Ask your doctor about...

[JAJT]

I sometimes catch flack for saying this, but I believe 100% that people don't just "have" mental issues.

You catch flack because it's a bullshit belief, not a fact.

My son (7) is diagnosed with ADHD, which I hate to even say because out of all the possible mental illnesses out there, ADHD is the most made fun of for any number of reasons ("oh, you're just lazy, dumb, undisciplined, bla bla bla...".

Let me tell you - my wife and I spent 2 genuine years trying to behaviorally managing my son's mental health. He's not from a bad home. We're not lazy parents. He eats well, gets enough exercise, and is living a great life with "no excuses" to point to. We've read books on the subject, implemented behavioral suggestions from a psychologist who specializes in it, etc...

Up to and including that time, we received concerns from EVERY caregiver he was in contact with. His martial arts instructor, his many various teachers, his soccer coach, his daycare lady, his summer camp counselors - everyone. He was hurting people, kicking them, punching them, knocking things off desks, stealing things from other kids, throwing dangerous objects, being literally uncontrollable (even by us in our own home), ending up in the principals office regularly, lying, etc... and the common theme through all of that? The words "he doesn't do it out of hate or anger". He was literally doing all this impulsively and without thought or control.

Our son would literally sit in bed crying his eyes out because "my brain makes me do things that I don't want to do".

Again - this was not the product of a broken home. This was my son in a cared-for and loving environment with extremely patient parents actively working to help him. We were trying everything in our power to help him.

About 6 months back I talked to a lady by chance at a park who had experience with children with ADHD (she was a teacher from a school across town). I told her my frustrations and said we were extremely against medication because we didn't want to medicate our child. She said that she would never tell us what to do but that she's seen amazing things with some of her students who ended up on medication and the biggest, most pronounced difference with the children was their self esteem and social belonging. They were no longer being yelled at and told to 'stop' all day, every day, their entire childhood lives. Classmates who refused to play with the 'problem' children started including them once they were able to control their behavior. As an avid lover of psychology and success myself, this hit me like a ton of bricks. I had never considered the negative impact of self esteem and friendship that my son was going through as a result of his condition.

We talked to our doctor and did a very, very small trial of ADHD medication (concerta extended release), just to see how he took to it.

Look at all these terrible side effects:

stomach pain,
loss of appetite,
headache,
dry mouth,
nausea,
vomiting,
sleep problems (insomnia),
anxiety,
dizziness,
weight loss,
irritability,
vision problems,
skin rash,
nervousness,
numbness/tingling/cold feeling in the hands or feet, and
sweating.

Wow, all doom and gloom. Why would anyone put a child through this?!?!

Well F*ck me - my son is thriving on this stuff.
Absolutely thriving.

The ONLY side effect he saw was a lack of appetite (which is a problem for growth reason), and that went away after a month. His teacher is now asking we send him to school with MORE food because he finishes it all and asks for more.

He is 100% the same child, with the same personality and the same likes and dislikes and same hilarious humor he always had, but he now can pay attention to things for a change. He can control himself in ways he never could before. He's not hitting anyone, he's getting asked to go to parties at friend's houses for a change, the teachers all love him, his extra curricular coaches love him, he plays nicely with his sister, he picked up a love of reading (which was impossible before), he's thriving in math (impossible before), and has done a complete 180 on all the negative behaviors that we tried for 2 years to manage through behavior alone.

He went from bottom of the class to top of the class - the teachers want him to do some extra summer-work on a few subjects because they feel he could be really ahead of the curve going into the next grade. He's being treated like the intelligent child we knew he was but was entirely unable to show before medication.

I was once the type of person to poo-poo on this shit but having a son with a real problem has really changed my perspective on the subject.

The medication, with all the nasty side effects, and all the nasty social stigma, has been without a doubt the BEST decision we've made for our son in his entire life. It was an impossibly hard decision for us to make but it was worth it in spades.

That's the thing with mental illness - you can't see it and it's very hard to notice unless you have someone in your life who is living through it.

And just because medication has nasty side effects, doesn't mean you WILL have those side effects. Different people react to different medication differently. That's why they do studies. That's why they warn you what to look out for. If you react poorly to a medication you may very well need to pivot to a new medication or decide if the side-effects are better than or worse than your condition.

I get that it's funny to laugh at the side effects of certain drugs, especially for diseases and conditions you can't see (like mental illness), but this shit genuinely helps a lot of people. If you don't like it - just don't take it. Don't go calling those who need it sheep, or saying their conditions aren't real. Maybe try living with someone you care about who feels at war with their own brain before you go throwing stones.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

Amazing.

A here I thought this was a joke or an Onion piece.

No this is real.

Get a listen to those side effects.

