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Chemical Lobotomy: The Madness of the Over-Prescribing Anti-Depressants


Dan998

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2001: 20mg paroxetine
2003-2014: Switched between 20mg citalopram and 10mg escitalopram with several failed CT's
2015: Jan/ Feb-very fast taper off citalopram; Mar/ Apr-crashed; 23 Apr-reinstated 5mg; 05 May-updosed to 10mg; 15 Jul-started taper; Aug-9.0mg; Sep-8.1mg; Oct-7.6mg; Nov-6.8mg; Dec-6.2mg
2016: Jan-5.7mg; Feb-5.2mg; Mar-5.0mg;  Apr-4.5mg; May-4.05mg; Jun-3.65mg; Jul-3.3mg; Aug-2.95mg; 04Sep-2.65mg; 25Sep-2.4mg; 23Oct-2.15mg; 13Nov-1.95mg; 04Dec-1.75mg; 25Dec-1.55mg.
2017: 08Jan-1.4mg; 22Jan-1.25mg; 12Feb-1.1mg; 26Feb-1.0mg; 05Mar-0.9mg; 15Mar-0.8mg; 22Mar-0.7mg; 02Apr-0.6; 09Apr-0.5mg; 16Apr-0.4mg; 23Apr-0.3; 03May-0.2mg; 10May-0.1mg

Finished taper 17 May 2017.

Read my success story

 

I am not a medical professional. The information I provide is not medical advice. If in doubt please consult with a qualified healthcare provider.

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Wow Dan thanks for posting.this.

Thought for the day: Lets stand up, and let’s speak out , together. G Olsen

We have until the 14th. Feb 2018. 

URGENT REQUEST Please consider submitting  for the petition on Prescribed Drug Dependence and Withdrawal currently awaiting its third consideration at the Scottish Parliament. You don't even have to be from Scotland. By clicking on the link below you can read some of the previous submissions but be warned many of them are quite harrowing.

http://www.parliament.scot/GettingInvolved/Petitions/PE01651   

Please tell them about your problems taking and withdrawing from antidepressants and/or benzos.

Send by email to petitions@parliament.scot and quote PE01651 in the subject heading. Keep to a maximum of 3 sides of A4 and you can't name for legal reasons any doctor you have consulted. Tell them if you wish to remain anonymous. We need the numbers to help convince the committee members we are not isolated cases. You have until mid February. Thank you

Recovering paxil addict

None of the published articles shed light on what ssri's ... actually do or what their hazards might be. Healy 2013. 

This is so true, with anything you get on these drugs, dependance, tapering, withdrawal symptoms, side effects, just silent. And if there is something mentioned then their is a serious disconnect between what is said and reality! 

  "Every time I read of a multi-person shooting, I always presume that person had just started a SSRI or had just stopped."  Dr Mosher. Me too! 

Over two decades later, the number of antidepressant prescriptions a year is slightly more than the number of people in the Western world. Most (nine out of 10) prescriptions are for patients who faced difficulties on stopping, equating to about a tenth of the population. These patients are often advised to continue treatment because their difficulties indicate they need ongoing treatment, just as a person with diabetes needs insulin. Healy 2015

I believe the ssri era will soon stand as one of the most shameful in the history of medicine. Healy 2015

Let people help people ... in a natural, kind, non-addictive (and non-big pharma) way. J Broadley 2017

 

 

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This section really grabbed my attention;

 

"This highlights the fact that in many cases depression is actually a legitimate response to certain circumstances. In the same way that physical pain is a natural response to injury to the body, depression may sometimes be a healthy and natural response to negative life events or circumstances. And like physical pain, depression appears to have a natural duration. If allowed to, it will play itself out, express itself and then naturally fade away - even if this takes several weeks or months.

