My Thoughts on Antidepressants and Drugs

Being in the field of Chinese medicine is considered generally alternative medicine in the United States. And you know, when I ask people about antidepressant usage, they often say things like, but you probably don't believe in that, right? And I think the language is very interesting to me, so I thought I would take some time to discuss in this video my personal thoughts based on experience with my patients on antidepressants and drugs. Hey guys, Dr. Alex Hine, doctor of Chinese medicine and author of the health book, Master of the Day. So before we jump in, I have two very important links right below this video. The first is for a free download for daily rituals that can add years to your life with Chinese medicine. You'll also get my weekly video newsletter. The second is if you would like to become a patient of mine, either locally or via telemedicine, the info for my private practice is in the link below this video. Now, my general perspective on pharmaceuticals is that they serve a role and they can help people and a large percentage of them maybe work in a certain percentage of the time and that they have value, right? Modern medicine has merit. It's there for a reason, but I have some very strong opinions on it as well. And it's not just based on something philosophical or being an alternative doctor. It's really based on clinical evidence. The fundamental thing is I'm very pro most of what conventional care has to offer. What bothers me is how willy-nilly and readily, for example, antidepressants are given for any small little problem that comes up or how steroids are frequently used very willy-nilly or how antibiotics are routinely given repeatedly for the same condition, even though there's no response and the other symptoms of the patient are clearly getting worse. So I think modern medicine, pharmaceuticals, antidepressants, I think they all have a role and they're all valuable. I think there's often big problems in the way they're used though, but I want to go into two deeper things. One is more philosophical and one is more clinical and pragmatic. On the philosophical side, I believe that every symptom, including illness, that's not emergent. In other words, that's not acute and could kill you in the next week or two, but chronic illness in particular, which is most of what we suffer from in the modern world. If you are in a developed country watching this for chronic illness, I believe that the point is that your body is giving you symptoms to try to find a way back to heal itself, right? Your body doesn't want you to be ill. It is not advantageous for your evolution and survival to be ill because if you're ill, you don't want to live, forage, get food, work, have sex, reproduce. You don't want to live when you're seriously ill chronically. And so these are really antithetical to evolution. So I think that symptoms is a great word, salutogenic or salutogenesis. The symptoms are trying to give you direct feedback to figure out how to heal, be normal again. And so I think that symptoms are there to push you on this quest for healing, to drive you to figure out what your body needs, your spirit needs, what you actually need, whether it's psychological and emotional or physical, to get well again. I think that is the fundamental purpose of a symptom. Your body experiences pain to tell you to get off that sharp stick underneath your foot because it's going to damage the body. The problem with taking a lot of drugs that I see, and I don't mean illicit drugs, I mean prescribed drugs, is that you still have the problem just to a lesser degree. And if it dulls the pain of the symptoms enough, you still have the symptoms, but now you can function-ish well enough that you're no longer driven on that quest for healing. And that to me is a very, very big problem. Now let's talk about antidepressants in particular because they are one of the most over-prescribed, very debatable efficacy drugs on the market, and they're some of the most profitable drugs in conventional care. So I don't have any fundamental problem with antidepressants. One of the big things for me that bothers me is that, in my opinion, my observation among people and my patients, is that antidepressant usage, when you have a difficult life experience, a death, a trauma, if PTSD, antidepressant prescribing is often just as much cultural and familial as it is evidence-based. So what I mean by that is that you will find people who have experiences in their families, some families, their default response by the parent is if they have a headache, they take Tylenol. If they feel anxiety or depression, or if they lose their job, they get divorced, somebody dies, their default reaction is to get prescribed an antidepressant. And you'll have people in another family going through the same difficult experiences, and their programming, let's just use that word, is that they're going to double down on their friends and their family. They're going to volunteer. They're going to take as long as it takes to heal. They're going to do whatever it takes for their physical body, their psychoemotional and psychological health to be well. And whether that takes one month, or two years, or ten years of grieving, then they go on that quest for answers, and they double down on the resources that they have. You also see this in very traditional or indigenous cultures. The way they deal with particularly hardship, loss, death, illness, is very different from giving somebody an antidepressant and letting them still sit at home and play video games. So I'm sorry to have to say that, because I don't believe that it's just, you know, weak