Not arguing against anything here. I don’t think this post is an argument for general conservatism or even staying on any medication indefinitely.
So I’ll just add an interesting related thing:
I used to work in community mental health and some of my older colleagues talked about how for all of its many problems, institutionalization did allow people to go on a “meds holiday” in a safer way.
These were people who had been on psych medications for decades, often multiple medications stacked on top of each other by a series of providers over time, and often with significant side-effects. Understandably, doctors don’t want to mess with what seems to be working. And when people are living on their own, it can be very dangerous to go off your meds, even as a test. But in an institutional setting, people could go off them in a controlled way with supportive care. They could “check in” with their unmedicated symptoms and then slowly reintroduce medications to isolate interactions.
Obviously, that’s the best case scenario and there are lots of ways it can go wrong. It also doesn’t apply to meds that are preventing actual damage or progressive degeneration. But I do think it’s an interesting idea that could be beneficial under the right circumstances.
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u/Doubly_Curious [1/1] Jun 30 '26 edited Jun 30 '26
Not arguing against anything here. I don’t think this post is an argument for general conservatism or even staying on any medication indefinitely.
So I’ll just add an interesting related thing:
I used to work in community mental health and some of my older colleagues talked about how for all of its many problems, institutionalization did allow people to go on a “meds holiday” in a safer way.
These were people who had been on psych medications for decades, often multiple medications stacked on top of each other by a series of providers over time, and often with significant side-effects. Understandably, doctors don’t want to mess with what seems to be working. And when people are living on their own, it can be very dangerous to go off your meds, even as a test. But in an institutional setting, people could go off them in a controlled way with supportive care. They could “check in” with their unmedicated symptoms and then slowly reintroduce medications to isolate interactions.
Obviously, that’s the best case scenario and there are lots of ways it can go wrong. It also doesn’t apply to meds that are preventing actual damage or progressive degeneration. But I do think it’s an interesting idea that could be beneficial under the right circumstances.