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> my 7-year-old son just started half that dose This is horrifying.

kstrauser 10mo ago
Why? If a kid has diabetes, would it be horrifying to treat it? Why would it be different for a neurochemistry issue that makes the same kid tired and sad all the time?
- jacobgkau 10mo ago
  Because the problem's not a "neurochemistry issue" (that theory's been debunked and the "chemicals" in play have never been known), and the solution is "no better than placebo."
  - dekhn 10mo ago
    [flagged]
    - hintklb 10mo ago
      Not that I agree or disagree with the underlying claim but a call to "credentialism" to dismiss someone's opinion is not as strong in 2025 as you think it is. The last few years have been a proof that even the "experts" are following strong political or personal ideology. Also we don't live in the 18th century anymore. A lot of knowledge (especially around medicine) is open to the world. People can read papers, understand research etc.
      - dekhn 10mo ago
        In this area, having credentials makes a difference. Experts matter. Few if any non-medical people can read medical papers and make sense of what they say. There is simply far too much context to evaluate such papers, especially in the cases of complex medical conditions.
        hintklb 10mo ago
        Sorry but strong disagree here. I have had a lot of Spinal and sleep issues. I have read almost all new literature on this niche subject and I have brought to my spine doctor some new therapy and treatments they had literally no idea about. Those treatments have changed my life. As an engineer I read a lot of deep technical paper as my day job. Medical papers are comparatively relatively simple. The most complex part being usually the statistical data analysis. We have pushed to a whole generation of people that only the "experts" can have opinion on some fields. I encourage everyone to read papers and have opinions on some of those subjects. We are in 2025. That type of gatekeeping needs to go away. AI if anything, is going to really help with this as well.
        tjohns 10mo ago
        I think it's good to read papers and be curious. It's also good to work with your doctors (as you seem to have done), have a discussion, and mutually agree on a plan of treatment. Experts don't know everything. But they probably know some things you don't, and can think of questions you might not to have even thought to ask. As the saying goes, "you don't know what you don't know". Experience matters. There's also a lot of people out there without an academic background that don't know how to properly read journal papers. It's common to see folks do a quick search on PubMed, cherry-pick a single paper they agree with, and treat it as gospel - even if there's no evidence of repeatability. These skills are not something that many people outside STEM are exposed to.
        dekhn 10mo ago
        Cherrypicking is bad, but worse is reading a paper and thinking you understand what it says, when you don't actually understand what it says. Or thinking that a paper and its data can be observed neutrally as a factual and accurate statement for what work was actually done. My experience in journal club- basically, a group of grad students who all read a paper and then discuss it in person- taught me that most papers are just outright wrong for technical reasons. I'd say about 1 in 5 to 1 in 10 papers passes all the basic tests, and even the ones that do pass can have significant problems. For example, there is an increasing recognition that many papers in biology and medicine have fake data, or manipulated data, or corrupted data, or incorrectly labelled data. I know folks who've read papers and convinced themselvs the paper is good, when later the paper was retracted because the authors copied a few gels into the wrong columns...
      - rfrey 10mo ago
        > People can read papers, understand research etc. Then he should cite the papers, point out the research, etc. Rather than dismissing the entire discipline and all its practitioners with a wave of the "common-sense mental illness isn't real" wand.
    - tremon 10mo ago
      I hope you do realize that this comment thread is linked to an article that includes the words "Prozac no better than placebo" in its headline?
      - dekhn 10mo ago
        Yes, I do. I don't consider articles in the regular press to be even remotely worth looking at due to their high rate of inaccuracy. Here's the paper that the article refers to: https://www.jclinepi.com/article/S0895-4356%2825%2900349-X/fulltext https://www.jclinepi.com/article/S0895-4356%2825%2900349-X/f...
      - malfist 10mo ago
        These types of studies are published all the time and can easily be dismissed. Antidepressants are _only_ for major depression. Not mild or moderate. These studies that find no significance compared to a placebo are always tried in patients with all types of depression. Not just major. It's so common it's a trope. "Antidepressants don't work" says the scientists testing antidepressants on things they're not supposed to work on. Studies repeated with just major depression all conclude antidepressants are better than a placebo. Click through the article to the study and you'll find they did not limit their study to must major
  - robertakarobin 10mo ago
    Can you provide a source for that theory having been debunked? I agree that data has been found that is at odds with the various neurochemical theories but am not aware of the neurochemistry link as a whole having been definitely debunked.
    - GOD_Over_Djinn 10mo ago
      [flagged]
      - robertakarobin 10mo ago
