Suicides increased after antidepressant warning: Manitoba researcher

[Praxius]

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/manitoba/story/2008/04/08/depression-study.html

Youth suicides increased after Health Canada warned about the use of antidepressants, a University of Manitoba researcher has found.

Health Canada issued a notice in 2004 that antidepressant drugs were linked to increased rates of suicidal thoughts in children and teens.

It advised patients under the age of 18 who were being treated with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) or serotonin noradrenalin reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs) to consult their physicians. A similar warning was issued around the same time in the U.S.

Dr. Laurence Katz, an associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Manitoba, studied provincial data from 2005 and 2006, and found some children and teens with mental illness stopped taking their medication and regularly seeing their doctors following the warning.

Katz, of the university's child psychiatry department and mood and anxiety disorders research group, found youth suicides in Manitoba rose dramatically during that time.

Katz had been worried about the advisory and what it would mean for children's health.
During the two-year period studied, there was a 25 per cent increase in youth suicide and a 14 per cent drop in the use of antidepressants among children and teens.

There was also a 10 per cent drop in the number of doctor visits by depressed kids, suggesting the public didn't really understand the warning, Katz said.

"If people had followed those guidelines and adhered to the concern in the warning, we would have expected to see physician office visits increase. But, in fact, they went down."
More research needed

The results, released Monday in Winnipeg, don't surprise Bill Ashdown of the Mood Disorders Association of Manitoba.

"Having the advisory come out would certainly negatively impact the number of doctors who would simply say, 'No, I'm not going to bother prescribing because it will get me into a hassle.'"

Ashdown is convinced some patients would have simply stopped taking their medication without consulting their doctors. He said the warning should have been issued only to physicians through medical journals.

Katz said he didn't have a problem with the way the warning was worded — the problem was with how it was perceived. More research is needed, he added, into what role the warning played in the study's findings.

Indeed... you report and tell people that Anti Depressants are linked to increased suicides (which is a no brainer in itself) in teens, but forgot to warn them to gradually take yourself off them rather then stopping immediately (Stupid idea in itself) then leaving it at that, and then teens and such get fearful and then completely stop.... then those suicidal side effects kick in of course and then suicides increase..... Deerrrrr.... no kiddin.

• The warning comes out.
• Patient meetings with their doctors dop by 10%
• People taking Anti-D's also drop by 14%.
• Suicides increase by 25%

Keep in mind this is a short period of time this study was conducted.

(1% difference overall - the 1% being the people who knew wtf they were doing and didn't suicide.)

Of course statistics are crap anyways, but geez people.... wasn't anybody warned about immediate stop of Anti-D's? Sure I am no longer on them and I'm glad I'm not.... they suck, but even during my stint with them I knew not to just stop using them.... cripes.

On a side note, I wonder how many people were on Anti-Depressants back in the 40's-50's when it was common everyday life to get a thrashing from your dad with a leather belt, the intollerance in school etc..... frig.... things seem better today, yet how much of a % of our youths are being pilled up and how many of our kids are suiciding?

Makes ya think.

 

[karrie]

I stopped taking anti-d's (I was on them for pain) cold turkey after I blissfully realized one day that gassing myself was the solution to all of life's problems.

I don't reccommend the cold turkey method to anyone. Two weeks of vomitting, shaking, and feeling like I was being electrocuted. The neighbors thought I must be dead because I apparently dropped off the face of the earth, and friends were popping in to clean the house and feed the kids. But, when some people are weaned off, it sometimes simply means an even longer withdrawal process. At least then there's a doc supervising though. I couldn't trust my docs to help me wean off the cocktail they had me on, because they had bullied me onto it in the first place, refusing to believe that I wasn't simply a depressed housewife.

 

[MikeyDB]

Never been depressed enough I suppose to even entertain the idea of taking something...

Life is far too rich and beautiful to expend any energy on depression....or guilt or open-ended remorse....

