Psychiatric Drugs - Educational thread

[Herr Abubu]

Shit, I never thought about how many women there are out there who take antidepressants while pregnant. That can only have detrimental effects on the baby's brain development. Studies I have looked at suggested that 3 to as much as 13% of pregnant women take antidepressants during their pregnancy, with correlated detrimental effects on baby development with use of antidepressants!!! Just shocking.


https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3206605/

Most people fill themselves with something to avoid unsettling existential questions. That's true depression.

[Ultra]

OBJECTIVE:
This study was undertaken to provide information on the prevalence of use of antidepressant drugs among pregnant women in the United States.
STUDY DESIGN:
A retrospective study was conducted using the automated databases of 7 health plans. Women who delivered an infant in a hospital were identified. Antidepressant drug use was evaluated assuming a gestational duration of 270 days.
RESULTS:
Among the 118,935 deliveries occurring from 2001-2005, 6.6% of women were dispensed an antidepressant during pregnancy. Antidepressant drug use increased from 2.0% in 1996 to 7.6% of deliveries in 2004 and 2005. Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor use increased from 1.5% in 1996 to 6.4% in 2004 and 6.2% in 2005.
CONCLUSION:
Our finding that nearly 8% of pregnant women were prescribed antidepressants drugs during the years 2004 and 2005 highlights the importance of understanding the effects of these medications on the developing fetus and on the pregnant woman.

Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17905176/

Being prescribed a drug does not necessarily mean that they would take them during their pregnancy or at all though, which is why they say it is an assumption after all, but I am guessing the number of pregnant women actually doing it is pretty close to that of those who have gotten or had a prescription of antidepressants during their pregnancy. Even 5% would be a huge, absolutely massive number. Probably all those fetuses and later on babies are affected negatively in their development by this.

[Petros Agapetos]

Risperidone, sold under the trade name Risperdal among others, is an antipsychotic medication. It is mainly used to treat schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and irritability in people with autism. Risperidone is an atypical antipsychotic. Its mechanism of action is not entirely clear, but is believed to be related to its action as a dopamine antagonist. Risperidone is effective in treating the acute exacerbations of schizophrenia.

A 2011 review concluded that risperidone is more effective in relapse prevention than other first and second generation antipsychotics with the exception of olanzapine and clozapine.

A 2010 Cochrane review found a slight benefit during the first few weeks of treatment of schizophrenia but the article raised concerns regarding bias favoring risperidone. Long-acting injectable formulations of antipsychotic drugs provide improved compliance with therapy and reduced relapse rates relative to oral formulations. The efficacy of risperidone long acting injection appears to be similar to that of long acting injectable forms of first generation antipsychotics.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risperidone

Second generation antipsychotics, including risperidone, are effective in the treatment of manic symptoms in acute manic or mixed exacerbations of bipolar disorder. In children and adolescents, risperidone may be more effective than lithium or divalproex, but has more metabolic side effects. As maintenance therapy, risperidone is effective for the prevention of manic episodes but not depressive episodes. The long-acting injectable form of risperidone may be advantageous over long acting first generation antipsychotics, as it is better tolerated (fewer extrapyramidal effects) and because long acting injectable formulations of first generation antipsychotics may increase the risk of depression.

[Petros Agapetos]

Users, would you ever consider taking Antidepressants to increase your mood, make you happier, less anxious, and more sociable?

I have no depressive illness, I am taking antidepressants to get myself in a nice hypomanic state where my thoughts and creativity are freed from the shackles of mundane experiences.

The antidepressant that I am taking, Trintelix, is a serotonin reuptake inhibitor, it inhibits the recycling of serotonin from between nerve junctions, thereby increasing serotonergic neurotransmission. The latter is associated with good relaxed mood, relief of depression, relief of anxiety.

[Petros Agapetos]

Users, Would you consider taking "happy pills"?

If you are interested, I can explain to you how they work. Please ask me questions about how these drugs work on the brain to produce their effects, and I'll give you information.

[Petros Agapetos]

Users, would you ever take an antidepressant to combat sadness or low mood just for fun?