        Ah, well-put! I think we may be reacting differently to the same articles. My understanding is that while various neurochemical theories have not been proven as the general public seems to think, they have also not necessarily been disproven or debunked. Certainly it has not been proven that neurochemistry has no role at all.
      - ToucanLoucan 10mo ago
        Probably because the commenter is not a medical professional and isn't qualified to judge the veracity of anything they find. "Do your own research" is a fucking plague on our modern world and is why the internet is like wall to wall grifters now. By all means, Google whatever you like, but if you show up to a doctors office waving WebMD sheets in a medical professionals face, you are going to be mocked and you deserve it.
        ckw 10mo ago
        I witnessed a pair of doctors prescribe a family member an incredibly dangerous drug for an off label use. The company had been fined $500 million dollars for various illegal schemes to convince doctors to write such prescriptions, but I’m sure the doctors in question were unaware of this. When this family member began to exhibit textbook symptoms of an extremely dangerous (life threatening) condition which could only be caused by the drug in question, the doctors failed to notice, and in fact repeatedly increased the dosage, and added more drugs on top to treat the symptoms caused by the initial drug. It was not until I accompanied my relative to a doctor’s appointment and delivered a carefully designed incantation that they made the correct diagnosis and halted the prescriptions. So should I not have done my own research?
  - amanaplanacanal 10mo ago
    I don't think we know if it's a neurochemistry issue. From what I understand what was debunked was the idea that they worked by blocking the reuptake of serotonin specifically.
  - amluto 10mo ago
    …so what? There’s an interesting theory lately [0] that the antidepressant effect of SSRIs is actually unrelated to its effect on serotonin. Suppose, for the sake of argument, that this is completely true: serotonin has nothing to do with depression, increasing serotonin levels is useless for treating depression, and everything everyone has ever claimed about chemical imbalances causing depression is flat-out wrong. If so, pharma companies should probably try to develop different drugs instead of new SSRIs. But it does not follow that a patient with depression ought not to take an SSRI. That would be like saying that taking aspirin for aches has been completely debunked because there is no connection between aches and aspirin’s anticoagulant effect. [0] See, for example, https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/trkb-bdnf-and-depression https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/trkb-bdnf-and-depr...
  - crowbahr 10mo ago
    > Because the problem's not a "neurochemistry issue" (that theory's been debunked and the "chemicals" in play have never been known), and the solution is "no better than placebo." It most certainly has not been debunked and mind altering chemicals most certainly do work. SSRIs have _questionable_ efficacy but that's not the same as proven to have none, which is an exceptionally high bar. This is close minded dogma no better a religion.
    - hajile 10mo ago
      If you don't have a serious model for what you are treating, then you are experimenting on your patients and hoping it works for unknown reasons. Not too different from folk remedies. Even worse, patients are essentially never informed that the doctor is throwing things at the wall hoping something sticks.
      - johnisgood 10mo ago
        You just described what psychiatrists do. (I have many first-hand and second-hand experiences.)
  - nuancebydefault 10mo ago
    "neurochemistry issue debunked" is a very weak argument about the (in)effectiveness of proper drugs for treatment of mental illness. It's not exactly known how they work but I am 100 percent sure SSRIs often have a very positive, even life changing effect. Moreover, every approved drug is tested 'double blind' exactly because the placebo effect has such a big biasing effect on subjectively appreciated outcomes. Only when ruling out pure placebo effect, a drug can be approved.
    - jacobgkau 10mo ago
      > Moreover, every approved drug is tested 'double blind' exactly because the placebo effect has such a big biasing effect on subjectively appreciated outcomes. Only when ruling out pure placebo effect, a drug can be approved. Pretty weird the article we're commenting on about Prozac being no better than placebo for children is just now coming out when it was already approved for use in children, then.
potatocoffee 10mo ago
Why?
- jacobgkau 10mo ago
  Because 7 years old is borderline too young to even make a depression diagnosis, and that kid's going to have his brain chemistry altered and essentially be addicted to a drug that he'll have to pay for for the rest of his life.
  - potatocoffee 10mo ago
    O cool. Do you have any appointments I can book for my kid?
    - fgonzag 10mo ago
      Mine too! Only 2 years old but I can already see the massive anxiety bursts in him. If this guy has a non chemical cure, I'm all for it. In fact I'm actively researching children psychologists to stave off the meds as much as we can, the problem is that 99% of psychologists are quacks, so choosing them is tough.
      - potatocoffee 10mo ago
        There's only so many times a kid can get sent home from school for biting/kicking/punching before you realize you need some professional help and will do anything to help the poor kid. I wish you luck.
  - pyth0 10mo ago
