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Acetaminophen Reduces Both Pain and Pleasure, Study Finds
An anonymous reader writes: Researchers studying the commonly used pain reliever acetaminophen found it has a previously unknown side effect: It blunts positive emotions (abstract). Acetaminophen, the main ingredient in the over-the-counter pain reliever Tylenol, has been in use for more than 70 years in the United States, but this is the first time that this side effect has been documented.
Doctors lack a fundamental understanding of the effect the drugs they prescribe for mental health treatment, and are effectively guessing as to what they think will work.
I came to this idea after a psychiatrist told me that the drugs were about balancing the chemicals in the brain, but I eventually realized that he had taken no measurements or anything before throwing any of them at me.
So what balance was out of whack? What effect would the medications have? Oh wait, he didn't know. These concerns were dismissed and antagonized. I was merely a patient, I needed to learn to obey the doctor. So what did I learn?
That the doctor, while purportedly concerned, was hardly treating me in a sound and reasonable manner, but was behaving in a way that worsened my problems and caused me several more issues.
Only sheer chance got me out with relatively little harm.
Maybe Zoloft, or Prozac, or whatever is serving you. There are others who are being damaged by the worst kind of treatment. One with delusions of grandeur.
I'd have been safer going to an herb shop and inhaling a potpourri.