What I'm really talking about above is, is there some way of figuring out that "it's not depression as primary; it's fatigue." Because there are probably millions of people with fatigue (1% = 3 million) and some will get put on one antidepressant after another, because they're close enough to normal otherwise. I saw one sad commentary on the state of medicine in a discussion group: "if you're not removed from 95% of the population, an endocrinologist (can't? won't? I don't remember) help you".
It's true, though perhaps a bit unfair - you don't necessarily need to be removed from 95%, a doctor can say "You're in the outer 15% *and* you have symptoms consistent with a shortage". That's frowned upon, and it should be, precisely enough to discourage wild experimentation, while still allowing patient treatment.
(Heh. And now I'm wondering about the history of estrogen replacement therapy. And that's yet another thing I don't have the energy to dig into.)
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2013-07-22 04:18 pm (UTC)It's true, though perhaps a bit unfair - you don't necessarily need to be removed from 95%, a doctor can say "You're in the outer 15% *and* you have symptoms consistent with a shortage". That's frowned upon, and it should be, precisely enough to discourage wild experimentation, while still allowing patient treatment.
(Heh. And now I'm wondering about the history of estrogen replacement therapy. And that's yet another thing I don't have the energy to dig into.)