Antidepressant use doubles in U.S., study finds

Parent Cafe
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<p>"1 in 10 are taking medication to improve mood, fewer going to talk therapy</p>

<p>WASHINGTON - Use of antidepressant drugs in the United States doubled between 1996 and 2005, probably because of a mix of factors, researchers reported on Monday.</p>

<p>About 6 percent of people were prescribed an antidepressant in 1996 — 13 million people. This rose to more than 10 percent or 27 million people by 2005, the researchers found.</p>

<p>“Significant increases in antidepressant use were evident across all sociodemographic groups examined, except African Americans,” Dr. Mark Olfson of Columbia University in New York and Steven Marcus of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia wrote in the Archives of General Psychiatry.</p>

<p>Newer drugs, more social acceptance
The survey did not look at why, but the researchers made some educated guesses. It may be more socially acceptable to be diagnosed with and treated for depression, they said. The availability of new drugs may also have been a factor.</p>

<p>“Although there was little change in total promotional spending for antidepressants between 1999 ($0.98 billion) and 2005 ($1.02 billion), there was a marked increase in the percentage of this spending that was devoted to direct-to consumer advertising, from 3.3 percent ($32 million) to 12 percent ($122.00 million),” they added.</p>

<p>Dr. Eric Caine of the University of Rochester in New York said he was concerned by the findings. “Antidepressants are only moderately effective on population level,” he said in a telephone interview.</p>

<p>Cost may be deterrent to talk therapy
Caine, who was not involved in the research, noted that several studies show therapy is as effective as, if not more effective than, drug use alone.</p>

<p>“There are no data to say that the population is healthier. Indeed, the suicide rate in the middle years of life has been climbing,” he said.</p>

<p>Olfson and Marcus said out-of-pocket costs for psychotherapy and lower insurance coverage for such visits may have driven patients away from seeing therapists in favor of an easy-to-prescribe pill.</p>

<p>“During this period, individuals treated with antidepressants became more likely to also receive treatment with antipsychotic medications and less likely to undergo psychotherapy,” they wrote."</p>

<p>More to come…</p>

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<p>Some medical proffesional told me that they are addictive. My doc gave me them for sleeping aid. Once I read that it is Antidepressant, I pitched it without taking single pill. Imagine if this is regular practice and docs just getting us hooked on addictive Antidepressants for every little problem that we have and then we cannot quit, of course, usage will go up. We have to take much more responsibility for our own health, do not trust ANYBODY, including your family physician.</p>

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<p>Usage for children is up 800% in the past fifteen years. That is really scary. But not surprising, as Big Pharma WANTS us all to think we are suffering from depression, since it is big money for them. The easy peasy questionnaire online convinces a lot of folks that their regular everyday blues needs to be medicated away. No one wants to suffer from the slightest twinge, pain, blues, inattention, etc, many of which are NORMAL variations in the human experience. Not every bouncy little boy needs Ritalin, and not every sad mother needs antidepressants. But the usage of all of these drugs is very profitable to the pharmaceutical industry, and makes it easier for overworked docs and teachers to hand out pills to a pill happy populace.</p>

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<p>Allmusic,
Nobody physically can force anybody to put a pill into your or your child mouth and even if it is forced, nobody can make you swallow it. Personal responsibility is an answer, cannot control anything / anybody besides yourself and your family to some degree. Pitch them pills like I did, if you do not like their description. I would never give my child Ritalin, which is for parents who stick them children in front of TV instead of spending time with them.</p>

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<p>Actually, at least one anti-depressant is an <em>excellent</em> sleeping aid, and <em>less</em> habit-forming than most other drugs prescribed as sleeping aids.</p>

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<p>jessiehl,
I do not take ANY drugs, only as absolutely last resort, I would take Advil for headache or toothache. Headache could be helped by other means (some activitie, like swimming or rollerblading could help), if nothing helps, I would take Advil. I would not take any sleeping pills, that was not a reason why I mentioned it my doc. Actually, everybody needs different amount of sleep. I do not know if people realize that some need only 5 hours (like me) and there is no need for a pill, everyone of them (including Advil) has severe side effects.</p>

