Err on the Side of Caution…

… I always say, especially when it comes to ED’s and medication- specifically anitdepressants and children/adolescents. 

It’s a call that I personally feel many clinicians make way too early before steady gains in weight, and full nutrition have been sufficiently addressed, and this takes time.  As parents, we see a significant change in mood with increased nutrition, as well as the opposite when our children are not eating enough or metabolizing properly during refeeding and recovery. 

Of course this will be an intimately personal and individualized decision, and antidepressants, without a doubt, have helped countless numbers of inividuals from seemingly endless and needless suffering. 

And you would want to have a physician who would have all the up to date, accurate, and forthright information in helping you make the best decision possible for your child, but after reading Dr Turner’s published report/study as well as the New England Journal of Medicine’s abstract about “selective reporting and clinical trials”, and “efficacy overstated for antidepressants” I’m convinced it’s vital to continue scrutinizing, as well as reseaching the use of antidepressants within the treatment of ED’s; and question why some clincians seem a tad overzealous to prescribe them.

And as some counterbalance, not completely overlooking how antidepressants have assisted many, CEO David Shern of Mental Health America shared a brief response.