Posted by Jamal Spelling on January 8, 2008, at 14:04:54
In reply to Re: the flavor of the board, posted by Jamal Spelling on January 8, 2008, at 13:03:30
I myself feel somewhat unwelcome on the Medication board. Linkadge is right, medication is like a religion. And if you don't sing the praises of its god, people label you as a heathen and attack you.
For some reason, people get angry at the suggestion they might benefit from other interventions, in addition to their medication. A poster once told me that because I had benefited from other interventions, that therefore my depression couldn't have been real - real depression *only* responds to medication. Mmm, does that mean that, if your depression doesn't respond to medication, then you don't really have depression? Naw, I'm just kidding, LOL!
I think that is sort of the problem. People think that, if they benefit from medication, and somebody challenges the efficacy of that medication, the person is suggesting that their depression is "all in their head", and that conclusion is not correct either.
And even if people *do* show a placebo response to medication, so what? There are many perfectly real illnesses, like flu, which have a 100% placebo response rate, because of regression to the mean. It doesn't mean that your condition is any less real or painful! And drug trials tend to place placebo response at between 20% and 70%, so a lot of responders really are placebo responders. But of course, everybody wants to believe that they are not part of that placebo response group.
poster:Jamal Spelling
thread:803345
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/admin/20071106/msgs/805114.html