How is it that antidepressants can increase suicidal though?
There are a number of different chemicals in the brain that are responsible for mood.... Serotonin, norepinephrine, gaba, dopamine... etc..... Different types of anti depressants work on different chemicals (neuro transmitters) but they work on them in different ways.... some increase the action of dopamine, some inhibit gaba..... There is no way to know which chemical imabalance is causing someone's depression so all they can do is try an anti depressant and see if that happens to be the right one. If it is the wrong one, it can mess up the chemical balance even more..... This is also why people often have to try a number of medication before they fiond one that works.....
Anti-depressant induced mania?
Hello, first off congratulations for seeking medical assistance and attempting a proper medication regimen. It is quite common for persons experiencing mental disorders to encounter them at prepubescence or adolescence and then having the disorder intensify. Also do not try to stop taking any antidepressant of antipsychotic medication without the express consent of your doctor as yes this can and will exacerbate the problem. Mental disease can unfortunately be something that you can be genetically predisposed to, but only an actual doctor or psychiatric professional can make that diagnosis or assess this properly. And no mania resulting from antidepressant use is not always symptomatic or indicative of bipolar disorder as manic depression can oft take years for any licensed psychiatrist to properly diagnose, Zoloft at your prescribed dosage as aformentioned could have exacerbated your conditions of anxiety and depression if you were unrecptive to these medications because of your sensitivity to them or other factors that were unaccounted for. And yes sometimes with Zoloft and other antidepressants it can worsen and increase suicidal tendencies in some individuals particularly adolescents or young adults and this is of an increasing concern in the medical field. I sincerely hope you keep taking some sort of medicine until you find the proper antidepressant and do not hesitate to tell your current doctor that this medication is ineffective and that you need to try another antidepressant and hope this helps.
Why do some anti-depressants cause suicidal ideation?
No one knows what antidepressants do in the brain. People who use them report that their empathy for others disappears. In some a state of mania is triggered in which every idea seems like a good one. From what news reports gather, James Holmes lost all fear and anxiety on Zoloft (sertraline) and started buying weapons after it was prescribed to him.Some people do become "agitated" as the nurse who answered mentioned. This is often a misnomer. Nurses and doctors think they see agitation, but they are seeing a life-threatening complication of antidepressant use called akathisia. It is a poorly understood disorder of the extra-pyramidal system, which is responsible for motor activity. The best hope is to get off the drug, but if an antidepressant user tells their doctor or nurse what's going on, they will very likely be told to take a higher dose, which worsens the condition. Akathisia is intolerable and is said to be the cause of many suicides and violent acts. Patient inserts might warn of anxiety or agitation, which sounds nicer and can be blamed on the patient. They should tell it like it is.This is a powerful blog entry about akathisia, and there is much more to learn by searching the medical literature. Note that the mood component is dismal. It's hard to see how she survived.https://akathisiainfo.wordpress....I was glad to see the retired internist discredit the myth about the pills giving one enough energy to kill oneself. That was invented at the dawn of Prozac when we were more credulous. Consider that ADHD drugs are based on amphetamine compounds, i.e. speed, but are not linked to suicide, as far as we know. Of course, in this study they didn't know who was depressed, but there's a lot of depression in ADHD patients.2013 ADHD suicide study on MedscapeADHD and Depression: Common Bedfellows
Do medications help with depression?