    How can you believe it's both "no better than placebo" but also that it's "going to have his brain chemistry altered and essentially be addicted to a drug". SSRIs are not considered addictive, though people can develop a dependence if it provides them significant improvement.
    - 10mo ago
robertakarobin 10mo ago
We had/have a lot of reservations about it too, and discussed it at length with our pediatrician over months of observation. We decided what was more horrifying was hearing a 7-year-old — who has supportive family and friends, good health, no traumatic events, no major life changes going on, never worries where food/shelter is coming from — say he feels like "he shouldn't be on Earth anymore" and suddenly react with extreme physical anxiety to almost everything. It was bad enough that he couldn't really implement any of the coping skills he learned in therapy. His therapist hoped that medication would bring him to a baseline where he was able to benefit more from therapy. My family's historical success with Prozac also made the decision more palatable since depression appears to be hereditary. There has been a phenomenal positive shift in his behavior since he started medication. All that said, another commenter pointed out that the study specifically says that Prozac is no better than placebo for depression, which is similar to but distinct from anxiety, which is what my son is being treated for. My mom and I were both diagnosed with depression, but anxiety may be more accurate -- I'm not sure.
- jacobgkau 10mo ago
  I'd be more interested in where your 7-year-old even learned phrases like "I feel like I shouldn't be on Earth anymore."
  - robertakarobin 10mo ago
    Yes, us too. Beats us. Sure wasn't around our house, and we can't imagine any family/friends/TV/whatever he may have learned it from.
    - deleted 10mo ago
      [deleted]
    - pizzafeelsright 10mo ago
      [flagged]
      - 10mo ago
fgonzag 10mo ago
You don't understand what having extreme anxiety at that age feels like. As someone who lived through that, I refuse to let him. All of memories of school are just feeling anxious about everything, just tight and suffocated, always in a panic. I started living when I started taking anxiety pills at 39 years old, and I can see my 2 year old having the exact same anxiety ticks and fits I have. I don't know at what age I'll medicate him, but I'll do it as soon as I notice he isn't coping and happy anymore. Horrifying is forcing him to experience that because you can't comprehend us.
- hintklb 10mo ago
  The main issue I see is that the anxiety pill is a way to treat the symptoms, not the cause. Do you think that there is a way to treat the underlying cause and not the symptoms?
  - ksenzee 10mo ago
    How do you know an anxiety pill is treating symptoms only? What if the cause is physiological, and the pill treats that? It is entirely possible to sit in your therapist's office and mutually shrug because neither of you can find an underlying reason for your anxiety. Sometimes anxiety just is.
    - N_Lens 10mo ago
      I had severe anxiety/depression and majorly recovered from the anxiety component through a year of dilligent transcendental meditation. It changes the brain structure and neurochemistry. I was on medication during that period and it complemented my practice, provided a stable base to apply meditation and other recovery protocols.
    - johnisgood 10mo ago
      I had panic attacks every morning before school. God, I hated school. Mainly because of the other kids, and when I was older, because of both the kids and the teachers. I remember telling my IT teacher I am using Linux (I forgot why I told her) and she was very condescending. I have a lot of other stories but yeah, school was an anxiety-inducing nightmare.
burner23499 10mo ago
It's also horrifying to hear your 7-year old child talk about committing suicide when you have a deep family history of depression, anxiety, and suicide. Have some empathy.
SkyPuncher 10mo ago
No, it's not. Medicine is advancing. We're increasingly able to understand and adjust dysfunctions that cause major, negative quality of life impacts. These dysfunctions have always existed, we're just getting better at finding ways to help people work through it.
- logicchains 10mo ago
  This is empirically false; the rates of chronic physical and mental illnesses nowadays are are far higher than e.g. 50 years ago, and these are serious illnesses, not the kind of thing that could have been just not noticed.
  - crowbahr 10mo ago
    That's your opinion, that is not the general opinion of the professionals in the field. I trust a cohort of scientists significantly more than anonymous strangers online, and you should too.
    - hajile 10mo ago
      The data is very clear that the rate of mental illnesses is increasing. Rates of severe mental illnesses like Schizophrenia are also increasing. NONE of the current theories being experimented with on patients have a concrete, proven scientific basis with some such as the decades-long SSRI scam have actively harmed patients and created physical dependence/addiction and actively causing harm to patients and their families (eg, SSRI-induced suicides). I trust science, but I don't trust scientists any more than I trust any other human with their money, career, and reputation on the line. I trust the FDA and pharmaceutical company ethics even less (eg, Bayer knowingly selling HIV-infested drugs to hemophiliacs, saying Oxycotin is non-addictive, or the revolving door that allows non-working SSRIs to be released and marketed as working despite all evidence to the contrary).
      - FatherOfCurses 10mo ago
        Our ability to diagnose mental illnesses are improving. 50 years ago many people with mental illness would go undiagnosed. They would instead self-medicate through alcohol, illicit drugs, or risky behavior and die far too young after leading miserable lives.
