Long term antidepressants treatment
Posted , 8 users are following.
This is something I found today and thought it would be good to share it to anyone like me that has been on antidepressants for a long time and wondering why they get worse and not better. Please not this is only about long term use of antidepressants.
Antidepressants are crucial for treatment in the acute phase when untreated symptoms are at there worse. With long term use the brain sets to work compensating for the drug induced changes with a process called oppositional tolerance, the brain tries to re- establish its usual balance of production/ release and reuptake of neurotransmitters as every system of the body does when it's normal functioning has been disterbed . The meds artificially jack up the brains level of serotonin so the neurobiology of the system reacts by reducing its own production of the neurotransmitter. In other words if antidepressants use continues long enough the brain will create a system to cancel out its effects.
Well this is exactly what I have thought for a very long time now and one of the reasons I'm off mine after 32 years. By the way I found that information via the London institute if phyciatrists
1 like, 46 replies
Aspinan michael_37726
Posted
maximilian88 michael_37726
Posted
I've been on long treatment for Bipolar disorder type I for close to ten years now. I'm on medication for mood stabilization and anti-pyschosis. I wouldn't discount the information you have but I'm yet to see long term longitudinal studies to support that claim. Perhaps you can share a link or something for the rest of us. The kind of depression associated with mental disorder however are exempt from the kind of tolerance to medication. besides, the consequence of not having any medication to ease the effects of depression can be very detrimental to one's lifestyle, social connections, and even dangerous to ones health. Personally, if there is a way to maintain the lifestyle that I chose at the expense of one or a few pills, I'd rather take it. I'm not losing any years on my life expectancy or cognitive function because of these pills, so why choose to suffer?