The Gaslit Truth
Welcome to The Gaslit Truth Podcast – the mental health wake-up call you didn’t know you needed. Dr. Teralyn and Therapist Jenn are here to rip the bandaid off and drag you into the messy, uncomfortable, and brutally misunderstood world of the mind.
Think you’ve got it all figured out? Think again. Everything you thought you knew about mental health is about to be flipped on its head. From outdated diagnoses to the shady underbelly of Big Pharma, these truth-telling therapists are here to tear down the myths, expose the industry’s dirty secrets, and unpack the uncomfortable realities most people are too afraid to touch.
In a world drowning in misinformation, The Gaslit Truth Podcast cuts through the noise with raw, unfiltered conversations that break down walls and challenge the so-called experts. This isn’t your grandma’s therapy session – it's a relentless, no-holds-barred exploration of what’s really going on in the world of mental health.
Warning: This podcast isn’t for the faint of heart. It’s for those who are ready to question everything, confront the lies head-on, and dive deep into the truth you were never meant to find. Because real healing starts with facing the ugly, uncomfortable truths nobody wants to admit.
Welcome to The Gaslit Truth Podcast – where mental health gets real, the revelations are explosive, and nothing is off-limits. Tune in, open your mind, and prepare to unlearn everything you thought you knew.
The Gaslit Truth
Your Blood Sugar Problems Might Be Your Antidepressants, Not Your Pancreas: Does Jenn Have Diabetes??
"Is your pancreas suddenly malfunctioning, or could it be your antidepressant?" That's the question at the heart of this explosive episode where we reveal the shocking disconnect between existing research and what medical providers tell patients about SSRI side effects.
When co-host Jen called her doctor about concerning blood glucose results during her Lexapro taper, she was immediately shut down with "No, that can't be related to your medication." But as we uncover, multiple studies dating back over a decade have established clear connections between SSRIs and metabolic disturbances. We share a jaw-dropping recording of this medical gaslighting in action, breaking down all the ways Jen's legitimate concerns were dismissed without consideration.
Looking deeper, we explore compelling research including a 2013 study showing significant increases in weight, blood glucose, cholesterol, and triglycerides in women taking various SSRIs for just 16 weeks. Even more convincingly, a massive 2020 Japanese study of 90,000 participants concluded that "antidepressants increased the risk of type 2 diabetes," with risk increasing alongside duration and dosage of medication use. Perhaps most importantly, both studies found these metabolic markers returned to baseline after discontinuation - exactly what many patients report but are told is impossible.
This episode serves as both validation for those who've felt dismissed by healthcare providers and as ammunition for your next medical appointment. We discuss strategies for advocating for yourself, monitoring your own health metrics, and navigating a system that often refuses to acknowledge medication side effects. If you've ever wondered whether your changing health status might be connected to your psychiatric medication, this conversation will equip you with knowledge to push back against medical gaslighting and take control of your health journey.
Midlife is freaking hard. Let's flip the script.
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Dr. Teralyn:
Therapist Jenn:
Have you been gaslit into believing your health status is not related to your antidepressants? We are your whistleblowing shrinks, dr Tara Lynn and therapist Jen, and this is the Gaslit Truth Podcast. We are heading into this strong and a little bit differently today, because we have a phone recording and you can also see the video on YouTube. If you go there you can't see the video of the people, but we have it kind of documented in video of an actual conversation with Jen's medical doctor's office, and this is how she was gaslit Roll tape.
Speaker 3:Could this be a product of me going through a medication taper?
Speaker 2:Medication taper as far as like what?
Speaker 3:medication. I'm tapering off of Lexapro and have been for 17 months now 16 months.
Speaker 2:No, usually no. The Lexapro won won't increase your sugar. How come Usually you don't see that with medication? Usually it's the way your pancreas is working Right. You're on a very low dose of deluxoprol right uh, I I'm at 4.7 milligrams.
Speaker 3:I started at 20. However, the last handful of months of this tape and the most taxing on anxiety for me.
Speaker 4:So at this point I am diagnosed with hyperglycemia and I am told by the nurse that I need to start looking at some pre-diabetes protocol. So there's a little audio at the end that I did not put in there and that's what you guys, if you're watching on YouTube, you will see. Right at the very end is a statement made to me about pre-diabetes protocol. Sharing this for those of you that are on YouTube and watching this if you're there, Because hopefully it'll our bandwidth is a little weird.
