# 2004 FDA WARNING for SSRIs and other newer anti-depressants



## Talissa (Apr 10, 2004)

This is not just for children or young adults, its ALL ages...2004 FDA WARNING for SSRIs and other newer anti-depressants regarding the potential for behavioural and emotional changes, including risk of self-harm:"There are clinical trial and post-marketing reports with SSRIs and other newer anti-depressants, in both pediatrics and adults, of severe agitation-type adverse events coupled with self-harm or harm to others. The agitation-type events include: akathisia, agitation, disinhibition, emotional lability, hostility, aggression, depersonalization. In some cases, the events occurred within several weeks of starting treatment. Rigorous clinical monitoring for suicidal ideation or other indicators of potential for suicidal behaviour is advised in patients of *all ages*. This includes monitoring for agitation-type emotional and behavioural changes.Patients currently taking CelexaÂ® (citalopram hydrobromide) should NOT be discontinued abruptly, due to risk of discontinuation symptoms. At the time that a medical decision is made to discontinue an SSRI or other newer anti-depressant drug, a gradual reduction in the dose rather than an abrupt cessation is recommended."http://www.antidepressantsfacts.com/2004-0...harm-celexa.htm----------------------------------------------------------------------Further..."SSRI's are "Selective Serotonin Re-Uptake Inhibitors." In contrast to the deceiving claim of the pharmaceutical companies that SSRI's or SSNRI's may correct some sort of "biochemical imbalance" of serotonin in the brain, *all of these serotonergic agents actually cause major and dangerous imbalances in the brain and the body, evidenced by the many medical reports (below) of severe toxic neurological and physical side-effects.* Neuronal re-uptake of neurotransmitters is metabolism. What serotonin re-uptake inhibitor actually means is that the SSRI-antidepressant interferes with ones ability to metabolise serotonin, so that can and will build up to toxic amounts after prolonged use. In other words, an SSRI-antidepressant impairs the ability of cells to metabolise serotonin, not only in the brain, but -since serotonin is widely distributed throughout the body- in the body as well! The greatest concentration of serotonin, around 90%, is not found in the brain, but is found in the gastrointestinal or digestive tract (human gut, intestines, bowels). "http://www.antidepressantsfacts.com/toxici...rain-damage.htmHere's some great advise on what to do after suffering a reaction...http://www.antidepressantsfacts.com/reaction.htmHere are 276 survivor stories~http://www.drugawareness.org/Archives/Surv...ivor_index.htmlHere's one of many SSRI survivor forums~http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/ProzacAwareness/


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## Talissa (Apr 10, 2004)

Here's the original FDA health advisory~http://www.fda.gov/cder/drug/antidepressan...ressanstPHA.htm"The drugs that are the focus of this new Warning are: Prozac (fluoxetine); Zoloft (sertraline); Paxil (paroxetine); Luvox (fluvoxamine); Celexa (citalopram); Lexapro (escitalopram); Wellbutrin (bupropion); Effexor (venlafaxine); Serzone (nefazodone); and Remeron (mirtazapine)."


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## overitnow (Nov 25, 2001)

Better get out your umbrella, Talissa...There's gonna be a ****storm coming.







Mark


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## Talissa (Apr 10, 2004)

LOL.The umbrella's close at hand, Mark, but maybe I won't need it. I've got some other info that I absolutely guarantee would bring the reign of [moderator deleted] terror on me, but I don't have a big enough umbrella for all that reign/rain(& I don't want another locked thread!)


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## administrator (Aug 20, 2004)

The Moderator Team has repeatedly requested that posters follow the guidelines and refrain from personal attacks and personal debates.You are welcome to post information and your opinion and to discuss these in a civil manner, but singling out members and stirring up potential dissention is not what this bulletin board is about.This thread will be moved to the Antidepressants, etc. Forum.If the thread continues to violate posting guidelines in that forum, it will indeed be locked.Please cooperate.Thank you.The Moderator Team.


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## Arnie W (Oct 22, 2003)

I'm going to bite my tongue, Talissa!I very rarely go outside the Gas and IBS forums, but I wanted to share something with you.Althought not concerning an SSRI, my mother has been on amitryptiline for several weeks to help ease the pain she was getting. This morning she told me that she had to stop because she was getting hallucinations, which freaked her out completely as she had never had anything like that before. Now the pain has come back, so I'm waiting to find out what the good doc will prescribe for her next.


