Prozac

Life Health & Fitness
61

I like this article: 10 Steps to Emotional Health in 2005.

I don’t believe it’s so easy to know when an emotional/mental health situation is so dire that taking powerful drugs is the first step of a medical solution. Professionals in the field of psychiatry, medicine etc all have different opinions on the treatments. It’s easy to seek solutions to symptoms and deal with those rather than underlying causes.

When the issue is emotional/mental health, I think the lines of disagreement fall under nature/environment vs. genetics. Unless one’s family or person has a history of verifiable emotional/mental illness, most of the ills that happen to us can be described as a failure of the person to cope with life’s trials and tribulations. That medicine can help with the coping process is obvious but I think that a lot of the time, traditional, non-medicinal coping mechanisms aren’t given the chance or explored in depth enough.

When all else fails, then I think that stronger measures like mind drugs etc should be part of the treatment but they shouldn’t be bandied about as if that’s the normal course of action. People should know that the body and the mind are very hardy and they can cope with most of what life throws at us. Once someone has to start taking powerful drugs, it’s usually a life-long affair, both psychological and physiological. The result is that you’ve traded one set of issues for another set of issues.

62

Yes, I do acknowledge the difference between people in a bad mood and those with a physical illness. Which is precisely why I emphasized, repeatedly, that I was making my comments with all due respect to those who truly benefit by such drug therapy.

My point was that I feel that drug companies are pushing these drugs to people who are not truly in need of them. Notice the increasing number of children in the US who are now on ‘meds’. Johnny acted up in class? Put him on meds. Feeling down? Perhaps this will help.

So, again, with all due respect to those who truly benefit from all that’s being ‘provided’ to us, I do think most drugs, including prozac, are over prescribed. It’s a business, afterall.

With that in mind, it’s worth asking why these companies invest so much in developing synthetic compounds rather than learning how naturally existing ones can help us. According to my understanding, this is because natural compounds cannot be patented. They must be synthesized in order to be profited from. As a result, companies not only don’t care to investigate how natural compounds might help us (actually, they do, but only to the extent that they can synthesize them), they actively fight others’ efforts to do so (or at least to market them). I know this is getting off topic a bit, but it gets back to my point that the drug industry, in cahoots with the FDA, has run amuk.

I wonder… to what extent, under guidance of course, could some good, organic mescaline benefit those who truly need help MORESO than can prozac? We’ll never know; the drug industry will make sure of that. And how about organic alternatives to valium? There are plenty. But, the drug industry can’t make a dime off of them.

And with regards to cancer, cancer patients are screaming for the legalization of medical marijuana precisely to alleviate the side effects of chemo. Why is the drug industry and the FDA fighting it? Simply because pot doesn’t pay for them.

63

Remember when you want to purchase medicine or drugs.
All Pharmacies should have a drug book(2004 issue still being used).
Index at the back,look up what you want(English index)
Find the page,look at the manafacturers.Imports(Europe,Japan and USA) are always more expensive.Buy local,quality is good(this is not China)
As an example, 100(1 box) Prozac less than nt$ 2000,Shanghai Pharmacy is overcharging Buy 10 boxes, often get 1 free.
Obviously the drug’s patent must have expired.
You will not get the strictly controlled drugs(Morphine,Codeine etc) but you will be surprised what you can get.

64

You mean that shanghai pharmacy is overcharging on name brand drugs? How would one know what the true rate is , they can get the right price?

65

Please please please - for your own sake DO THERAPY FIRST with a qualified psychologist. Prozac is not the answer, face up and believe you can win. Because you will.

66

For people with moderate to serious depression and/or anxiety, most doctors recommend a combination of medication and therapy. Back in the States, my doctor said he didn’t give out any anti-depression/anxiety meds unless the patients were willing to take part in therapy as well. In Taiwan, however, they just drug you up unless you tell them than you WANT therapy … and the quality of the therapists is debateable.

67

[quote=“Yellow Cartman”]
Once someone has to start taking powerful drugs, it’s usually a life-long affair, both psychological and physiological. The result is that you’ve traded one set of issues for another set of issues.[/quote]

I disagree. The problem for most patients is staying on the anti-depressant as the side effects are often so strong.

Anyone who has ever suffered from mental illness knows that the mind is extremely fragile and self-control and willpower are more or less illusory.

The issues that many people who suffer from serious depression have relate to the depression itself: how to keep long term relationships because of your moodiness, how to stay alert and even enough to keep a job, how not to succumb to self-pity, how to overcome the sense of personal failing and shame and freakishness, how to deal with the horrible memories of life before you were treated. Cure the depressive state and the issues go away.