Posted by SLS on August 27, 2001, at 9:50:40
In reply to Re: Women's Intuition - You've got my vote!, posted by JohnL on August 27, 2001, at 3:36:24
Hi John.
> >The problem is, just how large a percentage of people will always experience a brief positive effect from the drugs that they will later respond to?> ***Most. No percentage given. Based purely on anecdotal evidence from this board and from my own doc's office.
You will forgive me if I deem what you call evidence as perhaps specious, given the magnitude of the consequences should you be wrong. I would be more comfortable with at least a compilation of these anecdotes and some reasonable accounting for the total population from which it is derived. Even so, I doubt you would accept as fact a contention of mine if I were to tell you that I have sufficient proof purely from evidence on this board and from my own doc's office, especially if doing so would sabotage your treatment.
> >How large a percentage of people will not experience a blip from any medication, yet respond to almost all of them?
> ***None.
***OK, if you say so.
> Again, anecdotal. In these cases, the response is hardly ever, if ever, a full adequate response.
Again, I find this specious. You can't possibly make such a statement without either citing specific data or practicing psychiatry for a number of years and drawing upon your clinical experience. I can hardly believe that you are writing this stuff. I sometimes think that your sincere and passionate desire to help people draws you towards immoderation.
> >I think it is absolutely imperative to determine the answers to these questions, whether it be through retrospective analyses of case histories or prospective double-blind studies. Otherwise, some very easily treatable people will end up going through half a dozen drugs before their doctors get the bright idea of continuing at least one of them for longer than five days.
> ***If they are so easily treatable, then they will logically pass the 5 day test with flying colors.
I am quite baffled by your logic. It seems to me that such can only be determined empiracally. Besides, that a conclusion is derived from logic does not necessitate its veracity. Ptolemy produced an absolutely brilliant model of the solar system using a logical construction of epicycles to explain planetary motion. It worked very well and proved that the Earth was at the center of the Universe.
> They can weed out a bunch of inferior match drugs and focus on superior ones in the same time it would take someone else to try just one.
> > To me, five day trials might make sense. Two week trials definitely don't.
> ***Though we disagree a little on the length of a trial period,
I don't know if you have taken notice, but you also disagree strongly with the man whom you deem smart enough to know more about treating depression than most of the rest of the psychiatric world. I guess Dr. Jensen should just take your word for it because of your purely anecdotal evidence. He probably just threw a pair of dice across the room and came up with a 2 and a 3.
> it's nice to see you coming around.
Actually, I think it is you who have not yet come around to accept Martin Jensen's drug screening protocol. As I have emphatically noted in previous threads, 5 day trials mean 5 day trials - not 2 week trials. His method makes sense. Yours does not. I would be most appreciative if you would retrieve Dr. Jensen's book from your trash and send it to me.
> I remember months ago you were dead set on full 8 week trials being the only way to treat anyone.
I think if you were to go back and read more closely my posts, you would find this statement to be inaccurate.
> You scoffed very loudly at short trials.
At times. I have also remained open and genuinely inquisitive. I was motivated enough to discover if there was data to be retrieved from this board to lend support to investigate Jensen's ideas further. I am usually pretty motivated to seek the truth, especially when it might improve so greatly the quality of my life.
Quite a while ago, I established a basis by which a structured discussion of Dr. Jensen's treatment protocol might be conducted. I delineating a set of categories of drugs to be considered - standard antidepressants (which I defined in a list), psychostimulants, antipsychotics, anticonvulsants, etc.) and suggested a series of questions that I thought would help to more precisely define the points of issue and the data to be considered. I also invited and strongly encouraged others to evaluate and modify my questions and the manner of investigation. I think I actually tried to develop a survey for people posting on PsychoBabble to submit in an effort to gather data instead of relying upon my memory and my subjective impressions of the posts I selected to read.
No one bothered. Not even you.
http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20000429/msgs/32396.html
> It's nice to see your horizons and insight have broadened.What do you know of my insights?
Hmmm.
I probably lean towards a reliance upon current medical consensus. I tend to give established investigative institutions and mainstream medicine the benefit of the doubt. Although I don't always agree with them, I always try to respect them.
*** By the way - before I forget - how many 2 week trials showing a trend towards improvement do you terminate before you determine that you have screened enough candidates to choose among them the "best match". (See below)
4-5 day trials make more sense to me - that is, if Jensen knows what he's talking about. I can't know for sure without reading his book, but from how you have described it, I think you may be missing his point and with it the very foundation of his treatment method. I don't think you should modify it to 2 weeks. It defeats the purpose and is counterproductive.
Thanks for your insights regarding my insight.
- Scott
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From:http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20010822/msgs/76327.html
"4. Rapid fire trials of drugs are tried in order to weed out the duds and to highlight the good ones. This is for comparison. Generally three drugs from each category are tried. Then later you go back and choose the favorites for longer term trials. There are superior matches and inferior matches. Quick trials can separate the two, because superior matches almost always show some kind of hint of a good response in a very short time (which relates to #1 above). When a drug happens to hit a bullseye, it is usually quite obvious and encouraging. Longer trials are still needed for full response, but the short trials allow you to eliminate inferior matches to shorten the list of drugs to consider."
poster:SLS
thread:76220
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20010822/msgs/76576.html