Depression medications adversely effect working memory?

[ellamama]

I listened in to a webinar sponsored by ADDtude Magazine in which Ari Tuckman commented that depression and anxiety medications can impair working memory. He didn’t elaborate and now I’m wondering what the heck he was talking about. What can you tell us about this? I’m wondering specifically about fluoxetine (Prozac) or other SSRIs. Is long-term use associated with working memory?

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[trashman]

I believe he is on to something. since I have been taking my SSRI’s  I think my working memory has gone down. I can tell you I am still better off with them then without.

Thanks

Trashman

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[MarieAngell]

This is something I’ve observed as well. There is a fair amount of research on this subject if you Google things like: serotonin reuptake inhibitors working memory cognitive impairment.

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[Patte Rosebank]

Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors are also known as “SSRIs”.

There are also MAOIs (Mono-Amine Oxidase Inhibitors), and SNRIs (Serotonin-Norepinephrine Reuptake Inhibitors).

Each type acts differently, and has different contra-indications.

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[Robbo]

This might be a lil bit tricky.

I agree that there is definitely something here to look deeper into. I also know that I’m alive today because about 18 years ago I decided that I could not possibly stand the way I was feeling. I had no plan to off myself. No desire to die, sorta. When the thought of killin me did enter my mind it got sooo terribly painful imagining my little daughter living in this world without me. And I pictured her sensitive little angel face crying. And, well… nothing could be more absolutely horrible. Even now I simply cannot imagine anything more caustic than seeing my little daughters eyes full of tears. Nope, can’t stand it.

One time when she was about 4. I got really angry at her and called her a brat. That’s all. I just called my little angel a brat, and you would have thought that I destroyed her dolls n bike right there in front of her. Talk about water works you guys…. Holy Toledo!! Those big brown swollen eyes all red with pouring tears just plain destroyed every fiber of my being that day. Needless to say, I never EVER have called her a brat (accept for on the post a few days ago to shutterbug) :()- ***snickers a lil*** to this day I’m real sure I haven’t called her a brat to her face. I forget though. Darn SSRI’s!. I blame them!!! Yeah that’s the ticket. It’s their fault.

So anywayz, back then I did know a lil bit about God. Had a few friends helping me not drink at all and I had a sponsor in AA, and I prayed a lot. But I wanted to stop feeling this horrible pain I could not understand the cause of. I desperately needed it to stop. And my ADHD brain kept on going back to the fact that I needed to escape. I knew that there was no hope at all drinking or taking any drugs.

I truly loved smoking weed.

When I went to AA and found out how easy it was to quit booze, and I had it made. But then they told me I also had to quit smoking weed too. That was the end. The bitter remorseful nasty awful painful end. Just like it says in the big book of AA. Boy did I cry like a little baby. It was me turning on the water works then.

In the beginning there was Bill W. and Doctor Bob. yaddayadda  yadda. blah blah. On and on. On page 26 or 27 or there a bouts. It says stuff about the bitter end. and No human power could restore us to sanity and on and on. I used to know all that crap by heart. My life depended on it and finding babes depended on it even more!.  Yep, I went to the SNL group of AA in Campbell Ca. N fooled around with that other addiction we don’t talk much about… The world famous Saturday Night Light group of AA. Yep. I’m one of those original prime time players. (thieves, uhuh) It talks about the sadness of being caught in a trap we cannot spring. Actually that’s Chuck C’s book about the trap.  The uselessness and remorse, the self pity. The dark dark dark before the dawn. Yep been there. Especially when they told me I couldn’t smoke my sweet leaf no more. Oh the crying and the torture and the pain n loss.

OOO Gaawdddd. How awefull so very awful.

Where was I?

Oh yeah. My offspring. And calling her a brat. Before that I was talking about the horrible pain of depression, before I started taking prozac for the first time. Hmm. Let’s see. So, I went to see a doc and he gave me prozac.  I got so hypomanic that the dudes I was building a custom home out in the middle of nowhere in Carmel Valley. (God’s heaven right there on Earth if ya would have asked me back then) The dudes I was working with thought just like some of the folks in this here camp probably/maybe started thinking last week. “That dude Robbo has completel freakin lost his mind!!, he’s dangerous. Call the booby hatch you guys!!!” lol. So I went back to the head shrink doctor and told him “what gives” and he decided it would be paxil for me. And that’s the way it was for the next 18 or so years up until about a year n a half ago. That’s when I was fortunate enough to discover Rick, and Patrick’s bag of trix on PBS and got saved. Yep, I’m a “born again ADDer” lol. Feel free to quote me on that. The anti-depressant medicine kept me alive long enough to finally get some help with this ADHD stuff. I’m eternally grateful too. Wouldn’t change a thing if I could, can’t anyway.

