Discussion Does anyone have hope for medicine?

[platypusfan]

I am assuming a lot of people here have had a terrible experience with the healthcare field. I have too and honestly it feels really hopeless. But with the rapid progress in technology and the slow increase in mental health discussion, is there any hope for new treatments? I have no idea what, but there's so many devices being made for diseases that even seemed incurable.

 

[Roseate]

Honestly, I don't think so. This world doesn't really offer much of an alternative medication to pills. Like yeah you can try holistic medicine but there isn't really much medications outside of pills. And if there was, it would charge an arm and a leg and most of us wouldn't be able to afford it anyways.

 

[The anhedonic one]

No I'm not hopeful of this. Firstly the medical profession doesn't care about mental health. Secondly, the real causes of mental health issues should be addressed first, because this dreadful society is the cause of so much mental illness.

 

[carac]

I have to admit as someone who was completely failed by modern medicine I am slightly biased here but I don't have much hope

The main problem I see is that medicine is moving too much to a mechanistic approach to treating people, if your foot hurts then there must be something structurally wrong with your foot, there is no cotemplation at all that it could be due to stress or anxiety. Everything is treated in isolation and there is no looking at the person holistically. Everything can be cured with a pill or a procedure, which isn't always the case and certainly wasn't for me.

There is also the issue of money, I don't think that people inside the medical establshment, like doctors or nurses, are thinking like this but I definitely think there are external pressures on them to get patients to take a pill or have something done to them that some company will profit from, when often it is not needed.

Overall I fear there is an increasing tendancy to less and less treat people like humans and rather treat them as machines that need to be fixed or products that money can be made from.

No I'm not hopeful of this. Firstly the medical profession doesn't care about mental health. Secondly, the real causes of mental health issues should be addressed first, because this dreadful society is the cause of so much mental illness.

Also yes, I completely agree with this, we need to address the societal issues that are causing all the problems with mental health

 

[LittleJem]

scopolamine was helping me for the past three days. But I had to stop it because it was effecting my eyes.

The medication combining wellbrutin and dxm sounds good (auvelity).

They might find more medication in the future. I'm not sure there is anything in the pipeline now I haven't tried.

 

[aGoodDayToDie]

There's zero hope while the war on drugs is active. Lsd, mushrooms, mdma, ketimine, they've been around for decades and have been known to have therapeutic properties yet fucking governments won't budge. They're heartless cunts. There's no hope for society. Mental health has an appallingly low priority. No-one gives a shit about all the people suffering. Everyone in power has their own agenda and mental health is at the bottom of the list because 99% of the time people with mental health have zero power. We're at the bottom of the food chain. If you can't fight for something, you lose out.

 

[mazzy]

I've been on and off tons off antidepressants but am currently on duloxetine, it has helped me in understanding where my feelings come from but hasn't helped get rid of those feelings. Every time I go to the doctor they just increase my dosage. I've had 4 ketamine treatments and it helped for a bit but it's stupid expensive so the feeling wore off and I never went back. If you do have the opportunity to try ketamine infusions, I would suggest that. But like anything that can help depression it can have drawbacks.

 

[Hollowman]

No

 

[Praestat_Mori]

I am assuming a lot of people here have had a terrible experience with the healthcare field. I have too and honestly it feels really hopeless. But with the rapid progress in technology and the slow increase in mental health discussion, is there any hope for new treatments? I have no idea what, but there's so many devices being made for diseases that even seemed incurable.

No because most mental problems can only be cured when the reason / trigger and the source of the cause can be eliminiated in the best case. And meds in the mental / psych field only put a patient under drugs to change their way of thinking ( what drugs usually do). But that's not helping in most cases. Some examples and certainly there are many many more examples:

Someone with extreme anxiety who doesn't have the sightest idea where that could come from. The chances are low to "fix" this because what is the reason that triggers it? If the cause can't be detected what could one do?

Trauma childhood abuse, this horrific experience is burnt into someones brain, a few might find a way to cope with that experience later many don't and never will. How could this horror ever be cured?

Someone who is marked from failures and more failures in their lives (failure of anyting one can think of is a personal experience), the result is all hope is gone at some point. Reasons might be known or unknown here. The opposite of failure is success, whatever someone defines as personal success is individual. There could be ways found with a therapy how that could be achieved but not anymore when it's too late.

All in all nothing is gonna change here soon.

This is my personal opinion and it is not based on medical science or research!

 

[suicidalloser]

Medicine cannot fix financial burdening, ruin and lack there of altogether, only worsen it: factual; root of many—and ever lasting lack of security.

 

[Praestat_Mori]

Medicine cannot fix financial burdening, ruin and lack there of altogether, only worsen it: factual; root of many—and ever lasting lack of security.

