I had the Queen of Sheba over for coffee yesterday. Since it was still raining like crazy (again!), I called her earlier in the afternoon and offered to pick her up, which I did.
On my way to where she was, I had the local CBC radio station playing in Junior, and there happened to be a piece on anti-depressants, particularly the new strands known as SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors). Most people know of these by their commercial names: Prozac, Zoloft, Luvox, Paxil, Celexa, Remeron or Effexor. The focus of the piece was on the increased risk of suicide among some who take these drugs, and referred specifically to a Halifax resident who threw himself off the Macdonald Bridge last year. He was getting increasingly agitated with the drug, but all his family doctor knew to do was increase his dose. Two days after the last increase, he threw himself off the bridge.
I have to admit up front that I’ve always had serious reservations about prescription drugs — all in general but anti-depressants specifically. I’ve seen too many instances of people suffering through so-called “side-effects” which were often as bad if not worse than the initial ailment. And with anti-depressants specifically, I’ve seen too many instances of them being used as the only line of attack, with other “talk” therapies being neglected. What’s more, we don’t seem to be interested in looking into the larger causes of what seems like an epidemic of depression. While I’d readily concede that each depression is unique to the individual, I also think we’re collectively afraid to question and look into the pressures we’re having to deal with and the expectations we’re implicitly expected to live up to. I think there’s an unhealthy expectation that every minute of our lives must be busy or productive or glorious. Even on vacations, we’re expected to do things and have fun doing them, and if you don’t have fun doing them, there must be something wrong with you. With so many things needing to be done in so little time, no wonder we often feel that time just whizzes by! And of course, there’s the constant expectations of success, of fitness, of behaviour, of appearance — all subjectively defined and, for the most part, very superficial.
That said, even the woman whose husband jumped off the bridge admitted in her interview yesterday that she doesn’t think anti-depressants are inherently bad and should be banned. They have a role to play. In fact, I’ve seen it in my father: he was on a mild dose of Effexor for the last two years of his life and, as a result, his depression was relatively under control — certainly relative to how it was when he wasn’t medicated. But even in his case, his doctor didn’t seem to know that to counter a side-effect of Effexor, namely sleep-disruptive agitation, my father should also have been prescribed a mild sedative. In the last two years of his life, in addition to the physical pain he suffered, my father slept a lot but rested little. So I’m mixed about the whole thing. Yes, in many ways, my father had a better quality of life thanks to the anti-depressant he was prescribed, but it could have been a lot better if more thought, consideration and follow-up beyond the prescription.
Enters the Queen of Sheba, who just returned from a trip to visit her family “out West.” Specifically her own brother’s health is very poor, and he said to her this time around that he considers himself a “victim of Vioxx” — not that taking the drug led him to suffer the side-effects for which it was pulled off the market, but because his state has deteriorated rapidly since he’s been unable to take the drug, which did provide him the relief it was designed to provide. Meanwhile, there’s a belief (if not evidence) suggesting that the drugs her own son was taking to control his seizures may have caused the damage to his heart that led to his untimely death. So the choice seems to be between prolonged agony with no quality of life, and less pain, more quality of life but potentially less life.
Do I have the answer to this dilemma? Certainly not. I’m not even sure what I’m trying to say with this entry. All I know is that I’m riled up about something …but what exactly, I don’t know.
