Comment on "looks inside, individually packaged"
LinkOpensChest_wav@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 months ago
The only time I’ve seen something like this is when my doctor really wanted me to try an anti-depressant, so he gave me a perpetual supply of free samples.
Noedel@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Don’t antidepressants take weeks to start working?
ObviouslyNotBanana@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Someone said this and it was such a good metaphor: imagine that you have a machine with a bunch of cogs and gears, and you’re looking down at it from above. You’re trying to fix a gear that is slightly out of phase further down in the machine and to fix it you drop a rock into the machine and watch it fall down.
That’s what we’re doing with SSRIs. We’re dropping a rock that manipulates our serotonin, which gives a bunch of effects but not the one we’re after. The one we’re after is somewhere down the line. We’re not exactly sure which one it is, but we know that if we drop the rock in there it will make the gears align sooner or later.
Tvkan@feddit.de 10 months ago
That’s a good metaphor! I’m not sure about the rock though, throwing a rock into a complicated machine doesn’t seem like the best idea. I’d consider replacing it with oil, where it needs to cover the gears at the top first before it can drip down.
ObviouslyNotBanana@lemmy.world 10 months ago
That’s the point of the metaphor. The SSRI is the rock. We’re not exactly sure how it’s gonna land, or what it’s total effects are, but it’s the tool we have and it’s the one we’re using.
candybrie@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Oil doesn’t fix alignment of gears. Ideally, you need to precisely go in and realign the exact gear. But we don’t have that power. So we’re throwing rocks.
Noedel@lemmy.world 10 months ago
“the rock may or may not cause the inability to cum and sleep”
JasonDJ@lemmy.zip 10 months ago
Friendly reminder that sexual side effects of SSRIs are incredibly common, some medications upto 80%, but it is something that’s typically wildly underreported unless the practitioner brings it up, specifically, first. Not just “any side effects”.
There are multiple treatment options for people who encounter those side effects. They can range from poor libido/drive, to inability to obtain an erection or adequate vaginal moisture, to delayed or absent orgasm. All are common and all are frustrating. All can occur alone or with one or more partners.
If it’s impacting treatment or quality of life or your ability to stay compliant with meds, it’s absolutely worth discussing with your provider. There are other medications or alternative schedules to taking SSRIs.
Relevant article from Journal of Clinical Medicine: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6832699/
Pazuzu@midwest.social 10 months ago
There’s other antidepressants that don’t do that. Mirtazapine for instance helps sleep, and has not real impact on sex. It’ll make you hungry, though. Buproprion will mess with your sleep but not sex, but you’ll have no appetite. They all have their own unique collection of side effects, well worth looking into other options if the ones from SSRI’s aren’t tolerable
ZombieTheZombieCat@lemmy.world 10 months ago
This is a great metaphor for why psychiatry is pseudoscience
ImFresh3x@sh.itjust.works 10 months ago
SSRIs definitely work for some people. It’s just that everyone’s brain chemistry is extremely different and complex. Doesn’t make it less scientific. Making the best guess is math and science.
webghost0101@sopuli.xyz 10 months ago
Yes and no, also i am not a medical professional.
For classical antidepressants Chemicals tend to function pretty fast but the effect is designed to be subtle because you need to live a normal life, capable of dealing with and feeling both ups and downs. not be perpetually smiling or brain dead.
After some time “a few weeks” of taking a daily dose your body and mind adjust to the subtle changes causing a stable therapeutic effect. At least thats what I understand is the idea.
But lately there is also sm of a psychedelic renaissance of medicine and they work entirely different where a single dose within a therapeutic setting creates a longer lasting feeling of increased well being.
Nasal Ketamine seems to receive allot of attention, near instantly improving the condition. They tend to need 1 dose every 5 weeks so its less addictive then classic medicine. But i do admit it instant improvement for treatment resistant medications m is a bold claim.
SayJess@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 months ago
The side effects can last for weeks. It’s like a really shitty onboarding process. For some, the side effects are not bad. Personally I can say that the first 2 to 4 weeks are usually filled with nausea, extreme fatigue and exhaustion.
The way that these sorts of meds have been described to me is that “they give you a leg up”, meaning it gives you just enough of a “boost” that you might actually follow through on therapy and the strategies it offers.
It has been years now, and still no luck. I’d love to live a normal life, whatever the fuck that means lol
LinkOpensChest_wav@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 months ago
It depends on what you mean by “start working.” The first time I took a sertraline, I felt absolutely baked, but I feel like it took weeks for the desirable effects to take hold.
Then again, my doctor also told me that something like 60% of the effects are a placebo.
Regardless, yes, he would give me like a month of these individal samples at a time. I’m not sure how he swung that. It was like 2003 or 2004.