Are you a long-term user of antidepressants? Tell us about your experiences

In the past decade there has been a doubling in the number of prescriptions written for selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SRRIs) – the most common antidepressant. NHS research shows there are now more than 70m prescriptions dispensed in the UK in a year, the “greatest rise” of any drug in the last year.

But while the short-term side effects of taking this medication are well-known, there has been less exploration into the longer-term impact of them. In an article for Guardian Weekend magazine, Aida Edemariam spoke to people who had been taking the drugs for many years. She found that many SSRI users report blunted emotions and an impact on sexual function, with the effect lasting long after people have stopped taking pills.

Those attempting to come off these drugs also face withdrawal symptoms. This can include feeling heightened anxiety or depression, with some going back onto the drugs believing their mental health problems have returned.

That is not to say that these drugs are not helpful. They can prove life-saving in terms of helping them cope and live with mental health problems. The Guardian’s Simon Hattenstone said: “If Prozac was no longer working for me, would I stop taking it? Probably. Would I stop taking antidepressants full stop? I doubt it. I’d simply look for another super pill.”

Share your experiences

We want to hear from our readers about long-term antidepressant use. Have you been on medication for a long time and struggled to come off it? Do you want to? Do you feel these drugs are overprescribed? Should more be done to warn patients about long-term side effects before they take them? Or do you feel you would never have coped without them? Share your stories.

Are you a long-term user of antidepressants? Tell us about your experiences

Is Britain a nation hooked on antidepressants?

According to reports last week, hundreds of thousands of people are hooked on prescription drugs for not only depression but also pain and anxiety. The Daily Mail quoted a recent report from the all party parliamentary group for prescribed drug dependence, saying that in 2013 about 11% of women and 6% of men were on antidepressants – 5.4 million people nationally.

But are they really hooked? The Royal College of Psychiatry says that antidepressants are not addictive, on the grounds that you do not have to increase your dose to get the same effect or get cravings when you stop the drug. But the college’s own survey of 817 people found that 63% had withdrawal symptoms after stopping antidepressants – mostly they were on SSRIs (the most commonly prescribed antidepressants).

The solution

The symptoms of withdrawal – stomach upsets, flu-like symptoms anxiety, dizziness, nightmares and electric shocks to the head – can last for two months. Dr James Davies, an academic in social and medical anthropology at the University of Roehampton and member of the all parliamentary group says that people on antidepressants can certainly feel dependent on their drug. “Dependence can be physical or psychological,” he says. “People may feel they are only better because they take the drug.”

In a letter to the BMJ last year, Prof Peter C Gøtzsche of the Nordic Cochrane Centre in Denmark, said that half of people on antidepressants become addicted. Out of 260,322 people in Finland who were taking an antidepressant in 2008, 45% were still on them five years later.

When you stop antidepressants should be the result of a discussion between you and your doctor – it is an individual decision and depends on how long and how severely you have been depressed. A precipitating cause may have gone, or talking therapy may have helped. But you should never stop taking them suddenly because the side-effects can be horrible. Instead, it is recommended that you taper your dose by a quarter every four to six weeks.

Psychiatrists suggest staying on the drug for six months to a year after you feel better. Your response should be checked regularly – at three weeks and then again at three to six monthly intervals. Doctors can sometimes confuse withdrawal symptoms with a return of depression, and restart the drug. Gøtzsche warns that this can keep people trapped on antidepressants for life. If the symptoms occur rapidly after stopping the drug, and stop very shortly after restarting it, then it is likely to be because of drug withdrawal. GPs often advise coming off antidepressants at the start of summer, as it feels a more optimistic time than the middle of winter.

Is Britain a nation hooked on antidepressants?

Antidepressants Cause the Brain to Be Depleted of Crucial Nutrients

Antidepressants Cause the Brain to Be Depleted of Crucial Nutrients

"Staggering" rise in prescribing of anti-depressants

Beth Murphy, Head of Info at Mind, the psychological overall health charity, mentioned: “The figures exhibiting that the spending on anti-depressants has increased by a third in a single year are staggering. We would hope that this suggests an increase in numbers of individuals searching for help, but our concern is that people are being prescribed anti-depressants inappropriately. “

She explained for mild and moderate depression, speaking therapies have been frequently more valuable than medication, but explained accessibility to this kind of help was “patchy and often includes a extremely lengthy wait.”

