1 in 3 Adults In The U.S. Take Medications That Can Cause Depression. These drugs already list depression as a possible symptom:
If you take Prilosec or Zantac for acid reflux, a beta blocker for high blood pressure, or Xanax for anxiety, you may be increasing your risk of depression.
More than 200 common medications sold in the U.S. include depression as a potential side effect. Sometimes, the risk stems from taking several drugs at the same time. Now, a new study finds people who take these medicines are, in fact, more likely to be depressed.
The list includes a wide range of commonly taken medications. Among them are certain types of proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) (used to treat acid reflux), beta blockers, anxiety drugs, painkillers including ibuprofen, ACE inhibitors (used to treat high blood pressure), and anti-convulsant drugs.
I often take Zantac or Rantab for acid reflux. I used to take the beta blocker propanolol for the hand tremor caused by the anti-convulsant Depakote.
About 15 percent of participants who simultaneously used three or more of these drugs were depressed. By comparison, among participants who didn't use any of the medications, just 5 percent were depressed. Even those who used just one of these medications were at slightly higher risk of depression: About 7 percent were depressed.
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Maybe the eds or someone already have something planned for the anniversary of MDC's death, or maybe the Coronavirus pandemic has overshadowed everything. I checked the subs queue and didn't see anything about MDC.
I'm sorry I don't have anything proper to submit, just a link to last year's article:
Michael David Crawford Passes Away.
His wish was not to be forgotten to be remembered through his works.
FWIW, I'm not the same AC who submitted that one; just a long-time /. & SN reader who was sincerely saddened by the news of MDC's death.
[Ed. addition follows. --martyb]
As a token of respect and thanks for his active participation on SoylentNews, staff updated our Subscribe page to facilitate making a site subscription in his memory. From Meta: Site News: Holiday Weekend, Staffing, Outage, Finances, Submissions, and Moderations (emphasis added):
When you subscribe, some of the site limits are relaxed and you get a shiny star next to any comments you post. For the humble, you can turn that star's display off in your preferences.
If you wish to help out, click on Subscribe and select whether you want the subscription to start/extend your own subscription or you wish to make a gift subscription. If it is a gift subscription, specify the UID for the recipient. The default of UID==6 is that of Michael Casadevall (another nick NCommander used when setting up the site) or you may replace the UID with 2339 in memory of Michael David Crawford, or any other UID that you want.
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Many years ago I came upon a definition that I believe embodies how MDC lived his life: "Honest is the absence of the intent to deceive." He set a very high bar that, though I try, do not know that I will be able to maintain the openness that I saw him exhibit.
Lastly, I find it timely that a fortune I saw on our site this morning seems apropos to his life:
So live that you wouldn't be ashamed to sell the family parrot to the town gossip.
He may not have been faultless (who is?), but I am sure he would have no fears about what might be revealed by selling "the family parrot."
Previously:
Meta: Site News: Holiday Weekend, Staffing, Outage, Finances, Submissions, and Moderations
'This is how expensive it is to attempt suicide': Patient's bill goes viral
MDC Fortunes
Michael David Crawford Passes Away
Depression Strongly Correlated with Taking Three or More Common Drugs Simultaneously
(Score: 2) by Entropy on Saturday June 16 2018, @01:16AM (13 children)
The more likely you are to feel "depressed"? Sometimes feeling down is pretty reasonable.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 16 2018, @01:22AM (8 children)
"feeling down" for 3 months straight is not normal, I know this.
I avoid the drugs that 'fix' that because they have a LONG list of interactions that no one really understands. I can cope with it. But it takes a lot of work.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday June 16 2018, @02:09AM (6 children)
Try crack cocaine. You feel like king of all Mexico and you come up with all kinds of great ideas. Like how to hawk a broken keyboard for 5 bucks, or trade a dented tailgate you stole off of a truck for a half-can of Folgers coffee and a Fun-Center-token they claimed is a Spanish Doubloon worth thousands. It makes pushing your stolen shopping cart feel like driving a NAS-car.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 16 2018, @03:49AM (4 children)
Or try to just stop eating carbohydrates in insane amounts:
http://theconversation.com/feeling-euphoric-on-a-low-carb-diet-the-effect-on-your-brain-is-similar-to-an-illicit-drug-76303 [theconversation.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 16 2018, @06:29AM (3 children)
That too made me depressed and low energy. I have the notes. One size does not fit all. Glad it worked for you.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 16 2018, @07:16AM (2 children)
How long did you give it? Depressed and low energy is just the initial phase (~3 days for me).
(Score: 1) by anubi on Saturday June 16 2018, @07:31AM (1 child)
Is this the mechanism by which Anorexia Nervosa works?
Instead of a drug-induced dependency, its a feedback from low blood sugar or similar?
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 16 2018, @01:42PM
No idea how exactly it works, but Im beginning to suspect the "addictive" nature of many drugs is actually via messing with blood sugar.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 16 2018, @04:17AM
I think you missed the spot where I do not like side effects.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 16 2018, @01:17PM
MDMA, psilocybin, and cannabis work for me!
