Although I think there is a lot of reason to doubt the safety of such drugs and to be concerned that they are over prescribed, I also question the validity of many of these anachdotal stories.
In a way its like saying that heart medicine is killing people because so many people on heart medicine get worse and die.
I keep reading stories about anti-depresent medicine causing someone to commit suicide, but the clinicly depressed are more likely to commit suicide in the first place.
Brought tears to my eyes. Thanks for posting.
On the other hand......there are those that couldn’t lead any kind of life without those drugs. I just finished a rotation at our local State Hospital and was amazed at how many schizophrenics snapped back to reality with their meds. They keep them for 90 days to make sure there aren’t bad side effects....then send most to halfway houses to be monitored for various lengths of time, afterward. The biggest problem is compliance by the patient ...once they get out. They feel alright and don’t think they need to take the meds... and subsequently spin out of control. Very sad.
I have a 10 year old daughter with brain damage. She’s different (speech problems, auditory problems, temper problems), but she’s also doing great. She should be very disabled in a wheelchair, but we just went to a track meet that she was in. She didn’t do great but she did it.
We’ve had doctor’s mention drugs to us because of her temper, but I have hesitated. So far, discipline and age has helped.
At first doctors didn’t think she had brain damage, but I knew something was wrong. Then when they saw how much brain damage she actually had, they were surprised that she could even walk.
Since they know so little about her brain the way it is, how can they possibly give her drugs. I don’t think that most of them know what drugs would do to her.
I hope she can maintain herself as she gets older.
(She’s also going on her first over-night trip without me on Monday, and I’m so worried about how she is going to do.)
“In reality, crazy is like war. It’s tedious for long periods of time, until it turns around and is devastating. It’s random, senseless, all-consuming, financially draining, destructive, ugly, sickening and gross.”
I have lived with crzy and I can say that this is a vey accurate description.
This is a very well written article. I’m very happy these people were able to get good help for their son. Mental illness is the worst.
thanks for posing this.
This struck me:
“He told his dad about how he had to fight the bad thoughts that were crowding in his head. And when he wasn’t out walking, he slept a lot.”
My neighbor was a bit depressed. She didn’t have autisim just going through some hard times. Her doctor recommended an antidepressant. She reluctantly filled it and read ALL the fine print - especially the side effects. Sure enough after an hour of taking it she had this thought that wouldn’t go away. She described as like having a pie in the oven and needing to get up and turn the oven off to avoid burning the pie. The thing is, her thought was not about a burning pie but the word SUICIDE kept creeping into her mind.
She talked to herself till the drug wore off. She was strong enough to fight it and knew it didn’t agree with her chemistry. I forget it if was Zoloft or Prozac ... one of the popular ones doctors push like candy. Boy, did she let her doctor know that under NO CIRMCUMSRANCES did she want any more of her “antidepressant drugs.
“In Minnesota, psychiatrists collected more money from drug makers from 2000 to 2005 than doctors in any other specialty,” the Times reported. “Total payments to individual psychiatrists ranged from $51 to more than $689,000, with a median of $1,750. Since the records are incomplete, these figures probably underestimate doctors’ actual incomes.”
It’s not just psychiatrists that push this shit. GP’s and others push this shit like crazy. It messes up your mind. It plays with the chemicals in your brain.
All I can say is that it is NO WONDER that people are OUT OF CONTROL. Notice that every single shooter in a high school shoot out had or was on an “antidepressant”.
I’m like Michael Savage. I believe a lot of the hacks in DC are on psych meds and other meds that alter their mind in unhealthy ways. I’m dead serious. Arlen Spector would be one. McCain too
I wonder what meds this freak was on? Too many monsters out there lately.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,273942,00.html
Thank you for posting this article. I have an 18 y.o. son with Asperger’s syndrome who is struggling with sleepiness and a loss of will and focus. It’s very hard to tell how much is a neurological problem and how much is chosen behavior, some of both I think. But you have given me some things to research.
Mrs VS
Unfortunately, many people reading this will think all psych meds will make patients “crazy”. This case involves a misdiagnosis of a rare condition.