 
Or from a slightly different perspective, depression can sometimes be an indication that there is something lacking from our lives, or that certain aspects of our well-being or our life-situations are being neglected. Again, there's a similarity with physical pain here, which is often a warning that a part of our body is damaged and needs attention. Depression may be an indication or warning that certain aspects of our life need attention - for example, that we need to change our environment or life-situation, improve our relationships, find a more fulfilling career and new hobbies, have more rest and relaxation, or more contact with nature. And again, if we take psychotropic drugs we are less likely to make these changes. In both these scenarios, drugs exacerbate the problem they are supposed to solve: they stop depression playing itself out and fading away naturally, and they make it less likely that we will take restorative action to improve our circumstances."
 
I'm fairly certain that my own depression would have been better treated with an extended holiday from work and changing my environment. I would have avoided years of being drugged up to the eyeballs.

2001: 20mg paroxetine
2003-2014: Switched between 20mg citalopram and 10mg escitalopram with several failed CT's
2015: Jan/ Feb-very fast taper off citalopram; Mar/ Apr-crashed; 23 Apr-reinstated 5mg; 05 May-updosed to 10mg; 15 Jul-started taper; Aug-9.0mg; Sep-8.1mg; Oct-7.6mg; Nov-6.8mg; Dec-6.2mg
2016: Jan-5.7mg; Feb-5.2mg; Mar-5.0mg;  Apr-4.5mg; May-4.05mg; Jun-3.65mg; Jul-3.3mg; Aug-2.95mg; 04Sep-2.65mg; 25Sep-2.4mg; 23Oct-2.15mg; 13Nov-1.95mg; 04Dec-1.75mg; 25Dec-1.55mg.
2017: 08Jan-1.4mg; 22Jan-1.25mg; 12Feb-1.1mg; 26Feb-1.0mg; 05Mar-0.9mg; 15Mar-0.8mg; 22Mar-0.7mg; 02Apr-0.6; 09Apr-0.5mg; 16Apr-0.4mg; 23Apr-0.3; 03May-0.2mg; 10May-0.1mg

Finished taper 17 May 2017.

Read my success story

 

I am not a medical professional. The information I provide is not medical advice. If in doubt please consult with a qualified healthcare provider.

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Thanks for this, I couldn't read it all right now, as I can't concentrate that well, but what I did read was quite good.  Nice find!

I am not a medical professional and nothing I say is a medical opinion or meant to be medical advice, please seek a competent and trusted medical professional to consult for all medical decisions.

 

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Even more alarming when given these drugs when there are no signs of depression!

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome for 32 years, given AD for this condition alone in 2000

Zoloft 100mg for 15 years, last five of these complained about adverse effects,

unable to tolerate other meds even supplements

Slowly felt sicker, advised by different Dr maybe on ads for too long

Cut back 100 - 50 over 6 months, still getting worse, so stopped over about 6 weeks starting Dec 2014

First month, slow, emotional, useless then POW! Horrendous withdrawal symptoms, completely non-functional

for about five months, slowly started to come back to life and continue with waves and windows, still more bad than good, but bads are less bad, and goods slightly better each time

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We should all write favorable comments about this very good article. It's especially noteworthy that Taylor picks up on the fact that AD's have turned depression into a chronic disease, which it is not in the absence of an AD fix. I don't read this truth very often. 

 

Here are links to a very good two-part review by Marcia Angel (in New York Review of Books) of some very good books. Angel makes many of the same points Taylor does:

 

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2011/07/14/illusions-of-psychiatry/

 

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2011/06/23/epidemic-mental-illness-why/

 

If I were going to begin my education on this subject I'd check out the books covered in this review.

