Antidepressants?
August 6, 2009 by Depression and Anxiety Tips
Filed under More Depression Answers
Can you answer syquest’s question about Depression?:
I understand, and a lot of doctors will not say this, that long term use of antidepressants can cause Tardive Dyskinsia, that is, body and facial ticks (shaking hands, mouth and cheek ticks, grimacing, etc). Any truth to this? Anyone else think that antidepressants and other psychiatric drugs can be dangerous?
Signs Of Clinical Depression
I understand, and a lot of doctors will not say this, that long term use of antidepressants can cause Tardive Dyskinsia, that is, body and facial ticks (shaking hands, mouth and cheek ticks, grimacing, etc). Any truth to this? Anyone else think that antidepressants and other psychiatric drugs can be dangerous?
Signs Of Clinical Depression
Depression Feedback: They can and do. Too bad they’re addictive too.
Depression Feedback: Antidepressants do not cause tardive dyskinesia. It is antipsychotics (a.k.a. neuroleptics, a.k.a. major tranquilizers) that can cause TD.
Depression Feedback: I have been on antidepressants for years and no ticks of any sort.
Depression Feedback: No there is no truth to that. If that was the case the FDA wouldn’t be passing them to be used on patients. Antidepressants and other psychiatric drugs could be dangerous if you go off your prescribed amount. Just think of it this way, if they were dangerous to the user the pharmaceutical company would lose a consumer. So they are safe no need to worry.
Depression Feedback: I have never heard any kind of long term affects to anti-depressants, using them the way they suppose to be used.
Depression Feedback: If you suffer from depression–it’s worth the risk, because depression is crippling anyway.
Depression Feedback: Vikas Malkani
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Enjoy Humour: Laughter Can Be The Best Medicine
There is increasing evidence that a good laugh can lift your mind and mood - and perhaps even give a healthy boost to your immune system. In fact, light-heartedness and humour are vital to flexible optimism. Humour can be a good defence against regret and perfectionism. Laughter softens harsh judgements and helps us accept our less-than-perfect selves in an often-unfair, always-changing world.
Consciously choose to find more moments to enjoy a good laugh. An unexpected dose of humour can serve as a wonderful antidote to flashes of anger, frustration, annoyance and resentment. Even though chronic pessimists and hostile people may have difficulty seeking out and engaging in humorous moments, the attempt itself can prove very helpful to them.
Use “Lessons Of The Heart” To Make Sense Of Bad Events
While optimism is associated with a state of vigour under stress, there are many events in life that we cannot control or change. Sometimes when loss and pain are severe, optimism can be completely at odds with reality. In these situations, people become despondent, hopeless, depressed and ill. Yet in the same circumstances, other people continue to cope by accommodating themselves to the uncontrollable event or tragedy. “I learned what was really important in life,” some of us say after a painful loss or a brush with death.
To the extent that people can make sense of bad events - they can blunt their harmful effects. This is a strategy of seeking out the meaning and purpose in living through traumatic circumstances, trying to learn whatever we can from life’s toughest hardships. Why did this happen? Why did it happen to me? How can this experience make me stronger or wiser or more compassionate or more tolerant or grateful for each moment from now on?
Spend Time With Young Children
One of the best pieces of advice may be to spend 5 minutes with young children. It’s almost impossible to stay in a dark mood or be pessimistic for long if there are small children around you. So you might enjoy making it a habit to get down on the floor and spend five minutes - once a week, once a day or whenever you can — eye-to-eye, talking and playing with a toddler or youngster who’s still filled with laughter and wonder at life. The love and exuberance can be truly contagious.
Enjoy “Breakaway Walks” And Other “Positive Distracters”
Research now suggests that in many cases, a brief bout of exercise may lift moderate depression as effectively as psychotherapy, and it can raise self-esteem and optimism when nothing else seems to work.
In some situations, you may gain similar benefits from positive self distraction - such as interrupting a mental or emotional downturn by standing near a sunny window, going outside for some deep breaths of fresh air, sipping a cup of your favourite tea, looking at a positive scene or day dreaming about something humorous.
One reason that exercise or another positive focus shift can work well is that there are times when you simply won’t be able to just think or talk yourself into healthier optimism. Often it’s necessary to first get up and go through the motions of acting optimistically and then let your mood and thoughts catch up.