And people buy it. And trust it.

The side effects are worse than the disease it supposedly treats.

Love the "death" side effect as well.

Because after all, after you had a cardiac arrest and are tossed 6 feet under, you've cured your bipolar disorder.

 

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[Scot]

Amazing.

A here I thought this was a joke or an Onion piece.

No this is real.

Get a listen to those side effects.

And people buy it. And trust it.

The side effects are worse than the disease it supposedly treats.

Love the "death" side effect as well.

Because after all, after you had a cardiac arrest and are tossed 6 feet under, you've cured your bipolar disorder.

Here’s the thing though, for many people, the risk of side effects outweighs the negative effects of Bipolar.

The problem is, you’re assuming bipolar just means you’re happy one day and sad the next.

Bipolar disorder can cause destructive behaviors. Periods of mania can cause people to be sexually active and engage in risky behaviors, potentially getting deadly STD’s.

Or their mania can cause them to gamble away their money, ruin their careers and relationships. Mania can cause them to pursue drug use.

The depression side can destroy relationships or end in suicide.

So please don’t downplay the impact of this disease on people’s lives just because you think pharma is trying to make a quick buck.

I’ve seen first hand what mental disease and specifically bipolar disorder can do to ruin lives.

And fun fact, the FDA will not approve new drugs in class unless they are both more effective and safer/less dude effects.

Traditionally, antipsychotics and atypical antipsychotics can have really bad side effects.

Most of the side effects in the commercial are called “class warnings” or “black box warnings” Essentially those are side effects were caused by older drugs in the same class. They necessarily aren’t present in these new drugs, but because they are similar the FDA requires these.

Ps this drug also treats schizophrenia too.

This is why healthcare professionals hate it when people actually read the package inserts

The increased risk of death was increased from about 3% (placebo) to 4.5% (drug). So yes, there is an absolute risk increase of 1.5%. And hopefully, the doctor and patient will have good discussion if the increased risk is worth it, or if having aural or visual hallucinations for the rest of their life is a good trade off. Schizophrenia isn't a disease that can be cured with diet and exercise. Although for a lot of the major diseases we face today, diet and exercise will give you far better results than anything from a prescription.

Now, what really irks me is that the drug company charges $1200 a month for this drug when it only costs them a few bucks to make it. This is a main driver of increases in healthcare premiums.

The PI for this drug isn’t actually that bad. It’s probably the safest Atypical on the market.

As for price of drugs, yes, the pills cost pennies to make, but you’re ignoring the Billions capital B that it costs for research, development and FDA trials.

I sometimes catch flack for saying this, but I believe 100% that people don't just "have" mental issues. I think they're a result of physical trauma/poor health (head injuries), other medications (ie, had an athlete friend who became suicidal after taking pain medication post surgery), or emotional trauma.

If you tell most people mental health medication is bullshit, they will run you out of town. But I would never allow my kids to take anything like that.

Thankfully, you’re not a doctor and science has proven you wrong.

People needing medical like this have measurable insufficiencies of Dopamine in their brains, which cause personality disorders and altered mental status.

Mental disease is no different than any other disease. Saying otherwise is not only ignorant, but harmful and causes stigma.

If we can treat endocrine problems by measuring a persons body is low or high in a certain hormone or enzyme, and then resolve the disorder with medication or supplementation... why is the brain or nervous system any different?

If a dificiency of dopamine is measured in a person, they hear voices and have irrational behavior, but then you add a domaminergic agent to increase dopamine levels and the voices dissapear and they behave normally, isn’t that evidence that disease was present?

 

[MJ DeMarco]

Wow, nice to see a great discussion happening here.

As anyone knows, I don't trust the pharmaceutical industry. And I'm also the believer that 90% (made up statistic that I just believe is HIGH) of all ailments can be solved by the proper diet. Lunchables and fruit-roll ups are NOT the proper diet.

The medication of the populous is one of the biggest industries when it shouldn't be. IMO, medication by a drug should be the absolute LAST RESORT. But it isn't -- it becomes the first. Why? Because it is easier to take a pull rather than to change something that must be thought about 20X a day. (EATING). The pill is the EVENT, the radical change in what goes into your piehole, the PROCESS. Of course drugs wins. Of course pills win.

My thoughts on this are obviously biased because my SO is a nurse who is in healthcare and hears story after story, plus she gets wind of who is taking what drug.

Just to give you an example, last week she had a diabetic patient who weighed close to 400 lbs. She was on one diabetic drug after another, plus more drugs to counteract the those drugs. In passing conversation, she mentioned that her SON walked down to the 7-11 every day and got her a BIG GULP of COKE. No, not the 16 oz cup, but the mega 128 oz. And not only that, HAND DELIVERED.

