Holistic Doctors, and medicine

Sheesh, I'm not going to be able to reply to all these, and this thread is almost at 300.I certainly don't think millions of doctors out there are evil and want to con us. I think that their system of prescribing medication for so many ills is questionable and not something I want to be involved with unless absolutely necessary. I hope by my diet and supplement regime that I can facilitate this. I've seen enough anecdotal information to be convinced that what I'm doing is healthy and will probably stand me in good stead to heal from the antidepressant, and avoid future diseases such as type II diabetes, cancer and heart disease. Buzsaw certainly seems to have done well, and I choose to believe what he/she is saying.I have trouble here when I cite books because no one here has those books, and I can't link to them. I have read enough about antidepressants to know that if I'd been in possession of this knowledge in the past, I would have run a mile from anyone trying to prescribe me one. The people I've mentioned here: Drs Breggin, Healy, and Moncrieff, seem to have been dismissed by most.I would ask people to keep in mind that no one, not the most fervent biological psychiatrist, can truthfully admit that they fully understand how ADs work, or how you actually "test" for a serotonin or a norepinephrine deficiency. But pumping excess serotonin throughout your body, especially when only 5% is in your brain, seems a daft thing to do if you ask me. What do you think Molbiogirl?Modulous -- so people would prefer to lose their libido in order to get well? It's a shame anyone would have to make that choice, but OK. How about continued sexual dysfunction a year and a half after stopping the drug? This is also what I've got to thank Forest Pharmaceuticals for. I've met people who have had sexual dysfunction for 10 years after the drug. None of us know if it's ever going to get better. But hey, being disabled in order to roll the dice and see if the ADs help us is worth it, right? We're just a few statistics.Maybe I'll finish here, as this topic is going to close soon, by explaining why I am stubbornly refusing to take the skeptical approach here. I've always preferred to do things "naturally," it seemed intrinsically right to me. But I never had any information about how to do that. It took my AD experience, and finding my ND's list, to learn. And yes she does ask us to trust her as an expert, being a neurologist and an ND, though whenever I ask a question she backs up what she says, sometimes with info from studies, and I also do my best to find out what I can about what she recommends to me. Keep in mind that we're not paying her for this and she's not hawking any products at us, so I can't really see what any nefarious motives could be.The strongest evidence I found on that list was hundreds of other people, some of whom have been on the list for years, and their testimonies. There were times when I myself thought, "this isn't working, I'm fed up, what proof is there?" Time and time again I'd talk to others on the list, remind myself of the stories of healing there, and find the hope to carry on. Many of them spent years in the hands of psychiatric professionals, taking their drugs, just like people here say they should. In many cases it wrecked lives and wrought permanent damage. With my ND's help they were able to get off those drugs, re-discover who they were, and go on to live drug-free lives. Sorry, but nothing that's been said here is going to cause me to think that this is all a hoax or a pack of lies. I know how this makes me look and I know I, in turn, am not going to convince anyone here. I hope something has been achieved, somewhere, by this conversation.

Percy you said: In some cases, yes. It's possible to treat mental illness without drugs, though these approaches are not supported by the weight of clinical trials that antidepressants are. And ADs don't have a fantastic track record; they often do not perform significantly better than placebo in clinical trials. Someone needs to study EXACTLY WHAT is going on within the body, and the CNS especially, when a person is on one of these drugs. Many of the effects of the drugs are unknown. What is a side effect? An unwanted effect of a drug on the body. People aren't always aware of them occurring. Clinical trials are being used to make psychotropic drugs available to the public with a sheen of scientific approval but the fact of the matter is that no one actually understands how the drugs work or what they are doing to the body. Only 1% of people with adverse effects from drugs tend to officially report them to the FDA, so how can anyone be sure that there isn't more damage being done out there than meets the eye? Admittedly I would do better there if I had access to the full, original data from the trials. I thought my information was up-to-date and I wasn't aware that a fourth phase of STAR*D had been conducted.What about these reasons though? Most AD trials only last for a total of 6 weeks. Most everybody put on ADs takes them longer than that. No studies have been conduted on long-term use of ADs, though many people have been taking them for a decade or longer. There are a number of ways that studies can be manipulated to achieve a desired result. If a drug company runs its own clinical trials then there's a conflict of interest. They can engage in tactics I'm sure you're aware of, such as cherry-picking the subjects, piercing the double-blind, using an inactive rather than an active placebo, etc etc. Until the vast majority of trials are conducted independently, then the pharmaceuticals are going to be laying themselves open to these kinds of criticisms.Finally, almost all trials are conducted on one drug at a time. Many people are prescribed more than one psychotropic drug. If you are diagnosed as bipolar then you can probably expect a cocktail of at least 3. No one knows what this combo of drugs is going to end up doing to your body because it has never been studied.Your third point was that because I had a bad experience, I think the drug is evil for everybody. That may be what it looks like at first glance. I'm aware that other people find the drug helpful. However, in my post to Asgara I said that even people who have been "helped" can sometimes pay a price. Their depression was a message for them to change something in their lives. A biological psychiatrist would remove the responsibility for putting this right and say it's a chemical imbalance, and give a pill. The whole message of the depression is being lost. This is why I believe relapse rates on drugs alone are so high: the drugs make people think that thier problem is solved; when in actuality the pain has been numbed but the wound remains.Also, as I said, no one knows what effects ADs are having in the body, and they could be causing damage that people aren't aware of, even if their mood has improved. ADs alter blood sugar metabolism, which is why some people gain weight on them. They create a neurochemical imbalance. Most of the serotonin in the body is located in the gut, and it is no surprise that stomach cramps are a frequently-reported side effect of ADs. ADs change the very structure of the brain. http://www.antidepressantsfacts.com/...uronal-cell-death.htm (A study published in Biochemical Pharmacology) http://www.antidepressantsfacts.com/...damage-offspring2.htm (from Pharmacology) http://www.antidepressantsfacts.com/...iversity-Hospital.htm (summary of a study published in Brain Research) I'd rather not wait for any more studies to show the damage that ADs do. I'm going to avoid them now and in the future, and advise other people to do the same. There are better, healthier ways of treating mental illness.Edited by LindaLou, : No reason given.