Antidepresants – a Placebo
Essay title: Antidepresants – a Placebo
Antidepressants
Antidepressants should be taken off the market. Depression is simply a condition of the mind. Events that take place in ones life can bring upon a depressive episode. With the variety of people in the world, there comes a variety of ways in which people cope with things. Some people can cope with depression, when in turn, people that are emotionally unstable, cannot. With all of the antidepressants on the market today, people are becoming dependent on these drugs that virtually ?mess with their heads? rather than ?clear their minds?. In the past, people dealt with depression without these ?happy pills? and did just fine coping and recuperating. Everyone gets depressed at some point in his or her lives; it?s part of our human nature. These so-called ?wonder drugs? may help in some aspects of the depressed person, but overall Prozac and its chemical cousins are nothing but problem pills. Antidepressants should be taken off of the market.
Doctors overly prescribe antidepressants to patients that don?t even need these drugs. That is one of the main problems with antidepressants. A person could walk into a doctor?s office, announce that he or she has been feeling down, and could walk out with a prescription for Zoloft. All doctors should more strictly enforce the distribution of antidepressants. The diagnosis of depression is the quick way to solve medical problems for doctors to their patients. Now days, regular family doctors can prescribe antidepressants when in the past, psychiatrists were the only types of doctors to prescribe such drugs.
Some antidepressants like Prozac for instance, can cause certain side effects to where many users are unable to stay on them long enough to derive any real benefit. In fact, Prozac?s manufacturer admits that 35% of all patients receiving Prozac in pre-release trials stopped taking it due to adverse reactions. A vast personality change is another effect. Some users reported that after being on Zoloft for two months (which is the time it takes for their bodies to become chemically dependent) one day without their pill would make them more on edge, more reluctant to ?snap? at people and more sensitive to others remarks. The depressed patients also reported feeling dependent on the drug and without it, they felt they would not be able to function how the normally would. Once a person starts taking any type of antidepressant, that person cannot just stop taking the pills cold turkey. The patient must take lower doses gradually over time until he or she is down to the lowest dosage possible. This can take up to one month just to get off antidepressants. Then he or she