OP asked for advice/experience with Citalopram. I delivered. Instead of respecting my experience/advice, a few other users started their dogmatic hate machine by attacking me directly. It is logical for me to defend myself in this situation.

So, what am I doing wrong really? I should fuck off, because you do not agree with me? That's sad, I would expect more from a mod.

FTFY


Citalopram therapy for depression: a review of 10 years of European experience and data from U.S. clinical trials.


Effectiveness and safety of citalopram in hospitalized adolescents with major depression: a preliminary, 8-week, fixed-dose, open-label, prospective study.


Negative result for minor depression (hint: you could have cited this instead of making shit up; I can only assume the reason you didn't is either due to colossal ignorance or the fact that it wouldn't support your sweeping generalizations)
The treatment of minor depression with St. John's Wort or citalopram: failure to show benefit over placebo.


Citalopram for major depressive disorder in adults: a systematic review and meta-analysis of published placebo-controlled trials.


tl;dr evidence or fuck off

ps: if you even think of pulling the pharma shill gambit I will lol irl

It's obvious that a lot of people on the forums (maybe people just in general?) have experienced the need for these medications. It is a really personal part of their lives. This isn't something trivial like "who my favorite football team is".

Seriously, anything other than positive support for the OP should just stay quiet out of respect.

Quoting researches on a subject like this is hardly a compelling way to win an argument, Kingraptor. You can easily find shit to support almost any POV on the subject, doesn't make it true. Just like I could easily go up and dig researches that suspect antidepressants tend to do more harm than good in the long term. But meh, it's not gonna anyone's gonna read such links anyway, apart from some copypasta bit.
And um point was that there's no real scientific consensus on the meds full effects, so don't say stupid shit like claiming someone being anti-meds is being anti-scientific when he provided his own presonal experience, no less than the people praising them due to their personal experiences.

I found this to be pretty interesting on the subject in any case.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1313290/

Uhh...
*blink*

Let me make sure I read this right.

Did you just tell KingRaptor that quoting evidence is not the correct way to go about furthering his side of the argument?

On the contrary, I find it to be the only legitimate way to win an argument on such topics, especially when the alternatives range from "anecdote" to "make shit up".


Sure. And then, if we were interested enough, we could compare the merits of our papers, picking apart their weaknesses, and see who comes out with the strongest case.* Or if we were lazy/lacked the necessary expertise/whatever, we could just compare paper count and see if there was a consensus in one direction or not.

*N.B. quite often this work has already been done for us, that's what systematic reviews mean

Of course, all this is wasted on someone like Hoi, but it's still beneficial for other readers (and for our own learning).


Personal experience? He didn't relate any accounts, and if his opinion was based on personal experience he sure didn't have the decency to label it as such.

Anyway, Hoi gets the antiscience label because his posts label the entire field of psychiatry as useless and harmful without bothering to offer a shred of evidence in support, he has a history of irrational posts on scientific topics, and generally reads like a typical purveyor of alt-med. The absolutist statements and attitude are a dead giveaway.


See, now you're speaking my language.

Hoi I might have believed you weren't trolling right up until.

Blarg! trololololo! I only believe metastudies!

The anti-drug "advice" that people spew when hearing of psycho drugs is extremely dangerous and damaging for the mentally ill. It pushes people to drop their medication with no warning which can have dire consequences up to suicide. These things have a place in therapy and telling people to "just fix themselves" is ignoring that their condition is an actual illness. It's disrespectful, ignorant and dangerous and you should feel ashamed of yourself for potentially ruining a life out of some dogma you hold.

Also as I said, I haven't experienced any effect on the libido. It's probably one of those "may happen to a few people" things. Just give it a try, if you get side effects that you don't want then you can get rid of the medication again and try a different approach but there's no use in fretting over something that may not even happen.

It doesn't turn you into a zombie, I'm quite capable of feeling anger towards some of the bullshit in this thread.