I understand that neurotransmitter imbalances and a slew of medical conditions can and do lead to depression, but the capacity to confront and defeat depression exists in everyone if they'd relax enough to get to a point where you're able to achieve some "distance" between the issues that give rise to depression and the self-absorption that let's physicians and pharmaceutical corporations convince you that happiness and euphoria are only a little pill or capsule away....

 

[faithlessforeve]

I stopped taking anti-d's (I was on them for pain) cold turkey after I blissfully realized one day that gassing myself was the solution to all of life's problems.

I don't reccommend the cold turkey method to anyone. Two weeks of vomitting, shaking, and feeling like I was being electrocuted. The neighbors thought I must be dead because I apparently dropped off the face of the earth, and friends were popping in to clean the house and feed the kids. But, when some people are weaned off, it sometimes simply means an even longer withdrawal process. At least then there's a doc supervising though. I couldn't trust my docs to help me wean off the cocktail they had me on, because they had bullied me onto it in the first place, refusing to believe that I wasn't simply a depressed housewife.

You are so lucky to have survived it. My mother lost two of her close friends (both suicide) while on anti-depressants. Actually, one friend, was coming off the drug. He decided to hang himself. Imagine how many other people in this great country are going through what you and my mother's friends went through. Terrible.

 

[amagqira]

I understand that neurotransmitter imbalances and a slew of medical conditions can and do lead to depression, but the capacity to confront and defeat depression exists in everyone if they'd relax enough to get to a point where you're able to achieve some "distance" between the issues that give rise to depression and the self-absorption that let's physicians and pharmaceutical corporations convince you that happiness and euphoria are only a little pill or capsule away....

I'm no psychiatrist but you really need to get your facts straight - you seem to be confusing an Adjustment disorder with depressed mood with Major Depression

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adjustment_disorder
http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depression_(illness)

 

[Praxius]

Never been depressed enough I suppose to even entertain the idea of taking something...

Life is far too rich and beautiful to expend any energy on depression....or guilt or open-ended remorse....

I understand that neurotransmitter imbalances and a slew of medical conditions can and do lead to depression, but the capacity to confront and defeat depression exists in everyone if they'd relax enough to get to a point where you're able to achieve some "distance" between the issues that give rise to depression and the self-absorption that let's physicians and pharmaceutical corporations convince you that happiness and euphoria are only a little pill or capsule away....

I used to think that way as well. I always considdered depression as just another emotion, which it is. I figured everybody goes through crap in their lives and everybody deals with them in their own ways.

But apparently around the time I was thrown on them, both my mom and my dad (whom are divorced now and usually never agreed apon much in the first place) noticed something was pretty wrong with me, I was pale as hell, at the lowest weight I've been since grade 7, had no apitite, no energy, back was tensed up all the time and all I wanted to do was to sleep.

Basically the number of years.... or that year in paticular finally got the best of me. I figured it was all just normal. I never was on anything for mental illness before, and like what I learned from gorwing up.... I was to suck it up and keep going.

I will admit that the Ad's did help for the first few months, but after that things went back to the way they were, only worse because of side effects and costs due to the Px's every month. Although they helped me for a short time, I will never go back to using them ever again.

I'll stick to weed. That and during that time on them, I learned the differences between how I thought on them and how I was thinking during the rest of my life and I then made improvements in my life needed.

There is some good to them, but overall I still hate them.

 

[Praxius]

You are so lucky to have survived it. My mother lost two of her close friends (both suicide) while on anti-depressants. Actually, one friend, was coming off the drug. He decided to hang himself. Imagine how many other people in this great country are going through what you and my mother's friends went through. Terrible.

Not to dwell on this topic, but has anybody ever noticed that most of these school shooters we hear about every year were also not popular in school and also, had a "Mental Disorder?"

How much would you like to bet that most of these kids who shot up their schools and then killed themselves were having a very bad fit from their Anti-Depressants, or decided to stop taking them all together, and hince this was the end result?

I know putting myself back in my old high school with my old mentality and then add on some of the side effects I went though during my time with Ad's.... it's very real and very possible that the above is what occured.

