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granolamom
October 2, 2008 - 5:35pm
Permalink
antidepressants
my personal thoughts on the matter is that ANY medications impede the body's natural ability to heal. now that doesnt' mean you shouldn't ever take meds. obviously its a cost/benefit analysis that only you can make.
louiseds
October 2, 2008 - 8:38pm
Permalink
Antidepressants / birth control
Hi Sarah
I suspect there are many, many women who end up taking antidepressants at some stage during their lives, including me. I see them as another useful tool we can use to get us far enough through difficult experiences to tackle what caused the depression in the first place. I call them a short term tonic for the brain. However, as you say, all of them have side effects, and some are quite insidious and nasty, apart from the lack of libido, which is like bread without butter!!
I felt half alive taking them, and that was OK for a time, while I had a rest from the worries I had, but in the end they weren't moving me on, so I investigated further and ended up on another type of medication which I will take for life, that enables me to function, be happy enough, and be a person who nett contributes to the world, rather than drawing on it, in terms of productivity, and it seems to have manageable side effects that are well-documented. Beats the hell out of living in a twilight zone, and yes, I hav orgasms now. ;-)
I suspect the reason the antidepressants have a negative effect on libido is that it is very difficult to get excited about *anything* while on antidepressants. I was taking an SSRI. It is hard, however, to tell whether the lack of libido and response is to do with the antidepressant or the depression itself. I have also done cognitive behaviour therapy which helped me to deal with my perceptions of difficult situations and people and to redirect my responses in a way that defused the difficulty and got me responding more rationally to situations and events. I still use the skills I learnt during that 10 day intensive course, and now I think I handle difficulties far better than many 'mentally healthy' people.
I now know what caused my depression, and I no longer suffer from it. Not knowing the cause was one of the hardest things to deal with. It was like living with a black dog in a cage beside me at all times. I never knew when he would get out of the cage and harass me and try to bring me down. One thing that I did figure out was that I had an episode of depression about every seven years and it would take me three or four years to recover from it. There were great lumps of my life that had been really unpleasant, and well, depressing, and I knew that there would be more to come if I didn't work hard on finding the cause.
Sarah, I can only suggest very strongly that you work on this depression to try and get on top of it. You may need to go deep and changes some beliefs about yourself and others to get to the root of it. You may never find it, but taking positive steps is positive in itself and the first step to recovery. Even searching is empowering, showing yourself that you don't have to be a total victim of it. It gives you some power over events in your life. Go for it, and use antidepressants if you need to, as a means to an end, with the aim of getting off them eventually and using the resources within you to deal with future episodes. The constipation sucks, but ya can't have it all. Some may be 'less worse' than others. Use the Internet to find out more about the particular one you take, and ask your pharamacist who will be able to tell you more than your doctor. Be an active member of your own health team and be ready to debate with the professionals.
Re vasectomies and condoms. We ended up with our darling DS2 (our Surprise) as a result of careless condom application, and the discussion about vasectomy went on for five years after that, until I had another (welcome) pregnancy which ended in a very messy spontaneous abortion. The miscarriage scared the living daylights out of DH. I was too out of it to care. I had the Pearly Gates in my sights. Needless to say DH had his vasectomy about six weeks after that! It was not an experience I would want anyone else to endure.
Cheers
Louise
queenmother
October 2, 2008 - 11:32pm
Permalink
Antidepressants, etc.
Louise - I have been tackling this depression for about 11 years, and sometimes I get down about the fact that I'm still struggling, but most of the time I'm really proud of how much I've grown. I started going to poetry writing workshops a few years ago and found a wonderful outlet in writing - writing poetry and reading it to other women helped me more than years and years of therapy! It's all a journey.
Constipation - I got that from Zofran, which is an anti-nausea drug. It is usually used for chemotherapy patients, but also in pregnant women who have extreme nausea and vomiting. I lost a lot of weight and required IV fluids in both pregnancies. Anyway, I don't get constipated anymore (thank goodness!)
Libido - Yes, it's difficult to assess whether libido is affected by antidepressants or by depression itself. But I can see a very clear association between use of (and dosage of) SSRI's and problems with the big O (despite everything else appearing to work just fine... it can make a person want to scream, and not in a good way!). So I firmly believe the drugs do something to my body down there, I just don't understand what.
Vasectomies - I'm sorry about how your last pregnancy ended. Is your DH glad at this point that he got the vasectomy?
Cheers,
Sarah
PS - Granolamom, I agree with you that almost any medication can interfere with the body's natural processes, including healing. Medicine has brought us such a mixed bag, huh? Some miracles, some disasters, and lots of very difficult choices.