So, What's With The Additional Meds

[WiffenPoof]

Have you started to notice that pharma companies are now advertising "supplemental" medications to add to medications you are already taking.

Take "Avilify." This nifty little drug is to be added to your anti-depressant medication to make it more effective. Look, I take anti-depressants...and I know how important they can be. But doesn't this sound like yet another method for the pharma companies to add to their bottom line? What's next...a drug to add to Avilify to make IT more effective???

So what's wrong with just making the original drug more effective or longer lasting.

This is such bull-shit capitalism and yet another example that corporations have no shame.

-P

[Kerrytravelers]

1. If they medicate us to we're numb, then they can do whatever they want.

[Faux pas]

14. I prefer sedation that's not manufactured by drug companies.

My avatar shows my first choice. Heaven forbid we are allowed to have something that grows like a weed because it is one.

Natural supplements are another choice. Just learned that inositol helps with ocd, bipolar depression, panic attacks, etc. I found that out b/c I was checking into Choline for brain and liver health. For every problem, there's a natural solution. Do some research and save yourself from more man made problems. All this is mho but natural supplements have done me well for over 30 yrs.

[ejpoeta]

18. if you could grow it yourself, then you wouldn't need a pharma company.

they don't want you to have something you don't have to get through the drug cartels. That's why they have been trying to synthesize the weed. It's funny how even when they make an exact copy they can't duplicate the effects people get from nature.

[Faux pas]

34. I have the opposite of green thumbs or i would grow my own.

Yeah, why have the real thing when some lab flunky can brew you up something synthetic. Go figure.

[Kennah]

2. When a patent nears the end of it's life for Drug X, Company Y starts to push Drug Z

Whole lotta XYZs out there

[Jane Austin]

3. Eat more paella.

The saffron in it can act like an antidepressant.

I know, it's the most expensive spice, but it's cheaper than anti-depressants - especially on the internet.

[Pool Hall Ace]

4. No kidding??

[Jane Austin]

8. It's helping my husband get through a tough course of chemotherapy

with Cisplatin and Etopiside with no kidney damage at all.

Here's just one of many links I found that talks about saffron's use against depression.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saffron

[Pool Hall Ace]

10. Yikes, it's expensive!!

Does your husband take capsules, or do you use saffron in cooking?

I hope he succeeds in the cancer battle!! :hi:

[Jane Austin]

32. We put a few strands on

whatever he is eating.

I promise you it is cheaper than antidepressants.

[unapatriciated]

35. Trader Joe's has the cheapest price for saffron.

and it comes in a cute little blue bottle for around six buck. (yellow spanish saffron)

[Jane Austin]

36. We have all kinds of stores here,

but so far no Trader Joe's. :(

[steve2470]

9. thanks for the info ! nt

[handmade34]

5. money is bottom line

and it is time for us to fight back

[MilesColtrane]

6. That special detergent blended, injector cleaning premium gasoline doesn't quite...

get all the carbon deposits.

You'll want to supplement it with STP™. (It's the racer's edge!)

[nadinbrzezinski]

7. Abilify has very limited uses, from what I understand

and it is a very dangerous drug, that should NOT be advertised.

For that matter, things like Advil have significant side effects

[steve2470]

11. my take on this

1- Patients need to be educated about their treatment, and make the best choices for themselves.
2- It is true that St. John's Wort and other naturally occurring substances can be helpful.
3- Of course, the Big Pharma are in it for the money. I think everyone knows this.
4- According to the psychiatrists I've heard and material I've read, *sometimes* more than one med is necessary. Again, the
decision to add a med should be only based on "medical necessity".
There are ethical psychiatrists still out there, believe it or not. Some patients only go to their internist
or family practice doctor or ob/gyn, and some of them do a good job on prescribing psychotropic drugs.
5- Patients with more "complex cases" really need to see a specialist, aka a psychiatrist or psychiatric nurse practioner.
6- Of course, there are other treatments besides drug therapy, as in exercise and psychotherapy and exposure to more sunlight or artifical light, etc.

The debate really hinges on whether you trust your doctor. If not... get a new doctor. Of course, you can always "treat yourself".
The non-stop advertising for drugs is a tad disgusting, but I suppose it helps a bit with patient education.

[FormerOstrich]

12. It is not about education...

it is all about big pharma buying influence.

The cost of all the advertisements is astronomical. Those costs aren't absorbed with additional revenue. They are passed on to the consumer. New demand for the product is just a nice by-product for them. All those advertising dollars buys a lot of clout.

Not to mention they are the biggest drug peddlers around.