 

[tracy]

I can't believe that people going on anti-depressants aren't warned about weaning themselves off them without consulting their doctors. And I seriously doubt teenagers stopped taking their meds because they heard a warning on tv. I wonder if anyone ever thought to ask these people why they stopped taking their meds rather than just assuming they know the reason?

My roomate has weaned herself off her anti-depressants a couple of times, always with disastrous results. I told her if she ever did it again not to call me because I was sick of her doing it when she knows the result is going to be her in terrible shape. Some people don't need meds, some do. She definitely does. A pill isn't good or bad in and of itself. It's how we use them that matters.

 

[karrie]

My roomate has weaned herself off her anti-depressants a couple of times, always with disastrous results. I told her if she ever did it again not to call me because I was sick of her doing it when she knows the result is going to be her in terrible shape. Some people don't need meds, some do. She definitely does. A pill isn't good or bad in and of itself. It's how we use them that matters.

I've seen the pattern SO many times with many people on anti-d's. They'll be ticking along on their new meds just great. Life is awesome. And then one day they hit this wall, and they all say the same thing... they just couldn't stand the thought of taking a single pill more. Some quit cold turkey, some wean off. But it's often just this flat out "Oh my god I can't take these anymore", and I'd love to see a scientific explanation for that reaction.

You know, the funny thing about quitting cold turkey instead of weaning off is, I was sick for a way shorter time than the people I know who wean off. It may have been pretty drastic, but, at least it was quicker. I couldn't have lived through months of the zaps and the vomiting without wanting to kill myself.

 

[Praxius]

I can't believe that people going on anti-depressants aren't warned about weaning themselves off them without consulting their doctors. And I seriously doubt teenagers stopped taking their meds because they heard a warning on tv. I wonder if anyone ever thought to ask these people why they stopped taking their meds rather than just assuming they know the reason?

You can't ask them silly.... they're dead. :roll:

My roomate has weaned herself off her anti-depressants a couple of times, always with disastrous results. I told her if she ever did it again not to call me because I was sick of her doing it when she knows the result is going to be her in terrible shape. Some people don't need meds, some do. She definitely does. A pill isn't good or bad in and of itself. It's how we use them that matters.

true.... and to make sure we use them for the right reasons, rather then quick fixes.

 

[karrie]

You know, it seems to me that at about the same time as the advisory, they were also discovering just how effective exercise is at producing those same chemicals, and staving off depression. A correlation between the release of the advisory and the drop in visits and medication rates of depressed teens, doesn't necessarily mean the advisory was the cause. And awful lot more goes on in the media than just that one advisory. Do you suppose maybe that 10% of depressed teens got out exercising?

 

[karrie]

The study also doesn't state if the 14% drop in anti-depressant use are teens who inevitably end up in the 25% increase in suicide or not. For all it states, the 14% could be the ones walking away, while the 25% increase is kids who stayed on it.

 

[Praxius]

yeah, I noticed that as well, but I guess that's also why they mentioned further study is required before anyone jumps to any official conclusions.... but they did point and hint out that this might have a connection.

 

[tracy]

You can't ask them silly.... they're dead. :roll:

You can ask many of the teens who stopped taking their meds because the vast majority haven't commited suicide. You can also ask family members of those who did.

 

[tracy]

I've seen the pattern SO many times with many people on anti-d's. They'll be ticking along on their new meds just great. Life is awesome. And then one day they hit this wall, and they all say the same thing... they just couldn't stand the thought of taking a single pill more. Some quit cold turkey, some wean off. But it's often just this flat out "Oh my god I can't take these anymore", and I'd love to see a scientific explanation for that reaction.

You know, the funny thing about quitting cold turkey instead of weaning off is, I was sick for a way shorter time than the people I know who wean off. It may have been pretty drastic, but, at least it was quicker. I couldn't have lived through months of the zaps and the vomiting without wanting to kill myself.

She's one of those people who doesn't like having to rely on any pills. For her it seems to stem from the notion that depression is just an emotion, not a physical disease so she shouldn't need a pill. She doesn't go through the throwing up and stuff. I just eventually come in one morning to her sobbing on the couch.