Totally agree with you about serotonin. Years ago, my gp at the time prescribed me an ssri (paroxetine) when i said i was having trouble sleeping due to stress. "You'll feel great too" he told me..... Second worse med i've ever taken (i binned them after a few weeks) - only one worse than that was some years later when a different gp convinced me to try a different ssri, (sertraline) after a major bad event in my life happened. Well it took my mind off the event that's for sure, but only because its effects were do bad i wanted to throw myself off the nearest cliff. And coming off the drug was so bad i had to be prescribed a course of diazepam to get through it. I know serotonin is important, (and that an ssri itself isn't actually serotonin). But i think doctors promoting ssri's as 'happy pills' should be force fed them to see for themselves exactly what the s*** feels like. I read a good theory once about how ssri's, when they do have a positive effect for someone, actually work. It was that they flood the brain with so much serotonin that its receptors eventually become resistant or insensitive to the serotonin, allowing dopamine to be dominant so to speak (something like that). It would explain why things can get worse for the patient when commencing treatment before (if it works for them) getting better. Ssri's and statins - docs just love dishing 'em out for some reason.