Speaker 4:It's on any of my. Yeah, it is, it is. Our bandwidth is a little bit weird.
Speaker 2:Whenever we try to do this whole video again.
Speaker 1:I know.
Speaker 4:I know it's stupid. It's weird, right, whenever we try to bring in the legit videos, it all goes crazy.
Speaker 1:It's fucked up.
Speaker 4:It was a good video I know it's a good video, so if you want to see the whole thing too and re-hear it again, right, you can go on on my socials, um, either on my tiktok or on my instagram, um which we've got those linked here in our show notes, um, and you can watch this again, because this is a actual, real call that happened between me and the doctor's office about a few weeks ago.
Speaker 1:So I have to say you're welcome for telling you to record it, because who knew it was going to be content for?
Speaker 4:later. All right, so this I do have to give the credit to Terry for this because she goes you should just record this phone call. So the long story short of this is I was having some routine work that is going to be done at the doctor's office and part of that routine work was to I had my thyroid tested and they wanted to test my blood glucose levels and all that good jazz, and I said, well, yeah, it's been. It's been a little bit since I've done that, so, so I should right. And the results of that came back with a very, very high blood glucose level. I did a fasting glucose and I was at 147, which is extremely high. So that led to a phone call me telling to go do more testing, starting pre-diabetes protocols, blah, blah, blah and multiple dismissals, which is what we're going to talk about today.
Speaker 4:That happened in this phone call and in the eyes of Western medicine. I have diabetes.
Speaker 1:It's your pancreas, though it's suddenly your pancreas.
Speaker 4:What you and I are going to talk about today is we're going to bring some research in about SSRIs and we're going to talk a little bit about SSRIs and we're going to talk a little bit about some stuff that's out there that actually does draw correlations between SSRI use and different types of metabolic syndromes, including diabetes.
Speaker 1:So it's funny because you know we'll get the people that come on and be like correlation does not equal causation. And I'm like you know, and then I had somebody do this on my TikTok just the other day Correlation doesn't equal causation. But we already know that depression causes people to have lower health statuses. And I said, did you just try to debunk my correlation research with more correlation research, like you? Just whatever. I'm sick of it.
Speaker 4:We get so far down that rabbit hole of research, right? Yes, which is why you and I I don't know I encourage any of my therapy clients, any of my deprescribing consultant, coaching clients. I tell them I'm like research is there and it's great, you know, kind of like when Raquel was on the show and she said the same thing. You know, in some ways research can lie because we are, we're really focusing so much, assuming that there are no confounding variables in any of this, right, but we bring it in for awareness, for people. But it doesn't mean you have to put all your eggs in the fucking research basket, right? Because if you put every single egg, you're going to be like if we were in the medical, western medical research basket right now. Jen needs insulin. Let's rock.
Speaker 3:Here we go, like it's her pancreas. You're, you're, you're done.
Speaker 4:Right. So so what? What we want to, what we want to talk about here is there are so many of us out there that have taken SSRIs, taken antidepressants, and have had medical issues that have come as could possibly be causing some of these medical issues is dismissed, and it's dismissed so quickly. So, as you guys heard in this phone call first of all, now, mind you, I've been titrating for like 17 months now.
Speaker 1:That provider's office they know me very well, do they? Though it sounded like they kind of didn't.
Speaker 4:No, this is the same nurse I had to lie to to try to get a liquid everybody.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's right.
Speaker 4:Because, I had to lie to her multiple times and tell her I couldn't swallow pills because they didn't want to give me a liquid. So I tried the whole lying route and she called me on it because she put it in my chart that patient lied right. So this woman knows me. I call every couple months. I am the most tenacious fucker when it comes to them knowing what's going on with my titration because they hold the golden ticket to my prescription.
Speaker 1:And I do, and I also feel like it's part of you kind of educating them like watching you go through this right.
Speaker 4:This is the doctor's office that I walked into with this book and repeatedly threw the deprescribing guidelines in front of them and said you guys need to look at this. Yes, you need to look at it. It was the day I felt like I was fighting for my life to get this liquid prescription. So they've been with me on this for a long time a year and a half and so the first huge dismissal is well, what are you titrating off of Right Now? I had just been there like three days prior and met them.