Diagnosed w/ ADD and minor depression in 1990. Fluoxetine 20 mg/day. Also methylphenidate, but hated it and quit after about a week. Quit fluoxetine cold turkey (ignorance) 18 January 2013. Experienced brain zaps, flu symptoms, heart palpitations. Nothing after August 2013. Mirtazapine 15 mg/day for sleep beginning around 1999. Began tapering August 2013.  As of March 2015 I'm off mirtazapine and antidepressant free. Don't sleep well after sunrise, feel anxious and sad some of the time, still have tinnitus. Still occasionally take lorazepam for anxiety but never more than 1 mg.  Prescribed metoprolol (beta blocker) for atrial fibrillation diagnosed June 2013. Medical  opinion (two cardiologists) is that it's not caused by fluoxetine w/drawal and is a dangerous, chronic condition requiring lifelong medication. As of Aug 2013 heart palpitations for the most part ceased. Tapered beta blocker and am off of it as of Jan 2015. No wd symptoms or recurring afib at all so far. Maybe it was wd after all, but doctors don't think so, surprise surprise. However, a small victory: the last doctor I related this to shrugged her shoulders. Getting lots of exercise, which has me physically pretty robust at age 71 in spite of persistence of mirt wd symptoms, mainly insomnia and anxiety, but also jaw-clenching annoyance at noises of a certain pitch and timbre. Incessant media fixation on the presidential campaign has ruined my disposition and my faith in the future. My Introduction.

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ibid thanks for posting that....

 

"The pharmaceutical industry influences psychiatrists to prescribe psychoactive drugs even for categories of patients in whom the drugs have not been found safe and effective. What should be of greatest concern for Americans is the astonishing rise in the diagnosis and treatment of mental illness in children, sometimes as young as two years old. These children are often treated with drugs that were never approved by the FDA for use in this age group and have serious side effects. The apparent prevalence of “juvenile bipolar disorder” jumped forty-fold between 1993 and 2004, and that of “autism” increased from one in five hundred children to one in ninety over the same decade.

Ten percent of ten-year-old boys now take daily stimulants for ADHD—“attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder”—and 500,000 children take antipsychotic drugs."

[This is insane!!     when those children become teenagers and want off boy oh boy thats a lot of school shootings in the pipeline!]

 

and it doesnt stop there im losing all hope now.......

 

"Growing numbers of for-profit firms specialize in helping poor families apply for SSI benefits. But to qualify nearly always requires that applicants, including children, be taking psychoactive drugs. According to a New York Times story, a Rutgers University study found that children from low-income families are four times as likely as privately insured children to receive antipsychotic medicines."

 

 

oh dear and look at Friedmans argument agaisnt Marcia Angell i think we can all see the holes in this...i bet hes done nicely out of the pharma gravy train over the years...

 

"It is true that antidepressants are only modestly effective in acute depression. But Angell does not tell readers that response rates to antidepressants are roughly equivalent to the effect size observed in psychotherapy studies. Nor does she mention the critically important fact that depression is frequently a chronic recurring illness and that antidepressants are highly effective in preventing relapse. A recent meta-analysis by John Geddes in 2003 of thirty-one long-term relapse prevention studies found a relapse rate of 41 percent for placebo but only 18 percent for antidepressant."

 

[These drugs have made it a chronic recurring illness it never used to be and whats the bet those 41 % had been CT to a placebo.

Alcohol is very good at preventing symptoms of abstinence for an alcoholic as well that doesnt mean the person has a beer imbalance.and they need to take a 12 pack daily for the rest of their life ..surely!

 

Yes it is true Kirsch found that in the short term, psychotherapy is about as effective as medication, which means it is only slightly more effective than placebo pills. [That difference of medication being better than placebo is not statistically significant and Kirsch says even the small difference may be due to placebo effect of drugs plus placebos are heaps better ...no side effects]. However Friedman doesnt tell readers that  In the long run, however, CBT is much more effective than antidepressants drugs, which means it is also much more effective than placebos...... furthermore Kirsch states there is yet another advantage of psychotherapy, and this is one that is counter-intuitive. Psychotherapy costs less than antidepressants. At first glance it might seem impossible for this claim to be true. Certainly, a week's worth of antidepressants cost less then a 50 minute session of psychotherapy. Still, in the long run, psychotherapy is cheaper.

 

Psychotherapy is cheaper because many patients have to remain on antidepressants if they are not to relapse and become depressed again. In contrast, all of the psychological treatments have been tested and found effective in the long term treatment of depression are relatively brief treatments that last from 10 to 20 weeks after that there are no additional costs. About nine months after the beginning of treatment, the costs of continuing antidepressant treatment catch up to the costs of brief psychotherapy, and after that, the cumulative costs of medication continue to rise, whereas those of psychotherapy do not.]

