Now Antidepressant-Induced Chronic Depression Has a Name: Tardive Dysphoria

[Barbara]

by Robert Whitaker
30 Jun 2011
Mad in America blog

Three recently published papers, along with a report by a Minnesota group on health outcomes in that state, provide new reason to mull over this question: Do antidepressants worsen the long-term course of depression? As I wrote in Anatomy of an Epidemic, I believe there is convincing evidence that the drugs do just that. These latest papers add to that evidence base.

….

Rif El-Mallakh at the University of Louisville School of Medicine…in a paper published in the June issue of Medical Hypotheses…provides an overview of “emerging evidence that, in some individuals, persistent use of antidepressants may be pro-depressant.”

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This condition, El-Mallakh writes, often develops in people who had a good initial response to an antidepressant, and then continue taking the drug. However, up to 80% of patients maintained on an antidepressant suffer a recurrence of symptoms, and once that “initial treatment response is lost,” continued efforts to treat the relapsed patient with antidepressants frequently results in “poor response and the rise of treatment-resistant depression.” Ultimately, this process—the continual prescribing of antidepressants to someone who has become treatment resistant—may "make the chronic depression permanent.”

In his discussion, El-Mallakh notes that people without any history of depression who are prescribed an antidepressant for other reasons—anxiety, panic disorder, or because they are serving as “normal controls” in a study—may become depressed, with that depression at times persisting for a fairly long period of time after the antidepressant is withdrawn. The reason that antidepressants may have a “prodepressant effect,” El-Mallakh writes, is that “continued drug treatment may induce processes that are the opposite of what the medication originally produced.” This is the “oppositional tolerance” that Fava has written about, and this process may “cause a worsening of the illness, continue for a period of time after discontinuation of the medication, and may not be reversible.”
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http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/...dive-dysphoria

[Cosette123]

I totally agree with that.

[Barbara]

Cosette, good to hear your response.

[Samsara]

Hi Barbara.........

thank you for posting this! This article is representative of what I personally have experienced from my exposure to multiple biochemical assaults by psyche drugs. I was continually misdiagnosed and was labelled as having "treatment resistant" depression. The reality was: the drugs were making me sicker and sicker.

I'm so glad that Robert Whitaker has exposed the reality of what these toxic drugs do to person's life.

I'm currently off all drugs however, the post WD depression effect is tremendous, despite the progress I have made in other areas. Thank God I am currently aware of what is causing this degree of mental distress, since I would be running for medical intervention......believing that I have a very serious depressive disorder that needs to be medicated.

Knowledge is power and with this knowledge I must wait out the agonizing depression and anhedonic phases for as long as it takes since, it's my only hope for a full recovery.

BTW, it's very nice to meet you. I've been wanting to respond to everyone's intro and also construct my own intro but I need to be in the right mental space in order to do so.

Thanks again for this very important article.


Samsara

[Luc]

I was continually misdiagnosed and was labelled as having "treatment resistant" depression. The reality was: the drugs were making me sicker and sicker

I was going through the exact same, Samsara. Once I started taking the drugs, nothing was the same again. Nothing. Life became some ersatz of life. That said, we KNOW why it was that way. And we know that we will heal.

[Barbara]

Hi Samsara, I very much enjoyed reading your post and it was good to hear your experience has been similar to what R. Whitaker cites in his post.

Also, good to meet you and I'm looking forward to reading more of your posts.

This is my first experience on a discussion board so I have been gradually trying to learn the ropes.

[Samsara]

Hi Samsara, I very much enjoyed reading your post and it was good to hear your experience has been similar to what R. Whitaker cites in his post.

Also, good to meet you and I'm looking forward to reading more of your posts.

This is my first experience on a discussion board so I have been gradually trying to learn the ropes.

Thank you Barbara! BTW, I'm sure you will soon be swinging from the ropes. (lol)


Samsara

[Samsara]

I was going through the exact same, Samsara. Once I started taking the drugs, nothing was the same again. Nothing. Life became some ersatz of life. That said, we KNOW why it was that way. And we know that we will heal.

So sorry to hear this Luc. I believe there are so many of us out there, few of us actually realize what has happened. So many people go on to be polydrugged, or are in and out of mental institutions, repeatedly throughout their life times, never realzing the drugs are creating their problems.

Many such people are abandoned or abused by their families. It's so incredibly heartbreaking. I feel beyond grateful that I had never lapsed into a psychotic state where I became out of the range of mental awareness. Others are not as lucky. It it those people that I have the greatest fear for, along with innocent children and newborns who are born addicted and/or damaged by being exposed to these toxic drugs during critical stages of fetal development.

Samsara