Speaker 1:Well, I wrote down a couple of different things. The first one is well, no, it can't be that it's your pancreas. Yeah, it can't be Well then I would say why does suddenly your pancreas have problems, like why, why did that happen? You know so. The second thing is and we hear this a lot is well, you're on such a low dose, like dismissal of the dose is irrelevant right.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 4:It's irrelevant. So not only do they not know, I'm not titrating, okay, which is crazy to me, right? Yes, yes, it's irrelevant. So not only do they not know, I'm not titrating, okay, which is crazy to me, right? The second part of it is that there's no education that they have, or awareness that they have on the fact that an SSRI long-term use okay, 25 years, almost right can actually lead to these issues with metabolic functioning. And, as you can hear in this call, the nurse says no, no, no, that can't be, so then I say, well, how come tell me, like, give me something and they can't right.
Speaker 4:So for all you know, anybody listening that's a provider. For the fuck's sake. Like, humble yourself a little bit. If you don't know. An answer say I don't know. Maybe we got to look more at this, maybe there is something to this correlation you speak of, like there's a lot of that.
Speaker 1:I do want to bring that in a little bit too. Why is it that we have to provide an answer, or think that we have to provide an answer? Could this possibly be? She would have been better off saying I'm not sure. Actually, let me look into that, you know, let me see Right, instead of just saying, no, it's your pancreas. You know like, oh, suddenly I have a diseased pancreas. That's interesting why, I don't know. It just happens sometimes, you know.
Speaker 4:Whatever you know, and the part of the call that you guys didn't get either right at the end was how she went on to tell me that there are no correlations between high anxiety and blood glucose levels. Oh well, that's there too.
Speaker 4:And so that too is quite one very, very dismissive. Because, as we know, because I started to tell her at the very end about the heightened anxiety that I've had during this taper the last three months has been really, really, probably I would say that, the toughest for me in terms of symptoms I'm experiencing. And we know anxiety impacts blood glucose levels. It releases your hormones, it releases cortisol, it releases adrenaline right, and those increase glucose production and also can reduce how sensitive you are to insulin. Like this is something that I just want to. I can't say it's common knowledge but I'm not really quite sure what the words are. Because to tell, me.
Speaker 1:That's not.
Speaker 4:Knowledge is a good word To tell me that's not real is almost like malpractice I don't even know how to say it.
Speaker 1:I do because I want to bring this in as part of, like somebody's treatment plan. If suddenly because this would be like a type two diabetes situation Correct, one of the things that they would recommend is nutrition and then stress reduction. So clearly, clearly, they know. Why would you even say stress reduction if it didn't matter, you know, if that stress and cortisol was irrelevant to the conversation, why would you even have it as part of a treatment plan? And it's part of everybody's treatment plan for every disease state.
Speaker 4:It really is. It really is so.
Speaker 4:that, I think, was the cherry on top of all of the different dismissals that are occurring. If you're not watching on YouTube and you're just listening to us. The deliverable I put out on this was naive dismissals, is what I called it, and I'm writing out all the naive dismissals that are occurring along the way, right, like? What medication are you even taking? No, that doesn't affect blood sugar. Oh, it's got to be a pancreas thing. The pancreas is, you know. Like all of these, there's no evidence to back the statement that she says you know. And so these are the things that happen to us as patients.
Speaker 4:Now then, of course, I put this out on my socials, and I'm so like I can feel myself getting extremely anxious talking about this because it pisses me off so much. Right, like I'm physiologically reacting right now. My heart is just racing talking about this. So background information for everybody, just so that those of you who are, like, really stuck on the Western model can maybe get curious a little more. I have absolutely no family history of diabetes for any first degree relatives.
Speaker 4:I have one relative that does have it and is 100% lifestyle and they are the epitome of the standard American diet and it's pretty dangerous shit now.
Speaker 2:So I have none of that.
Speaker 4:I also live the pretty much epitome of what is a damn healthy lifestyle.
Speaker 1:I don't know what other nutritional changes you could make. I mean, yes, I mean and I've done that right.
Speaker 4:This has been a two-year process for me. First, I started by getting my adrenals in check, because I was in adrenal failure two years ago. I started there and went all the way through everything from nutrition to meditation to sleep and everything in between, so I'm pretty sure I'm the poster child for dialing in a lifestyle. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean so when Jen, when she called me and we were talking about this early on, it got me thinking a little bit about me, because when I was taking the antidepressants, I remember being put on metformin at one point and for pre-diabetic stuff.