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<p>I posted this, in part, in response to the thread about disclosing mental health issues in the admission process, and concerns about “prejudice”.</p>

<p>I also think it has a bearing on “national health care.”</p>

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<p>ITA shrinkrap
It is frustrating when insurance will pay for therapies ( like hospitalization and lots of medication), but will not cover talk therapy ( or very limited coverage which amounts to same thing) or alternative care.</p>

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<p>Some Alternative Care physicians are working with insurance and making their services covered. It happened with my D. ear infection treatments. Insurance covered very expensive allergy test that was not regular test that you get at your regular physician office. They apparently had agreement with this alternative doc. They saved themselves whole ton of $$ in our case, since Alternative doc stopped D’s ear infections at age 6. She had them with every cold that she would get, many times a year. Eventually family physician almost killed her prescribing antibiotics related to the one that they knew that she was allergic already. I stopped medication, found Alternative Doc and she never had single ear infection in her life.</p>

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<p>[4</a> in 10 college kids are depressed, hopeless - Mental health- msnbc.com](<a href=“http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30865590/ns/health-mental_health/ns/health-mental_health/]4”>http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30865590/ns/health-mental_health/ns/health-mental_health/)</p>

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<p>Threads like this make me mad.</p>

<p>There are many, many people who are prescribed unnecessary antidepressants.
There are many, many children who are prescribed unnecessary ADD medications.</p>

<p>Those situations cloud the cases of those people and children who ACTUALLY have depression and who ACTUALLY have ADD.</p>

<p>I’m one of those people with panic disorder and depression. I remember a point last year where I was driving along the road (my birthday, actually), and I would look at each highway light pole and bridge abutment and tell myself, “No… No… No…” as each one passed. It took conscious effort not to check my mirrors and just drift off the highway. </p>

<p>I was (still am) paying through the nose for weekly talk therapy, and while it helped, for many people like myself, counseling needs to be coupled with the use of psychiatric pharmaceuticals. I finally had to ask my therapist for a referral to a psychiatrist for medication therapy (in the four months that I’d been seeing her, she had never pushed meds—she had never even mentioned them. She knew that I’d been on them before, that I didn’t like them but that they worked, and she let me bring the subject up on my own). Since then, I’ve been on a few different medications, and we’ve tried a few different combinations to bring the anxiety down, stop the panic attacks, and dampen the depression.</p>

<p>The medications don’t make me happy all the time. In fact, they don’t make me happy at all… I’m still working on figuring out how to be happy again. I’ve had a rough couple of years, and I need to deal with that first before I get the privilege of occasionally feeling joyful again.</p>

<p>The medications just make me <em>functional</em>. They keep me from screaming until I have no voice left. They keep me from sitting wrapped up in a blanket in my closet with the doors closed. They keep me from being a total basket case. Depression is like having your soul be twice as heavy as it ought to be… you physically feel weighted down, rooted in place. Your brain unrelentingly recites that you’re a total waste of oxygen, even if the logical part of your brain tells you that this is ridiculous, these thoughts are unreal, that they’re some function of a chemical problem, an imbalance. It takes a conscious effort to put a cheerful inflection on my voice. (“You should smile now, she said something funny.”) Most of the time I can sustain a scientific objectivity from my disease, talk myself through the symptoms, keep myself distanced from them, keep the physical nature of my disease separated from my being psychologically affected by them… But that’s only when I’m not being utterly consumed by the symptoms. When my depression and anxiety are out of control, it’s a spiral that I can’t get out of by myself, and talking about it for an hour a week isn’t going to help. </p>

