Medicated Nation

How many of you have gone to your family physician because of a health problem you felt you had and left with OUT a prescription? How many of you expect your family doctor to prescribe something if you show up with a concern? After all…that’s why your there and that’s what they do.

According to Men’s Journal, in 1996 13 million Americans were prescribed an antidepressant. In 9 years that number more than doubled to 27 million. From 1999, pharmaceutical companies spent $32 million dollars on antidepressants and by 2005 (6 years later) they were spending $122 million. Are they doing it for a reason? Are they convincing you that you might have a problem before you even get another opinion about it? In 2009 Americans spent $10 Billion on antidepressant medication.

Antidepressant medication may be the most over prescribed and under prescribed drug in America. I am in no way saying that Depression doesn’t exist and it’s not something that can be helped by medication. But are we really so much more depressed now than we were even 20 years ago?

Americans may have been sold on the idea that life is perfect, and that you should be happy all the time. That life always has a happy ending. But we are starting to see that happiness is relative. We know we are happy based off of when we are sad. We listen to the antidepressant commercials that tell us that if we have trouble sleeping, having bad thoughts, or feel that we aren’t where we should be we need to be taking their drug; then following that idea is 40 seconds of side effects including thoughts of suicide or worsening of depression.

There is absolutely a time and a need for antidepressants. But according to Columbia University psychiatrist Mark Olfson there is 10% of Americans that are prescribed antidepressants every year, and there is a good chance that some of them don’t need it. He also states that there are 15 million Americans that probably aren’t getting the medication they need to treat their depression.

Financial incentives for health insurance companies and the willingness of primary care physicians to hand out those prescriptions are a few of the reasons for this sharp increase. Unfortunately, psychiatry doesn’t have biologically based tests to help guide us in making decisions on diagnosis. Depression clinically requires five symptoms:

·        Loss of interest or pleasure in usual activities

·        Anxiety; feelings of hopelessness, worthlessness, and despair

·        Memory problems

·        Changes in sleep patterns

·        Changes in weight

Seeing these spelled out many of you can recall a time where you have had one or more of these symptoms, possibly all five.

Most people understand that the drugs they take aren’t a cure. They realize that if they are suffering from depression or another illness, it’s not because they aren’t taking enough medication. But in reality most people don’t take the steps they need to figure out the cause and a solution that actually addresses the cause.

Stop and think for a moment if the problems you suffer from are something you were seeking a solution for, or if you were told you have a problem and there is a solution out there.