When my GF asked her "Oh wow, you drink that for breakfast?" she laughed dismissively and said "Oh, no, I just slurp it all day." As if this changed anything -- instead of having 300G of sugar in 1 hour, you pace it over 8. Wow.

This is no different than poking yourself in the vein with an IV everyday and taking a steady drip of sugar.

Think she ever tried to change her diet?

Stopped the "every-second-of-the-day" IV drip of sugar?

Walked around the block?

Nope.

Give me my pills so I can continue killing myself and not change what I'm doing.

And we haven't even discussed what else was in her "diet."

My guess is the last time this person ate a raw vegetable Hillary Clinton's husband was president.

Big Pharm and Big-Ag go hand-in-hand. One poisons, the other medicates.

My point isn't that drugs are bad -- but they're prescribed BADLY.

@JAJT is an example on how they should be administered -- it sounded like he tried EVERYTHING.

Then the last resort becomes, well, the last resort.

 

[Hyrum]

As for price of drugs, yes, the pills cost pennies to make, but you’re ignoring the Billions capital B that it costs for research, development and FDA trials.

Nope, I took that into account. Vraylar was developed by Forest Labs (now part of Actavis). At the time of their acquisition their R&D costs were roughly $700M - $800M per year, spread out over a dozen drugs in Phase II or later. The NDA for Cariprazine was filed in 2012, so for 3 years of development of this particular molecule would be roughly $200M-$300M. This appears to be about the industry average. Actavis spends $2.6B for 25 drugs in Phase II or later (2016), Pfizer spent $7.7B on it's pipeline of 57 drugs.

I agree that there are atypicals with much worse side-effect profiles. Such as Zyprexa, which also has the 'death' side effect, plus weight gain (<20 pounds), causes diabetes, and induces breast development and lactation in men.

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

They lit up a cigarette

Offered by Big-Tobacco and advertised to him as "cool" when he was 14 years old.

They drank a 128 oz Coke

Offered by Big-Ag and advertised to him as "cool" when he was 14 years old.

Then he went thru the drive-thru at McDonalds

Offered by Corporate-Fast Food and advertised to him as "cool" when he was 14 years old.

His one vice is eating 2 lbs of cheese everyday...

Offered by the dairy council because "milk is what a body needs" and how else would one get its calcium.

It's one gigantic racket.

And to repeat in the simplest of terms:

Profit on the poison, profit on medicating the poison's side-effects.

And at this point, "medication" varies from drugs, to media, to Hollywood, to more processed food devoid of any nutrition and filled with dopamine producing ingredients: Sugar, MSG, Maltodextrin, Yeast Extract...

But no, we should not deny them quality of life if they chose not to change that lifestyle.

Of course not. I'm all for people having options.

I take issue when I'm being sold the poison only later to be sold the antidote-- all under the guise of normalcy.

My point is that the unhealthy lifestyle is promoted and protected because it is a cash-cow: It is the first domino on the printing press of profit. And now it's entirely normal for 14 year old kids to be pre-diabetic because mom has been brainwashed to believe her child should have Sunny-D for breakfast, fruit-roll ups for lunch, and a "Coke and a smile" for dinner.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

I don't think so.. popping pills is so much easier than diet and exercise.. and it makes so much more money.....

Yes, never underestimate the profound reliability of human nature in its search for comfort and ease.

 

[JAJT]

It seems to be the human brain is a lot more powerful than people give credit.

Let's replace "powerful" with "chemical".

The human brain is a very delicate balance of chemicals that all work together to provide you with every thought, sense and feeling you have.

This isn't an opinion - that's how the brain works. It's a cocktail of chemicals.

If you don't believe in medicating - how do you suggest treating someone who can't increase/decrease/re-adjust their brain chemical ratios to normal functioning levels?

Would you tell a type 1 diabetic to just "think", "exercise", or "diet" their way to producing more insulin? Would tell them you don't believe in medicating for their insulin deficiency?
If not, why does this line of thinking apply when talking about brain chemistry?

 

[Hyrum]

This is why healthcare professionals hate it when people actually read the package inserts

The increased risk of death was increased from about 3% (placebo) to 4.5% (drug). So yes, there is an absolute risk increase of 1.5%. And hopefully, the doctor and patient will have good discussion if the increased risk is worth it, or if having aural or visual hallucinations for the rest of their life is a good trade off. Schizophrenia isn't a disease that can be cured with diet and exercise. Although for a lot of the major diseases we face today, diet and exercise will give you far better results than anything from a prescription.

Now, what really irks me is that the drug company charges $1200 a month for this drug when it only costs them a few bucks to make it. This is a main driver of increases in healthcare premiums.