people take antidepressants. I don't believe that. It can easily lend to that argument, right? I don't want this to be like, if you're weak, you can take it. If you're strong, then you tough it out, you deal with it. What I'm saying is, I don't think the scientific evidence by itself points to the fact that antidepressants are how you should deal with difficult life experiences. I think you can find a lot of evidence that there are other ways, depending on the scale, and the severity, and what else is going on, that will have the same efficacy. You can look at the evidence yourself on that. That's just been my experience helping a lot of people through this and getting them off antidepressants successfully. But there are other questions as well. Two other very important things. The second is that it is often easy now for hard later, right? Let's say you're experiencing anxiety, insomnia, a little bit of panic attacks. It's very common in this era. One of the most common reasons for being prescribed SSRIs, for example. So what I see clinically is that often, if you take an antidepressant, or God forbid, a benzo, it's easy now for hard later. Because the antidepressant, the benzo, does not fix the physiological dysfunction. It merely puts in a little crutch. And when you remove that, unless it's been very, very short term, people feel horrible again. So easy now for hard later. Easy now meaning I have some symptomatic relief, but I don't have to change my life, right? I don't have to start exercising. I don't have to take a little bit more time off work. I don't have to go find rejuvenating activities, or pick up a new hobby, or maybe take a little bit of a leave of absence to go do whatever grieving I have to do. Maybe I don't get a dog. Invest in new friendships. Easy now for hard later. But ultimately, the biggest problem that I see is that it does not fix the underlying physiological problem. It doesn't fix it. I don't see any patients, specifically, let's just use antidepressant usage over a long time, years to decades. What guaranteed happens when a person tries to stop them is that they feel like ----. So if you feel awful after taking them, why would you not go back on them? There's basically no reason to stay off them if you feel awful. So you get back on them. The other piece of evidence is that almost always, people need to increase the dosage over time. More evidence that from a Chinese medicine perspective, your body's physiological functioning is decreasing. So this compensation is happening where now you need to increase the dosage of your antidepressant. So let's say, for example, the underlying physiological dysfunction has not been fixed or remedied. So one year from now, you are in the same or the worst boat, but you can't see it because you're still on the drug. The problem is if you stop, those symptoms often will come back. And what I see clinically, in my experience, is the combination of Chinese formulas with lifestyle and life changes. My patients a year from now are better than they were a year prior. Now that's a big difference. You're the exact same, but often worse, but you don't know because you're still on an antidepressant versus combined integrative care to really address what's been going on a year from now. You will be better with less symptoms than you were prior. And I think that is the fundamental crux of the issue here. Whether it is, let's get away from anxiety and depression. They're very emotionally charged issues. Let's go to acid reflux. It's the same thing. I don't see any of my patients on acid reflux meds get better over the course of time. So unless you want to be a 33-year-old on reflux meds for the rest of your life, I would strongly suggest seeking out other options or integrative options because, like many conditions with chronic internal medicine issues, if you address it from a holistic perspective over time, many of them can get better or the symptoms can go away. I don't really see any evidence of that for long-term medication usage. Sorry, that's just my perspective. And my goal is not to have a patient on formulas for the rest of their life, on any medication for the rest of their life, unless they're type 1 diabetic, unless they're really old, really severe, or really chronic illness. They may have to be. But for a staggering percentage of the general internal medicine problems, the chronic problems we have, I find that in general medication use is not tied with improvement over time. It's generally you stay about the same and then generally you need to increase the medication dosage or add another, etc. That is actually all signs of getting worse. And yet the medication is kind of holding you in this limbo period. So my biggest fundamental concern is really that I don't see people get better over time. And by maybe not taking that approach or maybe doing that in addition to an integrative approach, I've seen many, many, many, many people get better over time or see a resolution of their symptoms to the point where they don't look like they have them anymore. And that to me is the point of healing. That's the definition of healing, right? So you don't have to see me, you don't have to see any doctor ever again. That should be the goal. Can we agree? All right, you guys, that's my fiery rant for today. Again, remember two links below this video. The first is for a free guide and my weekly video newsletter on Chinese medicine. And in addition, if you'd like to become a patient of mine, either locally or online via telemedicine, info for my private practice and clinic is right in the description there below. And before you go, I have two other related videos for you here.