RFK Jr. plans to curb antidepressants, which he falsely compares to heroin
- Thread starter JournalBot
- Start date
For me the use case goes well beyond depression, AND the med stack is highly effective after years of optimizing, AND I live in a situation where I just cannot afford to tinker until that situation changes, AND I'm on Medicaid.
I have a life goal to minimize the amount of drug substances I'm dependent on, and I've got a good start - eliminated 2 last year with only minor impacts on well-being - but for me this will be a years to decades long process even with a lot of luck and a winning lottery ticket to pay my way... and I may still never get that number of substances to zero, even if I were to live quietly in the country with all my sensory needs met and all my physical needs provided for. My best guess is that I could get it down to between zero and 1 med dependency if I had ample cash and never lived anywhere denser than the outskirts of a small town again.
Upvote
16
(16
/
0)
Venlafaxine was, in my experience, the hardest one to taper off of. I was also on the maximum dose of that one, though, which might have had something to do with it.
Upvote
7
(7
/
0)
If anything it's the opposite. Canada has a severe doctor shortage and they're starting to look at ways to make sure Canadians get first dibs.
Upvote
6
(6
/
0)
Not gonna happen in my case, there's a history of depression and bipolar going back generations in my family. It's not something I can just will myself to overcome. Believe me, I tried. The problem was I ended up putting so much energy into trying to manage my mental state I didn't have any left for anything else.
Upvote
23
(23
/
0)
Welcome to the golden age where everyone is happy because your leaders say so.
Upvote
9
(9
/
0)
Upvote
1
(5
/
-4)
NO. They need to keep spreading them far and wide, but not credulously so. This guy needs to be canceled so hard that he can never find another job again in any sector dealing with public health or safety. Congress needs to repeal the shield law that prevents people like this from being personally sued for the humongous damage they're causing.
This guy is one step away from advocating exorcism for mental illness and epilepsy. He's already well on the way as one of the morons promoting "gay conversion therapy". Willfully ignorant Bigot.
Upvote
18
(18
/
0)
Yup, because it's complicated. So complicated that this quote can be true and yet not so useful. Particularly when it comes to very severe depression, where treatments are hard to get right.
Fighting depression is really hard, it's widespread and not well understood. One problem faced is that placebos do fairly well in these trials by themselves - however that doesn't mean we can start handing out placebos. So you'll always see that, when compared to placebos, it doesn't look all that much better (even though it is better)
However, SSRIs also prevent relapses in depressive episodes really well. You don't just take them and get better, but you can take them and get not worse again.
The best treatment we have for depression is SSRIs and support. The best treatment we have for relapses is SSRIs. We should absolutely keep taking them.
Upvote
17
(17
/
0)
If your an American your life expectancy has not really changed since the 50's., far too much cancer and heart attacks.
Upvote
-6
(2
/
-8)
I know that this is a /s comment, but there is some truth to how many trillion dollar businesses/markets RFK Jr can piss of before he falls out of the Trump administration’s Venn diagram of corruption.
Upvote
5
(6
/
-1)
My god they are horrible people. Take healthcare from people, take medicines from people, take food from people, jail children, murder citizens - destroying lives and they really don't care. How much for that new ballroom? a billion, a trillion...it doesn't matter, you will pay for it and the wealthy will skate...right into the ballroom. a f*cking nightmare.
Upvote
19
(19
/
0)
My son's intermittent (but frequent) vertigo responds pretty well to SSRIs. Nothing else worked. Not that RFK Jr. would care.
Upvote
15
(15
/
0)
Upvote
30
(31
/
-1)
Without antidepressants, my wife would literally take her own life. If this man disrupts her ability to get what she needs, I'll disrupt his ability to convert oxygen to carbon dioxide. I'm tired of these fuckwits making these completely bullshit decisions for all the rest of us. We need to Do Something®
Upvote
21
(21
/
0)
I'll just chime in that Welbutrin, which is not an SSRI but a dopamine and norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor keeps me from a spiral that I've never quite seen the bottom of, and part of what works for me is its known off-label treatment of ADHD which I also treat with Concerta. I made it to age 52 having a life and career marked by big successes followed by times of wandering in the wilderness before finally starting to figure out what drove that pattern. I'm lucky. A lot of untreated people don't make it that far.
The rhetoric coming from this absolute clown about all of these things is so dangerous.
Upvote
19
(19
/
0)
Yes they have an issue. It's called crippling anxiety and depression and going cold turkey fucked with their brain chemistry. Pharmacology is just dose-response. Nothing is harm free and medications are tested thoroughly before being brought to market. Also, equating SSRIs with opiods is a dog whistle straw man argument.