 

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[TreyAllDay]

I sometimes catch flack for saying this, but I believe 100% that people don't just "have" mental issues. I think they're a result of physical trauma/poor health (head injuries), other medications (ie, had an athlete friend who became suicidal after taking pain medication post surgery), or emotional trauma.

If you tell most people mental health medication is bullshit, they will run you out of town. But I would never allow my kids to take anything like that.

 

[Hyrum]

The medication of the populous is one of the biggest industries when it shouldn't be. IMO, medication by a drug should be the absolute LAST RESORT. But it isn't -- it becomes the first. Why? Because it is easier to take a pull rather than to change something that must be thought about 20X a day. (EATING). The pill is the EVENT, the radical change in what goes into your piehole, the PROCESS. Of course drugs wins. Of course pills win.

I did one of my graduate rotations at the local VA Hospital. One of my duties was to help staff the diabetes clinic. One of the first weeks I was there, a patient came in that was a newly diagnosed type II diabetic. His A1C (a marker of diabetes) was 14.1%. That's really F*cking high. Almost organ failure high.

Per protocol (because it's the VA), he was put on a few oral medications plus insulin. We also gave him the spiel on diet and exercise. He obviously took it to heart, because when we saw him 6 weeks later his A1C was around 7%. We ended up stopping his insulin and all but one of his oral medications. I left soon thereafter, but I wouldn't be surprised if he was off all his diabetic medications. Because, like MJ said, he chose to focus on the process instead of the event. We also had more than a few patients who would get their pills and still refuse to take them. One told me his excuse for not taking his meds was that if it was his time to go, well then it was just his time (he was about 50).

So yes, a lot of our most common illnesses (diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, obesity) can be fixed by simply getting off the couch and watching what we put into our piehole.

 

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[Scot]

The problem is most drugs don't treat the problem. They cover up symptoms so you can keep going on with your unhealthy life.

For example:

Type 1 diabetics were born with a pancreas problem and would die without modern insulin replacement no matter what they eat. In this case insulin saves their life.

Type 2 diabetics (most of them) were not born with a pancreas problem but later in life become diabetic because they become so overweight and ate so poorly that their pancreas cannot produce the amount of insulin needed to keep their body functioning.

But the actual problem is the fact that their diet is so bad the pancreas simply cannot produce enough insulin. Their bodies also become insulin resistant and the more insulin they use the worse this gets. Insulin isn't treating them at all. Just masking their symptoms until they end up needing more insulin to mask more symptoms. The real cure would be to fix your diet. Using insulin as a temporary fix while you work on your diet actually makes it harder to get off insulin.

For Type 1's insulin is a life saving treatment.

For Type 2's insulin is a symptom masking treatment that actually makes the problem worse the longer they use it.

I agree, if you get Type 1 or AIDS or something and need medicine for treatment then I'm all for it. But most people are unhealthy and medicine isn't the cure. A healthier lifestyle is the cure.

I understand that. But we don’t live in a perfect society where people actually give a damn about their health. I watched my grandfather slowly kill himself by not acknowledging that Type 2 diabetes requires life changes.

The vast majority of patients are non compliant. Compliance rates are miserable just for patients taking their prescriptions. But getting a patient to go through a lifestyle change..ask any doctor how successful they’ve been with that.

We don’t live in a perfect world. People suck. But just because they’re idiots and keep trying to kill themselves doesn’t mean they don’t deserve medicine to keep them alive.

 

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[lewj24]

I really believe in 100 years from now when medicine has evolved to be more personal and system based (working out more or eating better proscribed by dr instead of just meds), they are going to look back at things like this and think we were so barbaric and insane. Like how we look back at leeching

I don't think so.. popping pills is so much easier than diet and exercise.. and it makes so much more money.....

 

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[Hyrum]

Let me tell you - my wife and I spent 2 genuine years trying to behaviorally managing my son's mental health. He's not from a bad home. We're not lazy parents. He eats well, gets enough exercise, and is living a great life with "no excuses" to point to. We've read books on the subject, implemented behavioral suggestions from a psychologist who specializes in it, etc...

We went through this exact same thing with our now 6 year, although my son also has autism which complicates things due to his inability to communicate. There were times he would do fine, then there were times he would push his little brother down the stairs, or try to hit or kick one of us. He wasn't learning anything at school because he couldn't concentrate long enough to retain anything. I vividly remember a situation where he was trying to read a book on animals, which he loves, but he was so frustrated that he couldn't concentrate on it he was crying and hitting himself in the head repeatedly.

My wife fought to get him help, but his pediatrician at the time wouldn't give him anything due to his age. So contrary to everything I've been taught in pharmacy school, we went and found a doctor that would prescribe him something for his ADHD. The results were instant, and life-changing for him.

