Do we trust our doctors too much? Have we stopped listening to our own bodies and instead listen to those who we perceive to be figures of authority and knowledge? A survey taken by The Sun recently revealed that 1 in 3 women have at some point in their lives taken anti-depressants. Does this mean that 1 in 3 women have suffered from depression? If this were true then our society would indeed be in a sorry state of affairs. Surely this figure demonstrates a readiness of our doctors to over-prescribe pills that do not actually go any way to solving problems, only pushing them to one side? Or it could display a worrying willingness of patients – especially females in this case – to accept and take what they’re told. Instead, shouldn’t we be exploring why someone is ill, mentally or physically, not throwing pills at them to make the symptoms go away, but finding the root cause?
I don’t claim to be a doctor, or have any clinical knowledge of depression or ‘happy pills’. Doctors (like journalists) do a job involving long, thankless hours, and come under a lot of unnecessary criticism. I’m not disregarding anti-depressants whatsoever. Some people do need them. My argument is that maybe we need to start listening to our own bodies more, what our body is telling us we need, rather than visiting the doctor for every single illness that ails us.
Two years ago I was in and out of the doctor’s office with a persistent cough that I couldn’t shift. It was keeping me awake at night, giving me breathing problems, and eventually making me ill every time I coughed. One night I couldn’t catch my breath whatsoever in between coughs, and I couldn’t breathe for about half a minute. It wasn’t much, but it’s a terrifying experience suddenly finding that you can’t breathe, for no matter how long. I went straight to A&E, where I was told that it was a ‘tickly cough,’ and to buy cough syrup and take pills to stop the gag reflex. I wanted to laugh.
Surprisingly the symptoms didn’t go away. I happened to have an appointment with my regular GP a few days later. I’d been bounced around from doctor to doctor, knowing that there was something seriously wrong with me, but nobody seemed to listen. He was a man that really listened to me, had been treating me since I was a child, and almost instantly diagnosed me with asthma and put me on one of the highest steroid inhalers, which, two years later, I am still on.
This article is not criticising doctors. It was a doctor that realised what was wrong with me in the first place. I have, to an extent, lost my faith in doctors. This is mainly due to being in and out of surgeries over the past few years and being made to feel like I was wasting their time or feeling belittled because I was back with ‘yet another “chest infection”. Doctors have to treat so many patients that may not be particularly ill, may have an illness that should just go away with time, or even patients that make up illnesses. They have to build up a resistance to caring too much.
This article is arguing that we need to start listening to our own bodies more. Not necessarily doctors less, but to ensure that our doctors really know how we’re feeling, and to not put all of our absolute trust in them and what is prescribed us, especially if we don’t always feel like we need it. At the end of the day, in most common scenarios, the person who most knows what their body should feel like and what their body needs is you. You’re the one living with that body. And you’re the one who should really be listening to it.
I don’t think there’s anything intuitively wrong in the assertion that 1 in 3 women have been depressed at some point in their lives. The problem lies in jumping from that to imagining what our society would be like if one third of all women were depressed *right now*. I’m inclined to think that saying “doctors are trying to tell us 1/3 women have been depressed in their lives? that’s ridiculous!” is only the same as saying “doctors are trying to tell us 1/3 people has had a cold in their lives? that’s ridiculous! imagine what society would be like if we all had colds all the time”.
Given the severity of depression and what it does to a person, I doubt there is an epidemic of women trundling along to the doctors and being doled out anti-depressants with no need for them. In my experience, a) the average person doesn’t bother with going to the doctors until after they should have done (rather than when there is no need for it – hypochondriasis is rare), and b) doctors prescribe anti-depressants to people whom they believe are in too bad a place to be much use as a patient of non-biological therapy.
If a woman goes to the doctors and ends up with anti-depressants, it’s because she has been listening to her body. In fact, she is there because hasn’t been able to stop listening to her body, she is well aware of what it is telling her, and she wants to make it stop.
I think you make a fair point – to an extent. If we know our own bodies, we can then work with doctors to help them find the correct diagnosis. A doctor needs to know all the relevant information before making a diagnosis, and a prognosis – and to get it right they need correct factual information from us, the patients. In that respect, yes, there is a need for an attitude of “know thyself” but not just that – of being observant about our signs and symptoms. Thinking about the answers we give to doctors’ questions will benefit us endlessly.
However, I completely agree with Jors the statistic about antidepressants is meaningless. It doesn’t say anything about doctors chucking pills at people. Perhaps it may say something about a mentality that hidden in some magic potion or pill is the answer to all life’s problems, but that mentality that has been around as long as alchemists have. Nothing new.
Good analysis and thoughts. For isntance, drug over-dependance and over-prescription is a big problem, especially in More Developed Countries. The USA on average consumes at least 10 times more legal drugs than the average of any other state, yet its life expectancy and quality of life is in many cases worse than many MDCs. So, perhaps the problem is also people mis-hearing their own bodies, overreacting and then going to overworked doctors who shower them with meds in the name costumer satisfaction. In the age of hypocondria and internet self-prescription, modern medicine as of yet has not come up with comprehensive answers to these problems.
I agree in part, but being one of those who rarely goes to the doctors when they are ill/have back pain/infections etc… for some people it takes a lot. I too feel let down by the NHS during periods of depression, and while I was not offered anti-depressants for the first five years, suddenly with one doctor who seemed to understand, I was. It’s nice to have doctors that really do listen to you, and care just a little more than your average.