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 16 2018, @01:30AM (2 children)
These's a big difference between "feeling down"and "depression". Depression is a heavy, wet blanket that restricts your ability to do things or to get things done. It's persistent and enduring. It's a terrible feeling and getting control of it is always just beyond your reach. It is simply exhausting and overwhelming.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 16 2018, @04:37AM
I use a rather simple method that I learned from reading Hermann Hesse's Steppenwolf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steppenwolf_(novel) [wikipedia.org] while still 14 years old.
Basically, one sets a date when he is going to kill himself and the life suddenly becomes way more bearable because there is a known end of suffering. Worked wonders for me as I keep changing the date.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 16 2018, @06:45AM
So kinda like cancer?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Saturday June 16 2018, @02:35AM
Reasonable depression is denoted as "reactive" because it is a response to something that actually happens to you. Antidepressants are less effective for reactive depressions.
But "endogenous" depression Just Happens for no apparent reason. Despite nothing bad occurring, I came within nanometers of falling backwards off the roof of a six-storey building in the Spring of 1985.
During both types, people find lots of other things to be depressed about.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 16 2018, @02:58AM (5 children)
...so if you take Prilosec or Zantac because you're eating fatty foods, a beta blocker for high blood pressure because you are obese, and Xanax for anxiety because you're anxious about not being able to find a good looking mate or even a sorta ugly mate and you're worried about what all your peers think of you because you're a fat slob....and you're blaming the depression on the medicine?
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Saturday June 16 2018, @03:06AM (1 child)
Hand tremor can be caused by many psychiatric medications. Most commonly one takes cogentin for that, but cogentin didn't work for me, so I took propanolol instead which worked quite well.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 16 2018, @03:48PM
I've had those nasty hand tremors a few times. The cure? Stop worrying about the stupid sons of bitches who walk out in front of your car. Just run their dumb asses over, and stop worrying about them. Problem solved.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Saturday June 16 2018, @03:08AM (2 children)
-icide.
The very first happy pill I ever took was Elavil (amitryptiline), which I'm taking again now. In my most-recent depression I also tried imipramine and Latuda but nothing worked until I tried the Elavil again.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 3, Informative) by bzipitidoo on Saturday June 16 2018, @09:32AM (1 child)
Sure, the article is talking about drug cocktails packing a magnified depressive punch when interacting, imposing depression on people who may have no real reason to feel depressed. But let's not forget that most of the time, depression doesn't just happen for no reason. Your girlfriend/boyfriend just dumped you, your employer gaslighted you then fired you for gross incompetence, you were evicted, and after struggling to pay it off for years you still have massive debt and several dozen debt collectors hounding you, lots of people are telling you you're a worthless loser and you should kill yourself, you suffered some great physical trauma and lost a limb or are now confined to a wheelchair, etc.
For those afflicted with the opposite of the Dunning-Kruger effect, smart enough to understand that there's a million things that can go wrong with anything of moderate complexity, it takes a lot of practice and experience to discern which goals may be reasonable and which are definitely not, which people are trying to tear you down out of jealousy and spite and really do not care if their criticisms of you and your work are fair, and to keep your paranoid fantasies on a tight leash and have reasonable confidence in yourself and to keep working towards various goals and being willing to shift the goal posts in light of new information or realizations and not succumb to despair. I constantly wonder if what I am thinking about is really new and still unsolved, and if so, can it be solved. If it isn't unsolved and I just didn't find these past solutions, then that may mean I'm reinventing the wheel, an activity most people regard as a waste of time. Yet, most of education is learning and discovering all kind of things others figured out long ago. All that is hard enough, without also having to worry about becoming unemployed and homeless, and, if not wanted, being stuck with bachelorhood, unable to find a suitable partner who is available and interested in you.
Then there's existential angst, that is, wanting very badly for life to mean something, wanting answers to the questions "what is the meaning of life?" and "why are we here?" and realizing that, maybe, there are no satisfactory answers, and becoming depressed about that. The less intelligent can turn to a religious answer of sorts, the old dodge that God has a Plan, but we are too stupid and limited to comprehend it, and never mind about speculating what the Plan might be, because He loves us anyway. Myself, I like to look on it in this light: rather than seeing the universe as a great contest between Good and Evil, or even Order and Chaos, in which the only sensible side to be on is Good and Order, perhaps it could be put as opposing principles, neither of which is self-evidently more virtuous than the other. Those principles are Purpose and Freedom. So maybe there can't be an ultimate Purpose, so what? That means we have more Freedom, and we don't have to worry about going to Hell if we didn't follow a plan we were not told and could not know. Hell or some equivalent is often advanced as the dire punishment thou shalt receive for having followed the "wrong" religion. For example, many Christians believe all non-Christians, be they Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Hindi, or people who lived before Christ was born, are in or going to Hell for that. Got to take others' opinions of what a proper relationship with reality should be, with large grains of salt.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Saturday June 16 2018, @05:43PM
Depression NEVER happens without multiple causes. Merely being in a horrible situation doesn't necessarily make you depressed. It may make you angry, for example. It's cause is a combination of what you feel, what you tell yourself about what's going on, and how you see things as likely to happen. Certainly the chemical situation of your blood stream will make certain reactions less easy, but others will (generally) be possible.
