When it Comes to Depression - Does Anyone Really Know What They Are Talking About?

I started reading up on the condition that psychiatrists call depression and it was frankly, depressing.

I started my hunt by looking at my trusty Encarta dictionary, which said:
Depression - psychiatric disorder: a psychiatric disorder showing symptoms such as persistent feelings of hopelessness, dejection, poor concentration, lack of energy, inability to sleep, and, sometimes, suicidal tendencies.

Okay, that sounds pretty severe, right?

So, I started delving more into it and looked up depression on the Internet. It seems that some of the symptoms of depression are:

Sleeping too much, sleeping too little or a change in sleeping patterns; feeling irritable, sad or tense; loss of energy; decreased interest in things; restlessness or feeling slowed down; feeling worthless, hopeless or guilty; weight loss or weight gain...
Wow..it really sounds as if they are covering every possible ground here. "Hey, you lose some weight, you might be depressed! Oh, wait, you gained weight? Well, you could be depressed!"
I mean, half of the symptoms above could be explained by lack of sleep alone (haven't you ever felt irritable, exhausted, restless and uninterested when you don't have enough sleep?).

It seemed that trying to find symptoms that made depression easy to figure out was impossible, so I searched more into depression and conversely, into happiness, and this is what I found:

a) There is no consistent definition of depression out there. It's more like, if you're not happy, your depressed, and only your doctor can delineate when that happens.

b) Even a few weeks of sadness can be considered depression! What's with that craziness? If your mom died, are you supposed to be "okay" with it in a couple of weeks? I don't know how long it would take me to bounce back - but it certainly wouldn't be weeks.

c) Reading up on depression and how to "get happy" is actually depressing. If a person is just moderately happy and wants to attain higher states of happiness, and they read up on it, it seems as if everyone on planet earth falls short of the standards of happiness now required.

d) For some reason or another you are supposed to "live with depression". That's more depressing than being diagnosed with depression. No one should have to "live with" anything in their life.

I think I can officially say that there seems to be no finite information on depression available. This makes me wonder, if doctors and psychiatrists don’t understand this condition, how could they possible come up with a plausible cure for it?

The Polls Are In

You voted on the question, "Would You Give Your Child Ritalin". The polls are in and it is a resounding, 100%, unanimous, "NO"! Thanks for voting, everyone!

Ritalin - Overprescribed?

This article talks about Dr Gwynedd Lloyd and her new book Critical New Perspectives On ADHD. Dr. Lloyd basically says that many children in Scotland are being mis-diagnosed as having "ADHD" when really they are just poorly parented and badly behaved.
On the use of Ritalin, Dr Lloyd said: "This kind of medication for children as young as six is crazy. Their brains are still developing and yet they are being given mind-altering drugs."
Kudos to you, Dr. Lloyd!

Woops - Lawyer Spills the Beans on Secret Eli Lilly Court Case

I read this news article and had to laugh. It seems that Eli Lilly was marketing a drug called Zyprexa improperly. Zyprexa has serious side effects, such as diabetes, hypoglycemia and more and is only approved to treat people with schizophrenia and severe bipolar disorder (like they need diabetes on top of all that?). Some documents from Eli Lilly revealed that they were pushing doctors to prescribe the drug for other disorders like age related dementia and mild bi-polar. Because of this, Eli Lilly will have to pay federal and state governments more than 1 billion dollars. This fine is in addition to the 1.2 billion dollars Eli Lilly has already paid in lawsuits from people who say they developed diabetes because of Zyprexa (which apparently is not a rare side effect of Zyprexa).
All this information and more was leaked to the New York Times in an email screw up by one of Eli Lilly's lawyers. He was trying to send an internal document to another lawyer, but ended up sending it to a press agent with the same last name. Woops!

Ritalin Poll

I put up a poll to find out if you would give your child Ritalin. I'd love to know your answers, so please check it out.

Ball Players Abuse Ritalin

The Las Vegas Sun reports that Baseball players have been getting around the ban on amphetamine use by taking Ritalin - also known as "Kiddy Cocaine" when used illegally. Check out the story here

Ritalin - Leading to Drug Abuse

Ritalin - also known (when abused) as "Kiddy Cocaine" is a highly addictive substance that can that can lead to substance abuse later in the user's life.

This drug that is supposed to "focus attention" by virtue of being a Schedule II narcotic (meaning in the same class as drugs like cocaine, morphine, methamphetamine, opium and others). So, of course it focuses attention - so does speed and cocaine. It's also highly addictive, like speed or coke.

Now, I highly doubt anyone would want to give cocaine or speed to their kid. So, why would they want to give Ritalin to their child?

The Lobotomist

There's a new PBS American Experience called "The Lobotomist" out. It's about Walter Freeman who is considered the father of the lobotomy. For those of you who don't know what a lobotomy is, it's basically a barbaric practice with very serious side effects in which the "doctor" (I'm sorry, but I can't bring myself to call someone a doctor who does this) takes an ice-pick like instrument and a mallet, and after knocking the victim out - usually by using electroshock treatment - inserts the ice-pick through the bone of your eye and slashes the lobes of the front of your brain. It's really disgusting and it's actually making my stomach turn just writing about it. Anyway, the PBS special is very interesting, check it out if you have the stomach for it.