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.
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.
LemmyKnowsBest@lemmy.world 10 months ago
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
Noedel@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Thanks. I’m just making jokes. Fortunately most of my side effects went away, although I still have wild dreams.
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.
ObviouslyNotBanana@lemmy.world 10 months ago
I would say it even works for many people. We’re aware of the fact that it works, and we’re aware of the fact that it effects serotonin. We also know that serotonin isn’t what does the work. There’s something down the line that is affected by the processes of the body that just happens to react in the chain from the serotonin manipulation.