Experts have raised issues that increasing numbers are turning to medicine in the wake of the credit score crunch, while some psychiatrists have raised fears that medical doctors are “medicalising” each day sadness.

NHS guidance says anti-depressants need to not be offered as the first resort for individuals with mild to moderate depression, and says that this kind of situations need to alternatively be referred for “talking therapy” this kind of as cognitive behavioural treatment.

"Staggering" rise in prescribing of anti-depressants

Did Teen Suicide Warnings About Antidepressants In fact Lead to Suicides To Enhance?

In what would be a tragic case of the law of unintended consequences, a new research claims that the really warnings about the suicide dangers to teens taking antidepressants could have contributed to a surge in attempted teen suicides.

The study, published this week in the journal BMJ, investigated outcomes soon after the US Foods and Drug Administration (FDA) started publicizing warnings of increased risk of suicidality with antidepressant use in youthful folks. The FDA warnings, which started in 2003, have been particularly related with modifications in antidepressant use, suicide attempts, and completed suicides among adolescents.

The examine tracked information derived from the virtual data warehouse of 11 overall health plans in the US Psychological Well being Research Network covering around two.5 million adolescents and young grownups. Its findings recommend that the FDA warnings about enhanced risk of suicide linked to antidepressants induced antidepressant use amid teens and young grownups to substantially drop after 2003. Concurrently, the number of attempted suicides between the identical age groups elevated.

“This was a massive worldwide event in terms of the mass media,” says Stephen Soumerai of the Harvard Health-related School, a co-writer of the study. “Many of the media reviews in fact emphasized an exaggeration of the warnings.” [reported by NPR, June 18, 2014]

Antidepressant use fell 31 % among adolescents and 24 percent amid youthful adults following the FDA warnings, according to the study. Suicide attempts increased by almost 22 percent amid adolescents and 33 percent between younger grownups in the very same time time period. Suicide attempts tracked in the study have been largely the result of drug overdoses.

“The warnings have been well-intentioned but individuals were concerned that the ferocity of the messages may well impact clinicians, dad and mom and younger folks in a way that would minimize required drugs,” Soumerai stated in a press briefing.

Not all professionals agree with the research team’s interpretations of the information.  An official from the National Institute of Mental Health advised NPR that there are other possible factors why antidepressant use fell, and it is also not achievable to recognize what percentage of the drug overdoses were intentional or accidental.

As with all cohort scientific studies, which track outcomes across large groups over time, it is impossible to ferret out each conceivable element that may possibly have influenced the outcomes. But the study’s outcomes, at minimum, suggest the chance that the warnings had been not communicated effectively and could have triggered an overreaction in the common media that influenced a lot of parents to pull their youngsters off antidepressants.

In an emailed statement to NPR, the FDA defended its decision to warn the public. “The FDA noticed an important danger signal with antidepressants and we put that details in the drug labels,” the agency said.

The examine was published June 18, 2014 in the journal BMJ.

You can locate David DiSalvo on Twitter @neuronarrative, and at his website The Everyday Brain. His most recent guide is Brain Changer: How Harnessing Your Brain’s Energy To Adapt Can Change Your Lifestyle.

Did Teen Suicide Warnings About Antidepressants In fact Lead to Suicides To Enhance?

Antidepressants: share your experiences and stories

A report released today by the Nuffield Trust and the Health Foundation reveals the prescription of antidepressants soared during the financial crisis and subsequent recession.

Prescriptions rose from 15m in 1998 to 40m in 2012. The yearly rate of increase accelerated during the banking crisis and recession to 8.5%, compared to 6.7% before it.

The report also found that rises in unemployment were associated with significant increases in the number of antidepressants dispensed and that areas with poor housing tended to see significantly higher antidepressant use.

We want to hear from people who have experience with antidepressants, whether you’ve had a prescription in the past, are taking them now or have a friend or family member who has. What made you decide to go the doctor? And have they helped you in some way? Share your stories with GuardianWitness, anonymously if you choose, and we may feature the best ones on the site.