Speaker 1:Yes, but you know, I've always struggled with weight and all these things. So for me I was like, well, I mean, maybe it makes sense, blah, blah, blah. You know, um, all met, form and did was make me shit my pants, which is what all these meds make me do, but anyway, it didn't help anything else. Uh, but as she was talking I was like, anyway, didn't help anything else. But as she was talking I was like, holy shit, that actually happened and I haven't. Since being off of that many years ago, I haven't had any blood sugar problems at all. And I look like between the two of us, like if you were to just like, you know, look at, I would be the one with type two diabetes issues here. The diabetes.
Speaker 4:It's got to be the diabetes.
Speaker 1:I got the diabetes, but I don't. I don't have blood sugar issues, I don't have. The only time I did was when I was on an SSRI and put on metformin and I didn't even connect those dots at all until she said that and I was like holy shit balls, like that actually happened. And I'm like wow, cause I know I had. I also had metabolic problems when I was on it too. You know weight gain and things like that and you know, metabolically this stuff can impact you.
Speaker 1:But it's so funny because when you really start talking to people and they tell you all their health conditions they have and and all the psych meds they're on, and my, my, now my question always is did those things happen after you were put on the psychiatric medication? And the majority of times it's yes. And especially when I see younger people now suddenly having high cholesterol or a heart murmur or all these hypertension, like all this high cholesterol, you know they're young, they're healthy, they're on antidepressants or psychiatric medication and now their health status is bad. And so the argument is well, you know, health status can be bad if you have mental health issues. You know, without medication I'm like I mean true, because people aren't taking care of themselves. There's a lot of lifestyle factors involved and things like that, but we cannot dismiss that they didn't have those before they were put on the antidepressants. So yeah, and we're not talking about just tricyclic antidepressants here, we're talking about your standard fair SSRIs, snris, you know.
Speaker 4:So we're going to talk a little bit about this research that Jen sent me.
Speaker 1:This is interesting stuff too, and I think we should probably do a whole episode on the heart, because that scares the shit out of me with heart. But these are really conversations in the realm of you can't get something for nothing, right? Like what you put in your body. There is an input and an output, and this is part of it right here. So you know, and this is just one piece of literature, right? So take this piece of literature and get you know, curious about this, go to the citations and look at who they use to cite in here, and that will lead you down a rabbit hole of darkness. So be careful.
Speaker 4:It does. And then you can't stop reading and researching. And I tell you in the last month if you're a client of mine. This is something that I'm constantly funneling research to my clients on, because what's very interesting is a good chunk of them have got some form of a metabolic syndrome that they are going through and that they are medicated for, and we've been talking about these correlations for a while, but all of a sudden, now I'm in it more, so I'm pouring my time and hours into research, reading, and then I'm funneling this out to everybody.
Speaker 1:I just want to mention this. What I don't understand is the people like when I present a piece of literature, I'm not presenting it as the absolute truth. There's really nothing out there that is the absolute truth. Yes, you are Terry, otherwise we wouldn't have more research opportunities If someone's like one study with 99 middle-aged women in that we're going to talk about.
Speaker 4:This is the be all end all people. This is it. This is it.
Speaker 1:This is it. Yes, but if you're reading the research articles that we bring up, don't try to poke holes in all of it, because you don't want it to be true, right? I feel like that's where people come from. They're like well, I'm going to find all the bad parts about this research. You can do that for any research article. There's plenty of not good research.
Speaker 4:You can always find what you're looking for.
Speaker 1:You can always find what you're looking for. So when you do this, do it with an open mind of curiosity instead of I don't want it to be true and whatever. Be curious about it. So that's all I'm going to say about research right now. So, cause we know there's a there's a lot of shit research out there, but there's a lot of not shit research, and it's funny. One, one last thing. Somebody said well, this research that I presented called for more research. That means this research wasn't good. I'm like every research article calls for different research on the topic.
Speaker 4:As it should, because they're where the gaps are Correct.
Speaker 1:And then research that gap.
Speaker 4:That's exactly it yeah, so that's a really good comment. Whoever that was, thank you.
Speaker 2:You really made Harry smarter. It was so smart.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So let's look at this article. It's called the Relationship Between SSRIs and Metabolic Syndrome Abnormalities in Patients with Generalized Anxiety Disorder, a Prospective Study. This is in the National Library of Medicine, published by PubMed Central. So, anyway, what's the date? Oh, the date is 2013. So this is, like you know, freaking 12 years ago.