Do medications help with depression?Absolutely. Sometimes.For incapacitating depression (literally can’t get out of bed), or chronic depression (can’t enjoy enjoyable things anymore), I wouldn’t hesitate to personally recommended pharmacological intervention. That is my personal recommendation though, hereby disclaimed as not legal or medical advice. What follows is also thusly disclaimed, and nothing more than personal opinion based on personal experience.Depression is super over-diagnosedThey see 30 to 40 patients a day, and they match reported symptoms to what they are sold the pills do. They can only prescribe you the ones that your insurance will pay for, or your monthly pill budget will just add to things for you to be depressed about.what else are you willing to do every day to get better?Are you willing to:try a morning walk?How bout making sure you drink at least 2 liters of water a day?Set up a voice-activated recorder (or have someone check) if you snore and stop breathing at night?Re-evaluate what you eat for whether or not it may be adversely affecting your mood (sugar highs and lows, just for starters)Do regular journaling, focusing on your emotional states and triggersIf you’re unwilling or unable to do the above, perhaps a pharmacological crutch is in order. They aren’t magic bullets, and it often takes months to years of trial and error with “tinkering with your brain chemistry” to find something that works - but they have and do help people. They aren’t without risk, however. Don’t think the Pill Company commercials would put “may increase suicidal thoughts or actions” at the end of the commercials if they didn’t have to.A2A
Do you believe the rise in suicide rates can be linked to anti-depressants?
I not only believe it, it is actually true. Check the website of almost any anti-depressant, specifically Paxil, Zoloft and Lexapro have been known to cause the opposite effect in people with depression and cause them to commit suicide or have suicidal thoughts/tendencies. This isn't to "blame the pill" as someone claimed. Anti-depressants serve to increase the activity of certain neurotransmitters in the brain. During this process, it is possible that they can also do the opposite and cause a depletion (since the pill is causing the stimulation, the body can stop producing it's own). This depletion can cause the pill-taker to plummet into a depression worse than before therefore causing the suicidal idealizations. With the increase in people using anti-depressants I think you will find a CORRELATION of people committing suicide. Try checking with cdc.gov.
Does Prozac make you have suicidal thoughts?
No. SSRI's (the class of medication that prozac belongs to) do not make people suicidal. People with depression need to be aware that these medications often take weeks to take effect so very depressed people who are not getting counseling and good support some times commit suicide while taking these medications, before they become effective. All depressed people should be treated with medication and counseling but not all people get enough help soon enough. If you are having suicidal thoughts you should talk to some one you trust and remember that there is always some one who loves you and thinks you are worht it, even when you don't feel like it....it's God. Good luck and please get help right away, there are even hotlines to call if you want help tonight, there is one in every state.
Can you get sick from being depressed?
Sever anxiety and depression can alter the way your brain thinks. In some people they believe they are ill and go around many hospitals searching for an explanation. (Somertization or Psychosomatic)Depression can cause disorders that are very real but a cause cannot be found.Saying that of course you still can get ill with, the same as without, depression. The brain being so complex has been found to control the genes in a new study, where as before we thought it was the genes doing the “work”.So to be honest, until we get to know what the brain is actually doing to the genes we will not know what can happened in depressed people. We wait with baited breath on the results of the tests, if they can ever finish the study, with the brain being so complex.The other point I like to tell all depressed people - and I get told off in the comments every time - is that the tablets for depression can cause a lot of medical problems especially in the long term use.The main warning is - It May Cause Depression - affect the liver, kidneys, heart and long term use can increase suicidal thoughts.That alone tells me how they can alter the brain patterns and the way people think differently on these pills.The worse thing it can turn into is suicidal thoughts, it is then up to the degree of depression, the help, if they are seeking/getting it, and motive/survival gene kicks in or not.
Will consumption of anti-depressants without prescription increase the risk of suicidal tendencies?
I have not seen any data to suggest that they increase the risk of suicidal tendencies at a different rate when taking them by prescription. All uses of antidepressants increase your risk of suicidality: taking them with and without prescriptions, with and without depression, with and without any other psychiatric diagnoses, with and without any sort of physical illness.Regarding the usage of antidepressants without prescriptions, people taking antidepressants without professional oversight may be more likely to inappropriately decide on doses, tapering amounts, durations and conditions of usage, and how to recognize and respond to side effects, which can augment the already present risk of increased antidepressant-induced (or worsened) suicidal feelings, thoughts, and behaviors.So, while independently using antidepressants has not, to my knowledge, been linked to higher incidence of suicidal tendencies, the undereducated use of these powerful psychotropic drugs can lead to the precipitating of additional side effects or events that a person is not capable of competently handling—including experiences that may lead to an increase in completed suicidal acts.What is not as widely understood is how many doctors, including psychiatrists, fall squarely into that "undereducated" camp of individuals as well, which leads to an even greater proliferation of patient harm and death as a result of antidepressants despite professional administration and management.A final note is that having regular psychotherapy, and an interested and thorough prescribing doctor, are two factors figured to reduce the risk of fatality by suicide due to antidepressants. They may not prevent suicidal ideation or inclinations caused by antidepressants and the changes they entail, but could offer some patients a safer way to explore or express their experiences, much like with the suicidality that sometimes accompanies depression itself.