• GuardianWitness is the home of user-generated content on the Guardian. Contribute your video, pictures and stories, and browse news, reviews and creations submitted by others. Posts will be reviewed prior to publication on GuardianWitness, and the best pieces will feature on the Guardian site.

Antidepressants: share your experiences and stories

Antidepressants have kept me pleased for years

Prof Peter Gøtzsche, who spends his daily life attempting to expose health care myths – he also thinks that we shouldn’t screen girls above 50 for breast cancer – yesterday launched the Council for Evidence Based mostly Psychiatry (CEP). Its initial job? To inform the planet that antidepressants do much more harm than very good.

Prof Gøtzsche has found that they are getting prescribed to individuals who are only “mildly depressed” (is getting mildly depressed a bit like becoming somewhat pregnant?) and that they are handed out for issues as trivial as examination tension, marital breakdown and submit-flu fatigue. Then they become hooked on them. Moreover, numerous individuals taking antidepressants learn that – boo hoo – their intercourse drives disappear. In most cases, say the individuals at the CEP, folks with depression will really feel far better “with the passing of time”.

I constantly suspect that the anti-antidepressant crowd have never really been depressed themselves that maybe they really do not even truly feel in the concept of depression at all. Due to the fact any individual with even a passing information of psychological illness knows that time does not pass when you are depressed, at least not in the regular way. A minute feels like an hour, an hour like a day.

When you go to the physician and they offer you you the selection of a) antidepressants, which might or may possibly not operate proper this minute, or b) cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), but only when you get to the finish of an NHS waiting listing in 6 months, the preferred option is obvious.

That is the very first mistake that Prof Gøtzsche tends to make when he demonises antidepressants: for doctors labouring under cuts to mental overall health budgets, they are frequently the only reply they have.

The 2nd mistake is to use people who have been wrongly prescribed “happy pills” as a stick to beat patients who haven’t. If somebody with absolutely nothing far more than exam stress is stuck on Prozac, I do not believe that’s the fault of “evil” drug businesses. It is just the result of negative health-related practice. As is the fact that individuals are stated to be “hooked”. Antidepressant withdrawal is a true doozy of an experience – brain zaps, dizziness, nausea, severe fatigue – but it can be managed with the assist of a physician. The dilemma is, most GPs do not have the time or sources to hold tabs on patients who get antidepressants, and they quite rarely bother to inspire anybody to go for CBT sessions once a vacancy sooner or later comes up.

Then there is the matter of libido. Prof Gøtzsche is right when he says that antidepressants put you at chance of sexual issues, but think me: when you are in the darkest depths of despair, you will happily trade in the capacity to orgasm for a ticket out of the bleakness.

But the medicines really do not truly work as they are supposed to, you say! And nevertheless 3 quarters of individuals on antidepressants claim that they have improved their lives. That is an astonishing variety.

So I am sick of the professionally satisfied telling us that antidepressants are simply placebos – that we are being drugged by Huge Pharma, and that sitting down for a excellent chat would do us just as a lot good. This may be so. But the professionally pleased are seldom available at quick discover to the genuinely depressed – not unless of course the genuinely depressed occur also to be exceptionally wealthy.

For the record, a mixture of each CBT and Sertraline has witnessed me correct. It was the Sertraline, 1 of the most typically prescribed antidepressants, that provided me with the foundation for recovery, which acquired me via right up until therapy was offered.

Noticed in that light, do antidepressants do more harm than great? Or do the men and women warning that they do much more harm than excellent really do much more harm than great? Do they frighten already vulnerable individuals who are short of alternatives and even shorter on patience?

Antidepressants could not be a magic cure-all, but they supply hope to numerous of us. And the other selection – simply performing practically nothing – is a far harder pill to swallow.

———————————-

EENY, MEENY, MINY, Wedding DRESS…

_{Bryony Gordon married Harry in a £90 frock from Monsoon (Andrew Crowley)}

I’m really fired up about the Victoria &amp Albert Museum’s new blockbuster exhibition of wedding dresses, if only since I never managed to muster any enthusiasm for my very own. I have prolonged been amazed by a woman’s capability to invest a number of months’ wages on something she will only ever put on after (if she’s fortunate).