<p>So, fine, if you don’t want to put one of those chemicals in your body, bully for you. If you don’t feel like you’re drowning and there’s a shadowy black dog of depression following you around wherever you go, then you probably don’t actually need antidepressants. But that condescending tone, those implications… As though people who use antidepressants are somehow buying into Big Pharma’s big plan to salvage their fiscal year, and as though the parents of children whose kids are on Ritalin have all universally sold out and are bad parents… Then you should just feel incredibly, incredibly blessed that you don’t have to deal with the hell that some people do.</p>

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<p>Thank you aibarr–you gave voice to what I was feeling.</p>

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<p>Re: antidepressants as sleep aids. Four years ago I injured my upper back. The injury triggered myofascial pain syndrome, a cousin of fibromyalgia. (I was diagnosed in early April of this year.) I saw a chiropractor for several months after the injury but eventually became frustrated with the lack of resolution and stopped going. I dealt with the pain and stiffness by using a heating pad and by daily walks on a treadmill and stretching exercises. Late last spring I developed severe tendinitis in both Achillles tendons. I could no longer take my daily walks. As spring turned to summer I began noticing that I was tired all of the time. I was sleeping 8 hours a night, but I never felt well rested. The exhaustion became more and more pronounced as the weeks and months went by. I was convinced that I was suffering from hypothyroidism. I kept putting off seeing a doctor because my insurance would not cover anything until after I spent $1000. </p>

<p>By March of this year I was desperate. I was feeling very down in addition to being ridiculously tired. I was having a tremendous number of heart palpitations every day. My heartrate was frequently as low as 40 beats per minute. I often asked myself if my old nemesis, low-grade depression, was returning. I suspect it was. I was unhappy because I had absolutely no energy. I finally decided that I had to see a doctor despite the expense. After a lot of frustration trying to schedule an appointment, (when I called the first week in March, I was told that the doctors were booked until the end of April and that I would have to call back at the end of the month when they would have access to the calendar for May.) I finally saw a doctor. She diagnosed fibromyalgia / myofascial pain syndrome and suggested that I try the antidepressant Cymbalta. I had read quite a bit about fibromyalgia a couple of years ago trying to figure out whether or not it might be what was wrong with me. I’d discarded the idea because I don’t have the classic tender points that are the hallmark of the syndrome. However, my reading this year has informed me that I do have all of the symptoms of myofascial pain syndrome: upper back and neck pain, tendinitis in multiple joints - shoulders, hips, elbows, knees, and Achilles - heart palpitations, and a sleep disorder. </p>

<p>I fall asleep as quickly as I always have most of the time. I can’t stay in bed for more than 8 hours unless I’ve taken pain medication because the pain and stiffness become too uncomfortable. However, in the past I never needed more than 8 hours of sleep. The problem is that even though I sleep for a normal amount of time, I never reach the deep, restorative stages of sleep. My reading tells me that this is characteristic of almost everyone with fibromylagia / myofascial pain syndrome. My sleep disorder had me at a point where all I wanted to do was sit. I had to force myself to do the work necessary to get through the day. After one week on Cymbalta I had more energy than I’d had in months. I continued improving throughout the first month on the drug. I had just as much pain and stiffness as before, but the exhaustion disappeared. Interestingly, I also noticed a big decrease in the number of heart palpitations I felt everyday. Apparently the PVCs I was feeling (the source of the heart palpitations) were triggered by exhaustion. (Too bad my primary care doctor insisted I needed to see a cardiologist for lots of expensive tests before I made the discovery!)</p>

<p>I am very glad that I was prescribed an antidepressant. It has worked very well to improve the quality of my sleep. I will probably be weaned off the drug in a few months. I will not hesitate in the future to ask to be put back on the medication if I have a recurrence of disordered sleep or if I have a recurrence of depression. </p>