The problem is, while you are depressed, you don't have enough available energy to deal with the depression. It seems to me that it should be possible to listen to what you're telling your self, and when you don't like it, to tell yourself to "Either shut up or change the subject!". You might still be too lethargic to do anything, but that's not as bad as depression.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by black6host on Saturday June 16 2018, @03:54AM
Depakote is used to treat other things than just convulsions. https://www.depakote.com/ [depakote.com]
Not doing anything other than just giving more information...
(Score: 2) by legont on Saturday June 16 2018, @04:44AM
Just saying...
https://www.rapidtables.com/math/probability/basic_probability.html [rapidtables.com]
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Aiwendil on Saturday June 16 2018, @07:29AM
I only have tried classes of the lsted stuff - betablocker and anti-anxiety meds. I also tend to read up quite a bit on medicine I take (due to responding weirdly some common stuff might include a mild case of death).
* Regarding beta-blockers - they are supposed to make you depressed if you chomp on them like you do candy. Seriously, their entire purpose is to block the response to epinedrine/adrenaline. That is the stuff that makes you physically perform better, longer, and be less aware of injuries. Being without it give a sense of mild disconnect from the world and that everything has a flat monotone sense to it. This very effect is why it is so darn effective against anxiety and anxiety-inducing events (like stage fright). But unless you are used to deal with being stuck in tedium for long periods of times then its long term use will cause you to assume any interruptions will go away.
This also makes them very good at making anxiety stay away by just being available.
* Anti-anxiety meds. You know those days when your head feels like it is full of cotton and everything seems distant. There is a couple of classes of drugs that causes that, we call them anti-axiety medicines. Se latter half of the beta-blockers rant for the effect.
Really, what the heck did people expect from meds that severly messes with the fight or flight horomones as well as with the hormones that causes addiction and a sense of pleasure? That you'd feel happy all the time? (Well ok, some do, but they tend to be extremly pleasant to trip on and usually ends up being banned as part of drug control)
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 16 2018, @12:06PM (3 children)
if I had enough stuff wrong with me that I had to take 3 pills/day.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday June 16 2018, @03:53PM (1 child)
Almost a ditto here.
Hell, I can't remember to take one med when I need it. Just seven days of antibiotic, and I don't get it right - they last nine or twelve days. That's depressing, 'cause I'm wondering if they even work like that. Multiply that depression by three, or six, or nine. If I need to take a half dozen meds just to stay alive, I'm going to keel over, it's just that simple.
Pain pills used to be simple. Doc gave me thirty pills. I took one when I felt pretty severe pain. When I only felt a little pain, don't bother taking one. Things were cool, and I always had leftover meds for some asshole to steal. Now? I've still got the crap the Doc gave me last time. Stuff made me sick every time I took it, so I just put up with the pain. And, NO ONE wants to steal the damned things. That's some depressing stuff right there!
I've told the wife that if/when the day comes that I need piles of pills, morning, noon, night, she should just let me die. That shit's all depressing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 17 2018, @07:33AM
Depending how bad you mess it up, they not only might not work, you might make things much worse. You can hide an infection/disease without actually curing it, while it advances.
Get one of those little seven-in-a-row pill boxes with the days of the week written on the lids. As soon as you get the pills, put them in the relevent days, and keep the box in the fridge.
(Score: 3, Informative) by HiThere on Saturday June 16 2018, @06:00PM
In that case you'd better stay young. I think I take seven meds a day for this and that. High blood pressure, etc. It doesn't cause me to be depressed. Occasionally angry, when I have trouble with the pharmacy, but not depressed, or even down. It's true that before I hit, I think it was, 60 I didn't need to take any meds. (I still took vitamin + mineral pills, but didn't worry if I missed them or ran out.) When I first go on one of those addictive medications (high blood pressure...it brings your blood pressure down, but if you stop taking it your blood pressure goes up even higher) I was quite resistant...and annoyed (largely at myself, because I knew it was my own fault). But not down.
Now I had a friend a bit before that who WAS on psychiatric medication. He hated the side effects, so every once in awhile he'd just stop taking them. In a month or so he'd end up in "the looney ward". But HE wasn't depressed. He had lots of other reactions, but depression wasn't one of them. (You'll get the wrong idea, but he was manic-depressive, but depressive in his case sure wasn't depression, it was more like paranoia.)
So a bad situation itself isn't sufficient to cause depression. Depression has multiple causes, and it's not just the same as being low energy, which can be a real problem, but there doesn't seem to be either a decent treatment for it or a decent percentage of cases being properly recognized. And it's probably not a single disease, but a syndrome, which can be caused by several unrelated causes. Some cases have been traced to problems with the mitochondria, but I suspect that's quite unusual.
But what you probably mean is not that you'd be depressed, but rather that you'd be down. Depression is something quite a bit different.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.