He is 100% the same child, with the same personality and the same likes and dislikes and same hilarious humor he always had, but he now can pay attention to things for a change. He can control himself in ways he never could before. He's not hitting anyone, he's getting asked to go to parties at friend's houses for a change, the teachers all love him, his extra curricular coaches love him, he plays nicely with his sister, he picked up a love of reading (which was impossible before), he's thriving in math (impossible before), and has done a complete 180 on all the negative behaviors that we tried for 2 years to manage through behavior alone.

It's hard to describe the effect it has, but this is close. The only way I can vocalize the change is that he is still the same child, just more so. He doesn't act out any more than a typical 6 year old, plays with others, can actually read, count, write, and communicate. He recently went to a day-long basketball camp and loved it, something we wouldn't even have attempted before.
He still has his problems and idiosyncrasies due to his autism, his sleep patterns are inconsistent, and he isn't gaining weight like he should (although it could be genetic, I'm a tall skinny guy), but the benefits far, far, far outweigh the negatives.

 

[Kak]

You catch flack because it's a bullshit belief, not a fact.

My son (7) is diagnosed with ADHD, which I hate to even say because out of all the possible mental illnesses out there, ADHD is the most made fun of for any number of reasons ("oh, you're just lazy, dumb, undisciplined, bla bla bla...".

Let me tell you - my wife and I spent 2 genuine years trying to behaviorally managing my son's mental health. He's not from a bad home. We're not lazy parents. He eats well, gets enough exercise, and is living a great life with "no excuses" to point to. We've read books on the subject, implemented behavioral suggestions from a psychologist who specializes in it, etc...

Up to and including that time, we received concerns from EVERY caregiver he was in contact with. His martial arts instructor, his many various teachers, his soccer coach, his daycare lady, his summer camp counselors - everyone. He was hurting people, kicking them, punching them, knocking things off desks, stealing things from other kids, throwing dangerous objects, being literally uncontrollable (even by us in our own home), ending up in the principals office regularly, lying, etc... and the common theme through all of that? The words "he doesn't do it out of hate or anger". He was literally doing all this impulsively and without thought or control.

Our son would literally sit in bed crying his eyes out because "my brain makes me do things that I don't want to do".

Again - this was not the product of a broken home. This was my son in a cared-for and loving environment with extremely patient parents actively working to help him. We were trying everything in our power to help him.

About 6 months back I talked to a lady by chance at a park who had experience with children with ADHD (she was a teacher from a school across town). I told her my frustrations and said we were extremely against medication because we didn't want to medicate our child. She said that she would never tell us what to do but that she's seen amazing things with some of her students who ended up on medication and the biggest, most pronounced difference with the children was their self esteem and social belonging. They were no longer being yelled at and told to 'stop' all day, every day, their entire childhood lives. Classmates who refused to play with the 'problem' children started including them once they were able to control their behavior. As an avid lover of psychology and success myself, this hit me like a ton of bricks. I had never considered the negative impact of self esteem and friendship that my son was going through as a result of his condition.

We talked to our doctor and did a very, very small trial of ADHD medication (concerta extended release), just to see how he took to it.

Look at all these terrible side effects:

stomach pain,
loss of appetite,
headache,
dry mouth,
nausea,
vomiting,
sleep problems (insomnia),
anxiety,
dizziness,
weight loss,
irritability,
vision problems,
skin rash,
nervousness,
numbness/tingling/cold feeling in the hands or feet, and
sweating.

Wow, all doom and gloom. Why would anyone put a child through this?!?!

Well f*ck me - my son is thriving on this stuff.
Absolutely thriving.

The ONLY side effect he saw was a lack of appetite (which is a problem for growth reason), and that went away after a month. His teacher is now asking we send him to school with MORE food because he finishes it all and asks for more.

He is 100% the same child, with the same personality and the same likes and dislikes and same hilarious humor he always had, but he now can pay attention to things for a change. He can control himself in ways he never could before. He's not hitting anyone, he's getting asked to go to parties at friend's houses for a change, the teachers all love him, his extra curricular coaches love him, he plays nicely with his sister, he picked up a love of reading (which was impossible before), he's thriving in math (impossible before), and has done a complete 180 on all the negative behaviors that we tried for 2 years to manage through behavior alone.

He went from bottom of the class to top of the class - the teachers want him to do some extra summer-work on a few subjects because they feel he could be really ahead of the curve going into the next grade. He's being treated like the intelligent child we knew he was but was entirely unable to show before medication.

I was once the type of person to poo-poo on this sh*t but having a son with a real problem has really changed my perspective on the subject.