The Blasted Shrinks needed to pick up a PDR and read a Medical Journal once in a while. SEROTONIN SYNDROME!! A chemical of which under normal conditions 98% located in the stomach. It promotes digestion. If the serotonin migrates from the stomach to the brain it is basically the same as giving someone LSD.
My family went through our own Hell Week thanks to some doctors who prescribed SSRI's to a patient with severe neurological problems. They did this not once mind you but twice.
Some long ago discussions here in FR and prayer led me to do a search on the meds +adverse reactions. The medications were Trazadone and Zoloft. Ironically the person these were given to was being treated for PTSD from a previous medication reaction a dentist prescribed for a simple extraction.
Shrinks are bad for not wanting to listen to patients nor doing good medical histories to determine other more likely causes of disorders like anxiety etc.
Shrinks fail to educate themselves, their patients, and families to the possibilities of severe adverse reaction. A severe adverse reaction to antidepressants can mean death. Serotonin Syndrome is nothing to play around withand saddly the doctors mistake the rreaction for pyschotic illnesses and make matters worse by increasing the level of the offending medication.
I am also one who can not take these type of medications due to neurological sensory impairment as well as my wife who is a quadriplegic whom this happened to. I about flipped out on it but I stopped taking it and demanded the doctors use Xanax. They cringe at the mention of that medication yet do not bat an eye giving SSRI's. No one in medical history has developed Serotonin Syndrome caused by Benzo's as they are the counter acting medication to such a reaction.
I have a relative who absolutely must take anti-psychotic medication, but when her doctor put her on Abilify for a short time, it was a big disaster.
My problem was that I was sleeping to much and feeling tired and fatigued.
Doc thought I was depressed, me arguing saying I wasn't depressed was actually taken as a sign of depression.
I refused to go meds, and went to another doctor who actually did work, and figured that I just had a virus, needed some rest, relaxation and some anti-biotics, they worked and I was fine.
It amazed me and my parents how quick the first doctor was to just push some pills down my throat for something I didn't even have.
Studies have shown that the elderly rate of suicides are up.
Four years ago we lost a close family member to suicide, she was on a antidepressant. Six months after her passing a black box warning came out for children up to 18 could become suicidal on these drugs. Two weeks ago they raised the black box warning to age 24.
The warning should be for all ages, these drugs send the wrong signals to the brain for some people no matter what the age.
A couple of yeas ago parents of college kids who were committing suicide went before Congress and told their stories how their young adult children were not suicidal before taking these drugs. I think that is why the age was raised.
Too many in Congress get money from these drug companies.
Check this out:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-05-10-senators-drug-bill_N.htm
With the oxycoton story this past week,the company knowingly sold the drug since 1995 without releasing how addictive it was, the company was fined 643 million and the head of the company pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor. What a joke.......
Merck makes 4 billion a year on one anti-depressant, effexor.
Here is another reason why anit-depressants shouldn't be prescibed like candy.
http://www.antidepressantsfacts.com/casualties.htm
http://www.erichufschmid.net/Columbine/Columbine-Bollyn.html
http://www.antidepressantsfacts.com/introduction.htm
http://www.globalserialkillers.co.uk/
Can’t someone put 2 and 2 together.
Oh yes, and Andrea Yates was on 2 different anti-depressants, one being effexor.
I believe that the poor woman did not know what she was doing. So sad.
Well, maybe it was the meds. But a lot of psychosis starts in young adults (and late teens)—
I’m the father of an autistic son. He’s 12 now.
When in Kindergarten a teacher, who really just did not want to be bothered, was pushing medication. The school was contacting our GP and deciding this stuff between themselves.
At 1st the principle of the school would not support meds if we the parents were not comfortable with them.
But he retired and the new Principle was into all the “new” techniques.
End of story; we dropped the doctor, pulled our son out of school (home schooling).
Greetings from Minnesota.
My advice: When things get serious, go to MAYO!
They’re the best.
Very good article. Thank you.
Some head doctors get awfully snotty when a patient comes back insisting the medicine is making them feel worse.