Is mental illness contagious?
Mental illness is not contagious. It is not infectious and readily transmittable like the common cold or chicken pox. You cannot catch mental illness or be contaminated in the presence of individuals with mental illness.Affect and behavior can be considered contagious, however, if we relax the definition a bit. For example, when people vomit around us, we are more likely to gag or possibly throw up ourselves. This is most likely a mechanism picked up over the course of evolution to keep us protected from spoiled meat that our group may have collectively eaten. There are also believed to be "mirror neurons" in the brain that fire in response to other people's behavior, and increase the likelihood that we will act similarly, and hence mimic or imitate the observed other. It also appears to be a natural phenomenon to share another person's affect. This is the basis for perspective-taking and empathy. Decety, Jackson, & Brunet (2008) talk about the dangers of sharing emotion without self-awareness and with overidentification:"[S]haring emotion without self-awareness and any form of regulation leads to emotional contagion, which takes the form of total identification without discrimination between one's feelings and those of the other. Furthermore, experiencing another person's pain or distress state in the same way as one's own experience would lead to 'empathic over-arousal', in which the focus then becomes one's own feelings of stress rather than the other's need."It's normal for one's emotional state to be affected by the emotional states of others around us. Every mother with a sick child can vouch for this. Can someone with depression make you depressed? I would say that someone with depression who is currently "down" can make you feel "down" as well, but won't make you depressed. Whether or not chronic feelings of sadness become depression depends on constitutional factors within yourself.For individuals with already compromised mental health, emotion-sharing can be risky. The National Institute of Mental Health (2002) argues that "suicide contagion is real," and has made recommendations to the media on reporting suicide. Again, they are using the word contagion loosely.
Why do I get very depressed?
Why do we get depressed?Why depression? Is it an evolutionary joke? Nature's way of slowing down hyperactive humans or does it have a real purpose? Or is it just a side product of complex brains?That is the $64,000 question. I am not a psychiatrist, but I can tell you what I know from my own experience. I may not be 100% accurate.Brain cells, which are called neurons, communicate with each other over gaps called synapses. One neuron sends chemical messengers called neurotransmitters across the gap to communicate to the other one. This communication causes the receiving neuron to fire. After firing, the leftover neurotransmitters are absorbed by the sending neuron. There are several different types of neurotransmitters.The most common hypothesis about the cause of depression is that there isn't enough of the neurotransmitter serotonin in the synapses. A common treatment for the lack of serotonin is with a medication known as a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI), such as Prozac. This prevents the serotonin from being absorbed after the firing, so that it remains in the synapse for the next firing.Why isn't there enough serotonin to begin with? In my case, I have two alleles (genetic mutations) that make it difficult for my body to convert folic acid from my food, into L-methylfolate. L-methylfolate promotes the production of neurotransmitters in the brain. The treatment for this condition is to take an L-methylfolate capsule, like Deplin on a daily basis. It didn't work for me.Often taking an SSRI is done in conjuction with seeing a therapist specializing in cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) or interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT)CBT focuses on how negative thoughts create negative feelings. These negative feelings create more negative thoughts in a vicious cycle. Negative thoughts and feelings also result in maladaptive behaviors, such as lying in bed all day or isolating oneself which result in more negative thought and feelings. The result is depression.IPT is concerned with how dysfunctional relationships with your family and friends cause you to be depressed.I had a psychiatrist who thought depression was an evolutionary adaptation to get us to slow down when times became too stressful. Since I find depression itself stressful, I reject this hypothesis.