[Newest Reality]

13. I personally would

every drug at my disposal to control and placate a society that I wanted to impress, dominate and control I would assure that the companies that provided any biological intervention on the behalf of myself and those who wanted you all to be accepting and submissive to my agenda, would get an incredible place of power and recompense in my imposition of a tyrannical realty upon millions of people.

You really do need some form of medication to deal with the total and massive mindfuck in progress. Well, much thinking, courage, knowledge and introspection can also make it more bearable without the cloud of submission that is supposed to make you feel okay about what is going to be your total enslavement and undoing in many ways.

Situational depression could be telling you that your situation is really a cause for being depressed!

As in Zen, if you are sad, be sad, for that is what you are right now. That applies to any state or feeling you encounter. When you get trapped in being angry or sad or uncomfortable about being any way, that is where you build walls of dissociation from your real feelings and being. So, you might see this in: "I feel angry that I was sad about being embarrassed about feeling insecure when I was talking to my friends about my problems. How many levels of feelings and thoughts about feelings and thoughts are we subjected to today and how crazy-making and unproductive are they?

The winners know and the losers wonder.

[ZombieHorde]

15. How do you know these new drugs are not good?

Gut instinct and suspicion won't give you the facts.

[blogslut]

16. It's a mood stabilizer

It helps reduce manic episodes. Anti-depressant drugs tend to be seratonin-reuptake inhibitors which help regulate mis-firing synapses but they aren't technically "chill pills". I'm going to take a guess that Aripiprazole (Abilify) is a "chill pill".

[ejpoeta]

19. I am currently taking two pills. One to stabilize my mood swings and one for depression.

Neither are abilify. Though the one I was told I needed to be very careful to see if it made me suicidal. It hasn't so that's good.

[blogslut]

21. Yeah. Side effects can be pretty scary

There's about a zillion different kinds of anti-depressants out there because each one affects users differently. I had a friend who went from Zoloft to Prozac to Paxil and finally settled on Lorazepam.

I would imagine the same thing applies to mood stabilizers - what works for one person might not work for another.

[polly7]

23. Lorazepam is a benzodiazepine that should only be prescribed for

weeks, or up to a few months. It is highly addicting and hell to get off of after long-term use and and hell for many after even weeks during use because of it's short half-life and inter-dose withdrawal. I hope your friend doesn't think it's treating her or his depression and depend on it for that.

[blogslut]

26. Well, it was 15 years ago

And I may have been wrong with what she ended up with. Hell, she may not be taking anything now. The point I was trying to illustrate is that she went through a lot of different meds before she found something that worked for her.

[polly7]

27. I understand. Yes, it's very, very sad to watch what people with severe

depression have to go through to get the right help.

[hifiguy]

33. Indeed.

A friend of mine thinks Xanax is the greatest thing since canned beer. All it did for me was make me paranoid and hear voices in my head. Effexor made me feel like I was getting low level electric shocks for three days when I came up to full dosage.

Cymbalta worked immedately and very well for me with no discernable side effects. Mood rebounded to normal and completely stabilized within ten days. Hope to be back on that soon.

As a psychiatrist once told me, there are so many anti-depressants because every person's brain chemistry is different - there's no such thing as a one-pill-fits-all.

[Quantess]

17. It's most likely something that will cause horrible withdrawals

if you try to stop taking it. You know, just in case you aren't sufficiently addicted to your current antidepressant. If Avlify is patented, then they can keep making money off of you if your antidepressants are now available in generic.

[blogslut]

20. While drug companies do re-package existing drugs

...and/or change dosages and then make sweet munnies from old drugs with new names, anti-depressants aren't addictive.

[Quantess]

22. okay, maybe that was the wrong word.

I meant horrible withdrawals.

Edit to add: horrible withdrawal effects that can linger for weeks or months after discontinuing.

[yardwork]

25. Having just experienced months of side effects from withdrawing off an SSRI, I beg to differ.

[blogslut]

28. Yes, there are problems when discontinuing anti-depressants

And while those problems effect your body as the drug leaves your system, the drugs themselves do not cause you to want more or give you the desire to try other drugs while you are taking them.

[yardwork]

29. The definition of addiction includes physical withdrawal symptoms.

[blogslut]

30. Yes

But it also includes dependency, the need for bigger dosages and drug-seeking behavior. Did your SSRIs do that to you?

[polly7]

31. I think the problem is, the withdrawal from certain anti-depressants for

some people, if not managed and carefully tapered, can be so horrific they crave anything that will make them feel better.

[yardwork]

24. Could this be because the anti-depressants don't actually work for many people?