Speaker 4:This is 12 years ago, but my nurse, my nurse, knows nothing.
Speaker 1:She knows nothing.
Speaker 4:This isn't a thing, my goodness. So this is kind of old I found this, though, and I thought that that was very relevant, even though it's not brand new. This is the start of them calling for more research, even in this article, which is pretty cool because it's and, of course, we have stuff that is newer, and you can find stuff that's newer but what's interesting to me is this idea that this really truly specifically the relationship between SSRIs and metabolic syndrome, you know, over 10 years ago it was already being studied right, so what?
Speaker 1:do we got here? Well, I would guess because the amount of people that have been prescribed this is going up and up and up that you're going to see more diabetes.
Speaker 4:The first line of this article is SSRIs are some of the most widely prescribed medications in the world.
Speaker 1:So why they?
Speaker 4:pick. This makes sense because they are.
Speaker 1:It makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 4:They still are. They still are.
Speaker 1:The next line, though, got to take beef with. In addition to their effectiveness, SSRIs were reported to be associated with the side effects of weight gain, sexual dysfunction, drug interactions I can't even say this word. Extrapyramid middle you know what that is? I had to look that up. Do you know what that means? It's a group of movement disorders.
Speaker 4:It's like part of dyskinesia. I was imagining a pyramid of symptoms like Maslow's hierarchy of needs. No, that's what this pretty girl thought it was.
Speaker 1:It says right here, these symptoms can include akathisia, dystonia, parkinson, tremors, involuntary movements.
Speaker 4:Parkinson like tremors, involuntary movements, and I'm like I didn't know what it was.
Speaker 1:So that's what we've been talking about. There's a word for it? Yes, there is, but nobody knows it, and it was labeled guys.
Speaker 1:But anyway and discontinuation symptoms. However, they don't know. The metabolic parameters are poorly understood. So, um, these guys I I think well, jen, you looked in this a little bit more deeply than I did Um, but there was 97 women aged 20 to 41, um, without any metabolic or psychiatric comorbidity, so it was just anxiety were included in the study. So the the meds that they looked at were, um, oh gosh, I I wrote all of them down.
Speaker 4:Proxetine, zoloft, which is your, your Sertraline. Celexa, cetalopram, uh, the Lexapro, which is what I'm on, which is Cetalopram, and then Prozac, which is your Phylexatine.
Speaker 1:Well, done, well, done, yes, anyway, so they. They looked at these women who are taking these medications, which, yeah, they found some very interesting.
Speaker 4:Just a little bit more holistic, probably not nearly as much as I am, but someone who at least is a little bit more open to things. So I did call back and tell them that I fired them, but I do have to go in there for my pap, so when I do I'm just going to slide a little more research to them so they can have a better understanding of the fact that this has been looked at for the last 15 years already. But what this study did and we can read in general, so what they found is in the group that was taking Paxil, that paroxetine group, there was a pretty significant increase in their weight, their BMI, waist circumference, fasting, glucose, total cholesterol, ldl trigcerides after about four, three to four months of treatment, so they say 16 weeks. So they took these women who had no other comorbidities and they were just bill of health and you have anxiety disorder and they put them on this SSRI for 16 weeks and here's what happened there were significant increases in triglycerides in the citalopram group okay, which is the Celexa group.
Speaker 4:Guyscerides in the citalopram group okay, which is the Celexa group. Guys in the e-citalopram group, which is the Lexapro In the sertraline group the total cholesterol level increased after treatment. So your cholesterol is going up. For sertraline and then flexatine there was significant reductions in weight, cholesterol and triglycerides. So in the flexatine group there were actually some reductions that happened with weight, cholesterol and triglycerides. So in the fluxatine group there were actually some reductions that happened with weight, cholesterol and triglycerides.
Speaker 1:Correlation doesn't equal causation. I'm just kidding.
Speaker 4:I know. But what this study is concluding and it's showing is that they say they're one of the first studies that really prospectively described metabolic syndrome and looked at what that is and the abnormalities in patients that take SSRIs. But in general, all of those SSRIs, with the exception of one, were leading to problems with BMI, weight, blood glucose, triglycerides. They actually break down some of the cholesterol things in here too, which very interesting, my LDL cholesterol is very high.
Speaker 1:It's usually the LDL, I believe, is what they is. That's your bad cholesterol. Mine is very high guys. So just so, youl, I believe, is what they is. That's your bad cholesterol, mine is very high guys.