Thought for the day: Lets stand up, and let’s speak out , together. G Olsen

We have until the 14th. Feb 2018. 

URGENT REQUEST Please consider submitting  for the petition on Prescribed Drug Dependence and Withdrawal currently awaiting its third consideration at the Scottish Parliament. You don't even have to be from Scotland. By clicking on the link below you can read some of the previous submissions but be warned many of them are quite harrowing.

http://www.parliament.scot/GettingInvolved/Petitions/PE01651   

Please tell them about your problems taking and withdrawing from antidepressants and/or benzos.

Send by email to petitions@parliament.scot and quote PE01651 in the subject heading. Keep to a maximum of 3 sides of A4 and you can't name for legal reasons any doctor you have consulted. Tell them if you wish to remain anonymous. We need the numbers to help convince the committee members we are not isolated cases. You have until mid February. Thank you

Recovering paxil addict

None of the published articles shed light on what ssri's ... actually do or what their hazards might be. Healy 2013. 

This is so true, with anything you get on these drugs, dependance, tapering, withdrawal symptoms, side effects, just silent. And if there is something mentioned then their is a serious disconnect between what is said and reality! 

  "Every time I read of a multi-person shooting, I always presume that person had just started a SSRI or had just stopped."  Dr Mosher. Me too! 

Over two decades later, the number of antidepressant prescriptions a year is slightly more than the number of people in the Western world. Most (nine out of 10) prescriptions are for patients who faced difficulties on stopping, equating to about a tenth of the population. These patients are often advised to continue treatment because their difficulties indicate they need ongoing treatment, just as a person with diabetes needs insulin. Healy 2015

I believe the ssri era will soon stand as one of the most shameful in the history of medicine. Healy 2015

Let people help people ... in a natural, kind, non-addictive (and non-big pharma) way. J Broadley 2017

 

 

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typo 'significantly significant' should be 'statistically significant' ...edit window closed on me! ugh! hate it when that happens.

Thought for the day: Lets stand up, and let’s speak out , together. G Olsen

We have until the 14th. Feb 2018. 

URGENT REQUEST Please consider submitting  for the petition on Prescribed Drug Dependence and Withdrawal currently awaiting its third consideration at the Scottish Parliament. You don't even have to be from Scotland. By clicking on the link below you can read some of the previous submissions but be warned many of them are quite harrowing.

http://www.parliament.scot/GettingInvolved/Petitions/PE01651   

Please tell them about your problems taking and withdrawing from antidepressants and/or benzos.

Send by email to petitions@parliament.scot and quote PE01651 in the subject heading. Keep to a maximum of 3 sides of A4 and you can't name for legal reasons any doctor you have consulted. Tell them if you wish to remain anonymous. We need the numbers to help convince the committee members we are not isolated cases. You have until mid February. Thank you

Recovering paxil addict

None of the published articles shed light on what ssri's ... actually do or what their hazards might be. Healy 2013. 

This is so true, with anything you get on these drugs, dependance, tapering, withdrawal symptoms, side effects, just silent. And if there is something mentioned then their is a serious disconnect between what is said and reality! 

  "Every time I read of a multi-person shooting, I always presume that person had just started a SSRI or had just stopped."  Dr Mosher. Me too! 

Over two decades later, the number of antidepressant prescriptions a year is slightly more than the number of people in the Western world. Most (nine out of 10) prescriptions are for patients who faced difficulties on stopping, equating to about a tenth of the population. These patients are often advised to continue treatment because their difficulties indicate they need ongoing treatment, just as a person with diabetes needs insulin. Healy 2015

I believe the ssri era will soon stand as one of the most shameful in the history of medicine. Healy 2015

Let people help people ... in a natural, kind, non-addictive (and non-big pharma) way. J Broadley 2017

 

 

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Yes it is true Kirsch found that in the short term, psychotherapy is about as effective as medication, which means it is only slightly more effective than placebo pills. [That difference of medication being better than placebo is not statistically significant and Kirsch says even the small difference may be due to placebo effect of drugs plus placebos are heaps better ...no side effects]. However Friedman doesnt tell readers that  In the long run, however, CBT is much more effective than antidepressants drugs, which means it is also much more effective than placebos...... furthermore Kirsch states there is yet another advantage of psychotherapy, and this is one that is counter-intuitive. Psychotherapy costs less than antidepressants. At first glance it might seem impossible for this claim to be true. Certainly, a week's worth of antidepressants cost less then a 50 minute session of psychotherapy. Still, in the long run, psychotherapy is cheaper.

