Should we medicate our teen daughter for anxiety

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Finally it is worth noting that the same multinational corporations that own the subsidiaries that sell us poisoned processed foods also own subsidiaries that are comprised of pharmaceutical companies. Anyone who doesn’t get the connection between these entities is just not paying attention. CVS stopped selling cigarettes several years ago because they’re a health care company they proclaimed - but when you go there to pick up your pharmaceuticals, you have to walk past aisle after aisle of highly processed edible substances that are not actually food but rather food products. There is a massive difference between real food and food products. CVS and Walgreens and Walmart and all those places are UPF pushers - they have no moral qualms with selling the products that drive obesity and diabetes and chronic sleep deprivation and mental health disorders along with the pharmaceuticals that treat the symptoms but don’t cure anything.

There is no profit motive in curing lifestyle diseases.

There is very low profit motive in selling broccoli, et al.

Make the connection, people.

To me, you seem very zealous. Why do you care if someone takes 10mg of prozac. You sound just as controlling as the pharmaceuticals you despise. Medicine can help. Why make things more difficult?

I am very zealous. I spent 30 years taking SSRIs and SNRIs thrown at me by various physicians and psychiatrists and suffering the host of awful side effects including chronic insomnia that worsens mental illness and the weight gain that exacerbates anxiety/depression.

Never once in those 30 years did a single doctor ask me how I’d been sleeping, eating or exercising BEFORE I developed anxiety/depression, nor did they suggest I try exercise, light therapy, clean diet, meditation/breath work to manage anxiety depression - yet even in the 1990s there was already substantial research to suggest that mental illness could be greatly alleviated by these lifestyle changes to manage stress, and thirty years later the clinical and research evidence is overwhelming that the improvement from lifestyle changes used to manage anxiety and depression is equally effective and even more effective over the long term than taking pills that bring a host of very bad side effects which cause most patients to cycle on and off and on and off and suffer endlessly so big Pharma can make a buck.

There are hours of education on pharmaceuticals in medical school. There is not even a days worth of education on the critical ways proper nutrition impacts all aspects of our health from gut biome to brain resilience. Guess who underwrites substantial amounts of the research and education arms of universities that house medical schools?

Do I need to give you the answer, or can you work it out for yourself?

Yes, I’m very angry about three decades wasted on the hamster wheel of anxiety/depression medications. This is not schizophrenia or psychotic bipolar disorder, this is far too common anxiety and depression which is rooted in our lifestyles and can be put into effective remission by lifestyle changes alone - with the added benefit of staving off the host of other chronic illnesses that poor lifestyle choices ultimately lead to, including more and more often in kids as young as preteens.

Sleep
Exercise
Sun exposure/lightbox therapy in winter
Whole foods diet focused on phytonutrients especially omega 3s as in fish or walnuts
Cut out the sugar, cut out the UPFs
Meditation, breath work, yoga
Cognitive behavioral therapy

Any parent who truly cares about setting their kids up for lifelong mental health will take this approach before tossing pills down their throats

NP. NP. I am sorry for your pain. Yet, you sound unhinged and your poor choices do not give you allowance to judge/shame other parents who make choices for their kids you disagree with.

My DS was diagnosed with GAD at age 4. We tried CBT and all you suggest for years - until we participated in an NIH anxiety study when he was in 4th grade. It was evaluating the effectiveness of CBT. His anxiety was so significant he couldn't participate and the suggested an SSRI. Looking back, DS is now 21, we should have medicated him earlier. SSRIs have been life changing AND lifesaving.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Finally it is worth noting that the same multinational corporations that own the subsidiaries that sell us poisoned processed foods also own subsidiaries that are comprised of pharmaceutical companies. Anyone who doesn’t get the connection between these entities is just not paying attention. CVS stopped selling cigarettes several years ago because they’re a health care company they proclaimed - but when you go there to pick up your pharmaceuticals, you have to walk past aisle after aisle of highly processed edible substances that are not actually food but rather food products. There is a massive difference between real food and food products. CVS and Walgreens and Walmart and all those places are UPF pushers - they have no moral qualms with selling the products that drive obesity and diabetes and chronic sleep deprivation and mental health disorders along with the pharmaceuticals that treat the symptoms but don’t cure anything.

There is no profit motive in curing lifestyle diseases.

There is very low profit motive in selling broccoli, et al.

Make the connection, people.

To me, you seem very zealous. Why do you care if someone takes 10mg of prozac. You sound just as controlling as the pharmaceuticals you despise. Medicine can help. Why make things more difficult?

I am very zealous. I spent 30 years taking SSRIs and SNRIs thrown at me by various physicians and psychiatrists and suffering the host of awful side effects including chronic insomnia that worsens mental illness and the weight gain that exacerbates anxiety/depression.

