Every effect of medication may be considered a side-effect. Well, all right, that's a bit pedantic, but I say that only because no-one, not even the drug companies, know precisely how the drugs work.
There are many side effects of anti-depressants, the reason being that how the brain re-acts to them, indeed how it re-acts to depression itself, is unknown. Moreover, it's so different from one case to the next. What will affect you, won't affect me and vice-versa.
When you really think about it, if it was known for sure what the effect of a certain drug would have on the brain, and if depression itself were better understood, then scientists and chemists could sit down and make up a medication that didn't have any other effects than those for which they're intended. Namely, to cure the depression. There would be no deviance. The drug would attack and nullify the depression; no more and no less.
It isn't only with depression drugs that we see these 'side-effects' though, is it? Heart pills, pills for ladies' periods, slimming tablets. You name it, there's a side-effect for it! It's really quite alarming on a TV commercial when they run through what else the pill might do to you and end up saying something like; 'In very rare cases, death has been reported.' I'm glad they're rare cases!
Especially with mild to moderate depression, anti-depressants are similar to taking a sledgehammer to crack a nut. The amazing computer that's our brain, unbelievably delicate and well balanced as it is, must suffer, certainly in the long term, by having chemicals effectively shot into it from the outside. Something must happen in the brain. Something must be set off balance.
Now, I've been lucky. I have to take a certain medication to keep depression at bay and have done so for quite a long time. The only side effect I've noticed is a dry mouth sometimes. Then again, I only have to take one of these pills a day, and I don't take any others.
I always think of an analogy where I'm quite a good electronics engineer, (in fact, I don't know the first thing about electronics, but let's assume I do). I'm not the best, but I'm pretty good.
One day I come up with a brilliant invention whereby with the flick of a switch, I'm able to halve the electrical power input of, say, New York, while doubling the output. This saves the city millions of dollars. The generators can run for half the time and give New Yorkers exactly the same service. This is marvellous, but there's only one problem.
When you turn on the switch, twelve thousand volts shoots through you! Now that's a silly example in one sense, but what it illustrates is that while I know what I'm doing in certain areas, in others, I have no idea
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