Use Mind Images For Healing Power
The ways you focus your mind, including your use of mental imagery - is an important factor in determining your health or illness. Mental imagery in healing and well-being is best known for its direct effects on physiology - stimulating changes in heart rate, blood pressure, respiration, oxygen consumption, brain wave rhythms and patterns, local blood flow and temperature, sexual arousal, levels of various hormones and neurotransmitters and immune system function. Mental imagery is an inner representation of a flow of thoughts you can envision, hear, feel, smell and taste. Imagery is a powerful factor in the way your mind codes, stores, expresses and recalls information and experiences. It is the language of the arts, the emotions and most important, of the deeper self. Imagery is a window on your inner world; a way of viewing your own ideas, feelings and interpretations. Mental imagery is not a panacea, however, rather it is a valuable personal tool, and not only for strengthening your resistance to illness and promoting healing but also for living the highest-quality life you possibly can.
Take A “Depression Test” - And Get Help If You Need It
Everyone feels sad or hopeless from time to time, although even during a down mood - sometimes referred to as common, everyday depression - most of us still feel some control over our emotions and realise that the sad feelings will eventually pass. But people with serious depression - often referred to as major depression or clinical depression - may feel that “a terrible heaviness and hopelessness has descended, which they are powerless to prevent or resist. The intensity of despair that some people can feel in serious depression goes far beyond the lows of normal life. It destroys the person’s ability to continue in life’s usual roles and can lead to utter confusion, mental paralysis, or the brink of suicide.
If you are feeling blue, it does not mean that you are suffering from a serious, or clinical depression. Your feelings may be a normal, even healthy, reaction to a loss - at home or work. A key distinction is this: While the unhappiness of daily life or adjustment to a loss comes and goes the unhappiness of serious depression stays on. With normal unhappiness, for example, going for a walk or to the movies may cheer you up, at least temporarily. With clinical depression, even your favourite comedy movie or a walk through a beautiful park will leave you unmoved. All joy in life seems gone - and, day after day, it does not return. The first step in dealing with clinical depression is recognising that you have it. There are some helpful self-tests for doing just that. If you discover, or even suspect, that you may have some form of serious depression, you should immediately seek professional help.
Say No To Empty “Pep Talks”
Flexible optimists usually have one eye on reality - and they don’t talk about how wonderful things are when in truth they are bad. Some men and women try to smile in the face of tragedies and difficulties and declare loud and clear that if every one would just “be positive” and everything will turn out fine. But, things do not turn out grand, because the big problems - when ignored - spread, and the small problems have a way of turning into big problems, too. And then things can really get out of control. A phony pep talk is usually the last thing needed. What may be needed is a leader who says, “We’ve got a mess on our hands, but if we all roll up our sleeves, we can do something about it.”
Depression Feedback: Tardive Dyskinisia is not caused by antidepressants. Most of the old antipsychotis were nothing more than powerful tranquilizers. Prolonged use of these medications in high doses will almost certainly cause Tardive Dyskinisia.
As a side note. doctors and other medical professionals including psychologists, have an ethical and legal responsibility to inform you of side effects of any medication… failure to do so especially on purpose would be highly illegal.
Depression Feedback: Yes they can be dangerous like many other drugs too. Another downside to this is that they try and treat the Tardive Dyskinesia with other drugs which are highly addictive such as benzodiazapines which are very hard to be weaned off and have side effects of their own.
The Tardive Dyskinesia still often remains in patients after being taken off antidepressants, however if doctors told us every possible side effects from prolonged use of all prescription and non prescription drugs I think there would be a lot of untreated people, and especially with mental illness I think we all understand what the implications of this would be…
Depression Feedback: Tardive Dyskinesia is caused by the long-term and/or high-dose use of dopamine antagonists, usually “typical” antipsychotics like Haldol, although newer, “atypical” antipsychotics like Zyprexa or Respiridone usually cause TD less frequently.
However, some antidepressants which are not meant to affect dopamine receptors, like the SSRI’s (Prozac, Lexapro etc) which act on serotonin, MAY still cause, but not necessarily will cause, Tardive Dyskinesia.
Recent research also shows most SSRI antidepressants are addictive, and withdrawl can be a long and painful process.
ALL drugs which affect one’s neurochemistry CAN be dangerous in high doses and/or with long-term use, separately to those who are sensitive to them and who suffer adverse reactions or side effects from the first dose.
However, a few antidepressants, like the reversible monoamine oxidase inhibitors (Moclobemide) appear to have few if any long term effects.
As is always the case, neuroleptic medications need to be prescribed and monitored closely by relevant professionals, and generally, with the exception of the most serious mental illnesses, are not a long term solution.
And finally, drug companies don’t always disclose ALL their research when a new drug is released onto the market, as the recent panic about the suicide inducing potential of certain SSRI antidepressants in adolescents has shown.