Oomis, before you go jumping down everyone’s throat please understand “
Whoops! Did I do that? I was simply responding to Health, who actually jumped down MY throat for posting about what happened to my mother O”H, as a warning to people to not accept at face value that you are clinically depressed and need SSRI meds.
I stand by what I said. A doctor has the obligation and medical responsibility to ascertain that no PHYSICAL cause is responsible for the symptoms that APPEAR to be depression, before dispensing Prozac,Lamictal,Zoloft, etc. I don’t think you and I are so far apart in our opinions. BTW, I am well-acquainted with people who are bi-polar. A relative of mine was manic-depressive, and a close friend of mine has BPD. I have observed the highs and the lows, some rapid cycling of same.
As to the responsibility of a patient or family member to be on top of things with the doctor – you can only go by what your (trusted) longtime doctor tells you to be the case. My mother’s doctor was very adamant about her having clinical depression, and so were all the many, many doctors who examined her in the hospital. NOT ONE of them ever asked us if she had an MRI, or suggested this should be done, to rule out brain tumors. Her own doctor KNEW her blood tests were odd given her age, BUT NEVER MENTIONED this to us. Are we supposed to be psychic? Had we been told of her elevated prolactin levels, we would have done exactly what we did when he finally DID tell us six months later – we would have questioned its significance and what needed to be done to further test her.
I don’t and never have purported to speak for ALL people. I just want people to learn from our situation to NOT accept at face value that someone is clinically depressed, without checking through all other possibilities that could mimic the symptoms. If you need thyroid medication and take insulin, it will probably not be in your best interests, to say the least. If you are automatically given SSRIs, when a proper exam would show that you really need thyroid medication, that is also not in your best interests. We can only advocate for someone when we are given the tools and full disclosure of medical tests results.