Never once in those 30 years did a single doctor ask me how I’d been sleeping, eating or exercising BEFORE I developed anxiety/depression, nor did they suggest I try exercise, light therapy, clean diet, meditation/breath work to manage anxiety depression - yet even in the 1990s there was already substantial research to suggest that mental illness could be greatly alleviated by these lifestyle changes to manage stress, and thirty years later the clinical and research evidence is overwhelming that the improvement from lifestyle changes used to manage anxiety and depression is equally effective and even more effective over the long term than taking pills that bring a host of very bad side effects which cause most patients to cycle on and off and on and off and suffer endlessly so big Pharma can make a buck.

There are hours of education on pharmaceuticals in medical school. There is not even a days worth of education on the critical ways proper nutrition impacts all aspects of our health from gut biome to brain resilience. Guess who underwrites substantial amounts of the research and education arms of universities that house medical schools?

Do I need to give you the answer, or can you work it out for yourself?

Yes, I’m very angry about three decades wasted on the hamster wheel of anxiety/depression medications. This is not schizophrenia or psychotic bipolar disorder, this is far too common anxiety and depression which is rooted in our lifestyles and can be put into effective remission by lifestyle changes alone - with the added benefit of staving off the host of other chronic illnesses that poor lifestyle choices ultimately lead to, including more and more often in kids as young as preteens.

Sleep
Exercise
Sun exposure/lightbox therapy in winter
Whole foods diet focused on phytonutrients especially omega 3s as in fish or walnuts
Cut out the sugar, cut out the UPFs
Meditation, breath work, yoga
Cognitive behavioral therapy

Any parent who truly cares about setting their kids up for lifelong mental health will take this approach before tossing pills down their throats

You have a point and said your piece however, your experience with drugs is not the same for everyone. And I find you very off putting and judgemental so forgive me if I don't listen to you because YOU don't think I care about MY kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To the poster insisting anxiety always has some underlying cause.

My child has been diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder. I likely have it in a milder form, though have no official diagnosis.

The anxiety often arises as a free floating feeling, rather than one coming from some specific cause. I can literally see the thought process in my daughter (and identify it in myself) as the brain goes looking for a cause to attach to the anxiety, because a feeling without an obvious logical cause is unsettling. The reason she will ultimately settle on for the anxious feeling has *nothing* to do with causing it. It is a feeling in search of a cause. The underlying cause is brain chemistry and genetics. The best coping mechanisms are tools to balance brain chemistry (sleep, diet, and, yes, most definitely medication) combined with learning to identify when this is happening and develop tools for managing it - but that is a hard skill to learn, and one a lot of teens haven't mastered yet. (Heck, a lot of adults haven't mastered it).

How did our brain chemistry get so screwed up then, to the point where anxiety is at epidemic levels? What’s happened in the last 20, 50, 100 years?

We ignored it or locked those people away either in jail or other institutions.

That’s a lazy answer with very little data to back it up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To the poster insisting anxiety always has some underlying cause.

My child has been diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder. I likely have it in a milder form, though have no official diagnosis.

The anxiety often arises as a free floating feeling, rather than one coming from some specific cause. I can literally see the thought process in my daughter (and identify it in myself) as the brain goes looking for a cause to attach to the anxiety, because a feeling without an obvious logical cause is unsettling. The reason she will ultimately settle on for the anxious feeling has *nothing* to do with causing it. It is a feeling in search of a cause. The underlying cause is brain chemistry and genetics. The best coping mechanisms are tools to balance brain chemistry (sleep, diet, and, yes, most definitely medication) combined with learning to identify when this is happening and develop tools for managing it - but that is a hard skill to learn, and one a lot of teens haven't mastered yet. (Heck, a lot of adults haven't mastered it).

How did our brain chemistry get so screwed up then, to the point where anxiety is at epidemic levels? What’s happened in the last 20, 50, 100 years?

We ignored it or locked those people away either in jail or other institutions.

Exactly! Why are people acting like things were fine 50 years ago? My father slowly drank himself to death because he was depressed and anxious his whole life. He could have lived a much longer, happy, productive life if he had access to medication and therapy. People will find a way to soothe their pain.

How do you know it was brain chemistry related?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There is no extra credit for getting through life without medication. She will never get her teen years back.

As someone who was an anxious teen, took medication, and had much more freedom to do the things I wanted to do in life because of it, I honestly can't understand hesitation about this.

+1 I was an anxious teen (and kid) and my parents would not allow me to try medication. I resent them for it and went on SSRIs at 18 and my life improved greatly.

[Anonymous]

NP here - I do think our society is overprescribed mess. Ditto for the gross and unhealthy chemicals in our daily diets. The problem is our reality is unlikely to change so it's up to each family to care and be educated on how big business truly aims to make us all unhealthier. If you don't watch out you will get sick because of our lifestyle in general.