And must I say that 'increasing rates' could be due to better public health communication pushing more people for diagnosis and treatment. It could be better diagnostics catching less severe cases. It could be less taboo so people are actually discussing health and realizing they aren't alone. It boggles my mind how people don't realize that these numbers aren't facts of the universe. They are numbers derived from a very flawed human system. As we improve, the numbers become more accurate.
Upvote
21
(21
/
0)
Man I hate how they copyright the good names for drugs and then give the generic versions some dumb sounding name to confuse people. Oh wait...
Upvote
2
(2
/
0)
Exercise didn't work at all for me, but I understand these things vary from person to person. I've always found the much-vaunted "runner's high" to be a myth.
Of course the great thing about exercise from a medical standpoint is it doesn't cost the insurance company anything and makes it really easy to shame people and blame them for the failure of their own treatment. Still depressed? Clearly you didn't run far enough, loser. Now drop and give me 20.
Upvote
23
(23
/
0)
Pretty much any time someone tells you to exercise it's to shame you, or at least offload responsibility onto you. As a treatment it's non-falsifiable because you can always just argue people didn't do it hard enough.
The most exercise I ever got was in high school when I had mandatory gym class. It's also when I was the most miserable I've ever been in my life.
Upvote
20
(25
/
-5)
Some days it feels like I am screaming into the void. These people don’t listen to reality. (Luckily, I have my duloxetine to help. For now.)
Re: Kennedy’s relative being supposedly suicidal when they stopped taking their meds: has he ever considered why they might have started taking the meds in the first place? “I stopped taking my heart medicine and had a heart attack—clearly, this is the medicine’s fault.”
Re: Kennedy’s relative being supposedly suicidal when they stopped taking their meds: has he ever considered why they might have started taking the meds in the first place? “I stopped taking my heart medicine and had a heart attack—clearly, this is the medicine’s fault.”
Upvote
15
(15
/
0)
Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that some people may NOT need them, or not need them for as long as they’re taking them. Why would I listen to the opinion of an anti-science, anti-vaccine non-medical professional fuckwit on the subject? I’m of the opinion that maple syrup is better than rocket fuel, for which I have ZERO expertise or credible evidence, which means I have a better than average chance of heading up NASA under Trump.
Upvote
14
(15
/
-1)
"Kennedy instead relied on anecdotes of being a heroin addict himself for more than a decade and having a family member who he claimed was suicidal after stopping an SSRI."
Yep, just like when I have a patient who strokes out after not taking their BP medications for a month, it was because they were addicted to the meds...
Yep, just like when I have a patient who strokes out after not taking their BP medications for a month, it was because they were addicted to the meds...
Upvote
16
(16
/
0)
Your post reads as some mealy-mouthed "both sides have a point" BS that carries water for anti-science fascists. The medical profession is grappling the best it can with what are the right prescribing rates. A moron with a legacy name, and political connections pushing for top-down, prohibition style solutions is in no way shape or form the right approach. Don't carry water for this asshole, unless you want to carry a share of the blame when folks who their own lives due to anti-depressant withdrawals. My teen forgot 4 doses in a week, and started thinking about killing themself.
I am sure there is at least one person on anti-depressants who does not absolutely NEED to be, by some metric of interest. Just as I'm sure there are still a hell of a lot MORE people who would benefit greatly from anti-depressants, who are not on them for any number of reasons (religious views, problems with access, social stigma, fact that depression reinforces the person afflicted with it to NOT seek help with their problems, etc.). The question comes down to relative harm. antidepressants can have side-effects, as can not-taking them. Importantly, someone taking them is also under the care of a medial professional who is monitoring their response to the medications, and making adjustments with the patients best interests in mind. And that Dr. and patient together know far better what is helping or not, than any fucking political hack with a history of doing coke off of a toilet seat.
To be crystal clear - RFK Jr. is not concerned with over prescribing. He is anti-prescribing. Just as he is not really pro-parental choice when it comes to vaccines, but anti-vax. He pretends to a more reasonable-appearing position, as he pushes for what he actually is after. And he is deciding what he wants based on where he sees opportunities to make money off of the suffering he creates through alternative medicine run by his friends and business partners.
Edited to remove the "FTFY" joke and lined-out text. Was warned that could get me in trouble with the mods. Point still stands though. Everything after "yes" is, intentionally or not, carrying water for anti-science fascists
Last edited:
Upvote
24
(25
/
-1)
My feeling about anti-depressants in general: yes, they're probably over-prescribed. But for fuck's sake, have you seen the state of the world? Anti-depressants are pretty much essential to deal with the amount of shit out there. Get the world to a better state, and maybe anti-depressants wouldn't be anywhere near as necessary.
