Antidepressants are commonly prescribed for chronic pain in older adults. However, a new study has confirmed that those drugs are mostly ineffective for that purpose—and carry harmful effects that add to the burden already facing older adults. The study was a systematic review and meta-analysis of the 15 existing trials comparing these drugs with a control group.
“There are no studies that would currently support that duloxetine, or any other antidepressant examined in our review, are particularly well suited as monotherapy for any type of pain in older people,” the researchers write.
And the existing evidence comes mostly from small studies at high risk of bias, including those funded by the pharma industry, they add.
The study was led by Sujita W. Narayan at the University of Sydney, and published in the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology.
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“Antidepressants examined in our review may have a very small positive effect in older people with knee OA. This benefit may be outweighed by their potential risks.”
And since those of us who were young adults that were given the SNRIs, under the lie that the SNRIs are “safe smoking cessation meds” know the potential “risks” of the SNRIs is having the common adverse withdrawal effects of the SNRIs misdiagnosed as “bipolar,” which results in an iatrogenic living hell.
I agree, the systemic denial of truthful psychological and psychiatric “reporting of associated adverse events further challenges the use of antidepressants in older adults.”
But I am grateful a few American psychologists are waking up to the satanic iatrogenic illness creation system of the big Pharma deluded psychiatric system, Peter. Thank you for your truthful reporting.
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