shepardrtc 10mo ago
I had terrible anxiety as a child and what I experienced dramatically affected the core of who I am. It is engrained in me and I struggle with it daily, though after decades I have surpassed a good portion of it. If a small dose can help someone have a somewhat "normal" childhood, then its worth a try.
tflol 10mo ago
> This is horrifying. I agree with this. I've learned a lot through life, one thing I've learned is about detrimental long term physical and even social effects of antidepressants, and other medications like adderal. Both I used to take. At this point in my life, if I realized my parents gave me an antidepressant prescription when I was SEVEN years old because I said something stupid WHEN I WAS SEVEN I'd be very disturbed and disappointed in them, I'd definitely give both of them a solid scolding. Before you respond to this remember I'm talking about me. Not your kid or your friends kid or your cousins kid. EDIT: Quick edit to add when I was a kid I was a total outcast, I was weird, anxious, and definitely often depressed. A lot of kids in my religious schooling systems were.
- robertakarobin 10mo ago
  My kids go to a ordinary public school. They are very bright, cautious, and thoughtful, and generally pretty happy and upbeat. There is a strong correlation between academic intelligence and mental illness. Being depressed to the point of being suicidal and having a sunny disposition are not mutually exclusive at all. I absolutely agree that it would be disturbing and disappointing for a child to be medicated because of something stupid they said when they were seven. I think medication may be appropriate if they show a consistent pattern over several months of physiological symptoms and reactions that are consistent with depression or anxiety, and cannot be explained by external factors like trauma or major life changes.
  - tflol 10mo ago
    > My kids go to a ordinary public school. They are very bright, cautious, and thoughtful, and generally pretty happy and upbeat. There is a strong correlation between academic intelligence and mental illness. Being depressed to the point of being suicidal and having a sunny disposition are not mutually exclusive at all. If my parents said this to me the moment I realized what I was on and that I had to deal with coming off of it late in life I would be beside myself. I'd probably also look up the doctor that encouraged my parents to put their seven year old on SSRIs so I could warn friends. These huge lists of side effects are haunting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_serotonin_reuptake_inhibitor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_serotonin_reuptake_i... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluoxetine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluoxetine If my parents were like "uh well I had virtually no symptoms" I'd lose my mind! Life sucks, I'm depressed all the time, kids are depressed all the time. There's material everywhere explaining a decline in general mental health. I'm happy and lucky that when my parents (or the one that was paying attention, who was certainly also depressed) noticed I was depressed or sad during a few events, some long lasting, they asked me about it, listened to me, and did their best to give me advice instead of giving up when I was seven and giving me drugs. Remember when replying, this post has all been about myself, a victim of depression.
intull 10mo ago
If you're horrified that we are in a world and society where a 7yo has been put in a position where antidepressants help them, yeah, that's understandable. If you're horrified that a kid is taking them, that the parents sought medical intervention for "just a kid", then, I'd say you're reacting to the concept of a kid on antidepressants than actually listening to the OP and their family's history and story. Often, people react to the concept of a thing rather than the ground reality of life and its complexities of lived experience. Most people also extrapolate (in either direction) others' lived experiences based on their learnings, understandings, pasts and future ambitions. In this case especially, there's also added stigma around mental health, antidepressants and the locus of personal responsibility when it comes to mental health issues. The _concept_ of a child on antidepressants suspends trust in parents, that's often assumed and unquestioned depending, depending on the child's age. Maybe close to 18yo? Supportive parents. 7yo? Horrible parents. I'd argue it also tends to suspend critical thinking and introduces an unshakeable bias, that a child of 7yo _never [ever]_ needs antidepressants. Why? What makes you say that? What's your evidence and reasoning? If you feel so horrified by that, can you consider for a moment that the parents recognize the weight and gravity of this decision too? That they had to really think this through, pursue more thorough medical advice than usual, make a judgement call, and have to live through this decision throughout all their lives? OP's response to multiple comments indicates that they did not make this decision lightly and without making sure that this was the better thing to do overall. I commend OP's openness and honesty in talking about it. It's certainly inspiring to see a parent care for their child's mental health, and not dismissing that to be "oh, the kid's just young and moody, they'll feel better tomorrow." PS. We (as a society) are always learning more and newer things about mental health and treatments. It might look like we know a lot. Perhaps. But we also don't know so much!