My frock value me £90 and took about 5 minutes to decide on. You can almost certainly inform just by seeking at it. What happened was this: I went with my sister and my (then) 3-month-outdated child to Monsoon, the large street keep, due to the fact the concept of going to a expert bridal shop with a mewling infant filled me with horror. But also due to the fact when you have gone to the difficulty of getting a youngster out of wedlock, a large fussy wedding is about as minimal on your checklist of priorities as, say, skydiving and tequila.

“Do you like this a single?” I asked my sister, who was bouncing her screaming niece up and down on her hip.

“Yeah, fine,” she sighed.

“And this 1?”

“It’s completely Okay,” she explained, wiping child sick off her new Topshop jumper.

“And what about this?” I ventured, desperately hoping that we may capture some of that supposed magic absolutely everyone talks about when they 1st try on their wedding dress.

“WAHHHHHHH HHHHH,” said my daughter.

My frock was picked more than a game of eeny, meeny, miny, moe.

Later on, I informed my sister that I had expected absolutely everyone to cry at the sight of me in my gown, much as they do in programmes like Do not Tell the Bride. “It’s Okay,” she said. “At least your daughter did.”

On the wedding ceremony day itself, I had changed into an previous celebration dress by 5pm – and it was none the worse for it.

———————————-

ST GEORGE OF BEVERLY HILLS HAS Lost HIS HALO

_{Clooney with Amal Alamuddin (Rex)}

Did George Clooney choose this was a excellent week to bury negative news? Amid the hysteria about his engagement to his 36-yr-old British girlfriend Amal Alamuddin, it has been very ignored that the actor has quit as a UN Messenger of Peace.

Have been we mindful that such a thing existed at all? Are UN Messengers of Peace a kind of modern celestial getting? Is Stunning George a present day-day Gabriel? But seriously. According to the UN site, its Messengers are “prominent personalities” who volunteer their “time, talent and passion to raise awareness of United Nations efforts to boost the lives of billions of people everywhere”. But following 6 many years, “Mr Clooney feels it is time to retire his official role”, a spokesman mentioned. And how will the youngsters of Darfur survive with out Clooney, who, lest we fail to remember, is not an actual medical professional, just a bloke who was paid to play 1 in ER.

Why do we venerate the man as if he have been a saint? The way some go on, it is a shock he wasn’t at the Vatican acquiring canonised with Popes John Paul II and John XXIII. St George of Beverly Hills would search fab on the opening credits. But all he’s carried out is break a thousand hearts Tina Fey described Gravity as “a story about how George Clooney would rather float away into room and die than invest one particular more minute with a girl his own age”.

Oh, and travel to Africa, where, in accordance to authorities, he has ended up distorting complicated problems and truly creating it harder to find a resolution to the predicament in Sudan. So why do we contemplate Ms Alamuddin the fortunate one? She’s an skilled human rights attorney, a gorgeous Oxford graduate who is an actual adviser to the UN. Clooney is the one particular who should be thanking his lucky stars, not his bride-to-be.

Antidepressants have kept me pleased for years

Are we utilizing antidepressants to paper more than the cracks of a fractured society?

The probabilities are that you know someone who takes antidepressants. Or possibly you take them your self. If so, you are in very good firm. Far more than 50m prescriptions for antidepressants are written in the Uk every 12 months and, despite the fact that the not all of the capsules will be swallowed – taking into account repeat prescriptions and failure to collect from pharmacies – the figure is still staggeringly high.

There is a constructive side to the 50m statistic, although. It suggests that as the stigma has decreased, folks have become more inclined to ask for aid. And, for a lot of, antidepressants operate. Nonetheless, while specialists are quick to acknowledge the benefits – which can be lifestyle-saving – many express concern about our growing dependence.

“Prescription ranges have gone through the roof,” says Dr Matthijs Muijen, head of psychological health at WHO Europe. “On the demand side, men and women know antidepressants operate. I would even argue there is a degree of fashion about antidepressants. On the provide side, antidepressants have grow to be less expensive and more effortlessly obtainable. Doctors now know it’s effortless and ‘good’ to prescribe.”

Important to arguments around antidepressant use are inquiries about what constitutes “typical” sadness and in which the boundary lies among this and clinical depression. There is no reduce-and-dried response, and this ambivalence all around the use of antidepressants looks to be characteristic of these taking them. “It’s not excellent, but I just make use of the sources obtainable,” is a characteristic response.

