 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 my patients on antidepressants and drugs. Hey guys Dr. Alex Hine doctor of Chinese medicine and author of the health book master 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 really 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 Solutagenic or solutagenesis the symptoms are trying to give you direct feedback To figure out how to heal and 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 gonna 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'll 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 go through 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 gonna double down on their friends and their family. They're gonna volunteer They're gonna take as long as it takes to heal They're gonna do whatever it takes for their physical body their psycho emotional 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? There's I don't want this to be like you if you're weak You can take it if you're strong then you 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 on the severity and what else is going on that will have the same efficacy 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 see you're experiencing anxiety in Zomnia 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. I don't 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 shit So if you feel awful after taking them, why would you not go back on them? Right? 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 Okay, 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 the 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 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 and 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 our 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 find maybe not Taking that approach or maybe doing that in addition to an iterative 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 red 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 from my private practice in clinic is right in the description there below and before you go I have two other related videos for you here