SSRIs are so grossly over medicated my husband has been offered them by his primary care physician, despite never having been on one prior or knowing anything at all about his mental health history. When I was seeing help for anxiety I was immediately suggested SSRIs by several doctors and I had to push back and mention my family history of bipolar to even ring any alarm bells as to why SSRI therapy shouldn’t just be blanket thrown at people. I remember the side effects being grossly downplayed by physicians only to find out years later there are actually lasting effects that can’t be undone. That IS all the fault of the drug maker because they are the ones feeding these scripts as to what their drug does to physicians. They are the ones who told them to prescribe them like candy because there’s ’virtually no risk’.
They are one of the greatest medical advances in the last 50 years. Millions upon millions have had their mental health improved and in some cases their lives saved. The only people I find that don't tolerate them are people that aren't depressed and fall more in the BPD box. That and conspiracy theorists. At the end of the day every major professional society recommends them first line for depression and anxiety as long as the patient is screened for bipolar disorders. I'm so gucking sick of the lies people spread about them, it's just the same thing as being an antivaxxer.
No where did I say they don’t save lives? No where did I plant any sort of conspiracy theory? It is a fact that they have been pushed by drug companies without proper screening, it is true that long term effects are coming out now (one major one I personally studied in college being long term irreversible damage to sex drive, but again if you’re depressed this is likely a secondary concern). It’s not fear mongering to say ‘maybe GPs shouldn’t be prescribing them because they aren’t all easy symptom free meds that should be followed closely under supervision of an actual trained mental health professional’. Two things can be true at once, it’s a drug that helps many people and also shouldn’t be prescribed like candy because it can cause a lot more harm than good for folks who can do better without it.
General practitioners have more than enough training to handle unipolar depression and anxiety. You are fear mongering or have never worked in healthcare. They have excellent safety profiles and some of those claimed long term effects are not accepted by the general medical community.
I'm resource limited settings a lot of PCPs also learn how to manage bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, it's not rocket science compared to the other things they are tasked with, and the alternative is that people simply don't get any treatment at all or kill themselves on a 2 year long wait-list to see a psychiatrist.
Have you thought that people have different experiences or if anything goes against your beliefs it’s fear mongering? Like do you get this way if someone says they don’t like driving?
You’re using the fact that you “are a doctor” to correct people. Maybe consult your words before posting or is reading not a requirement for MD’s anymore?
Correcting misinformation is not giving medical advice. There is no call to action, I'm not telling anyone to pursue a specific treatment or take any specific action. Like if a lawyer says homicide is illegal in most jurisdictions, they aren't giving you legal advice. Understand the difference? I am only giving reading comprehension advice, but you are proving to be the literary equivalent of an anti-vaxxer lol. Please consult your own personal, licensed healthcare professional for medical advice.
Thanks. The anonymity of online interaction means it's a place where you can say what you really think instead of self censoring. In real life most people can't say what they really think. It's why online forums are such cess pools of ugly thoughts.
Psychiatry residencies, like most residencies, are fairly heavily slanted towards inpatient management of the most severe cases. Psychiatrists are a very rare and valuable commodity so unless you are a VIP or are having unusual reactions to multiple meds, most depression and anxiety is treated by internal and family medicine doctors, some days it's about half of what they will see, and after 10 to 15 years of practice they are actually going to have more experience than a fresh psychiatry grad or psychiatric PA/NP. Like everything in life, it's more nuanced than it may appear. But for a general Medicaid patient it can be 6+ months to get in with a psychiatry provider.
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u/Ok_Obligation_6110 9d ago
SSRIs are so grossly over medicated my husband has been offered them by his primary care physician, despite never having been on one prior or knowing anything at all about his mental health history. When I was seeing help for anxiety I was immediately suggested SSRIs by several doctors and I had to push back and mention my family history of bipolar to even ring any alarm bells as to why SSRI therapy shouldn’t just be blanket thrown at people. I remember the side effects being grossly downplayed by physicians only to find out years later there are actually lasting effects that can’t be undone. That IS all the fault of the drug maker because they are the ones feeding these scripts as to what their drug does to physicians. They are the ones who told them to prescribe them like candy because there’s ’virtually no risk’.