Why? If a kid has diabetes, would it be horrifying to treat it? Why would it be different for a neurochemistry issue that makes the same kid tired and sad all the time?

jacobgkau 10mo ago
Because the problem's not a "neurochemistry issue" (that theory's been debunked and the "chemicals" in play have never been known), and the solution is "no better than placebo."
- dekhn 10mo ago
  [flagged]
  - hintklb 10mo ago
    Not that I agree or disagree with the underlying claim but a call to "credentialism" to dismiss someone's opinion is not as strong in 2025 as you think it is. The last few years have been a proof that even the "experts" are following strong political or personal ideology. Also we don't live in the 18th century anymore. A lot of knowledge (especially around medicine) is open to the world. People can read papers, understand research etc.
    - dekhn 10mo ago
      In this area, having credentials makes a difference. Experts matter. Few if any non-medical people can read medical papers and make sense of what they say. There is simply far too much context to evaluate such papers, especially in the cases of complex medical conditions.
      - hintklb 10mo ago
        Sorry but strong disagree here. I have had a lot of Spinal and sleep issues. I have read almost all new literature on this niche subject and I have brought to my spine doctor some new therapy and treatments they had literally no idea about. Those treatments have changed my life. As an engineer I read a lot of deep technical paper as my day job. Medical papers are comparatively relatively simple. The most complex part being usually the statistical data analysis. We have pushed to a whole generation of people that only the "experts" can have opinion on some fields. I encourage everyone to read papers and have opinions on some of those subjects. We are in 2025. That type of gatekeeping needs to go away. AI if anything, is going to really help with this as well.
        tjohns 10mo ago
        I think it's good to read papers and be curious. It's also good to work with your doctors (as you seem to have done), have a discussion, and mutually agree on a plan of treatment. Experts don't know everything. But they probably know some things you don't, and can think of questions you might not to have even thought to ask. As the saying goes, "you don't know what you don't know". Experience matters. There's also a lot of people out there without an academic background that don't know how to properly read journal papers. It's common to see folks do a quick search on PubMed, cherry-pick a single paper they agree with, and treat it as gospel - even if there's no evidence of repeatability. These skills are not something that many people outside STEM are exposed to.
        dekhn 10mo ago
        Cherrypicking is bad, but worse is reading a paper and thinking you understand what it says, when you don't actually understand what it says. Or thinking that a paper and its data can be observed neutrally as a factual and accurate statement for what work was actually done. My experience in journal club- basically, a group of grad students who all read a paper and then discuss it in person- taught me that most papers are just outright wrong for technical reasons. I'd say about 1 in 5 to 1 in 10 papers passes all the basic tests, and even the ones that do pass can have significant problems. For example, there is an increasing recognition that many papers in biology and medicine have fake data, or manipulated data, or corrupted data, or incorrectly labelled data. I know folks who've read papers and convinced themselvs the paper is good, when later the paper was retracted because the authors copied a few gels into the wrong columns...
    - rfrey 10mo ago
      > People can read papers, understand research etc. Then he should cite the papers, point out the research, etc. Rather than dismissing the entire discipline and all its practitioners with a wave of the "common-sense mental illness isn't real" wand.
  - tremon 10mo ago
    I hope you do realize that this comment thread is linked to an article that includes the words "Prozac no better than placebo" in its headline?
    - dekhn 10mo ago
      Yes, I do. I don't consider articles in the regular press to be even remotely worth looking at due to their high rate of inaccuracy. Here's the paper that the article refers to: https://www.jclinepi.com/article/S0895-4356%2825%2900349-X/fulltext https://www.jclinepi.com/article/S0895-4356%2825%2900349-X/f...
    - malfist 10mo ago
      These types of studies are published all the time and can easily be dismissed. Antidepressants are _only_ for major depression. Not mild or moderate. These studies that find no significance compared to a placebo are always tried in patients with all types of depression. Not just major. It's so common it's a trope. "Antidepressants don't work" says the scientists testing antidepressants on things they're not supposed to work on. Studies repeated with just major depression all conclude antidepressants are better than a placebo. Click through the article to the study and you'll find they did not limit their study to must major
