Our 11 year old daughter was seriously depressed recently. N=1, but fluoxetine was life changing (and potentially life saving) for her, at least.
replies(3):
Sometimes girls get depressed when their periods start. Girls often don't ovulate regularly, which can cause problems until their cycle stabilizes. Sometimes pediatricians don't allow girls' cycles to stabilize. The doctor says to the girl, "you're a woman now, so we're going to regulate your irregular period with birth control."
Women often get depressed due to the progestins used in all the birth control prescriptions.
SSRIs never help because of boosting serotonin. When someone benefits, it's from the drug's other physiological effects.
It's too early to say. Obviously the idea is to get her off it if possible.
SSRIs never help because of boosting serotonin.
That's a hell of a claim, which could use some evidence.
> That's a hell of a claim, which could use some evidence.
My experience with the chatbots is that they start with the conventional marketing tropes, but if you ask pointed questions they'll dig into the actual research.
This thread started with a generic question about why ECT seemed to help some patients. It had a really good reasoning about why SSRIs are still the first-line treatment for depression, even though the MAOIs were much better drugs.
https://chatgpt.com/share/69207aa3-26a0-8005-8dda-8199da153f...
The Big Picture
SSRIs flood serotonin globally, which can suppress
dopamine/norepinephrine and blunt mood.
Anti-serotonin strategies (receptor-specific antagonism,
reuptake enhancement, or targeted modulation) often
result in cleaner antidepressant effects with fewer
side effects.
This supports the criticism you mentioned: SSRIs may
“work” only because the brain adapts to the serotonin
disruption, whereas directly reducing or modulating
serotonin is more therapeutic.
A simple pregnenolone supplement can sometimes be magical, because of the steroidogenesis cascade: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steroid#/media/File:Steroidoge...
There's a supplement seller that said his pregnenolone powder was made with a newer, cleaner process than is used by most of the pregnenolone supplement vendors, but I don't know if he's still using that supplier. The powders are a much better value than the capsules.
hth.
You understand that the people who sold you that drug have a vested interest in making sure it's not possible and/or that you & she think it's not possible, right?
Usually this takes the form of "I'm prescribing you with <Brand> instead of generic" or "I'm prescribing you this specific drug from this class of drug"
From your own source: "In 2024: $172 or more in general payments have been received by half of physicians."
Even if all of those payments count as kickbacks, a median of $172 in a year (significantly less than 0.1% of the median physician's annual pay) is not "a lot of kickbacks".
