothing that has an effect that does not have a side-effect.
(ETA: From the comments, it seems the quoted dosage is for curcumin, the active ingredient in turmeric and the suspected bad actor (but not proven) rather than whole turmeric, which is generally 2-5% curcumin. It did seem odd to me that the toxic dose was about what I use in curries, although this is not a daily dish at my house.)
I sometimes drink turmeric tea to help with inflammation. In addition to being careful about the dosage*, there have been warnings about the risk of lead and other substances in that spice:
*How many overdose incidents might be due to problems converting measurements?