- robertakarobin 10mo ago
  Can you provide a source for that theory having been debunked? I agree that data has been found that is at odds with the various neurochemical theories but am not aware of the neurochemistry link as a whole having been definitely debunked.
  - GOD_Over_Djinn 10mo ago
    [flagged]
    - robertakarobin 10mo ago
      Ah, well-put! I think we may be reacting differently to the same articles. My understanding is that while various neurochemical theories have not been proven as the general public seems to think, they have also not necessarily been disproven or debunked. Certainly it has not been proven that neurochemistry has no role at all.
    - ToucanLoucan 10mo ago
      Probably because the commenter is not a medical professional and isn't qualified to judge the veracity of anything they find. "Do your own research" is a fucking plague on our modern world and is why the internet is like wall to wall grifters now. By all means, Google whatever you like, but if you show up to a doctors office waving WebMD sheets in a medical professionals face, you are going to be mocked and you deserve it.
      - ckw 10mo ago
        I witnessed a pair of doctors prescribe a family member an incredibly dangerous drug for an off label use. The company had been fined $500 million dollars for various illegal schemes to convince doctors to write such prescriptions, but I’m sure the doctors in question were unaware of this. When this family member began to exhibit textbook symptoms of an extremely dangerous (life threatening) condition which could only be caused by the drug in question, the doctors failed to notice, and in fact repeatedly increased the dosage, and added more drugs on top to treat the symptoms caused by the initial drug. It was not until I accompanied my relative to a doctor’s appointment and delivered a carefully designed incantation that they made the correct diagnosis and halted the prescriptions. So should I not have done my own research?
- amanaplanacanal 10mo ago
  I don't think we know if it's a neurochemistry issue. From what I understand what was debunked was the idea that they worked by blocking the reuptake of serotonin specifically.
- amluto 10mo ago
  …so what? There’s an interesting theory lately [0] that the antidepressant effect of SSRIs is actually unrelated to its effect on serotonin. Suppose, for the sake of argument, that this is completely true: serotonin has nothing to do with depression, increasing serotonin levels is useless for treating depression, and everything everyone has ever claimed about chemical imbalances causing depression is flat-out wrong. If so, pharma companies should probably try to develop different drugs instead of new SSRIs. But it does not follow that a patient with depression ought not to take an SSRI. That would be like saying that taking aspirin for aches has been completely debunked because there is no connection between aches and aspirin’s anticoagulant effect. [0] See, for example, https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/trkb-bdnf-and-depression https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/trkb-bdnf-and-depr...
- crowbahr 10mo ago
  > Because the problem's not a "neurochemistry issue" (that theory's been debunked and the "chemicals" in play have never been known), and the solution is "no better than placebo." It most certainly has not been debunked and mind altering chemicals most certainly do work. SSRIs have _questionable_ efficacy but that's not the same as proven to have none, which is an exceptionally high bar. This is close minded dogma no better a religion.
  - hajile 10mo ago
    If you don't have a serious model for what you are treating, then you are experimenting on your patients and hoping it works for unknown reasons. Not too different from folk remedies. Even worse, patients are essentially never informed that the doctor is throwing things at the wall hoping something sticks.
    - johnisgood 10mo ago
      You just described what psychiatrists do. (I have many first-hand and second-hand experiences.)
- nuancebydefault 10mo ago
  "neurochemistry issue debunked" is a very weak argument about the (in)effectiveness of proper drugs for treatment of mental illness. It's not exactly known how they work but I am 100 percent sure SSRIs often have a very positive, even life changing effect. Moreover, every approved drug is tested 'double blind' exactly because the placebo effect has such a big biasing effect on subjectively appreciated outcomes. Only when ruling out pure placebo effect, a drug can be approved.
  - jacobgkau 10mo ago
    > Moreover, every approved drug is tested 'double blind' exactly because the placebo effect has such a big biasing effect on subjectively appreciated outcomes. Only when ruling out pure placebo effect, a drug can be approved. Pretty weird the article we're commenting on about Prozac being no better than placebo for children is just now coming out when it was already approved for use in children, then.