 

NZ--Thank you. You're really all over this (and many other topics, I've noticed; much appreciated)! Ibid

Diagnosed w/ ADD and minor depression in 1990. Fluoxetine 20 mg/day. Also methylphenidate, but hated it and quit after about a week. Quit fluoxetine cold turkey (ignorance) 18 January 2013. Experienced brain zaps, flu symptoms, heart palpitations. Nothing after August 2013. Mirtazapine 15 mg/day for sleep beginning around 1999. Began tapering August 2013.  As of March 2015 I'm off mirtazapine and antidepressant free. Don't sleep well after sunrise, feel anxious and sad some of the time, still have tinnitus. Still occasionally take lorazepam for anxiety but never more than 1 mg.  Prescribed metoprolol (beta blocker) for atrial fibrillation diagnosed June 2013. Medical  opinion (two cardiologists) is that it's not caused by fluoxetine w/drawal and is a dangerous, chronic condition requiring lifelong medication. As of Aug 2013 heart palpitations for the most part ceased. Tapered beta blocker and am off of it as of Jan 2015. No wd symptoms or recurring afib at all so far. Maybe it was wd after all, but doctors don't think so, surprise surprise. However, a small victory: the last doctor I related this to shrugged her shoulders. Getting lots of exercise, which has me physically pretty robust at age 71 in spite of persistence of mirt wd symptoms, mainly insomnia and anxiety, but also jaw-clenching annoyance at noises of a certain pitch and timbre. Incessant media fixation on the presidential campaign has ruined my disposition and my faith in the future. My Introduction.

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:) Thanks ibid. Your too kind.

You set em up and ill knock em over!!

Thought for the day: Lets stand up, and let’s speak out , together. G Olsen

We have until the 14th. Feb 2018. 

URGENT REQUEST Please consider submitting  for the petition on Prescribed Drug Dependence and Withdrawal currently awaiting its third consideration at the Scottish Parliament. You don't even have to be from Scotland. By clicking on the link below you can read some of the previous submissions but be warned many of them are quite harrowing.

http://www.parliament.scot/GettingInvolved/Petitions/PE01651   

Please tell them about your problems taking and withdrawing from antidepressants and/or benzos.

Send by email to petitions@parliament.scot and quote PE01651 in the subject heading. Keep to a maximum of 3 sides of A4 and you can't name for legal reasons any doctor you have consulted. Tell them if you wish to remain anonymous. We need the numbers to help convince the committee members we are not isolated cases. You have until mid February. Thank you

Recovering paxil addict

None of the published articles shed light on what ssri's ... actually do or what their hazards might be. Healy 2013. 

This is so true, with anything you get on these drugs, dependance, tapering, withdrawal symptoms, side effects, just silent. And if there is something mentioned then their is a serious disconnect between what is said and reality! 

  "Every time I read of a multi-person shooting, I always presume that person had just started a SSRI or had just stopped."  Dr Mosher. Me too! 

Over two decades later, the number of antidepressant prescriptions a year is slightly more than the number of people in the Western world. Most (nine out of 10) prescriptions are for patients who faced difficulties on stopping, equating to about a tenth of the population. These patients are often advised to continue treatment because their difficulties indicate they need ongoing treatment, just as a person with diabetes needs insulin. Healy 2015

I believe the ssri era will soon stand as one of the most shameful in the history of medicine. Healy 2015

Let people help people ... in a natural, kind, non-addictive (and non-big pharma) way. J Broadley 2017

 

 

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"Other common side effects of SSRIs are fatigue, emotional flatness and detachment, and an overall loss of personality. They are also strongly associated with sexual impotence and "movement disorders" such as akathisia - although again, psychiatrists often treat akathisia as an underlying problem which needs to be treated with drugs, rather than an effect of the drugs themselves"

 

like somebody has been watching life and more importantly they know the truth how odd it is to see it laid out in black and white... 