Lisa Cunningham, 45, was signed off on sick leave and prescribed Prozac after suffering troubles at function. Quickly afterwards, she was attacked, leaving her with facial injuries and even deeper depression. For nearly eleven many years, Lisa remained on medicine, turning into steadily far more withdrawn, till she barely left the residence.

Cunningham’s story has a optimistic outcome: following being referred to a volunteering scheme by her GP she acquired involved in a gardening undertaking which led to a complete-time job. She then felt able to cease taking her medication. “Antidepressants did a essential occupation and I definitely feel I had clinical depression,” Cunningham says. “But I was a nervous, anxious kid.” She explains that whilst developing up, she was subjected to bodily aggression from men and women close to her, “so it was virtually inevitable I would get depression. Searching back, it would possibly have been far better if I’d had some sort of psychotherapy in college.”

For Darren Ellis, forty, lifestyle occasions and mental overall health have been similarly linked. Ellis lost his father at 16 and at the time was not presented any assistance. Ellis’s depression and anxiousness created and he was prescribed medicine right after medicine. None of the drugs worked and he twice attempted to take his personal daily life. It was only this year that he was in a position to get the one-to-1 cognitive-behavioural treatment (CBT) that, he says, is finally assisting him to recover.

Ellis believes items could have been diverse that the depression could have been prevented. “I’m certain I could have averted taking medication if I’d had therapy instantly,” he says. “I was confident – the life and soul of a celebration – till my dad died.”

The website link between life events and depression is of course not disputed, but it is of specific relevance now. A report by The Wellness and Social Care Information Centre exposed that in many places in the Uk – like Barnsley, Durham, Middlesbrough, Redcar, Salford and Sunderland – approximately one particular in six adults are prescribed antidepressants. By comparison, in affluent Kensington &amp Chelsea, it is one particular in 21.

Since the economic downturn started, Mind has reported a dramatic rise in the number of people calling its mobile phone line. “There are clear hyperlinks amongst unemployment and depression,” says Sophie Corlett, Mind’s director of external relations. “Following six months, one in 7 unemployed guys will create mental-health troubles. People are falling into debt and there’s a reciprocal partnership among debt and mental health.”

While virtually everybody with expertise of antidepressants reports locating them beneficial, numerous could have created use of option varieties of aid. “We know that folks go to the medical professional due to the fact they’re feeling reduced, and the reasons may possibly be domestic violence, debt, bereavement, marriage breakup, problems from past trauma,” says Corlett. “Some of these are practical and could have sensible solutions, whilst some are deep-rooted psychological concerns that need to have dealing with. Antidepressants are not often the response.”

For mild to moderate depression, unless of course it is persistent, the Nationwide Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Great) does not advise medication as a initial resort. Nonetheless, despite the government’s investment in the Improving Entry to Psychological Therapies programme, in some components of the nation individuals wait months for entry to CBT or equivalent treatment options. Likewise, it does not appear that people’s prescriptions are always reviewed each 6 months, as Wonderful suggests.

There are a lot of problems with prescribing antidepressants when there could be an alternative resolution. Antidepressants have side-results that we are only just discovering and, though rates have dropped as patents expire, the price to the NHS is nonetheless enormous.

It is unattainable to gauge whether we live in a much more nerve-racking age than that of our grandparents. What is specific is that attitudes and entry to drugs have changed. On stability, this is a very good issue. But as the economic system continues to flounder, the number of folks struggling with mental-wellness issues is most likely to boost, nearly undoubtedly top to the writing of nevertheless much more prescriptions.

“My worry is that we are medicalising all types of sadness in the belief that antidepressants are a risk-free drug that you just prescribe,” says Muijen.

Mind has named for precise study to be carried out into how several folks are taking antidepressants, how prolonged they get them for and whether they are getting any other treatment. It is a severe issue, Corlett says, that this data does not exist. Antidepressants are a vital instrument. But if, in several circumstances, we are just papering more than cracks, we should, as a society, face up to the depth of the problem.

Are we utilizing antidepressants to paper more than the cracks of a fractured society?