Why antidepressants don't work for so many

[bananas]

Why antidepressants don't work for so many
October 23rd, 2009

More than half the people who take antidepressants for depression never get relief. Why? Because the cause of depression has been oversimplified and drugs designed to treat it aim at the wrong target, according to new research from the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. The medications are like arrows shot at the outer rings of a bull's eye instead of the center.

A study from the laboratory of long-time depression researcher Eva Redei, presented at the Neuroscience 2009 conference in Chicago this week, appears to topple two strongly held beliefs about depression. One is that stressful life events are a major cause of depression. The other is that an imbalance in neurotransmitters in the brain triggers depressive symptoms.

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"This is a huge study and statistically powerful," Redei said. "This research opens up new routes to develop new antidepressants that may be more effective. There hasn't been an antidepressant based on a novel concept in 20 years."

Her findings are based on extensive studies with a model of severely depressed rats that mirror many behavioral and physiological abnormalities found in patients with major depression. The rats, after decades of development, are believed to be the most depressed in the world.

<snip>

Out of a total of over 30,000 genes on the microarray, she discovered approximately 254 genes related to stress and 1275 genes related to depression, with an overlap of only five genes between the two.

<snip>

[Better Today]

1. Wow, well thought out research and presentation.

But now that I know anti-depressants are geared primarily toward stress triggers, rather than chronic depression, I may have to consider whether to take them. Till now I've maintained I'm not chronically depressed, it's just that my life has lots of unexpected as well as anticipated stresses

[Warpy]

4. That explains a lot

I never got any real relief. The depression descends and lifts as though it's an internal set of clouds. If I don't have any life problems to be depressed about, when it hits I'll go looking around in the past for something to be depressed about. Life circumstances don't make you depressed. Being depressed means dealing poorly with life circumstances.

My life can actually be in the toilet when it lifts. It just lifts and there is no reason for it.

There are a lot of severe bipolars in my extended family. I've always been grateful to be a garden variety depressive. Mania would terrify me. Depressives are too torpid to do much damage to their lives. They just neglect to have lives during the episode.

It would be ideal to have a real treatment for it that addresses what is going on in our brains and why.

[truedelphi]

6. Here's what happened to me:

I was a high energy and rather normal youngster. Always out playing, even football with the older guys in the neighborhood. Though my mom frowned on it - not a suitable thing for a eleven year old "young lady" to do.

Then I hit the age of thirteen, and I shut down. Just getting through a day was a nightmare. I looked around me at kids in high school - trying out for cheerleading squad, racing up and down the basketball court. Going places after school, when I just wanted to go home and sleep.

I felt LAZY. Then just as quickly as this lack of energy descended on me, it would lift and move off. And I'd be normal and active too, for another six months or so.

This went on for a decade. Then one day, I could no longer get out of bed in the morning. My boyfriend was very concerned. He dragged me from one high priced specialist ot another. All of them were elegant, well spoken American born doctors, who would interview me about major life events. When they found out that I had been divorced only fifteen months before, they all agreed "You are suffering from depression."

But I knew that wasn't it. Why had I so much energy immediately following the divorce, only to suddenly be semi-catotonic months later? Plus depressed people had zero interest in anything. I was interested in everything. Just not able to move. That made no sense.

One day we drove by a poor people's clinic - and some intuitive force inside me asked that we stop and get a doctor there.

We waited through a long morning and then most of the afternoon. At the end of it, a young Korean doctor came out of his office. He had me stand up, right there in the waiting room, and looking at my figure, he said, in very broken English, something that sounded like "Pudgy thighs. Indicates lung disorder. Possibly asthma. Maybe hayfever allergy."

He brought me into his office and wrote a prescription for Sudafed. I filled said prescription, and within twelve hours the old me was back.

I had no classic symptoms of hayfever. No runny nose or itchy eyes. No gasping for breath.

I now often wonder how many other people out there have their extreme lethargy mistaken for depression.

[Better Today]

10. Actually mine was hisminal (sp?) and it did do some good. The

thing about sudafed is that it is mild meth, so it would give you a boost, just as the hisminal did for me. Seems I'm allergic to mold blowing in from the coast a couple of times a year.

I've been doctor free since 1991, so I don't get that prescript anymore, but do occasionally revert to using some Sudafed for brief periods. The whole meth aspect though keeps me frugal on its use.

Thanks for reminding me though. As my recent posts may indicate, darkness has been descending this week, and now that you remind me the wind is damp and moderate temp and blowing in from the coast this week and last. Perhaps instead of blaming my current predicaments, it's time for a round or two of Sudafed (the behind the counter stuff because the new stuff doesn't work at all)

[truedelphi]

14. What is going on with allergy meds is this:

First they got rid of those anti-hayfever over the counter meds that were nothing but Ephedra. God, those were good. I used to obtain a box of the stuff for like 4 bucks, and cut each pill in half. Andso three pills would last me a week, during hayfever times.