Speaker 4:So, just so you know, when I looked at this, one of the things that I panicked over a little bit besides the fact that they're telling me, hey, my diabetes I was like, nah, fuck you guys, you know what you're talking about but I was worried about the cholesterol parks. My LDL is quite high. I went back and I looked at my cholesterol for the last six years, because I've got all of it and it's it. Um, it has been high, but not quite this high, um, so that's interesting to me, just because I need to pay attention to that, even though, like, my HDL is is in a good spot overall. My cholesterol was high, though, and that's with a lot of really good lifestyle shit going on.
Speaker 1:Um, and I've never had that and with the, with tapering down, correct Tapering.
Speaker 2:So, that's the part.
Speaker 4:So here's the change, guys, for me is lifestyle went into great. I kicked that into gear like epitome of eat, sleep, move, meditate, got that dialed in, but a year and a half ago what did change is I started to titrate off of this Lexapro. I have all of those levels from years prior Okay, and they were pretty stable, which tells me that, as I am removing this medication from my body and improving all of my lifestyle stuff, there's something that's going on within my body that is now kicking out fucked up blood glucose levels. Now, to be fair, that could have just been an error on a test, because of course, what did I do?
Speaker 4:I did what Terry told me to do, because sometimes she's so smart, and I went and started taking my blood sugars every fucking day, multiple times a day. I'm a week into doing this I've never had a high blood sugar guys, never over 101. That was my highest, so I just have to tell everyone it could be, but you know it's weird.
Speaker 1:It could be a fluke, but it's listed diagnostically in your file now.
Speaker 4:I now have a diagnosis of hyperglycemia. I was diagnosed already, guys off of one fasting blood glucose test, Um, so that's another thing that I think bothers me too in this process is those of us that are taking antidepressants and I know a lot of people listening probably are going oh my God, I've had high blood sugars, I've had issues with my heart rate. Yeah, you probably have and didn't have any pre-existing conditions, right, and that's something that I think you got to be curious about because there are errors in testing. That happens. Terry and I went down the dark black hole of what happens with blood blood fasting glucoses if you fast for too long, and there's a bunch of research out there about like, if you do a 10 or a 12 hour fast which I did right.
Speaker 4:I was like yeah, I stopped eating at seven 30 and drinking at night and went and had my blood sugar test at six 30 in the morning. That's funny.
Speaker 1:I got to say that's interesting. That's interesting because I did have a blood one blood sugar elevation and I didn't eat. It was at. I had to go in at like one o'clock in the afternoon and I and I fasted all night and all morning and cause, what am I going to eat at you know 3am? I'm going to you know whatever? And it was a little elevated. That's fascinating, that's funny. I just thought about that. I'm scrolling right now.
Speaker 4:I know, I know so. So this, this we have two. We had two articles that Terry and I had sent back and forth between each other. This was one of them and it talked so basically it talked a lot about that. They are finding that there needed to be more research between these links right Between SSRIs and then these metabolic syndromes that are occurring for people along the way. So my question would be is it occurring after the start? These guys had 16 weeks of this med in their body. Okay, what happens after 25 years? And what happens more so when you start to change the levels and you start to continuously bring that level down?
Speaker 1:This makes me curious, because do you remember the episode we did on alcohol? And when you are bringing the level down, you're more likely to have some reaction with alcohol to make you be more impaired more drunk, yeah, exactly when you're bringing your levels down. So I'm like this is, this is really, this is if anyone's listening and they're researching, this is the research right here what happens when you are tapering your medication Like, does that cause a cascade of metabolic problems?
Speaker 2:And what are they? And what?
Speaker 1:should we be watching for and what should we not be dismissing? Right, then, that doesn't mean that Jen needs to run out and start insulin and all these things. It's like to me, it's like this will go away, because that was part of it. Part of that study was, when they stopped, guess what? It came back to baseline.
Speaker 4:Yep, everything moved itself back to baseline, so that's one of the ones we wanted. It's a testament to your body.
Speaker 1:By the way I know, it's a testament to the healing properties of your body, yep, and it does what it needs to do.
Speaker 4:Now don't get me wrong. I mean there was like I spent a week really pissed off and clearly just blasted this whole phone call.
Speaker 1:I'm more pissed that they put it as a diagnosis for you based on one lab test. So we're going to try to get that.
