A sign of mental imbalance maybe but what i am thinking is:

With the amount of depression meds being prescribed (i would imagine its up there with diabetes and weight loss meds) and the number of people labeled with and treated for depresssion and therefore the financial worth of “depression” just as “obesity” is a dream come true for pharmaceutical companies and the entire weight loss industry.

Why is there NO accurate test for neurotransmitter levels? The number of people who suffer negatively from antidepressant use because they are given almost at random an ssri for a condition that is often secondary to an underlying problem – bandaid treatment – and even the amount of trials of diffferent meds required for those who truly are depressed and need mediation is insane. So many people could be saved a lot of pain, time and money if it were possible to look at the levels of serotonin, norepi and dopamine and know for sure if there is a problem and if so how to address it. Doctors would NEVER prescribe chemictry altering drugs for cancer without identifying the presence of it first or even diabetes meds without confirming blood sugar problems so why is it ok to do this with medications that utterly rewire the brain?

I have NO problem with these meds and personally think there needs to be a renaming of them as they are treating neurotransmitter imbalances (often necessarily as a result of other conditions as well as them being the primary symptoms) because depression and antidepressants gives such a stigma to this.

I know many people with serious illnesses that have been passed back out the door with a depression med to mask the symptoms which not only leads them to become dependant on the drugs and hide the problem and delay potential diagnosis but also often make things much worse.

24 hour urine tests are only useful to detect high levels maybe to identiy an adrenal tumour, when levels in the brain where they are active psychologically (admitted there are plenty of systemic physiological effects of each of them) have no relation to the levels in the urine – most metabolites and precursors are unable to cross the BBB.

I know there is no easy answer or solution to this but it must be possible and the amount of money in this area of drugs i incomprehensible so it cant be that holding back research or development (unless the drug companies want us flicking between products and being hooked on ad meds – perhaps the xenical and hoodia comapnies are subsidising mcdonalds to ensure they keep a strong customer base…?).

I would be quite happy to take a test that involved obtaining CSF or whtever was necessary to now for sure what is going on there as now i am positive this is a huge part of the problem (i believe that whether the brain chemistry is the original cause or not the eventual imbalance of these in the brain is always there when depression has taken hold).

It would be great to stop shooting in the dark and know for sure what we are dealing with.