But some Americans were abusing the stuff - and so they would take three four and five pills at a time. Thus we got a ban on straight Ephedra products.

If you get Claritin, as an over-the-counter drug from the drug store aisle, it has some wishy washy chems in it. But if you go to the pharmacy line and say you want "Claritin D" and you sign for it, you will get a formula that is enhanced with pseudoephedrine or some such and it is much more effective (Though not as pleasant as the straight Ephedra proudtcs.)

Ephedra is one of the Goddess' best gifts to us - it helps smooth out heavy periods, it is great as an energy boost that doesn't leave you jangly like coffee.

But while things much more toxic than Ephedra are left available, it cannot be patented, and this combined with people's misuse lead the FDA to justify its removal from our lives. (The "Weight Loss" and"Protein Mix" companies were combining Ephedra with caffeine -really a no-no, and those formulas even brought about death to the unfortunate who doubled and tripled up on the doses.)

And if your allergies are really going haywire during some natural weather event, don't forget to tell your doctor that you ahve a sinus infection and ask for predniscone - although prednisone is not advisable for long term use, if you want to block out fungus, mold and seasonal pollen allergies etc for ten to fifteen days, ntohing beats it.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

2. Thank goddess..... too many people have suffered for way too

long without REAL help.

[TwilightGardener]

3. Feel kind of bad for the rats. Apparently, they're the most

depressed rats in the world according to the article (not sure how anyone can know that for sure, but whatever). And then they're subject to "stress" for weeks on end--stress = cruel treatment. Wish we didn't have to use animals for this stuff.

[lordsummerisle]

5. I thought the same thing

how do you know if a rat's depressed...?

[Maraya1969]

7. I read that and decided not to read the article. I hate that they treat animals like that.

http://www.pcrm.org/

Physicians committee for responsible medicine.

I am glad that they have found a new way to treat depression though. For me, years ago I took an antidepressant called Nardil and went up slowly. After about a month it was like a big black cloud was lifted from me. it was amazing. I did not even realize how depressed I was until I got un-depressed.

But I have read and I was told by my doctor at the time (before I moved) who is on the cutting edge that the problem with doctors prescribing antidepressants is they often do not prescribe enough of the drug or they prescribe the wrong drug.

For example the highest dose according to the PDR for Prozac is 80 mg/day but this doctor and other psyco-pharmacologists have prescribed more than 100. And it is also said that you never prescribe a MAOI inhibitor, (like Nardil) with another type of anti-depressant. Well the cutting edge
psyco-pharmacologists will do this with treatment resistant patients.

I think many times people do not feel well on their medications because the doctor is incompetent.

[TwilightGardener]

11. Thanks for the link.

I think the specific drug/dosage, for something that can be difficult to measure like depression, is hit or miss. My son was on meds for ADHD, and my husband and I (and my son) had a hard time judging whether the med and the dosage were doing enough good to justify the stimulant side effects (facial tics, sleeplessness, etc.). Constant adjusting--until finally we just took him off all meds altogether.

[GreenPartyVoter]

8. I wish they would find something that would work in my case, which is bipolar 2--the depressive

heavy type of bipolar.

Wellbutrin is meh. My mood stabilizers are meh. I'm tired of meh.

[wroberts189]

9. How can they treat a chemical imbalance without a spinal tap?...

Or knowing what is imbalanced?

They are shooting arrows in the dark.

"Take these and see me in 3 months."

I have been on almost them all... none worked. And some had lasting side effects.. I cannot get rid of sneezing like crazy after a meal. As far as "I" know .. they are simply not effective at all .. at least for me.

I got off all of them ...Now I am on simple baby dose sedatives.. works fine for the root causes of anxiety which leads to depression..if things do not bother you as much you feel better ..simple.

But to each his own... some swear by them here. I do not understand how a pill can make you happy... unless it is of the illegal type.

[Odin2005]

12. Meh, whatever. Paxil stopped my panic attacks and lessened my OCD.

[Chemisse]

13. I'm not sure I am convinced about her work

No gene overlap between genes related to stress and genes related to depression does not disprove a link. I don't understand why she feels there needs to be an overlap for them to be linked.

Many are depressed following physically stressful events like illness, surgery, childbirth, final exams, marriage or divorce, etc. These all result in stress to the body, and the avalanche of the stress response can cause normal people to suffer from bouts of depression.

Some people have depression that does not appear to come and go with the stressors in life. Lots of those people respond to anti-depressants. Some don't.

I can believe there may be some higher cause, that depletion or abundance of certain neurotransmitters could be a symptom rather than the cause of depression. Maybe more research into the root cause can help these people.