So yep, it’s dangerous telling people that SSRi’s or MAO (somethings?) are bad for our working memory. Because people just might die of sadness and grief about a couple minutes before the miracle happens. So I vote we don’t say that. Okay?

Thanks gang.

Sometimes the miracle happens while we’re waiting for the miracle.

I said that on tuesday while walking out of the doctors office with my therapist. I said it good and loud so all the chicks in the office would overhear me and know how cool and all put together n “well” n stuff that I am. CuZ I know they all talk about me. I’m that loud dude that’s so obnoxious and belligerently loud. Takes pain like a dang spiritual giant and wines about the weather being too hot or too cold. That’s what we do in northern Ca. We’re spoiled freakin rotten here. Live with it gang.

I’m going back to my music.

PS, and another thing…

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[Rick Green – Founder of TotallyADD]

Great post. So much here. Thanks for sharing this.

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[MarieAngell]

@robbo, dutifully chastised!

That said, however, it’s a bit of a pickle then how to answer when the question is if antidepressants can affect memory.

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[Patte Rosebank]

Hey, ANYTHING you consume—whether a drug or food or whatever—can either help you or hurt you.  It all depends on the substance, the dose, and the person.

We all need Vitamin A to survive, but if you take too much, it’ll kill you.  It’s the same with salt.  Digitalis (which comes from the foxglove plant) can save the life of a heart patient, but kill someone who takes it when they don’t need to.  Even drinking too much water can kill you!

So a more accurate question would be, “What are the potential side effects of this particular medication that my doctor has prescribed for me, and how likely is each of those side effects?”

The key word is “potential“, because the same med can affect different people differently.

Remember the media circus about all those horrific bad reactions to Prozac?  And yet, millions of people have been helped tremendously by Prozac…but we never seem to hear about them, do we?

You and your doctor & pharmacist need to determine if the potential benefits of taking a particular drug outweigh the potential risks of taking it, in your particular situation, with your particular health status.

With anti-depressants, a very common side effect is elevated blood sugar.  However, my doctor & I decided that it would be far more dangerous for me NOT to take an anti-depressant to control my severe depression, than it would be for me to risk potentially developing diabetes.  Unfortunately, I *did* eventually develop Type II Diabetes.  But at least I’m still alive, so we made the right choice!

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[Robbo]

 

Whoops, I forgot that I ain’t a doctor. I get a lil pissed off when a doctor does not tell me the whole truth about side effects. It also pisses me off when he takes it upon his own mighty greatness to decide for me all by himself exactly what side effects are less toxic that the one’s he’s treating. After all. the Depression was a side effect of untreated ADHD right?… grrr.

 

I love you guys. BBL

Dr. Robbo MD

 

(mr. dipshit(

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[Robbo]

its just one vote

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[Robbo]

Thanks Rick. You have excellent eyes. I do believe you understand my pain. And you’re cool too 🙂

Yep, the good medicine at this web site is sinking in. I shall send you fifty thousand million hundred dollars, just as soon as I make my first one hundred and fiftey thousand million hundred dollars on book deals and big shows, n movies n stuff.

Please drive to the next window.

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[Phil, Just Phil.]

Larynxa, I have often said , everything in moderation.  Too much h2o reduces salt levels in the boday and can kill you.  Phenylalanine is a chemical used to sweeten diet drinks, also a compound used in the brain somehow, yet too much and scientists created baby rats with 2 heads.  Small amounts of alcohol are supposedly good, too much well…  High Oxygen levels can kill you even.

 

So +1 on your comment, nice to hear it from someone else.

 

BTW anyone here seen the studies on grapefruit and it’s impact on certain medications?  Dangerous stuff.

 

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[Patte Rosebank]

Yeah, it’s a good thing I’ve always hated grapefruit!

To think that something *all-natural* could intensify the effects of certain medications by so much that they could kill you…

 

It’s also a good thing that I’ve always hated alcohol, too.

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