 

Bravo to Steve Taylor

 

WARNING THIS WILL BE LONG
Had a car accident in 85
Codeine was the pain med when I was release from hosp continuous use till 89
Given PROZAC by a specialist to help with nerve pain in my leg 89-90 not sure which year
Was not told a thing about it being a psych med thought it was a pain killer no info about psych side effects I went nuts had hallucinations. As I had a head injury and was diagnosed with a concussion in 85 I was sent to a head injury clinic in 1990 five years after the accident. I don't think they knew I had been on prozac I did not think it a big deal and never did finish the bottle of pills. I had tests of course lots of them. Was put into a pain clinic and given amitriptyline which stopped the withdrawal but had many side effects. But I could sleep something I had not done in a very long time the pain lessened. My mother got cancer in 94 they switched my meds to Zoloft to help deal with this pressure as I was her main care giver she died in 96. I stopped zoloft in 96 had withdrawal was put on paxil went nutty quit it ct put on resperidol quit it ct had withdrawal was put on Effexor... 2years later celexa was added 20mg then increased to 40mg huge personality change went wild. Did too fast taper off Celexa 05 as I felt unwell for a long time prior... quit Effexor 150mg ct 07 found ****** 8 months into withdrawal learned some things was banned from there in 08 have kept learning since. there is really not enough room here to put my history but I have a lot of opinions about a lot of things especially any of the drugs mentioned above.
One thing I would like to add here is this tidbit ALL OPIATES INCREASE SEROTONIN it is not a huge jump to being in chronic pain to being put on an ssri/snri and opiates will affect your antidepressants and your thinking.

As I do not update much I will put my quit date Nov. 17 2007 I quit Effexor cold turkey. 

http://survivingantidepressants.org/index.php?/topic/1096-introducing-myself-btdt/

There is a crack in everything ..That's how the light gets in :)

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Steven has a video here

WARNING THIS WILL BE LONG
Had a car accident in 85
Codeine was the pain med when I was release from hosp continuous use till 89
Given PROZAC by a specialist to help with nerve pain in my leg 89-90 not sure which year
Was not told a thing about it being a psych med thought it was a pain killer no info about psych side effects I went nuts had hallucinations. As I had a head injury and was diagnosed with a concussion in 85 I was sent to a head injury clinic in 1990 five years after the accident. I don't think they knew I had been on prozac I did not think it a big deal and never did finish the bottle of pills. I had tests of course lots of them. Was put into a pain clinic and given amitriptyline which stopped the withdrawal but had many side effects. But I could sleep something I had not done in a very long time the pain lessened. My mother got cancer in 94 they switched my meds to Zoloft to help deal with this pressure as I was her main care giver she died in 96. I stopped zoloft in 96 had withdrawal was put on paxil went nutty quit it ct put on resperidol quit it ct had withdrawal was put on Effexor... 2years later celexa was added 20mg then increased to 40mg huge personality change went wild. Did too fast taper off Celexa 05 as I felt unwell for a long time prior... quit Effexor 150mg ct 07 found ****** 8 months into withdrawal learned some things was banned from there in 08 have kept learning since. there is really not enough room here to put my history but I have a lot of opinions about a lot of things especially any of the drugs mentioned above.
One thing I would like to add here is this tidbit ALL OPIATES INCREASE SEROTONIN it is not a huge jump to being in chronic pain to being put on an ssri/snri and opiates will affect your antidepressants and your thinking.

As I do not update much I will put my quit date Nov. 17 2007 I quit Effexor cold turkey. 

http://survivingantidepressants.org/index.php?/topic/1096-introducing-myself-btdt/

There is a crack in everything ..That's how the light gets in :)

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