potatocoffee 10mo ago

Why?

jacobgkau 10mo ago
Because 7 years old is borderline too young to even make a depression diagnosis, and that kid's going to have his brain chemistry altered and essentially be addicted to a drug that he'll have to pay for for the rest of his life.
- potatocoffee 10mo ago
  O cool. Do you have any appointments I can book for my kid?
  - fgonzag 10mo ago
    Mine too! Only 2 years old but I can already see the massive anxiety bursts in him. If this guy has a non chemical cure, I'm all for it. In fact I'm actively researching children psychologists to stave off the meds as much as we can, the problem is that 99% of psychologists are quacks, so choosing them is tough.
    - potatocoffee 10mo ago
      There's only so many times a kid can get sent home from school for biting/kicking/punching before you realize you need some professional help and will do anything to help the poor kid. I wish you luck.
- pyth0 10mo ago
  How can you believe it's both "no better than placebo" but also that it's "going to have his brain chemistry altered and essentially be addicted to a drug". SSRIs are not considered addictive, though people can develop a dependence if it provides them significant improvement.
  - 10mo ago

robertakarobin 10mo ago

We had/have a lot of reservations about it too, and discussed it at length with our pediatrician over months of observation. We decided what was more horrifying was hearing a 7-year-old — who has supportive family and friends, good health, no traumatic events, no major life changes going on, never worries where food/shelter is coming from — say he feels like "he shouldn't be on Earth anymore" and suddenly react with extreme physical anxiety to almost everything. It was bad enough that he couldn't really implement any of the coping skills he learned in therapy. His therapist hoped that medication would bring him to a baseline where he was able to benefit more from therapy. My family's historical success with Prozac also made the decision more palatable since depression appears to be hereditary. There has been a phenomenal positive shift in his behavior since he started medication. All that said, another commenter pointed out that the study specifically says that Prozac is no better than placebo for depression, which is similar to but distinct from anxiety, which is what my son is being treated for. My mom and I were both diagnosed with depression, but anxiety may be more accurate -- I'm not sure.

jacobgkau 10mo ago
I'd be more interested in where your 7-year-old even learned phrases like "I feel like I shouldn't be on Earth anymore."
- robertakarobin 10mo ago
  Yes, us too. Beats us. Sure wasn't around our house, and we can't imagine any family/friends/TV/whatever he may have learned it from.
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fgonzag 10mo ago

You don't understand what having extreme anxiety at that age feels like. As someone who lived through that, I refuse to let him. All of memories of school are just feeling anxious about everything, just tight and suffocated, always in a panic. I started living when I started taking anxiety pills at 39 years old, and I can see my 2 year old having the exact same anxiety ticks and fits I have. I don't know at what age I'll medicate him, but I'll do it as soon as I notice he isn't coping and happy anymore. Horrifying is forcing him to experience that because you can't comprehend us.

hintklb 10mo ago
The main issue I see is that the anxiety pill is a way to treat the symptoms, not the cause. Do you think that there is a way to treat the underlying cause and not the symptoms?
- ksenzee 10mo ago
  How do you know an anxiety pill is treating symptoms only? What if the cause is physiological, and the pill treats that? It is entirely possible to sit in your therapist's office and mutually shrug because neither of you can find an underlying reason for your anxiety. Sometimes anxiety just is.
  - N_Lens 10mo ago
    I had severe anxiety/depression and majorly recovered from the anxiety component through a year of dilligent transcendental meditation. It changes the brain structure and neurochemistry. I was on medication during that period and it complemented my practice, provided a stable base to apply meditation and other recovery protocols.
  - johnisgood 10mo ago
    I had panic attacks every morning before school. God, I hated school. Mainly because of the other kids, and when I was older, because of both the kids and the teachers. I remember telling my IT teacher I am using Linux (I forgot why I told her) and she was very condescending. I have a lot of other stories but yeah, school was an anxiety-inducing nightmare.

burner23499 10mo ago

It's also horrifying to hear your 7-year old child talk about committing suicide when you have a deep family history of depression, anxiety, and suicide. Have some empathy.

SkyPuncher 10mo ago

No, it's not. Medicine is advancing. We're increasingly able to understand and adjust dysfunctions that cause major, negative quality of life impacts. These dysfunctions have always existed, we're just getting better at finding ways to help people work through it.

logicchains 10mo ago
This is empirically false; the rates of chronic physical and mental illnesses nowadays are are far higher than e.g. 50 years ago, and these are serious illnesses, not the kind of thing that could have been just not noticed.
- crowbahr 10mo ago
  That's your opinion, that is not the general opinion of the professionals in the field. I trust a cohort of scientists significantly more than anonymous strangers online, and you should too.
  - hajile 10mo ago
    The data is very clear that the rate of mental illnesses is increasing. Rates of severe mental illnesses like Schizophrenia are also increasing. NONE of the current theories being experimented with on patients have a concrete, proven scientific basis with some such as the decades-long SSRI scam have actively harmed patients and created physical dependence/addiction and actively causing harm to patients and their families (eg, SSRI-induced suicides). I trust science, but I don't trust scientists any more than I trust any other human with their money, career, and reputation on the line. I trust the FDA and pharmaceutical company ethics even less (eg, Bayer knowingly selling HIV-infested drugs to hemophiliacs, saying Oxycotin is non-addictive, or the revolving door that allows non-working SSRIs to be released and marketed as working despite all evidence to the contrary).
    - FatherOfCurses 10mo ago
      Our ability to diagnose mental illnesses are improving. 50 years ago many people with mental illness would go undiagnosed. They would instead self-medicate through alcohol, illicit drugs, or risky behavior and die far too young after leading miserable lives.

