Скачать или смотреть What You Need to Know If Your Medicine Gets You High

https://notonanemptymind.thinkific.com for more great, exclusive content! Register as a prospective student at my online academy free of charge or obligation to receive special notices and offers.

CHASING A SIDE EFFECT. Understanding the unintentional, yet unavoidable, stimulant side effect of euphoria: why, strictly speaking, it is a side effect, and why it can be problematic.

One could argue that a “welcome side effect” is an oxymoron; I say in the video that, “Medications produce effects...They’re only side effects if they’re unwanted.” By that definition, any welcome effect is simply an effect, but inasmuch as the patient may welcome the effect as a bonus (the “icing” on the cake), from the perspective of the prescriber, euphoria, with all of its pitfalls, is an unintended effect, a side effect.

Because of the inherent liability of a better-than-average mood, if we prescribers could excise that effect, we surely would; it would not reduce the efficacy of the medication, while eliminating numerous risks, thereby improving the risk/benefit analysis that justifies treatment in the first place. We are not prescribing euphoria; we never prescribe euphoria. Even when stimulants are used in the treatment of major depression, euphoria is not the aim of therapy. Euphoria is not a natural state, and inasmuch as it cannot be sustained all day, nor from day to day, unless the medication is dosed relentlessly, eventually there will be a downturn, and for many individuals that downturn can be problematic, characterized by rebound symptoms which include anhedonia, low energy, amotivation, irritability and a dark mood.

In this video I argue that euphoria is risky and it is never an intended effect, therefore it is a side effect, regardless of whether or not the patient likes it. Thus, even according to the definition given above and stated in the video, some side effects can be paradoxically welcomed by the patient, yet still be troublesome enough from the perspective of the prescriber to consider them extratherapeutic. Even if we do not induce mania or provoke a rebound depression, problems of sleeplessness, impulsivity, and irritability are quite common.

That said, not all side effects are problematic, and so if an individual experiences no negative consequences from the euphoria, then at best it's "icing."