Dunking My Brain in Drugs - Anti-depressant medication and OCPD

Recently I had coffee with a friend of mine who is studying to be a neuro-scientist. She plans to be brain researcher who uses computer modeling to predict behavior and medication affects.Needless to say, she's smart.

I was very interested in Anti-Depressants, specifically SSRI's like Zoloft. I have been on a low dose for about a year, and noticed a major difference even at the lowest dose (25mg). But its hard to tell with all the other metal work I've done to rid myself of anxiety. Is it a placebo effect, where I convince myself the meds work? Or do they have even more of an effect than I know?

So I asked. I said I have lots of friends on anti-depressant medication, which is true, but I didn't mention me specifically. She doesn't know about my "issues" but maybe in time I'll share ( wow that's another post!)

She said we just don't know exactly what they do, or how they do it. My reaction was "What?!? Then why are they prescribed?"

Most of the time, SSRI's work in the brain. But taking then orally "bathes the brain" in the medication, hitting relevant and irrelevant parts of the organ. It's like "taking a bath to wash under your fingernails."

So that's been in my head every morning as I pop my pill. Here's to dunking my brain in serotonin reuptake inhibitors.

Now I'm not saying this is all bad- its just the limits of our science. I was resistant to going on Zoloft for a long time and still don't like the idea that some "medications" are legal, while other natural things are not.

I don't have a conclusion, but there is a lot of talk about medication, anti-depressants and health care right now. All I can say is meds (along with lots of therapy) can help - but the impulse to instantly look to pharmaceuticals for the answer is misguided. Even scientists admit the brain is more of mystery than we want to believe.