What exactly do meds do again?

Many of you know that I'm not on medications, but that I was on them for years. I was just thinking about some things my doctors have told me about medications over the years, specifically about what meds are supposed to do.

1) alter mood - this is often described as regulating seretonin and other chemicals in the brain to affect mood.
2) tranquilize - this one is vague to me, but basically it seems like pain relief and a certain degree of numbing effect in general.
3) sedate - make you sleepy.

So what happens if a person can learn how to change or regulate thier own mood? Ever notice that it is possible to recognize you're in a negative mood and do something that makes you laugh? Doesn't this have the same effect as the drug? As for tranquilizing, I notice that I don't endulge in things that used to trigger me. This reduces some of the need for a tranquilizer. Finally, for sedation. I noticed that my regular medication in which I activate my pineal gland (thus producing melatonin) helps me get 8 hours of sleep a night. I also work out and do a lot of fun things that tire me out so that I'm ready to sleep at night. This reduces the need for a sedation medication.

Does anyone else wonder about the desired effects of meds and if a DIY approach seems to have similar effects?

This is what makes CBT a better alternative, it allows you to identify where your issues lie, and correct them by addressing them and you can train yourself to respond to emotional stimulai differently.

Ian Reynir wrote:So what happens if a person can learn how to change or regulate thier own mood?

I think then you wouldn't be needing/taking medication. What would be the purpose of it?

I think that is the goal for many people.

Most psychotropic drugs affect in some way the proteins and chemicals in the neurosynaptic cleft, which is the area between nerves, and which is the place where nerves communicate. The human brain is an enormous spiderweb of nerves, and these nerves communicate with each other using neurotransmitters, which are chemicals released from one nerve, in order to pass a signal to an adjacent nerve. Psychotropic drugs are chemicals that often either mimic these neurotransmitters, but perhaps with a slight or severe alteration in function, or may interfere with or enhance various proteins in the neurosynaptic cleft that are involved in the transport or signalling of these neurotransmitters, and therefore usually serve to enhance or reduce the ability of one type of neurotransmitter (for example dopamine or serotonin are neurotransmitters commonly targeted) to pass a signal. Almost every drug used in psychiatry has a known mechanism of action, and this usually involves identifying the target proteins to which the drug binds, and how the binding of the drug affects the 'normal' function of the targeted protein.

If the underlying cause of someone's mental illness is an alteration in their own chemistry or machinery involved in nerve communication, it may be that drugs can help balance this alteration.

As some have noted, this is not the only method, the brain itself can develop new or alternate pathways of communication and also the person can learn to recognize and change behavior in ways that can compensate for their altered thought processes.

Drugs have their usefulness but they are not the only or best answer to all problems.

So with schizophrenia, bi-polar the probelm is with the dopamine being too much. So while on the meds you have less of a functioning brain = less that can go wrong with it. If the problem is in your head no amount of thinking will change what is a physical problem just like no amount of meds will change a person's external problems. I was told something along the lines of this yesterday that the meds will only do so much the rest is up to you. So what should I do? Try to become a liar?

In otherwords the meds inhibit the dopamine.

With depression it is not enough seratonin so the idea is to increase.

Chemical imbalance myth takes a big public fall (no, antidepressants do NOT correct an imbalance of serotonin, nor do other psychiatric drugs correct anything at all)

January 25, 2012 By Monica
Beyond Meds and anyone who’s actually paid attention to the science for the last many years has known that the serotonin myth about depression and how antidepressants work has no evidence to back it up whatsoever. So when it all came out in an NPR interview I pretty much just yawned. Yes, I’m tired and I’ve been steeped in some of this stuff for far too long.


Read more: http://beyondmeds.com/2012/01/25/chemicalimbalancemythfalls/


Taking a pill to treat depression is widely believed to work by reversing a chemical imbalance.


Medication is a mainstay of mental health therapy
But in this week's Scrubbing Up health column, Dr Joanna Moncrieff, of the department of mental health sciences at University College London, says they actually put people into "drug-induced states".



If you've seen a doctor about emotional problems some time over the past 20 years, you may have been told that you had a chemical imbalance, and that you needed tablets to correct it.

It's not just doctors that think this way, either.

Magazines, newspapers, patients' organisations and internet sites have all publicised the idea that conditions like depression, anxiety, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder can be treated by drugs that help to rectify an underlying brain problem.

People with schizophrenia and other conditions are frequently told that they need to take psychiatric medication for the rest of their lives to stabilise their brain chemicals, just like a diabetic needs to take insulin.

The trouble is there is little justification for this view of psychiatric drugs.

Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8138893.stm

Copy_Cat wrote:Chemical imbalance myth takes a big public fall (no, antidepressants do NOT correct an imbalance of serotonin, nor do other psychiatric drugs correct anything at all)

January 25, 2012 By Monica
Beyond Meds and anyone who’s actually paid attention to the science for the last many years has known that the serotonin myth about depression and how antidepressants work has no evidence to back it up whatsoever. So when it all came out in an NPR interview I pretty much just yawned. Yes, I’m tired and I’ve been steeped in some of this stuff for far too long.


Read more: http://beyondmeds.com/2012/01/25/chemicalimbalancemythfalls/


Taking a pill to treat depression is widely believed to work by reversing a chemical imbalance.


Medication is a mainstay of mental health therapy
But in this week's Scrubbing Up health column, Dr Joanna Moncrieff, of the department of mental health sciences at University College London, says they actually put people into "drug-induced states".



If you've seen a doctor about emotional problems some time over the past 20 years, you may have been told that you had a chemical imbalance, and that you needed tablets to correct it.

It's not just doctors that think this way, either.

Magazines, newspapers, patients' organisations and internet sites have all publicised the idea that conditions like depression, anxiety, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder can be treated by drugs that help to rectify an underlying brain problem.

People with schizophrenia and other conditions are frequently told that they need to take psychiatric medication for the rest of their lives to stabilise their brain chemicals, just like a diabetic needs to take insulin.

The trouble is there is little justification for this view of psychiatric drugs.

Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8138893.stm

It can stabalise them but like I said that happens through the restriction of dopamine which will excentuate voices, hallucinations, delusions etc when found in excess quantities. It's an execution not a cure.

Read more... http://web.williams.edu/imput/synapse/pages/IIIB5.htm

Rattatat wrote:It can stabalise them but like I said that happens through the restriction of dopamine which will excentuate voices, hallucinations, delusions etc when found in excess quantities. It's an execution not a cure.

You have a good point that mood stabilizers work by messing with dopamine, seratonin, etc. I don't know how antipsychotics work, but my guess is that they simply reduce certain brain functions - functions that are often involved in psychotic behavior. So that would suck because all it does is keep you from thinking naturally.

I don't know what it's like to hear voices, have hallucinations, but I'm expert on delusions! Don't get me started on 911, moon landings, aliens, cancer cures, etc...

Bottom line - I think you and I and Copy_Cat agree that meds are no cure for mental illness.

Well I think there is a place for it. Some schizophrenics do a lot better on their meds and actually choose to be executed if that means a lessening of their symptoms and the hell they go through. I think it's over-rated and extended to more people than it should be but it should be a persons right to choose.

I sometimes wonder if meds are there to make society feel better about themselves or there for the patient. All it does is take away your functioning.

Is it lost on everyone that the absolute denial of psychotropic medications is just as ignorant as the absolute acceptance? Yes, there are people who were misdiagnosed to sell a prescription... and yes, there are people who cannot simply train their heads to work right, and need the external influence of a medication. grey area, people