The medication, with all the nasty side effects, and all the nasty social stigma, has been without a doubt the BEST decision we've made for our son in his entire life. It was an impossibly hard decision for us to make but it was worth it in spades.

That's the thing with mental illness - you can't see it and it's very hard to notice unless you have someone in your life who is living through it.

And just because medication has nasty side effects, doesn't mean you WILL have those side effects. Different people react to different medication differently. That's why they do studies. That's why they warn you what to look out for. If you react poorly to a medication you may very well need to pivot to a new medication or decide if the side-effects are better than or worse than your condition.

I get that it's funny to laugh at the side effects of certain drugs, especially for diseases and conditions you can't see (like mental illness), but this sh*t genuinely helps a lot of people. If you don't like it - just don't take it. Don't go calling those who need it sheep, or saying their conditions aren't real. Maybe try living with someone you care about who feels at war with their own brain before you go throwing stones.

There is a STONG a correlation between ADHD and leadership/entrepreneurial success.

 

[Scot]

Nope, I took that into account. Vraylar was developed by Forest Labs (now part of Actavis). At the time of their acquisition their R&D costs were roughly $700M - $800M per year, spread out over a dozen drugs in Phase II or later. The NDA for Cariprazine was filed in 2012, so for 3 years of development of this particular molecule would be roughly $200M-$300M. This appears to be about the industry average. Actavis spends $2.6B for 25 drugs in Phase II or later (2016), Pfizer spent $7.7B on it's pipeline of 57 drugs.

I agree that there are atypicals with much worse side-effect profiles. Such as Zyprexa, which also has the 'death' side effect, plus weight gain (<20 pounds), causes diabetes, and induces breast development and lactation in men.

I’m giving you lots of rep because you actually know what you’re talking about.

 

[Scot]

=


Sadly, that's because I'm part of it. I could write a book on the sins of the industry. There is shady stuff happening at every step of the process.

I worked for Forest, used to sell Saphris. It was a shit drug. I left the company before Vraylar finished phase III but we had doctors begging for it.

Trust me, the industry has a lot of problems. I won’t pretend greed doesn’t cause a lot of them.

But I also see the genuine good the industry does when I have family members crying, thanking me, a drug rep, for saving their spouses life.

 

[Kak]

I would like to hear more about that. It sounds like you're suggesting a positive correlation, which is not my experience. My ADD (not ADHD) is the major thing that keeps me from staying focused on any kind of successful entrepreneurial effort.

True. It might also be the very reason you aren’t an accountant. Do some research it might surprise you.

ADHD Can Be a CEO's Secret Superpower

ADHD: The Entrepreneur's Superpower

The medication absolutely got me through middle school and partly through high school, without wanting to come out of my skin. I started to go without it some times in high school. With medication, you can be ADHD when you need to be and focused when you need that. I effectively taught myself to cope totally without it in college, still got a 3.8 GPA. Once my entrepreneurial journey turned from a bootstrapping suitation to a leadership situation, everything got even easier to manage in my mind.

 

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[NanoDrake]

i will not comment on the big pharma part of the 3d or if drugs are good or not.
I will simply say that exactly one year ago i was 23 kg's more.

But I had severa depression problems and I was sleeping like shit, Psychologist told me if stuff persisted another month he would get me something...
I took the problem head on:
IF, Lean diet and exercise.

A year later I'm at my peak and I can hardly remember who i was a year ago, and I was that close to a bottle of meds.

 

[JAJT]

he is still the same child, just more so.

This is actually the line I was trying to think of when writing - that's bang on.

 

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[ZF Lee]

@JAJT is an example on how they should be administered -- it sounded like he tried EVERYTHING.

Then the last resort becomes, well, the last resort.

The role of medicines as the 'last resort' was the same for my skin allergies.

At first I tried natural stuff. Special soaps and lotions.

Diet wise, I might source kampung chicken (village chickens that run around as opposed to being caged), have more raw vege and nuts (limited to walnuts, cashews and hazelnuts, though. Peanut allergies).

I was also put on rather weird health practices like coffee enemas from NewLife (not exactly a pleasant way of treatment) to clear my bowels and indirectly, the bloodstream. After all, what comes out on the skin is caused by what happens inside.

Still didn't work out well. Itchiness and sleepless nights reigned.

A year or so ago, I finally went to see a doctor, who prescribed steroids, mild creams and a medicated lotion.

My skin improved relatively well enough for me to drop the steroids and focus on lotions.

And yes, I got my beauty sleep back...until Fastlane demands come knocking at the door.

I still eat pretty healthily. I might have raw vege like lettuce, cucumbers or cherry tomatoes, with a sweet potato on the side for dinner tonight.

Simple, but sufficient.

