Does St John's Wort lift Spirits?
A sugar pill was more effective than either the herbal remedy or
anti-depressant Zoloft in treating major depression.  Critics labeled the Duke
University study confusing.  The study said Zoloft did produce improvements
on a secondary scale, while St. John's Wort didn't.  
-from Investor's Business Daily

125 responses total.

Proponents of SJW don't generally claim it's effective for "major depression."
The claim is that it helps low-level depression, that would normally cause
a person to feel blue and listless, but not dysfunctional.
 
SJW is not an effective treatment for major depression.

(I wonder what this quantitative scale is for "minor" and "major"
depression. It does sound like a quibble so that the SJW aficianados
can keep their weed.)

'Candy is dandy and liquor is quicker' - it is often the case that
what you set out to find is likely to be what you seek.  The problem
with SJW is that the actual 'active ingredient' is probably offset.

I've also found that Zoloft causes weight gain (30-40 pounds) in most
patients, which I believe would add to any depression.  Two friends asked to
be put on a different drug, dropped the weight in about a month, and feel much
happier with their prescriptions.

Is there any way to counteract the weight gain?

#2> I've already indicated what the distinction is: Level of functionality.
If you're likely to go to a shrink and get told you don't need medication,
SJW is likely to be effective. If the shrink tells you you're bad enough for
drugs, SJW isn't. I'm not aware of any threats to make SJW illegal.
 
All I know is, it helps me get through my SAD. I'm tapering off it now.
Whether that's 100% placebo effect or not, I don't care, and I'm not sure why
anyone else would. Even if it *is*, it keeps me mindful to take a pill twice
a day that I have mood swing problems, so they don't sneak up on me as often.
I fail to see how that's a bad thing, worthy of your scorn, Rane.

SJW actually made me feel worse when i tried taking it a few years back.

Re #6: what you say *does* sound like a quibble so you can keep your
weed....  Just an observation.  8^}

can i keep my weed too?

#8> Um, ok. I'm glad that the contemporary psychological view between
functional and dysfunctional psychological malaise sounds like a quibble to
you, Rane. Perhaps you should hang up a shingle and start charging for your
sound psychological advice.
 
Again, you're acting like a hypocrite. In other places, you've claimed that
anything which doesn't cause harm to others and brings more contentment to
the world can't be a bad thing, and here you're disdaining it. (I'm probably
"misrepresenting" your words again, though. =P )
 
I don't find it to be a quibble, and I don't like being called a junkie.

What oval said.

Hm. My mother is a junkie. I don't like being compared to her. I have an
addictive personality, but there are no drugs to which I'm addicted. Every
winter, I use SJW, and it helps. I don't have to take it, and if it were
banned tomorrow, I'd find some other way to keep my spirits up. 

I thought I'd give you a chance to say that maybe you were being a little glib
about something that is offending someone a great deal, Rane. I'm not the 
slightest bit amused.

rane just forgot to take his happy pill today.

Lifting spirits will get you arrested by security at the liquor store.

        :)

I showed my happy pill in  #8, but no one saluted.

Your middle finger may make *you* happy, but that's only because of where it's
generally located. ;}

They are most often located on d and k. Where are your's?

i tried SJW for my *SAD*

whatever.

y'know what helped?  eating better and getting exercise.


more psychiatrists should prescibe exercise, but then they'd
lose the kickbacks from the med companies.


i once new a psychiatrist who wrote the following in the 
clinical reccomendations section on a consult form:

"Advised Pt. to split & stack at least one face-cord
 of firewood Q D."

"Advised Pt. that she's spending too much time
 hunkered down on the pity-potty."

<remmers seconds happyboy's observation that exercise and a decent
 diet do wonders for depression (and other ailments)>

One of the symptoms of depression is a big weight loss.  My 
psychiatrist was alarmed that I'd lost 20 pounds in about 2 months.  (I 
am obese; I started at 245.  I wasn't worried.  Not about that.)  I 
wasn't dieting or exercising; I just wasn't interested in things such 
as eating.

I haven't gained it back yet, though I am now taking Zoloft.  I haven't 
been losing more, though.  If I don't do something for exercise, I will 
probably be gaining weight soon.

The Zoloft helped me a whole bunch.  Ask anyone who's been around me 
much for the last couple of months.  For me, it has been worth it.

