Medication: A Tool In The Tool Box

He went on to say I said well, what if everything's going well, you are in the will of God and you're walking with Him, and you've never since been closer to Him. You're in His Word, you're in prayer, and then he still insisted there must be something wrong in their life. Another pastor told me one time that it was wrong to take medications because medications are not mentioned in the Bible, and he was talking about antidepressant specifically, of course. And I asked him do you judge the person with diabetes that takes insulin? Do you judge the person with hypertension that takes medication or medications for their hypertension? He did not stay consistent with that. The extra scrutiny and the extra burden upon someone who is depressed and already beaten down. I've even had someone say they didn't believe you should use anything that's not used or mentioned in the Bible. I thought to myself what an argument to have painted yourself in the corner of. You go to a dentist and the dentist wants to do a root canal and he wants to numb it and you say no, no, wait a minute. Autocain is not in the Bible and therefore I want to go natural. Would you tell a woman who's in labor that the epidural is not in the Bible and therefore she should go natural. That's a terrible argument to try to make, and so we need to shine the light upon this. We need to talk about it in the church. We don't need to hide it, we don't need to run past it and change the subject. As I said before, they're probably anywhere from 10 to 15% of your parishioners, if you're a pastor, listening to this, and they are taking medication and they're quiet about it because they feel that they must be quiet about it or they'll be ostracized or perhaps even considered second-class Christians in the church. We want people to get help, don't we? We want them to be made whole, we want restoration, and so we should be glad if there is something there a tool, if you will, in the toolbox that will punch holes into the dark blanket that I previously have spoken about. Well, I began to take medications doctor's prescription and I felt like I was about 70%, 75% cured or depression was put in remission. It's considered a chronic disease and therefore, unless the Lord God comes down and does a miracle in your life, if you are a depressed person by nature, then you'll probably struggle with that until Jesus comes or he takes you home. But I was happy for the 70% 75% cure. That is, if you will, I felt totally not complete as far as I still struggled with depression, because I have gone to several doctors and I have received some help. I have met those who didn't really care if I got better or not, but I've got an doctor now who is top shelf. He's been doing this a long time. He knows these medications and that's another thing. When a medication is studied, it is studied for what it will do. These medications quite often are not studied together concerning do they play well together? Do they get along? The liver breaks down most medications in your body and so if there's a particular pathway that the med is going through and another medication is competing with that, well, it may double one of the meds that you're taking or it may diminish another medicine that you're taking and it not get to therapeutic level. You need an expert, someone who knows what happens when you put these medications together and what can be put together and what doesn't need to be put together. I'm on a regimen currently and I'm feeling very, very well at this time. I'm very grateful. Perhaps I am feeling better than I have in 20, 30 years. I still have times of trials and depression and I still struggle from time to time, but I'm feeling better again, I believe, than I have felt in a long, long time. You have three major or primary neurotransmitters in your brain Serotonin, dopamine and norepinephrine. Now there are many, many more. The brain is very, very complex. It is that place where we don't know as much as we need to know about it and there's all sorts of breakthroughs that are coming and that have come, but it's still a mystery, that brain of yours. It's been said that people have a chemical imbalance. That's an old term. No one uses that anymore. I don't think in the medical field they really know what causes depression. You know these meds. You can give them and one person gets a great amount of help and the next person takes the same medication and receives little to no help. You have several drugs from the past called tricyclics and they are known to have a number of side effects. But they're not going away because many times they are the only medications that can bring someone out of a deep, deep, dark depression. So they are very effective medications and they're not going away. In the late 80s Prozac came out. It was the first of the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors. They were considered miracle drugs and they helped numerous people all over the world. But they didn't help everyone and they don't help everyone, and sometimes, if you take them, you will get a little bit of help, and yet that medication needs another medication to help it to be more effective. There's a medication standing out there that's all alone. It's a medication called Wilbutrin. It works not through serotonin, but primarily through norepinephrine and dopamine, and it's an unusual medication. I have known individuals who have tried on Wilbutrin and it did not help them one bit. I have known others and it was absolutely a bit of a miracle cure. I'm thinking of a young person right now who is on Wilbutrin, who was suicidal and had a great, great number of problems but is doing quite well on Wilbutrin to this day. Many of these medications that you will be given are used off-label. You have a medication out there. It's an IV. It's given through the IV Ketamine. Well, it's a strange, strange bird indeed, but it totally works off of different neurotransmitters Glutamine, I believe it is, if I'm not mistaken. Another sad thing about mental health treatment is a great deal of this comes out of your own pocket. Health insurance will not cover at least many individuals. Your health insurance will not cover mental health treatment and so it's cash out of your pocket and it can be very, very expensive. Another problem concerning mental health is there is a shortage nationwide of psychiatrists, physicians, assistants who are schooled and treating mental health, and nurse practitioners. In these United States there is a tremendous shortage of those who are specializing and can help with mental health. I wish that our government and or our health insurance companies would stand up and try to solve this problem and try to work on it and move toward it and get individuals the help that they need to get in the area of mental health. It would pay dividends for all. I'm convinced that if some individuals their mental health improved, some of their physical maladies would improve. Also Again, the reason I'm speaking and I do not hide this fact that I struggled and have struggled with depression and PTSD. Several years ago I was speaking with some pastors, and I mean an informal speaking. We had had a lunch together and were visiting and talking and I shared a little bit about my testimony and being treated for depression. Well, it seemed to me that the conversation became very, very quiet. I do believe they were listening to me and let me have the floor. That was the reason that it was quiet, but I also believe that that was a very uncomfortable subject to talk about, and so I did the talking. They did the listening. Well, after that conversation and that lunch, a few days later, one of the pastors in that fellowship called me and he said you know, I appreciate what you said about depression and I appreciate the way you don't hide it. He said I struggled from depression. He said I've never been treated for it and I'm not doing so well at this time. And so we talked and I listened to him and he told me a bit about the depression that he had fought and how long he had fought it and some of the ways that he tried to manage it. Well, a long story made short. He was able to get him in touch with a very fine doctor and then later he got into counseling and he's doing quite well. Now he is on medication, he is receiving counseling, talk therapy. He has not gone public with this to individuals, to his family Well, his immediate family knows about it but to other family members and he has not spoken to his church about it. And that is absolutely his right and I would never infringe upon his right not to talk about his treatment and his mental health troubles. That is a decision that he has to make, and I respect him. Whether he says to go public, and I respect him. Whether he decides not to go public, that's way out there, out of the room. But I am so happy that he got some help and is doing better, and so that is the reason that I continue to speak about this, because I want the light to shine down on this. I want people who have problems to get fixed and to get the help they need and to punch holes into that dark, dark, black blanket that envelops us so. So many times At least we sense that it does as we struggle with depression. Again, medication is not the cure-all, it is not always the go-to wonder of wonders, but it is a tool in the toolbox. I hope you'll consider it. I hope you'll have a sit down, if you will, if you need to, with your doctor and be honest and share what's going on inside you and how you feel. It will not be the first time he's heard this. He is schooled in this, he has learned this, and perhaps he will begin to help you with treatment. But I would also say don't just lean on the medication alone. Get into some counseling and if, after a trial of an antidepressant, you're not doing much, much better than I think perhaps you need to, the next step would be to find a specialist. Well, we're just about done here today. Thank you for stopping by. Let's have a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, I thank you for your mercy. I thank you for the grace that we have in realizing Jesus Christ. Father, I pray, if there is one who is listening to this podcast, that you would help them, god, in your sovereignty, you would allow them to get the help that they need, and I pray, oh God, that they will have victory over depression. We pray this in Jesus' precious name, amen.