This said, I also believe there's a place for western medicine. DS is better on Prozac than not. He doesn't do well on ADHD meds so he's not in them. He does Trans. Meditation and the TM helps. So a blend of therapies for our family. I try to feed our family healthy stuff and shop at WF. We also buy plenty of junk food like Doritos and drink Gatorade when kids play sports! Cause there's healthy stuff that tastes like shit! And I think it's OK to not eat 100% healthy. In an ideal world I'd love to take my family to live overseas esp in Europe where food is not as overly processed as US. Because I cannot do that, I remain cognizant that 95% of food at Safeway really isn't healthy yet I will still get some of that because honestly, food has to taste good as well

I think we in this country have to be realistic that meds are important but not a 100% cure all. Every situation us unique and it's never black and white.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This thread gives me a whole different understanding of our record young adult overdose rate.

It is what comes of undertreated depression, anxiety and trauma—and of living among adults who are as combative and dysregulated and unable to get their adult pants on as people in this thread.

Jesus.

Drugs are over prescribed. We have a culture and now a generation of kids who are prescribed drugs starting from a young age. Why not try other things before going the drug route?

Because kids with untreated or undertreated mental illness have ready access to self-medication and relatively little impulse control to prevent them from using it. And that stuff has fentanyl in it.

This isn't really that hard. If you want a living kid, you do not leave mental health problems undertreated.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I bare knuckled my way through CBT etc. and didn't find relief until I tried medication. The medication helped me access the skills I was learning in therapy. Before the medication, therapy was just white noise and something I was hearing but not internalizing. Anxiety is easily treated with fluoxetine (Prozac), which is also easy to discontinue if needed. Talk to her doctor about your options.

Bumping this. My son had a full neuropsychological evaluation to rule out learning difficulties and he apparently doesn’t have any, his issues are all related to generalized anxiety disorder. He’s been in CBT since July and he’s just not getting anything out of it and is now starting to fight it, saying it causes more anxiety than it’s worth.

We have an appointment with his pediatrician next week to talk about the report and next steps. I think he is ready for meds as his anxiety continues to haunt him (and our family). Hoping she is on board.

[Anonymous]

Isn’t this something you discuss with the therapist?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s your main reason for fights, you are at your wits end—what is the harm in trying it for six weeks and seeing if it helps?

Of course she can go off it. She can try it for a day or a week and stop taking it if she chooses. It may not work, or it may help a lot. She may have to try several different medications to find one that works well for her.

You don’t take anti-anxiety medicine for a day or week, it does not work like that..Geeeezz
This is why you don’t ask the internet these types of questions.

[Anonymous]

SNRIs were a lifesaver for me and I started SSRI/SNRIs in college. I truly wish I had been able to start them earlier.

I found therapy and meds to be the best approach for me. Often, the meds will stop the tailspin and calm the brain so that therapy is accessible. That's when you can recognize triggers, patterns, and develop coping mechanisms for when the anxiety/panic hit. To me, that gives hope for a life without meds, if that is your goal.

[Anonymous]

I think you can filter out garden variety anxiety by getting more sleep, a good diet, exercise, vitamin d and magnesium, and working on any stressors in the home. If things don’t improve after those changes, I’d look for other solutions like therapy and medication.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Find the root cause.

They did. It's anxiety.

Anxiety can have many different physical causes. Because the DC is a teen, I will assume of menstruating age, iron deficiency would be the first physical factor to look at but there are others. There can also be social causes such as adhd. Anxiety shouldn't just be taken as a quick answer to let everyone off the hook.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Find the root cause.

This. With the help of a therapist and/or doctor. And if you start meds, don't just say "all is better now" without finding the root cause or it will upheave her life later on.

The root cause is often the wiring you are born with.

The root cause is genetic but also the daily influx of these kids are exposed to such as:
a world pandemic, Ukraine,/ Russia War, Palestinian / Israeli war, ptsd, social media, friendships, excelling in school, etc

addressing what’s really escalating her anxiety helps tremendously.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Find the root cause.

This. With the help of a therapist and/or doctor. And if you start meds, don't just say "all is better now" without finding the root cause or it will upheave her life later on.

The root cause is often the wiring you are born with.

The root cause is genetic but also the daily influx of these kids are exposed to such as:
a world pandemic, Ukraine,/ Russia War, Palestinian / Israeli war, ptsd, social media, friendships, excelling in school, etc

addressing what’s really escalating her anxiety helps tremendously.

Kids growing up around the world during World War II were not medicated for anxiety and/or depression from exposure to news about WWII. Instead they were outside in the sunshine working in family gardens and outside doing metal drives.