"looks inside, individually packaged"

A doctor said this and it was such a good metaphor: imagine that you have a 3000 year old machine (which no one understands anymore) with a bunch of cogs and gears, and you're looking down at it from above. You're trying to fix a gear that is slightly out of alignment further down in the machine, you can't really tell which one it is but you know roughly which area, and to fix it you drop a rock into the machine and watch it fall down.

That's what we're doing with SSRIs. We're dropping a rock that manipulates our serotonin, which gives a bunch of effects but not the one we're after. The one we're after is somewhere down the line. It's affected by processes that are affected by the serotonin somehow. We're not exactly sure which one it is, but we know that if we drop the rock in there it will make the gears align sooner or later.

Which is why it takes time, and why it has some odd effects on people sometimes.

edit: added a detail I missed, to make it clearer.

Yes and no, also i am not a medical professional.

For classical antidepressants Chemicals tend to function pretty fast but the effect is designed to be subtle because you need to live a normal life, capable of dealing with and feeling both ups and downs. not be perpetually smiling or brain dead.

After some time “a few weeks” of taking a daily dose your body and mind adjust to the subtle changes causing a stable therapeutic effect. At least thats what I understand is the idea.

But lately there is also sm of a psychedelic renaissance of medicine and they work entirely different where a single dose within a therapeutic setting creates a longer lasting feeling of increased well being.

Nasal Ketamine seems to receive allot of attention, near instantly improving the condition. They tend to need 1 dose every 5 weeks so its less addictive then classic medicine. But i do admit it instant improvement for treatment resistant medications is a bold claim and still subject of more research.

It depends on what you mean by "start working." The first time I took a sertraline, I felt absolutely baked, but I feel like it took weeks for the desirable effects to take hold.

Then again, my doctor also told me that something like 60% of the effects are a placebo.

Regardless, yes, he would give me like a month of these individal samples at a time. I'm not sure how he swung that. It was like 2003 or 2004.

I buy antibiotics from this guy downtown, who has cut out so much waste by providing it in powder form. I now I’m not supposed to, but I take it everyday with a nasal inhaler. I’ve never felt better and have great ideas of grandeur for hours each morning!

Package it like whey protein. In a giant 2 gallon tub with a scoop.

That's... Actually pretty genius. When I'm depressed I don't have the mental energy to do that.

That's how governments work. Not a single penny spent on making life more worth living, but methods of making suicide somewhat less convenient hits industrial scale production.

Because one pill is probably the recommended dosage for that medication.

blistering machines used in the pharmaceutical industry usually work with some standard sizes, hence the size of the blister. change parts also cost a small fortune, so it makes no sense to have them tailored for just one product if it works well enough with existing equipment. thay being said, a couple of things below in reply to the whole thread, not just yourself.

to add to the list of reasons one would want them individually packaged, it's easier to dispense a set amount of pills in this manner, for medicine that needs to be tailored for each user more often (think if you need 5 capsules, you'd get a blister that is weirdly cut by the pharmacist with a pair of scissors - cutting the blister also removes important information like lot number and expiry date). also, it could have some stability issues outside of the blister, so dispensing them naked in bottles might not be the best thing.

for antibiotics and such, it's also crucial to take each and every dose prescribed so dropping one in the sink accidentally when you're shaking a bottle is something you're trying to prevent. the size of the blister would also make it harder to lose around the house or one's backpack/bag/purse/saddlebags/bag of holding and then not taking your last dose (in addition to the change parts thing mentioned at the start).

individually wrapped bananas are a waste. for critical things like pharmaceuticals, there is more likely than not a good reason for this. look up pharmacovigilance if curious to know more.

Make it harder to steal is the most common reason.

😂 Bro its sad how so many doctors dont really consider most humans adults lol

Ah, right. How could I forget. Systemic issues are solely the fault of us as individuals for not singlehandedly solving them ourselves

What you're doing isn't productive.

Why would i change laws for the straws when they are replaced for a good cause.

The point i attempted to make is that that single straw is like half a gram of plastic saved when the manufacturer makes possibly millions of these packages that waste 30x the plastic that is saved on my straw.

We just need a good and effective way to make the manufacturer of these products change their ways. Adding costs/fines/taxes for plastic usage isn't helping because they just pass those on to us and sneak in a little extra profit.

Could you explain why?

i don't know any addict that would be deterred for even a minute by that

And yet when I put an entire box of blister pack antihistamines in my bag, I pull it out later on to find 75% of blisters broken.

I prefer white doves

... What were you doing with that baguette?

We’ve all been there.