this post was submitted on 12 Apr 2025
121 points (94.2% liked)
Asklemmy
47619 readers
1020 users here now
A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions
If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!
- Open-ended question
- Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
- Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
- Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
- An actual topic of discussion
Looking for support?
Looking for a community?
- Lemmyverse: community search
- sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
- !lemmy411@lemmy.ca: a community for finding communities
~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~
founded 6 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
You're right, but I think it's also massively underdiagnosed in certain groups like women, immigrants from countries with shit views on mental health.
A lot of my opinion also hinges on that last D, disorder. For example, many people have autistic characteristics, but few have autistic spectrum disorder that severely impairs their normal functioning in life. Likewise with ADHD; just because you can’t concentrate well doesn’t mean you have a disorder. Pills shouldn’t be the first line response.
In general I see this as an issue with healthcare in general; few want to put in the hard work, everyone wants pills or injections. This is also seen in fat loss (GLP-1 drugs rather than a healthy diet and being active) or how the VA treats disabled servicemembers (pills first, skimp on the mental health treatment or physical therapy). I’m not sure where to place the crazy rise of testosterone replacement therapy but I also believe it fits in this general “drugs first” approach. We love our drugs.
The fact doctors rely heavily on patient satisfaction scores exacerbates the issue. Sometimes the best medicine is not at all what the patient wants to hear.
What I'm hearing here though is a greater critique of capitalism than anything. Medicine attempts to resolve situations with drugs first because it's cheapest and keeps the lights on, and people can't afford non-drug therapies because they're poor and overworked. The VA skimps because it's underfunded and America wants people to fight its imperial wars and then fucks them for doing so. Peoples' hormones are disordered because of unprecedented levels of environmental pollutants.
This is an overreaction. Drugs do fix problems and sometimes hard work just isn't actually enough and if anything my experience has been mostly just humouring doctors until I get to the drugs and that actually fixing the issue I had.
No matter what I could try I simply cannot fix my ADHD, and concentration is really the least of my worries, but amphetamines fix it like magic, and the way I even found out I have ADHD is by getting amphetamines from DNMs long before getting them prescribed legitimately.
There are no "healthy habits" I could form when I'm literally unable to form habits without the background dopamine needed for executive function, which is something vyvanse provides for me. Similarly there was no amount of gender non-conformity or societal change that would have fixed my crippling gender dysphoria and I'm glad I just on blockers and HRT as a teen and later got surgery because that was just very literally the fix and I'm just fine now.
Similarly, We're just now finding out that not only does exercise nor a "healthy" diet have a causal relationship with weight, but that some people are just genetically wired to be more hungry and we have meds that fix that and from then on the "hard work" becomes actually doable, and whaddaya know - being less hungry makes you eat less.
Just as you are saying doctors are incorrect for jumping to the conclusion of using drugs first, you are incorrect by jumping to the conclusion that the individual is to blame for their condition and that they should have to do some kind of work to get better, which is a touchstone of 'Christian work ethic' framework where bad/lazy people do bad/lazy things because they are lazy/bad.
I know it's annoying to accept sometimes that miracle cures exist because it feels unsatisfying, but I think when it comes to skepticism of medicine it is best to be specific rather than draw broad conclusions from a preference for "holistic" vibes and a healthy distrust of capitalism and privatised medicine.
I would not lay it on the patients. My wife is on GLP-1 but she begs my doctor to raise her thyroid supplement instead. Her tests come back as the bottom of normal and she has thinning hair, dry skin, constipation, and feels cold all the time. She does have other medical issues but I mean common lets use a little common sense and factor in symptoms along with the blood test. I firmly believe there is some sort of kickback scheme going like with the opiods because thyroid is super cheap.