Why take drugs?

I don't want to take meds, I want to be natural why?
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I am specifically asking?
why why why why

[specialmom]

Why take medicine?  Well, for some it is required to overcome their depression. Clinical depression feels bad and impairs life.  so, that is motivating for some to take medicine that works for them to relieve this.  It's not a requirement if you don't want to.  But it is often needed for recovery/treatment of depression.  You can try talk therapy as well with a good psychologist or therapist.  That is very helpful and you can get to root reasons for issues as well as talk about coping strategies.  CBT is wonderful.  Exercise is known to lift mood.  But there is no shame in taking medicine.  

And please know that going to the health store and stocking up on 'natural' holistic medicines is still manipulating your body in a medicinal way only without any true studies to say if it will work.  I'm not against natural and holistic medicine but it is unregulated with many claims made and few knowledgeable people.  Even something as simple as an interaction with something else needs to be considered when self medicating at the health food store.  good luck

[Paxiled]

Just want to do what I always do when this issue comes up, as I spent 18 years managing health foods stores.  First, I notice you put "natural" in quotes.  Some "natural" remedies are definitely not natural at all, they are pharmaceutical products that can't get patents because they are also found in nature, although not in isolated form.  Some remedies are completely natural, such as herbs.  Common remedies have been either used for so many centuries we have much more experience with them than with any drug other than aspirin, which has also been around for centuries, so we pretty much know what they do and what the side effects are.  Uncommon remedies, such as isolating some new ingredient from a plant that has never been used before, is taking a risk, but so are drugs -- very few people take part in drug experiments and we only learn about them after they're approved.  Some are very well known because they are pharmaceutical products, such as vitamins and amino acids -- they were developed and studied the same as drugs but again couldn't get a patent so the money for doing a lot of human studies isn't there.  But we do have a reporting system from hospitals for adverse reactions, and if you compare those for natural remedies and for drugs, well, they aren't remotely comparable.  And it's a myth that natural remedies aren't regulated -- the FDA can regulate them any way it wants as long as it doesn't do anything that would be so expensive they would be driven from the market altogether.  For the most part, the FDA doesn't regulate them as much as it could because it wants them to appear to be unsafe and unregulated, as the FDA is controlled by the medical industry, not the supplement industry.  It's good advice that if you don't know anything about herbs and don't like reading about things, don't use them without professional help.  The same is true for medication.  The same is true for therapy.  I agree with this part.  I only put this in because the history of medicine is very little known because our profit driven system is oligarchical, and therefore the biggest players drive what we see and hear.  In the US, that's the pharmaceutical industry, and they only tell us the good news, not the bad.  But bottom line, the person who posted this still hasn't told us why he or she posted what isn't a question, and if the poster would tell us why the post is there the answers would be a lot better.

[Ehrin22]

Personally, I can't conceive of a reason strong enough to make me skip a dose.

[Liverpatient]

I took antidepresive medicines for four years after I became suicidal. The medicines helped me a bit not to be afraid and to have a positive attitude to my life. But with time I became more tired, I developed unspecified muscle aches and my stomach became very distended. I have now been away from these drugs for about three years, but, unfortunately my feelings of anxiety, fear, catastrophic thinking, pessimist attitude, even my suicidal thoughts have  increased. So now I'm at a loss as to what to do, but I really do not want to get back to those medicines. Psychology didn't help me, because the main source of my anxiety and depresion is somatic disease or something that has to do with my physical body.

[Ehrin22]

As a bi-polar, my doctor once told me that the older drug Lithium has an extra benefit (not just in the treating mania) in that it somehow helps alleviate suicidal thoughts and the like. Its cheap, its covered by most insurance plans and there are virtually no major side effects. At least, that has been my experience.

[Liverpatient]

Thanks for your reply, but I don't think I'm bi-polar or with mania. I'm just tired of this life, and wish it was over. I've recently read that antidepressants are useless, and their sides are far worse.

[Ehrin22]

Lithium is not just prescribed for bi-polar or mania. Some doctors give it to women who get excessively moody after their menstrual cycle, for instance. I think they say its a mood stabilizer. Of course, you need to talk to your doctor about that. I could not exist without my antidepressant, though. Within 4 days of the cessation of doses, the bad thoughts and compulsions come creeping in, and after a week, you might find me on the 6:00 news! Gotta have it to live. No exceptions,.

[Paxiled]

Giving a woman with a hormonal imbalance a drug that profoundly alters the brain should be done rarely if at all -- doctors usually do this because they don't know how to handle hormonal imbalances.  Lithium, by the way, is taken in two ways -- by prescription, which is very strong and can have many side effects for some people, and in the weaker supplement form.  As to the comment that the person "read" that antidepressants are useless and the side effects far worse, true for some, not true for others, and different drugs work differently and are metabolized differently by a particular individual.  They are not useless, don't know what you're reading.  But they might not work for you.  As for your problem being physical, if that were true, there are tests to find that out -- it would mean you have a problem such as with your thyroid or blood sugar or hormones or a hidden virus or any number of things.  But even if you have that, therapy can still help but only if the therapist is right for you and you work hard in therapy.  Again, a very individual thing.  Statistics such as they exist and it's very hard to test such things as emotional illness and therapy show these things work about 30% of the time, but that only means with that particular individual therapist.  Another might work fine.  And might not.  I've never gotten much benefit from therapy, but when it works it's the only cure we know of.  Some drugs have helped me and some have ruined me.  Very individual thing and depends as well on the quality of your psychiatrist.  It's true, it's a crapshoot out there, but if you never roll the dice you're guaranteed not to win.

[Paxiled]

Why what?