[Petros Agapetos]

Sertraline (trade names Zoloft) is an antidepressant of the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) class. It was introduced to the market by Pfizer in 1991. Sertraline is primarily prescribed for major depressive disorder in adult outpatients as well as obsessive-compulsive disorder, panic disorder, and social anxiety disorder, in both adults and children. In 2013, it was the most prescribed antidepressant and second most prescribed psychiatric medication (after alprazolam) on the U.S. retail market, with over 41 million prescriptions.

A 2008 review concluded that 51% of studies of various SSRIs yielded positive outcomes.[8] The efficacy of sertraline is statistically similar to other SSRIs such as paroxetine, citalopram, escitalopram and venlafaxine (SNRI). Evidence suggests that sertraline may be more effective than fluoxetine (Prozac) for some subtypes of depression.

Comparing Sertraline with other Antidepressants

Tricyclic antidepressants (TCAs) as a group are considered to work better than selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors for melancholic depression and in inpatients, but not necessarily for simply more severe depression. In line with this generalization, sertraline was no better than placebo in inpatients (see History) and as effective as the TCA clomipramine for severe depression. The comparative efficacy of sertraline and TCAs for melancholic depression has not been studied. A 1998 review suggested that, due to its pharmacology, sertraline may be more efficacious than other SSRIs and equal to TCAs for the treatment of melancholic depression.

A meta-analysis of 12 new-generation antidepressants showed that sertraline and escitalopram are the best in terms of efficacy and acceptability in the acute-phase treatment of adults with unipolar major depression. Reboxetine was significantly worse.

Comparative clinical trials demonstrated that sertraline's efficacy in depression is similar to that of moclobemide, nefazodone, escitalopram, bupropion, citalopram, fluvoxamine, paroxetine and mirtazapine. There is low quality evidence that sertraline is more efficacious for the treatment of depression than fluoxetine

[Petros Agapetos]

Sertraline is primarily a serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SRI) with a binding affinity towards the serotonin transporter of Ki=2.8 nM or in that range.[92] Therapeutic doses of sertraline (25–200 mg/day) taken by patients for four weeks resulted in 80–90% inhibition of serotonin transporter (SERT) in striatum as measured by positron emission tomography. A daily 9 mg dose was sufficient to inhibit 50% of SERT.

Sertraline is also a dopamine reuptake inhibitor, (<50 nmol/L). However, this is not considered a tight binding, and this action is only 10% of its potency as a monoamine reuptake inhibitor. It is a σ1 receptor agonist with 5% of its SRI potency, and an α1-adrenoreceptor antagonist with 1–10% of its SRI potency. However, though confirming sertraline's high affinity for σ1 receptors, different studies suggest that the drug actually behaves as an antagonist at those. In dopamine reuptake, sertraline is more potent than bupropion, yet this dopamine reuptake inhibition is less clinically relevant for sertraline than it is for bupropion due to lower plasma concentrations of sertraline at therapeutic doses.

Despite being a more potent dopamine reuptake inhibitor than bupropion, it is still a much more potent inhibitor of serotonin reuptake — it is about 60 times more potent at inhibiting serotonin reuptake than it is at inhibiting dopamine reuptake. Regardless, sertraline could be considered a serotonin-dopamine reuptake inhibitor.

[Smitty]

Users, would you ever consider taking Antidepressants to increase your mood, make you happier, less anxious, and more sociable?

I have no depressive illness, I am taking antidepressants to get myself in a nice hypomanic state where my thoughts and creativity are freed from the shackles of mundane experiences.

The antidepressant that I am taking, Trintelix, is a serotonin reuptake inhibitor, it inhibits the recycling of serotonin from between nerve junctions, thereby increasing serotonergic neurotransmission. The latter is associated with good relaxed mood, relief of depression, relief of anxiety.

At this point, no. I prefer to live with whatever life throws me. But I can understand why some would.

[Herr Abubu]

Users, would you ever consider taking Antidepressants to increase your mood, make you happier, less anxious, and more sociable?

I have no depressive illness, I am taking antidepressants to get myself in a nice hypomanic state where my thoughts and creativity are freed from the shackles of mundane experiences.

The antidepressant that I am taking, Trintelix, is a serotonin reuptake inhibitor, it inhibits the recycling of serotonin from between nerve junctions, thereby increasing serotonergic neurotransmission. The latter is associated with good relaxed mood, relief of depression, relief of anxiety.

No, because I'm not weak.