shepardrtc 10mo ago

I had terrible anxiety as a child and what I experienced dramatically affected the core of who I am. It is engrained in me and I struggle with it daily, though after decades I have surpassed a good portion of it. If a small dose can help someone have a somewhat "normal" childhood, then its worth a try.

tflol 10mo ago

> This is horrifying. I agree with this. I've learned a lot through life, one thing I've learned is about detrimental long term physical and even social effects of antidepressants, and other medications like adderal. Both I used to take. At this point in my life, if I realized my parents gave me an antidepressant prescription when I was SEVEN years old because I said something stupid WHEN I WAS SEVEN I'd be very disturbed and disappointed in them, I'd definitely give both of them a solid scolding. Before you respond to this remember I'm talking about me. Not your kid or your friends kid or your cousins kid. EDIT: Quick edit to add when I was a kid I was a total outcast, I was weird, anxious, and definitely often depressed. A lot of kids in my religious schooling systems were.

robertakarobin 10mo ago
My kids go to a ordinary public school. They are very bright, cautious, and thoughtful, and generally pretty happy and upbeat. There is a strong correlation between academic intelligence and mental illness. Being depressed to the point of being suicidal and having a sunny disposition are not mutually exclusive at all. I absolutely agree that it would be disturbing and disappointing for a child to be medicated because of something stupid they said when they were seven. I think medication may be appropriate if they show a consistent pattern over several months of physiological symptoms and reactions that are consistent with depression or anxiety, and cannot be explained by external factors like trauma or major life changes.
- tflol 10mo ago
  > My kids go to a ordinary public school. They are very bright, cautious, and thoughtful, and generally pretty happy and upbeat. There is a strong correlation between academic intelligence and mental illness. Being depressed to the point of being suicidal and having a sunny disposition are not mutually exclusive at all. If my parents said this to me the moment I realized what I was on and that I had to deal with coming off of it late in life I would be beside myself. I'd probably also look up the doctor that encouraged my parents to put their seven year old on SSRIs so I could warn friends. These huge lists of side effects are haunting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_serotonin_reuptake_inhibitor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_serotonin_reuptake_i... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluoxetine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluoxetine If my parents were like "uh well I had virtually no symptoms" I'd lose my mind! Life sucks, I'm depressed all the time, kids are depressed all the time. There's material everywhere explaining a decline in general mental health. I'm happy and lucky that when my parents (or the one that was paying attention, who was certainly also depressed) noticed I was depressed or sad during a few events, some long lasting, they asked me about it, listened to me, and did their best to give me advice instead of giving up when I was seven and giving me drugs. Remember when replying, this post has all been about myself, a victim of depression.

intull 10mo ago

If you're horrified that we are in a world and society where a 7yo has been put in a position where antidepressants help them, yeah, that's understandable. If you're horrified that a kid is taking them, that the parents sought medical intervention for "just a kid", then, I'd say you're reacting to the concept of a kid on antidepressants than actually listening to the OP and their family's history and story. Often, people react to the concept of a thing rather than the ground reality of life and its complexities of lived experience. Most people also extrapolate (in either direction) others' lived experiences based on their learnings, understandings, pasts and future ambitions. In this case especially, there's also added stigma around mental health, antidepressants and the locus of personal responsibility when it comes to mental health issues. The _concept_ of a child on antidepressants suspends trust in parents, that's often assumed and unquestioned depending, depending on the child's age. Maybe close to 18yo? Supportive parents. 7yo? Horrible parents. I'd argue it also tends to suspend critical thinking and introduces an unshakeable bias, that a child of 7yo _never [ever]_ needs antidepressants. Why? What makes you say that? What's your evidence and reasoning? If you feel so horrified by that, can you consider for a moment that the parents recognize the weight and gravity of this decision too? That they had to really think this through, pursue more thorough medical advice than usual, make a judgement call, and have to live through this decision throughout all their lives? OP's response to multiple comments indicates that they did not make this decision lightly and without making sure that this was the better thing to do overall. I commend OP's openness and honesty in talking about it. It's certainly inspiring to see a parent care for their child's mental health, and not dismissing that to be "oh, the kid's just young and moody, they'll feel better tomorrow." PS. We (as a society) are always learning more and newer things about mental health and treatments. It might look like we know a lot. Perhaps. But we also don't know so much!