The lack of Estrogen causes adverse mood effects — depression, anxiety irritability. It’s a bit disturbing that patients are given antidepressants and antipsychotics that alter neurotransmitters in the brain. Antidepressants also have side effects which can be harmful. They are not magic. And the knee-jerk response doctors have that leads them to prescribe more drugs is inappropriate. When the lack of estrogen causes anxiety or depression using drugs to alter serotonin, dopamine, etc. is like giving patients a cane when they need an aspirin. It’s nonsense.

What is more appropriate is to acknowledge that low estrogen naturally causes mood disorders. Help patients manage those symptoms and stop adding additional medications that often create an additional layer of risk - side effects, withdrawal, etc.

Doctors need to be honest with patients about how the human body does or does not function on specific medications. For example, if a medication has a 2% possibility of a negative side effect doctors say that side effect is too rare to happen. But if a drug shows a 2% statistic for a positive result doctors claim it is statistically significant. Assuming no one has any knowledge of statistics is purposely misleading. Doctors may not understand statistics. They automatically assume patients lack any knowledge of how statistics work. Most of us have had long careers and experience, education and knowledge of things doctors could never comprehend.

Don’t let a doctor use antidepressants to avoid being honest about how your brain functions without estrogen. Acknowledging the very real issues is the best way to help patients. Handing out pills that change brain chemistry without having any clue that the issue is the lack of estrogen is idiotic and dangerous for patients.

Therapy can help patients learn to manage anxiety and depression. AI induced mood disorders have no relation whatsoever to mental illness. No patient should feel shame for needing to learn how to manage the effects of no estrogen in their brain.