Hmmm.  I guess that I see a HUGE difference between taking a prescribed
medication and an herbal extract.  I dont' think I would take someting that
would "alter" my mood without my dr. giving me the heads up.

And I, like happyboy, totally advocate exercise and eating well.

(Psst...chewing poison ivy leaves will also alter your mood.)

So will listening to Rane.
 
BTW, I wonder if anyone here is a licensed psychotherapist. There seem to be
quite a few people giving medical advice which amounts to treating depression,
a medical disorder, as a mere side effect of being lazy. How, precisely, is
that different from telling a depressed person to "cheer up"?

i imagine everyone's depression is a different experience, and that everyone
experiences it on some level at points in their life. i do think people should
take more responsibility for their mental state, and figure out what makes
them feel crappy and what makes them feel better

"Cheer up, they said, 'things could be worse',
and so I cheered up, and sure enough, things got worse."

So far, the thing that has cheered me up the most often when I was 
depressed was to choose to distract myself from it or if something 
made me laugh.

re #25: People who are posting that they are depressed are asking for 
help.  Those who tell about using exercise, St. John's Wort, etc. to 
help get past their depression are trying to help.

Not all depression is a medical disorder.  Sometimes people just have 
the blues.  People who are severely depressed, or who have been 
depressed for a long time, should seek medical help and/or therapy and 
can get a lot of benefit by doing so.

All depression is a medical disorder. Sometimes, that medical disorder can
be helped through change in diet and exercise; indeed, that's frequently part
of a professional treatment program for mild depression. If it *weren't* a
medical disorder -- i.e., if it weren't caused in part by physiological
imbalances -- then changes in diet and exercise (i.e., changes in
physiological balances) would not be an effective treatment.
 
If the tone were, "Changing your diet and exercise would be a good first
step," I'd not have said anything. The tone of several posts, I felt, was,
"Changing your diet and exercise will typically cure depression." Which is
tantamount in my mind to blaming the depressed person entirely.
 
OTOH, I understand Oval's implication that far too often people with
depression and similar problems like to blame their illness to get out of
things or to excuse their behavior. I don't agree with that, and am actually
rather aghast that, "I'm crazy, I can't help my behavior" is a valid excuse
*not* to get punished for crimes committed.
 
Maybe the tone I read wasn't intended; I'd be surprised to hear it coming from
Remmers, for instance. Rane's flippancy probably made me sensitive to the
topic in general, If so, my apologies to people for misconstruing their words.

I think it's understood that the suggestions from non-professionals
are anecdotal and/or based on personal experience.  My comment on
diet and exercise was meant in the sense of "it helped me".

Another help is if the depressed person wants to be healthy.
Sounds odd, but not all do.  They've become comfortable with
being sick and found depression useful.

Re #32: The situation there is that depression is like a "local minimum" -
you have to make things harder for a while to get out of it, but once you
do, it gets better.  But when you're in a deep depression, sometimes it's
hard to muster the energy to get out, and hard to believe that there *is*
a way out, especially since everyone needs to find their own way.

Zoloft most certainly does not generally produce weight gain, and i'd like
to see you show me some evidence to prove that.

Anti-depressants are notoriously hard to prove efficacious.. you need several
thousand patients to really have a valid study because so many patients on
the sugar pill BELIEVE (psychologically) that they're on the anti-depressant,
which makes them feel better.

The Duke study probably didn't have nearly as many patients as the actual
clinical trials for Zoloft did.

No, Mark, I'm not talking about lack of energy being the reason folks
don't get better but rather that for some being sick meets their needs on
some level. Maybe other folks don't expect as much from them, or they
don't expect as much from themselves, or they enjoy the sympathy, or they
are afraid of being part of life, or whatever.  It's a complex issue when
we start to be our own worst enemy.  

Certainly this doesn't apply to all or even most depressed people.  But it
does play a part.  So an honest, I mean really honest self-assessment is a
good place to start.   If you don't have the energy to even look inside
then, well, you're screwed.

*shrug*  part of the illness may be a distorted view of reality
in which case a self assessment is moot.

*shrug*

Distorted but useful, to some.  That's my point.

We have a friend who swears a bout of depression was cured by one ride 
on that really nasty roller coaster down at Kings Island.  She did seem 
quite giddy after we all got off the ride (we had to pry her husband's 
hands off the safety bar), but I think that was just relief over not 
being dead.  

ROTFLMAO!!!!

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