I too believe this enthusiasm shown by dr's is money driven. Here in the UK, the number of people I know who've been prescribed Prozac for no good
reason is scary. GP's seem to be actively promoting it, willy-nilly.
This shows some pretty disturbing statistics linking Prozac to acts of violence...
ssristories.com...
My husband's diabetic, and he regularly has to complete GP's questionaires re his state of health. He's quite incredulous that there are always
questions on them asking, not whether he feel depressed (which he doesn't), but instead asking him to quantify how depressed he is, like it's a
foregone conclusion that he will be to some extent.
Having suffered migraines coinciding with my menstrual cycle ever since I had my daughter, 18 years ago, I've visited my dr several times. Each time,
their main concern seems to be whether I feel depressed. I've repeatedly told them no, I'm not prone to depression.
Initially, I was sent to the hospital for some blood tests, as a result of which the dr gave me a prescription. He announced that the test results
showed it wasn't the menopause, as I'd plenty of estrogen, and gave me a prescription. He looked like a rabbit in a car headlight when I pointed out
that he'd only told me what wasn't the cause of the migraines, whereas I'd have quite liked to know what was the cause. He stammered, and seemed at
a loss for a reply.
Eventually, he regained his composure and decided it was probably a deficiency of some other hormone - maybe progesterone.
When I got home, I checked the medication he'd prescribed on the internet, and discovered it to be beta-blockers. Failing to see how this might
correct a possible progesterone deficiency, and disliking the long list of negative side-effects, I binned it.
A few years later, I went back to the GP's, hoping to persuade him to identify the cause of the migraines. He probed again as to just how depressed I
was, and when I advised him, "Not at all", sent me away with another prescription. I can't remember the name of the drugs, but I Googled them, and
found them to be strongly contraindicated for people with high blood-pressure. Funnily enough, he'd just determined at the same consultation that I
had high blood pressure, so I filed the prescription carefully in the bin.
I recently tried my luck for the 3rd time in 18 years. He wanted to know if the migraines were making me depressed. I told him they don't. He kept
rephrasing the question, and I eventually said, I don't get depressed, but the sleeplessness they cause makes me exhausted and bad-tempered. He
prescribed Fluoxetine, which I'd never heard of. When I looked it up and found it to be bloody Prozac, I was furious.
Perhaps the dullard thinks he can sufficiently dope me up with this stuff that I won't notice his ineptitude.
I won't bother going again.
A close friend was put on Prozac when she was feeling down about splitting up with her husband. As soon as she started taking them, her personality
seemed to change, and she began acting like a nutter. She found it very hard to give them up. She only succeeded when she started a relationship with
another man who she later married.
Does it occur to anybody that it's natural to feel sadness sometimes? It's appropriate to feel grief in some circumstances, and not appropriate to
take medication to stop or dull it. It's called life!