More seriously: I went on a relatively low dose of fluoxetine (Prozac) to deal with a slew of issues. It helped. Hugely. I was better able to work through some of those issues with my therapist once I was on it and stable in my dosage and usage. I tried to taper off it, but there were other acute issues at the time and it ended up being the wrong time, so I'm now on half the dose I used to be on, for maintenance. I'll probably look at tapering off again soon-ish, since those issues have mostly settled down somewhat.
Exercise helps, but it's not enough. Not once the depression gets severe enough that you have to push yourself out the door to get the exercise done. It's a useful adjunct to medication and therapy, and for some people it's enough - but by no means all, or even most.
What you're talking about isn't a new crisis. The crisis was already there. It's simply that now we see it and recognise some of its scale. So kindly fuck right off with the implied "we're overdiagnosing these things" bullshit.
More seriously: I went on a relatively low dose of fluoxetine (Prozac) to deal with a slew of issues. It helped. Hugely. I was better able to work through some of those issues with my therapist once I was on it and stable in my dosage and usage. I tried to taper off it, but there were other acute issues at the time and it ended up being the wrong time, so I'm now on half the dose I used to be on, for maintenance. I'll probably look at tapering off again soon-ish, since those issues have mostly settled down somewhat.
Exercise helps, but it's not enough. Not once the depression gets severe enough that you have to push yourself out the door to get the exercise done. It's a useful adjunct to medication and therapy, and for some people it's enough - but by no means all, or even most.
Do you know why there's a "wide spread surge in adult ADHD, autism, and depression"? It's not because there's more of it. It's because we're getting better at diagnosing and recognising it for what it is. We're being more open about our mental health struggles and how they impact on our lives. We're recognising that certain traits that used to be thought of as a little peculiar are actually a part of the autism spectrum. We're recognising, more and more, the different ways that ADHD impacts upon girls and women versus boys and men.
What you're talking about isn't a new crisis. The crisis was already there. It's simply that now we see it and recognise some of its scale. So kindly fuck right off with the implied "we're overdiagnosing these things" bullshit.
Upvote
21
(24
/
-3)
Jesus Fucking Chirst, you idiots. The mEnTaL hEaLtH crisis that MAHA prattles on about is essentially the existence of your organization. But sure, nice sound bite there.
Upvote
5
(6
/
-1)
chaos215bar2
Ars Praefectus
And we're also recognizing that ADHD can affect men in atypical ways similar to what's more commonly seen in women. Just thought I'd add that.
It's basically a slow process of learning that all these simplified, relatively straightforward diagnostic criteria that were connected with these various conditions as they were first labeled never really capture the whole picture.
Upvote
8
(8
/
0)
Upvote
17
(17
/
0)
Most people think ADHD = hyperactive but the Primarily Inattentive variety (raises hand) is a whole different beast. Hyperfocus did awful things to me but my employers loved it.
Upvote
15
(15
/
0)
chaos215bar2
Ars Praefectus
Doctors can be pretty adept at shaming people by recommending exercise too.
It's not the recommendation in isolation that's a problem. It's failing to work with the patient to both understand what their current level of activity is and what might actually be feasible as additional exercise.
Simply telling someone who's already exercising well above standard recommended amounts and watching what they eat that they weigh to much and just need to exercise a little more and maybe eat less is… let's just say… unhelpful at best.
Being physically and mentally exhausted every day due to exercise and simultaneously feeling like you're starving half the day because you're trying lose weight your body just won't let go of is not a path to a positive long term outlook on mental health.
Upvote
13
(13
/
0)
Satan to gatekeeper: "RFKJ? NO. WAY. IN. HELL. Hey...we are evil down here, but we're not INSANE!
Upvote
4
(5
/
-1)
But most maple syrup comes from Canada.... we must insure we close the maple syrup gap ASAP...now we know why FELON47 wants to annex Canada...
Upvote
2
(2
/
0)
sigmasirrus
Ars Scholae Palatinae
Unfortunately I had a different experience with a psychiatrist. I asked, ‘Is this the one that causes uncontrollable muscle movements that may become permanent?’ Rather than answer my question they said don’t worry about it and do not read the booklet. I read the booklet. That was indeed one of the potential side effects. Thankfully it didn’t happen to me and I wasn’t on it very long at all. I’m glad your experience was better.
Upvote
4
(5
/
-1)