Speaker 4:We're trying to get that fucker retracted, but here's the deal, which it does cause issues, right, that's a pre-diabetes diagnosis and so like if you're looking at life insurance life insurance yeah, like I. That's the first thing I thought of, because we may or may not be looking at that right now, and that's a you from either receiving it or how your rates are going to look. Your rates.
Speaker 1:Yeah for sure, glucose level. So right, this is this second study, though this is this was. I was, I was panicking oh wait, no, is this the one that I sent you, the very and from very well health.
Speaker 4:Uh, yeah, you yeah, Okay. This is a huge study. You sent me this right away.
Speaker 1:I want to tell you this is from 2020. So this is now newer, right, and it was published in Diabetes Care Journal, which is cool. It's interesting to me when because the other one that I was talking about was published in a cardiac journal. It's interesting to me when other areas publish research about medication for psychiatric problems, and I think that's cool, but it's also gets really dismissed or just not checked in on, you know, anyway. So the title is called the Association Between the Use of Antidepressants and the Risk of Type 2 Diabetes large population-based cohort study, and this was done in Japan in 2020.
Speaker 1:This study had 90,000 participants, which is giant. I mean, it's a huge study. It's a lot of people to look at. They found that antidepressants increased the risk of type 2 diabetes. That's it. This risk increased with longer term use of antidepressants and higher dosage, and so they found that, also with the heart studies, the longer you use it, the higher the dose, the worse off it is for you, which makes sense, right? I mean it makes a lot of sense. The study also found that glucose tolerance improved when the antidepressants were discontinued or reduced Back to baseline, right? So what is your baseline? Is the question. Like we never know what people's baselines are because we keep adding in more shit. You know that doesn't allow them ever to get back to baseline, you know.
Speaker 4:Right, right, and it's also and some of that also right. This is where some of it can be arbitrary. Right, because if you're somebody who's taking an antidepressant, like myself, for 24 years almost, or whatever the hell it is I don't even know that's math, I don't do well with that but your baseline is almost arbitrary at that point. I'm not going to go back and look at a baseline from when I was 17 years old. My body has changed so much since then.
Speaker 1:It has not since you were 17.
Speaker 4:I had those two tiny humans who took every fucking lick of everything out of me. So when you think about this, I will have and I actually at one point had my doctor talking with me a little bit about baseline stuff, and I kind of just chuckle because I think that part is arbitrary too. Now, if you could say, let's, we've tested this every single year for the last how many years we could kind of get a baseline. But can we?
Speaker 4:because I don't know what originally it should have been in the first place, cause this has always been in my body and what we know as well is that it's always impacting the metabolic functioning in some sorts, because the body is constantly interacting and trying to just reach these levels of homeostasis. Right now my body can't. It's trying every day to get to homeostasis so it's changing every time I do a dose reduction and then all that time in between.
Speaker 1:They just happened to hit you on a day that your body was reacting metabolically to this. I do want to bring something in here real quick too, because it does say you know, there are some studies have found that SSRIs help control blood sugar in the short term. Yep, In the short term. That's important, you know to understand, and we can probably go back to that whole stress conversation that we had before that in the early stages of use people do often tend to feel better, right, Like in the very short term, early stages. And that's where the that's where then the studies are cut off and you're like well, that hasn't happened to me. And they say that it helps control blood sugar. That's great, but that doesn't mean for somebody else that it's not the opposite. You know that both can be true at the same time and it's really all person dependent. It is, yeah, it's really all physiology dependent of the person, Right, and I would argue that it probably has less to do with your lifestyle than it does with the medication, Right, Right, yeah, Because in my brain.
Speaker 4:That's where I start as a patient. Right, we start to panic a little bit, but at first, and I'm thinking, okay, my cholesterol is really high and my LDL is super high. Right, my blood glucose is through the roof. And the first thing in my mind, as like a holistic practitioner, I'm sitting here going okay, what have I done in the world of nutrition lately? That's different.
Speaker 2:Like say in the last like three to six months.
Speaker 4:what have I done? And I'm thinking about all of these different things, and when I pause long enough, I'm like wait a minute.
Speaker 4:No, like none of that adds up, because that stuff is really dialed in and I take really good care of myself in that way. I had to when I started titrating off of Lexapro. I had to. It's like the only way for me because otherwise the titration would be horrific. So you start going there at first as a patient, but then you get yourself to a space of like what I'm just going to say is reality and go this doesn't add up.