ITT: (In This Thread)
anti-drugs position is invalid
for-drugs position is valid
mods telling people to fuck off

Now that we're done with that, can someone comment on my super awesome word play with steps, shoes and energy drinks? :C

This. A million times this. I thank you for the eloquence I lack, KDR.

OK: I am going to try taking them for a week and see what happens, on the understanding that if they affect my libido I'll come off them immediately. Thanks for the advice you guiz x

A mod. The others are quite civil.

I cheated, I recently read a book by a psychiatrist on the various forms of mental illness and the many different treatments there are. He pointed out that there is no one size fits all solution and that there is no single true approach when it comes to these things, you have to tailor the therapy to the person and the illness. Meds can be a very important point in such a therapy. Of course there are cases where they do more harm than good but it's the job of the psychiatrist to make sure they aren't used then. There are cases where meds do nothing and talking was the big helper but there are also cases where talking does nothing and meds are a perfect solution. Other cases may require a mixture of the two or even more methods, e.g. sometimes just changing your diet can do the trick since the mind includes a lot of chemical processes that can lack the right educts. He even cites cases where the mental illness was actually caused by a physical injury or a tumor and after healing that via operation the mind healed as well. But applying some strict no-meds dogma is a really bad idea. Even if you know someone who was wrecked by meds that doesn't mean someone else won't be cured almost instantly by them. But what you should never do is underestimate the illness. It's an illness, not "just a mood" or "just a silly thing you're imagining".

I am serious. I will happily provide irrefutable evidence, if anyone is willing to actually read it. Irrefutable. The material is, however, quite extensive. A nearly complete rewrite of a lot of knowledge, including a lot of new knowledge, which is quite important in order to understand the logic behind the evidence. If you like true science, and if you also like reading (we're looking at +- 750 pages) this is for you. You will find that this material discusses a lot more than what I talked about, but if you can understand it you will find it very interesting.

Here: Just take a look. Questions? Ask them please.

Well, to me it's just too unimaginative and boring to read, and doesn't really require any kind of expertise or understanding on the subject to browse through studies and quoting the conclusions of the ones that support your view.

But if a list of links is what you really want, that's easy to provide.
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archive ... hy/?page=1
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archive ... tion=false
Then for further info, read or look up those actual books she's citing, and whatever other sources listed you find interesting.
Though it needs to be said it's pretty US-centric, in other parts the situation isn't as awful.

Then a good list of links to further studies from here:
http://robertwhitaker.org/robertwhitake ... ssion.html
Yes, it's the author of one of the books discussed in that NYbooks article. Lists the sources he used for the depression part of the book, with links to those studies.



But to have more of a discussion, I'd ask from the pro-meds crowd, why do you think people of today are diagnosed with depression (among other things) so much more than a few decades ago, and the success rate of recovery is actually gotten worse too? Are the psychiatric methods of today to blame or has the world just gotten so much crazier or what, that even the new meds can't compensate...




Now I just hope no placebo effects were lost due to this post...

*downloads*
*reads preface*
*sees claim of Unified Law of Nature, which would be the greatest scientific discovery in known history*
*gets suspicious, because this is a notorious red flag for crankery*
*Googles author's name*
*finds this site*


My question, therefore, is this: Why the fuck do I even bother?

I received a link to these books in the exact way you did. I looked for more information about this author, and found his site. I found information similar to what you quoted on his site. But still, I decided to take a look at these books without prior bias. And after reading, I cannot conclude anything different: these books are correct. Just give it a chance and you will see. Even if you do not agree with some of the things he discusses on his site, the discovery is valid.

hoi


Azhukar
I don't think anyone in the thread is "pro-drug" most of us were trying to say "hey if you are going to do this, this is how it might work"

Glad to hear this IK, but I should be clear; The first couple of weeks are the worst in terms of side effects and improvement in mood. I'd recommend trying them at least a month to get over the initial hump. Again, your GP would be best placed to advise you.

@ Johannes:

Better diagnoses and a more open society which sees mental illness as less of a taboo, would be my guess, but a guess is all it is.