Hurt to Healing HEALING 101: Safely tapering off SSRIs with Dr. Mark Horowitz
Jun 27, 2024
Join Dr. Mark Horowitz, a trainee psychiatrist and co-founder of Outro Health, as he shares his groundbreaking insights on safely tapering off SSRIs. Mark reveals his personal battle with SSRIs and the importance of hyperbolic tapering, emphasizing slow reductions to lessen withdrawal symptoms. He discusses the misconceptions of addiction, the risks associated with antidepressants, and the alternatives to medication for mental health. Listeners gain valuable tools for reclaiming their mental health journey and understand the broader implications for those prescribed psychiatric medications.
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Request Liquid Formulations When Needed
- If the NHS won't provide a liquid formulation, request it or raise informed-consent concerns because liquids ease very small cuts.
- Advocate for tools to stop drugs when they are started to avoid being trapped by cost barriers.
Benefits Are Small; Chemical Imbalance Is Misleading
- Antidepressant benefits in trials are small and may be inflated by expectation and short-term designs.
- The 'chemical imbalance' explanation is unsupported and misleads people into long-term use.
Emotional Numbing Is A Common Side Effect
- Antidepressants commonly cause emotional and sexual numbing by compressing emotional range toward the middle.
- Many long-term users report loss of identity and relationship harm from numbing effects.