Yes that's another point, if that is a reason for mental problems - and it's a valid one - only the doc/therapist will feel better in the end. I totally agree with this!

 

[Daft-Bear]

No I'm not hopeful of this. Firstly the medical profession doesn't care about mental health. Secondly, the real causes of mental health issues should be addressed first, because this dreadful society is the cause of so much mental illness.

Truth,

idk if I'm alone in this way of thinking, but the problem with medicine is typically not medicine but the capitalist underpinnings that turn it into a profit machine and conveyor belt of patients. The expectation is for doctors to see a new patient every 15 minutes.

Karl Marx laid out a system of alienation he feared would be the end result of capitalism. I never learned about Marx in school, but his criticism of capitalism for mental distress, alienation, and exploitation couldn't have been more true. But as with global warming, it seems human beings are great at justifying reasons to invalidate critisism if it interferes with profits.

Sorry if this is an unconventional response, but the anhedonic one is right. Sometimes people are just having a normal response to a dreadful society.

 

[The anhedonic one]

Truth,

idk if I'm alone in this way of thinking, but the problem with medicine is typically not medicine but the capitalist underpinnings that turn it into a profit machine and conveyor belt of patients. The expectation is for doctors to see a new patient every 15 minutes.

Karl Marx laid out a system of alienation he fears would be the end result of capitalism. I never learned about Marx in school, but his criticism of capitalism for mental distress, alienation, and exploitation couldn't have been more true. But as with global warming, it seems human beings are great at justifying reasons to invalidate critisism if it interferes with profits.

Sorry if this is an unconventional response, but the anhedonic one is right. Sometimes people are just having a normal response to a dreadful society.

The pharmaceutical industry was started by the Rockefellers.
Here is a document that is very thought provoking.

 

[Praestat_Mori]

The pharmaceutical industry was started by the Rockefellers.
Here is a document that is very thought provoking.

Yes maybe they started the pharmaceutical industries but actually mental problems and illnesses are not always caused by physical injuries that will just heal on their own in many cases. Mentál problems can be a result of physical injuriy but may not even have physical injuries as a source at all. It's a complex field that is not even understood by humans in it's lowest parts. In my opinion.

 

[thornyrose]

No, I've got no hope for mental health treatments. But there are many other things that help. The main thing may be to stop gaslighting oneself by believing again that you have reason to feel the way that you feel. A diagnosis isn't the answer for why you feel the way that you feel, it's just a description of how you feel. The reasons are out there in the world (or if a feeling doesn't shift no matter what you do, it might be caused by a medication). That you don't get to live the kind of life that would make you happy, because people are too concerned with controlling others to let you find your own path. They do this with laws, lack of support, saying insensitive things. It's all to get you to act against your own self-interest and according to someone else's. The main thing is to become aware of what you need to feel happy and which things make you feel bad. Distancing oneself from abusers, building a support network of healthy relationships, eating low carb (which is closer to how we're evolved to eat), being in nature, certain supplements that increase energy levels a bit, self-therapy through writing and just doing things because you feel like it, not always needing to be productive. These kinds of things help. Altruistic acts is the ultimate rebellion. It goes against the very value system of mental health, which is all about squeezing the very last drops from someone instead of letting them rest and recover. Being the opposite of selfish, the way that the people who continually hurt us are, is what gives meaning to the whole thing. Take care.

 

[NumbItAll]

I think brains are just too complex and medications will always be risky. Even if there was an attempt at addressing the root cause of issues -- for example, brain scans that reveal abnormalities that can be treated with drugs -- what caused the abnormalities to begin with? Brains are very plastic and constantly changing, so treatment is always a moving target. As lame and unsatisfactory as it sounds, a healthy lifestyle probably is the best available option after all, unless you get lucky with the right combination of drugs...

 

[ggetout33]

I will go against the grain and say there is some hope for medications but I understand, maybe more than most, that medication is not a cure-all.

Like if you're depressed because you're broke and struggle with paying the bills, meds won't magically make you love working yourself to death.

If you're depressed because you were isolated and bullied all your life because you're unattractive or otherwise different, medication won't make you a charismatic playboy.

For me, meds help me because I am in an objectively okay position in life, but struggled heavily with getting started on things and consistently practicing hobbies. Basically struggling due to untreated ADHD and severe depression. No matter how much I tried it was like being chained to a heavy ball.

But if it weren't for that then I would definitely still be depressed. I'm very pro-assisted suicide for this reason. If nothing would help your life improve and you really tried everything in your power to make your life better, then you really shouldn't suffer for decades on end because of something out of your control.