<p>I have had low-grade depression several times in the past. My longest episode lasted over three years. I was quite aware that I was suffering from depression, but I did not want to take medication and I did not want to be in therapy. In hindsight, I wish I had asked for medication. I would have felt better! Though I know that depression has nothing to do with any sort of character flaw, the emotional part of my brain always felt that I should be able to pull myself up by my bootstraps and snap out of it. I knew that that was not rational, but I grew up with a mom who looked down on certain of my paternal relatives who claimed they were “too nervous” to hold a job or who showed signs of hypochondria. My late father was a research psychologist who firmly believed that psychiatric illness had no biological basis and that drug therapy was misguided. I always thought he was wrong. I firmly believed that many psychiatric illnesses were the result of some sort of chemical imbalance. I did agree with him that drug treatment for mental illness is still in its infancy. No one really knows exactly how anti-depressants work. My dad thought that anti-depressants are dangerous and that they are over-prescribed. I do not really know how often anti-depressants are prescribed when they are not really necessary. I do know that for some people they are truly life saving. </p>

<p>For me, the anti-depressant has made my life much better. Yes, it has side effects, but it’s worth it to me. My quality of life is much better. I hope that I never have to go back to feeling the way I did for much of the past year. </p>

<p>I pray that someday we will have drugs that are more effective in treating mental disorders. Even more, I pray that the stigma surrounding mental illness will disappear. No one thinks badly of someone who has to take thyroid medication or who needs an antibiotic. Someday perhaps we’ll be as enlightened regarding mental illnesses.</p>

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<p>While I strongly believe that mental illness is very legit desease, I also feel that it affects much lower number of people than meidcal professionals and general perception make us to belieive. In regard to ADD, I do not know. Boys are not allowed to move as much as their natural development require them to do. They are supposed to develop muscles which is triggered by their hormonal composition. How one can develop muscles without moving? Requirement to sit still for extensive period of time when you are naturally inclide to move a lot would make good number of otherwise very good natured kids very mad, would not it?</p>

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<p>My current concern has to do with the further impact of “national health care” on the management of a verity of not uncommon “signs and symptoms”. I think the pressure to distinguish between “real” and “less real” (for lack of a better phrase) mental and other illness is the direct result of rationing.</p>

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<p>Rationning will affect many more that small number of mentally ill. However, number of sick probably will go down, since more people will be dying at earlier stages of various deseases. Have to start thinking about trips to India.</p>

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<p>“that small number of mentally ill.”</p>

<p>What small number are you referring to? The ten percent of the population on AD’s? The four in ten college students? Those whose doctors give them “covered” (“parity”) diagnosis? Those whose doctors don’t?</p>

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<p>I am saying that all other deseases combined (Heart, diabetese, hypertension, cancer, hip replacement,…) will constitute many more people who will be affected by rationning than mental illness. 40% of college student are NOT mentally ill despite of somebody making them believe that they are. 10% on AD by thier choice most of the time, I would have been one of them if I was on my doc prescription. I am in a very good mood all the time, I just did not want to get addicted, so I pitched pills and happily sleep my 5 hours despite of doc’s opinion that is not normal. I would be in a box by now, after 20 years of sleeping 5 hours, if my doc was right.</p>

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<p>“40% of college student are NOT mentally ill despite of somebody making them believe that they are. 10% on AD by thier choice …”</p>

<p>It’s always a choice… so apparently YOU get to clarify who is and is not mentally ill? I’m not saying your wrong, but why you? Whose going to decide what’s covered?</p>

<p>PS I’d like to kegs this about “mental health”.</p>

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<p>“We have to take much more responsibility for our own health, do not trust ANYBODY, including your family physician.”</p>

<p>I totally agree with the first part of your sentence. But the second-WOW.</p>

<p>If we are not to trust ANYBODY, we are in a bad state. I’m glad I disagree. Our family physician saved my Dad’s life. I’ve worked as a nurse and seen many competent, brilliant doctors give years of life back to patients who would be DEAD if they refused to trust “anybody.” Get involved in your health care. Educate yourself, ask questions, research your doctors, fire any doctor who isn’t open to questions or who seems insensitive to your needs. But unless you plan to get a medical degree and treat yourself (still a bad idea), ultimately the time may come where you have to trust despite the fact that no one can give you any guarantees.</p>