"Antidepressants Are Only a Little Better Than Placebo" — Dr. Stuart Shipko

This video, called "Antidepressants Are Only a Little Better Than Placebo", featuring psychiatrist Stuart Shipko, M.D., was released within the last couple of hours.

 

 

It's one of a series of short videos created by the makers of the documentary, "Medicating Normal". There are already more than 50 fifty videos available, with more on the way, apparently. Have a look here:

 

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCh-enG_cv0MbGoU4XdT9mxA/videos 

wow thank you lapis!!!!!!

 

 

 

Thats why this psychiatrist once told me... and later he changed his job. I believe it was me who "helped" him to finally give up being a psychiatrist :

 

...AND A HAPPY HAPPY NEW YEAR !!

Yes, Happy New Year to you too, Marigold! Glad to share these great videos! It's a veritable treasure trove of truth. 

"Somehow the standard of care diverted."

 

"The first-line treatment for depression should be placebo. You get about the same efficacy as medicine with no side effects."

 

HURRAH!!! Bottom line: Don't automatically jump to take a pill that may be more damaging in the long run and take an inordinate amount of time to get off of, or worse yet, c/t the drug, not realizing what hell awaits you.

He's clearly speaking from his years of experience, and he's challenging the status quo in doing so. Love it! I wish he could have a little chat with the doc who suggested Prozac to me and then minimized my concern about the horrible side effects I was experiencing.

Most "depression" is more like demoralization. AD's don't help much with that. However they do help with major depressive disorder (clinical depression) as I can attest. Mid life crisis, teen angst, divorce unhappiness, job loss etc is better treated with cognitive techniques (or tincture of time) than drugs IMO. In fact, the AD's may actually harm the persons efforts at dealing with these problems on a deeper level. I don't think anyone should be given AD's unless its paired with some type of cognitive therapy.

 

I think that a lot of the benzo related depression here is pretty bad though.

I read this study a while back. It was an eye opener, but it didn't surprise me a bit. I have long felt that SSRIs were designed only to make money. Placebos work just as well, so why bother? I took SSRIS for 12 darn years and it all turned out that my benzos had caused my depression, and almost all of my anxiety. Huge waste of money, plus SSRIs are not all that safe. Sorry I ever did that.

So many of the drugs we routinely take are not really safe. That alone is scary.

east

I read this study a while back. It was an eye opener, but it didn't surprise me a bit. I have long felt that SSRIs were designed only to make money. Placebos work just as well, so why bother? I took SSRIS for 12 darn years and it all turned out that my benzos had caused my depression, and almost all of my anxiety. Huge waste of money, plus SSRIs are not all that safe. Sorry I ever did that.

So many of the drugs we routinely take are not really safe. That alone is scary.

east

That conspiratorial thinking. The pharmaceutical industry exists to provide life improving therapies and make money for investors at the same time. Its simplistic to imply that the goal is only to make money and not provide treatments of value.

I read this study a while back. It was an eye opener, but it didn't surprise me a bit. I have long felt that SSRIs were designed only to make money. Placebos work just as well, so why bother? I took SSRIS for 12 darn years and it all turned out that my benzos had caused my depression, and almost all of my anxiety. Huge waste of money, plus SSRIs are not all that safe. Sorry I ever did that.

So many of the drugs we routinely take are not really safe. That alone is scary.

east

That conspiratorial thinking. The pharmaceutical industry exists to provide life improving therapies and make money for investors at the same time. Its simplistic to imply that the goal is only to make money and not provide treatments of value.

 

Hmmm... Life-improving therapies? A life-improving therapy, IMO, would include CBT, meditation, exercise, hypnosis, EMDR, acupuncture, a plant-based diet, visualization, and any other modalities that would actually calm the system down. NOT an SSRI or benzo or other drugs that actually end up causing anxiety or suicidal ideation or depression.

Actually I believe that Antidepressants are just placebos with side effects you canread about on Canadian Pharmacy

Yes they are.

I read this study a while back. It was an eye opener, but it didn't surprise me a bit. I have long felt that SSRIs were designed only to make money. Placebos work just as well, so why bother? I took SSRIS for 12 darn years and it all turned out that my benzos had caused my depression, and almost all of my anxiety. Huge waste of money, plus SSRIs are not all that safe. Sorry I ever did that.

So many of the drugs we routinely take are not really safe. That alone is scary.

east

That conspiratorial thinking. The pharmaceutical industry exists to provide life improving therapies and make money for investors at the same time. Its simplistic to imply that the goal is only to make money and not provide treatments of value.

 

Hmmm... Life-improving therapies? A life-improving therapy, IMO, would include CBT, meditation, exercise, hypnosis, EMDR, acupuncture, a plant-based diet, visualization, and any other modalities that would actually calm the system down. NOT an SSRI or benzo or other drugs that actually end up causing anxiety or suicidal ideation or depression.

 

I mostly agree with this

I beg to differ. One of my adult sons was suicidal and I believe Lexapro has saved his life. This is his 4th year on it and he is quite stable. My other son was hospitalised for a bad breakdown and has had the same results. my grand daughter has been on the lowest dose of the same drug for years now successfully. I am nearly finished my 2 and a half year taper and thought about giving it a go when things got exteremely bad but did not as I was the only one tapering and did not want any potential symptoms muddying the waters.

I refuse to believe all psychiatric or other drugs are inherently useless or evil etc and just research as much as I can

 

I beg to differ. One of my adult sons was suicidal and I believe Lexapro has saved his life. This is his 4th year on it and he is quite stable. My other son was hospitalised for a bad breakdown and has had the same results. my grand daughter has been on the lowest dose of the same drug for years now successfully. I am nearly finished my 2 and a half year taper and thought about giving it a go when things got exteremely bad but did not as I was the only one tapering and did not want any potential symptoms muddying the waters.

I refuse to believe all psychiatric or other drugs are inherently useless or evil etc and just research as much as I can

 

I agree with you also. I had severe depersonalizing depression that I was hospitalized with. Cymbalta and Remeron saved my life.

I'll just add that responses to medications have a huge genetic component, meaning that what works for one person won't necessarily work for another.

 

Antidepressants were horrible for me and gave me some severe side effects, including vestibular issues and really bad diarrhea. They can negatively affect bone density as well, and for a woman with osteopenia or osteoporosis, that can be extremely dangerous. People should be warned about side effects such as these, but I wasn't told. I sustained a fracture a couple of years ago, and I very much regret having taken that medication, as it likely contributed to my lowered bone density and fracture.

This is where informed consent would be warranted. A doctor cannot expect everyone to have the same outcome, and the patient can't either. We are not all the same, and as Lapis said, there's a genetic component at stake here, too. Some people do very well on a drug. Others do horribly. I'm in the "horribly" department, so my outlook on drugs in general is very skewed.