How much is medication about believing and how much is about the active chemical?

Question

Just want to say: Great answer Macfunky!

Great answer mamabear!

Answer 1

All medication is released after comparing it to a placebo. Therefore, when something is used it is used because it is known to do better than something else which is also believed to work. So you can be quite confident that the medication is better than believing alone.

In terms of effect, placebo responses are usually about 30 to 40% versus 70 to 90% for medication. Also, be aware of the nocebo response - if you think it won't work, chances are it won't :-)

Answer 2

Look through any popular magazine at one of the many psychiatric medication advertisements out there now days and read the fine print.

"It is not certain how this works."

First of all it is disturbing how the psych med has become the main stream ad in magazines like People and Glamor and Ladies home journal... Why is that?

What was once The Marlboro Man and Budweiser advertisements is now the happy little blurb and his little pill that makes a world of Ill's just float away...

Society needs to learn to allow people to be themselves and stop catering to the advertisers. They are creating unnecessary dependencies, controlling the population and taking advantage of the simplest and most basic of the human characteristics... Desire.

Exploiting addiction and sadness alike page by dirty page.

If people learn tolerance, acceptance, love, understanding honesty and compassion. They wouldn't need the medications that no one is sure how they work anyway...

Mental health should be about accountability, honesty and acceptance... tolerance for one another and a community willing to help one another. I suppose when the white picket fence 50's American ideal didn't pan out. The pill was there to erase the pain and the confusion and it should not be that way.

I suppose taking a pill is just always going to be easier?

If Television shows like Bewitched existed today... Darren would come home from a hard day of advertising, to a valium or a xanax or a prozac on a little silver tray instead of a Dry Martini or a glass of scotch?

Same sh*it different day...

Answer 3

Well i think a lot of it is to do with believing.i had been on meds myself for a few years.i have been off them 2 years now and have found alternative methods to be of much greater benefit.thing is there is no proven chemical imbalance.if you read information about meds they ALL say it is supposed/presumed that they work in such a way.the chemical imbalance idea is pure speculation.it doesnt feature in any science journals cause actual scientists dont take it seriously.there are many stories you hear about low levels of various chemicals were found in patients with depression.one thing to bear in mind is that the levels of any of these chemicals can vary greatly from day to day,even hour to hour.if you kept checking people you would find happy people with low levels and depressed people with high levels.it varies constantly.also even if there was a chemical imbalance they have absolutely no idea how a chemical imbalance would look.they dont know what a "properly balanced" brain looks like.its all speculation.i think at most meds calm you/sedate you so you dont in a way feel so much and thats what can help people.as a long term solution i have serious doubts about them.i often use the term painting over dirt.i have never known anyone to be in the long term helped by them.only ever have i seen them being beneficial in the short term(which is how they are supposed to be used).there is a lot of cases of them causing problems in the long term and being counter productive

Answer 4

I know there's been blind test run on every drug conceivable
do to my work in the medical field, I just don't have the facts or figures on any given drug, but this I know, there has always
been an fair amount of people that when given a placebo returned the same results as the group given the medication,
or the group given none at all if it was a threeway blind.

Answer 5

Unfortunately for me, I do need the chemical--and have for over 20 years. For many, though, it is mind over matter--they can take a placebo and really feel relief.

Answer 6

Maybe some of both, but did you know that
prescription drugs are the 4th leading cause
of death in the U.S.? That's eye-opening,
isn't it?

Answer 7

Could you rephrase your question? I have no idea what you're asking? Sorry!

Answer 8

good question.
I am ill myself and i always wonder about that.