In my case, the worst of the ailment has to be suppressed with medicines. At best, natural alternatives and a great diet are a long-term play. The latter won't heal you miraculously, but across months and years, their benefits compound.

In a practical situation, considering how ailments can pop in suddenly, healthcare is like an orchestra. You can play this 'orchestra' with meds alone, and to a certain degree, you can't play on non-med routes and natural diets alone.

 

[Scot]

Saw it two days ago as well... the convenience store sold 128 oz plastic jugs and some poor guy was filling it with Pepsi.

His jacket looked like it had an HVAC patch but in reality, he should have had these logos stitched to it ... Merck, Eli Lilly, Gilead, Glasko...

So, because half of America can’t understand basic nutrition and is obese, and they get Type 2 diabetes, companies like Novo who make next gen insulin are the bad guys..?

Yes, a lot of the ailments people suffer from are self inflicted due to bad diet and obesity. But does that mean we shouldn’t develop drugs to treat them? Or should be just tell them it’s their fault and let them slowly die from necrosis due to their uncontrolled blood pressure...

Also, Merck and Gilead? They are literally eradicating Hep C 9 Countries Are on Track to Completely Eradicate Hepatitis C

 

[lewj24]

But does that mean we shouldn’t develop drugs to treat them?

The problem is most drugs don't treat the problem. They cover up symptoms so you can keep going on with your unhealthy life.

For example:

Type 1 diabetics were born with a pancreas problem and would die without modern insulin replacement no matter what they eat. In this case insulin saves their life.

Type 2 diabetics (most of them) were not born with a pancreas problem but later in life become diabetic because they become so overweight and ate so poorly that their pancreas cannot produce the amount of insulin needed to keep their body functioning.

But the actual problem is the fact that their diet is so bad the pancreas simply cannot produce enough insulin. Their bodies also become insulin resistant and the more insulin they use the worse this gets. Insulin isn't treating them at all. Just masking their symptoms until they end up needing more insulin to mask more symptoms. The real cure would be to fix your diet. Using insulin as a temporary fix while you work on your diet actually makes it harder to get off insulin.

For Type 1's insulin is a life saving treatment.

For Type 2's insulin is a symptom masking treatment that actually makes the problem worse the longer they use it.

I agree, if you get Type 1 or AIDS or something and need medicine for treatment then I'm all for it. But most people are unhealthy and medicine isn't the cure. A healthier lifestyle is the cure.

 

[Invictus]

I came across this some time ago, and this thread jogged my memory of it.

https://startingstrength.com/articles/barbell_medicine_sullivan.pdf

Excerpt:
For some time now, in the course of my duties as an emergency physician, I’ve had strange thoughts at the bedside of some of my patients. I’ll approach a patient who has come to be treated for chronic pain, fatigue, elevated blood pressure, shortness of breath, or a blood sugar that’s out of control. I find myself confronted by a very overweight, deconditioned 52 year-old, going on 70, with battered joints, atrophic muscles, no physiologic reserve, an inability to get off the gurney without groaning and wheezing, and a grim future. When I work them up, I find no medical emergency, just what I have come to call “diatensionolesity”—type II diabetes, hypertension, a screwed-up blood-lipid profile, and obesity.

And I think to myself: If I could get you under the bar, I could change your life.

 

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[FlRock]

One question though: If you kids needed help in that department, what alternative medicines would you get for them? The people around me swear by accupuncture and exercise lol, but I'm not exactly a fan of Chinese needles sticking into my body.

Speaking from experience and having seen the results first hand. Proper diet is a major component that is vastly overlooked, and seldomly understood.

Get the kid on a good quality Fish oil and healthy fats, heavily reduce sugar, check for food intolerence, no more juice, have them eat quality whole foods and organic. They'll also need quality rest and less 'screen time' before bed.

Sugar before bed has been shown to cause night terrors in children, limiting the quality of sleep they recieve.

I've done yoga type morning stretches with my kid to prepare him for his day ahead. Incorporating all the above has led my child to success in his school work, sports performance, and peer group pressures. Fwiw, I started seeing a functional medicine doc instead of an MD. Life changing.

 

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[Chromozone]

All I’m saying is, yes, we need to fix the problems people are inflicting on themselves through bad choices. But no, we should not deny them quality of life if they chose not to change that lifestyle.

Am I correct in thinking that we are largely in agreement? I definitely don't believe in with-holding treatments from patients either.

Even though I didn’t take the hipocratic oath, I do my best to follow it in my line of work.

It all comes down to the ethics.

Yes, exacetly - part of the Hippocratic oath is to "do no harm".

I often feel guilty about the treatments I give my patients. In just the last few months cholesterol tablets have been linked to colorectal cancer, anti-allergy tablets have been linked to infertility, the combined contraceptive pill has been linked to clinical depression. This kind of stuff comes out every week in research papers.

