The dangers of SSRI’s

https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/antidepressant-drug-trials-drugmakers-manipulated-data-cola/

I reported a year ago about the study done on SSRI’s that showed little efficacy in the treatment of depression. The study was released in the fall of 2022, 160,000+ people in the study, and only 15% had their depression go into remission. That means 85% of people did not.

Another point of interest I want to talk about here is that the most heavily touted drugs are SSRI’s, and if you fail 2 of them, then you move on to “treatment resistant” criteria and deploy other treatments. But if the drug that determines you are “treatment resistant” only worked in 15% of people, are they really treatment resistant or is the treatment crap?

I am not a fan of SSRI’s, and since that study came out that I mentioned above, I have drastically changed my prescribing of that drug class. I try to avoid it at all costs. I cannot count the thousands of patients that come to my office though who are already on an SSRI from their primary care provider, and oftentimes they are on the 2nd or 3rd one that is not working for them.

I wanted to add some commentary to some of the points made in this article.

• : A peer-reviewed Swedish study looked at information on over 850,000 patients prescribed SSRIs within a national database and compared the rates of violent crimes committed by these individuals when they were and were not taking an SSRI over a 3-year period. This study found that SSRIs increased the rate of violent crimes committed by 43% in those between the ages of 15 and 24 receiving the drugs. **I don’t doubt this data at all. However, there may be some bias here, because people presenting with anger, rage, irritability, and impulsive behavior are more likely to be given an SSRI. Age and frontal lobe development matter as well. This is a young age sample who do not have frontal lobe development completed yet. So the question here is was there already an underlying propensity for violence, and the SSRI made them blunted and numb to the point of having no emotion and able to carry through with a violent act, or was there no violent tendencies prior to the SSRI and the med itself caused it.

• Causing 7.7% of the users each year to develop bipolar disorder (ultimately affecting between 20-40% of SSRI users). For many, bipolar disorder is a permanently debilitating disorder that significantly impacts one’s quality of life. **this is another difficult one, because Bipolar disorder is perhaps one of the MOSt overdiagnosed/misdiagnosed mental health conditions. Inpatient hospitals slap a bipolar diagnosis on EVERYONE. Oftentimes, it is a mood disorder/trauma victim/teenage hormones/poor coping mechanisms/personality disorder patient, not a true bipolar patient.

• Causing over half of the users to no longer feel like themselves and in many cases as though they were losing their own minds. **truth. I have heard many stories of “I cannot cry anymore, I am completely numb, I am just going through the motions, I don’t feel like myself anymore”.

• Emotionally anesthetizing 60% of the users. This numbness frequently results in individuals losing the will to leave a toxic relationship or work situation (often for years if not decades), to stop emotionally reacting to things you should react to (e.g., someone being mean to you or violating your boundaries), and to no longer experience the joy or vibrancy of life. ***this is a HUGE one. Zoloft is notorious for this. So is Paxil.

• Caused sexual dysfunction in the majority of the users (59% in this study, 62% in this study) which is often extremely impactful to the patient’s life (e.g., 40% in this study found the side effect intolerable). **I have not seen this high of numbers in practice, sexual side effects are a common reason I stop Lexapro and Paxil, but in my practice, sexual side effects account for 5% of issues at best. But I also do not use SSRI’s much so that may skew my anecdotal evidence.

Note: Keep in mind that sexual dysfunction is one of the fastest ways to make someone depressed. **agreed. Especially when marital problems are what bring a patient into my office. Healthy sexual function and intimacy is imperative to a relationship and a marriage. Lack of those can tank a relationship pretty quick.

• Increasing the risk of life-threatening birth defects by 2-6 times (e.g., taking a single SSRI increases the likelihood of the newborn having a septal defect from 0.5% to 0.9%, while taking two increases it to 2.1%). **I have seen 0 of these cases in my practice, I have personally never had a female patient who took antidepressants during pregnancy deliver a child with septal defect.

• Causing severe withdrawal symptoms (e.g., frequent electrical zaps through the brain) in 56% of those who discontinue the drugs, with most (46% of discontinuers) experiencing severe withdrawals. Very few people appreciate just how difficult it can be to get off an SSRI (even after only a brief course of the drugs), or that there is absolutely no support within the conventional medical field for patients wishing to get off the drugs. **this is very real. Especially with Effexor. I hate Effexor. I have never started a patient on that drug. Ever. I have 100’s of patients that come to me already on it, and getting a patient off of it is miserable. The brain zaps are awful. There are temporary medications to use while tapering off Effexor, and I go super slow when tapering that med.