Speaker 4:It doesn't make sense and of course, they want to do more blood work and they want me to do an A1C and they want me to start looking like they called it pre-diabetes protocol is what she had said to me and start looking at that. And I'm just sitting here going, yeah, I'm not buying it. Now, the reality, though, that some of us are faced with, that we also can't dismiss, is that I could have abnormalities in a metabolic way because of this medication, because that is also a reality that you can develop diabetes. You can have issues with insulin resistance, with heart rate, blood pressure, pancreas and liver functioning specifically liver, that's another one. Don't go down that dark hole, guys, and start researching liver and SSRIs.
Speaker 1:Okay Well they just did a whole big thing on sudden cardiac death with all the antidepressants. But yeah, this is reality.
Speaker 4:That's the shitty part of it too, so I can't dismiss that either, and I have to pay attention to my blood sugars, and I have to start monitoring this because it could be a reality for me too.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, it's just an interesting conversation and one that we want you to know. Okay, so let's say you're on an SSRI, or an SNRI for a long time and suddenly your blood sugars go haywire and you ask the nurse, just like Jen did, is there a relationship between this and that? And they go oh no, it's just your pancreas, Right? I want you to not take that as the final answer, Right, Like it's not the final answer. And so then the question is well then, why is my pancreas suddenly responding this way? Like what? What is it, you know?
Speaker 1:So I guess this whole thing is just like your health status is not stagnant and you can be curious about whatever you want in your own health status, as long as you want to be right. If you want to just go down the regular, you know a Western medicine route and start taking more pills for this and pills, then you can. You have the right to do that too, you know. But we would prefer that you get a little bit curious about this, obviously, especially when I see younger people and when I say younger, I'm like 40 and under, you know, in their forties and under like this is not normal for you guys to be struggling in these ways with your health you know, and I'm not saying that it should be normal for a 60 year old either, but it's more typical, I guess, would be the thing.
Speaker 1:But but then I would argue that maybe it shouldn't be typical for that group either, but that they're so medicated, but anyway. So the younger people that are having these serious problems with their organs is alarming to me and the dismissal that we have. Well, would you rather have your depression or type 2 diabetes? Well, sorry, karen, I'd rather have neither, I'd rather not do either. Why do we do this stupid trade-off? Would you rather have now type 2 diabetes and have your anxiety under control, jen? Oh wait, at that point it was your depression. Would you rather have depression under control or type 2 diabetes?
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's definitely depression. I developed anxiety. I never had that. I do now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm like she never had. That's not why she was on it, but now she's an anxiety patient, which is just another conversation too. You start with one thing, you end up with something else.
Speaker 4:I was a grieving depressive patient and I developed anxiety along the way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm over it.
Speaker 4:I'm so, oh my God, I'm so fucking over it. But this is the stuff to get curious about, guys. So that is what we wanted to present to you today, and don't be gaslit by this, right. Don't be gaslit by the idea that all of a sudden, you've got some medical things that are going on in your life Okay, even if you already have some preexisting things, and they're getting worse, and it's not making sense because, overall your lifestyle, you are dialing those things in right. So, if that's the case, continue to get curious about it, challenge your providers in this, pull up research and show them Again.
Speaker 4:Research isn't the thing, but it can be a thing that you use as a tool, but at the end of the day, you can do things on your own to monitor these things. I went and started testing my blood glucose, got my ass on Amazon, spent 40 bucks, got a glucose meter and a bunch of strips and multiple times a day and repeat it at the same times. I'm measuring it, writing it all down right, I've got a bunch of collateral that's showing me that you're probably okay. I don't need to move forward with pre-diabetes protocol, but I do need to pay attention to it, because the reality is, some of these metabolic things can occur, and they can occur at the cost of taking long-term SSRIs.
Speaker 1:Or possibly tapering, or tapering. Yeah, yeah, that's an interesting one, that's the call for research.
Speaker 4:There are research nerds. Let's go. Where are they?
Speaker 1:I'd like to know when are you guys, I mean we've got it.
Speaker 4:Terry's got it in her, but I don't.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't even know that I do Not don't.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't even know that I do Not anymore, all right?
Speaker 1:Well, that's another episode of the Gaslit Truth Podcast. Thanks for hanging out with us and please leave us all the five stars, only five stars, and make sure you like, comment, share and you can send us your gaslit truth at thegaslittruthpodcast at gmailcom.
Speaker 4:Thanks guys.
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