I'm not saying that these medications shouldn't be used, but I do think that we have very little understanding about what we're doing in modern medicine and what the full implications are.

In other words absence of evidence is not the same as evidence of absence (of harm with the use of medications).

And to repeat in the simplest of terms:

Profit on the poison, profit on medicating the poison's side-effects.

This right here is truth.

Just as an example, in December 2017 a study called "DiRECT" (or The Diabetes Remission Clinical Trial) was published in The Lancet, which is probably the most respected medical journal in the world.

It showed that a low calorie (very low at around 800 calories a day), low carb diet achieved total remission of diabetes within 12 months for 46% of participants with no side efffects. Many of the patients found the diet enjoyable and continued on the diet even after the study was over.

Here's a quote from Professor Mozaffarian (Prof of nutrition and medicine at Tufts University, Massachussets) who said:

"If a new drug showed similar results to DiRECT, it would immediately be tested in several large real world randomised controlled trials. But without a multibillion dollar drug industry behind them, these results are not receiving the attention, the researach funding for interventions, or the evaluation that their promise deserves."

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

It showed that a low calorie (very low at around 800 calories a day), low carb diet achieved total remission of diabetes within 12 months for 46% of participants with no side efffects.

Wow!

 

[YoungPadawan]

Here’s the thing though, for many people, the risk of side effects outweighs the negative effects of Bipolar.

The problem is, you’re assuming bipolar just means you’re happy one day and sad the next.

Bipolar disorder can cause destructive behaviors. Periods of mania can cause people to be sexually active and engage in risky behaviors, potentially getting deadly STD’s.

Or their mania can cause them to gamble away their money, ruin their careers and relationships. Mania can cause them to pursue drug use.

The depression side can destroy relationships or end in suicide.

So please don’t downplay the impact of this disease on people’s lives just because you think pharma is trying to make a quick buck.

I’ve seen first hand what mental disease and specifically bipolar disorder can do to ruin lives.

And fun fact, the FDA will not approve new drugs in class unless they are both more effective and safer/less dude effects.

Traditionally, antipsychotics and atypical antipsychotics can have really bad side effects.

Most of the side effects in the commercial are called “class warnings” or “black box warnings” Essentially those are side effects were caused by older drugs in the same class. They necessarily aren’t present in these new drugs, but because they are similar the FDA requires these.

Ps this drug also treats schizophrenia too.



The PI for this drug isn’t actually that bad. It’s probably the safest Atypical on the market.

As for price of drugs, yes, the pills cost pennies to make, but you’re ignoring the Billions capital B that it costs for research, development and FDA trials.




Thankfully, you’re not a doctor and science has proven you wrong.

People needing medical like this have measurable insufficiencies of Dopamine in their brains, which cause personality disorders and altered mental status.

Mental disease is no different than any other disease. Saying otherwise is not only ignorant, but harmful and causes stigma.

If we can treat endocrine problems by measuring a persons body is low or high in a certain hormone or enzyme, and then resolve the disorder with medication or supplementation... why is the brain or nervous system any different?

If a dificiency of dopamine is measured in a person, they hear voices and have irrational behavior, but then you add a domaminergic agent to increase dopamine levels and the voices dissapear and they behave normally, isn’t that evidence that disease was present?

I concur, it's easy to downplay mental health. I personally struggle with bipolar disorder, and listening to the side effects of all these different types of drugs, it's easy to laugh at the side effects like it's a no brainer.

But when you feel like blowing your brains out and see no hope in life, those side effects are easy to swallow, compared to the alternative. After trying the 'natural' methods of living life, once they don't work, you pretty much have no other choice than to medicate. I've tried excercising and eating an all natural diet. Sometime that stuff just doesn't work.

I think mental health is something that needs desperate health in the US. People need help with this desperately, but it seems that there aren't enough psychiatrists to fill the need. Something I've thought about in the past is developing an AI that can help people determine what specific mental health disorder they have and based on their bloodwork, develop a prescription plan based on that. Of course, it's probably much more complicated than that, but that's for someone much smarter than me...

 

[MJ DeMarco]

I took the problem head on:
IF, Lean diet and exercise.

A year later I'm at my peak and I can hardly remember who i was a year ago, and I was that close to a bottle of meds.

Congrats.

If the medical industrial complex pushed this regime BEFORE medication, the pharmaceutical industry would be 2/3's its current size.

That's my gripe.

 

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[arcola]

I really believe in 100 years from now when medicine has evolved to be more personal and system based (working out more or eating better proscribed by dr instead of just meds), they are going to look back at things like this and think we were so barbaric and insane. Like how we look back at leeching