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## Talissa (Apr 10, 2004)

Hey Arnie, I really just want to help peeps make informed decisions before trying these dangerous drugs...this bb has many great qualities, but its so very pro-dangerous drugs.Sorry to hear abt your grandma!!! I hope they find something better & safer for her...T-


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## Kathleen M. (Nov 16, 1999)

I supposed I'm one of the people that jab is aimed at














All drugs and All natural products have side effects. Every last one of them. Everyone should be informed about everything they put into their body. However you do not want to scare yourself or others out of everything on the planet, either. I mean you can kill yourself with too much water, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't drink it in the correct amount every day.Scare tactics about anything really IMO isn't that helpful. The vast majority of people who take a drug or take a natural product do not have serious (or even non-serious) issues with it, a few people do. I mean it isn't helpful for me to post all the scare tactics about natural products everytime someone mentions them (the you don't know if what is on the label is really what is in there, far too many products are contaminated with either some other natural product or a drug they put in there to make it actuallly do something, no one know if there actually are any side effects because you do not have to show it is safe to anyone before you start selling it, etc. )It is a wonderful thing when someone can control IBS with diet or lifestyle or a few OTC drugs or supplements. Unfortunately there are people who have to take prescription medications in order to function normally. They need to be careful, and if they are someone that has an adverse event they need to call the doctor or pharmacist immediately to deal with the problem. With natural products it is harder to find the information and all too often the person that gave it to you will tell you the adverse effect just proves it works and you need to keep taking it. Even reporting adverse effects is not done nearly as well as it is for prescription meds.When drugs are dangerous for too many people they do get taken off the market. It can happen for natural products, but that is much harder to get done, takes many more years, and the FDA gets blasted every time they actually manage to get some dangerous supplement off the market.All things will be very very very bad for someone. As an example, grapefruit seed extract may be extremely dangerous for people taking certian prescription medications as compounds in grapefruit alter the metabolism of a wide variety of drugs and sometime in very dangerous ways. There are risks to everything. People do need to be aware of risks, fortunately for prescription drugs they have to list them on the patient information sheets and lots of websites http://www.drugs.com http://www.rxlist.com have all the details. Yes, every single drug out there is EXTREMELY dangerous for a few individuals. However, if your disease/disorder cannot be controlled without them they can be lifesavers as well. (and this also works for EVERY OTC medication and EVERY natural supplement as well. Magnesium is relatively safe for almost everyone, but if you have kidney issues do not take it without talking to the doctor to make sure you will be OK) It is much harder to get anything other than "it is all natural it can't hurt you" for a lot of things here are a couple but they are not very complete http://www.healthcentral.com/peoplespharma...ex_1_12_49.html http://www.mskcc.org/mskcc/html/11570.cfm The second one focuses mostly on herbs cancer patients take.No one would push people to take medications they do not need. However sometimes someone is in a situation where taking prescription medications may be exactly what they do need. No one I know of here says antidepressants are without any risk what-so-ever they should put them in the water supply, like you seem to think we do







I mean I spend a fair amount of time looking up side effects for people, and interpreting what they mean (do you know how many toxicology classes I had to sit through







) I, nor anyone else, says antidepressants are 100% risk free, try them first, honest.Yes, they get mentioned a lot but that doesn't make this site recklessly "pro" taking them.Sigh.K


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## overitnow (Nov 25, 2001)

Before this topic gets locked, thanks, Kathy, for the S-K reference. The listing for Grape Seed suggests it is effective not only for cardiovascular difficulties; but also in repair to damaged cells, with a passing reference to attributed help with GI issues. Since I can personally attest to two of those outcomes, I am going to count it as part of my armament against cancer.http://www.mskcc.org/mskcc/html/11571.cfm?...rdID=557&tab=HCMark


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## Talissa (Apr 10, 2004)

"Tricyclic antidepressants showed no global improvement of IBS symptoms and only a minimal improvement in pain in a recent Cochrane review [Quartero et al, 2005]. "http://www.prodigy.nhs.uk/guidance.asp?gt=...owel%20syndrome"Antidepressants in IBS: are we deluding ourselves?Talley NJ.The benefit of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) in the irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) has not been clear. In the latest randomized trial published this month in the Journal, paroxetine was superior to placebo in terms of improving well-being, but not abdominal pain or bloating. Based on the results of the most recent studies, both tricyclic antidepressants and SSRIs may improve patient satisfaction or quality-of-life without relieving most of the primary gastrointestinal symptoms. This suggests that antidepressant therapy represents at best only a "band-aid" approach to management. Optimizing the use of antidepressants in IBS is a challenge, and these issues are explored in this Editorial."http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.f...l=pubmed_docsum


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## Kathleen M. (Nov 16, 1999)

I'm not arguing that the evidence is not as good as one would like.But many things touted here have exactly zero evidence that they would work for IBS. Probitoics have just as bad a track record in various clinical trial for IBS. Some show it works, some show it doesn't. Pretty much the way the anecdotal evidence shows around here. I haven't checked the meta-analysis completely to see how good the abtract is at showing what the study actually showed (sometimes abstracts are good, sometimes they aren't) A lot depends on how you bunch the data and did they do things like notice if the studies with some of the tricyclics were done only in woman rather than mixed gender, etc as they often have the same gender bias that drugs like Lotronex demonstrate.I did notice the first link is from the UK, which historically has had the bias against any treatment for IBS other than fiber and telling patients they are not dying so buck up in most of the position papers, which worries me. I think the establishement in the UK will never change from the opinion that IBSers are just a bit screwed up in the head and a pat on the back saying everything will be OK is all the treatment we need.K.


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## Kathleen M. (Nov 16, 1999)

Just to add http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.f...l=pubmed_docsum (I really don't want to get into a battle of the abstracts here, but I did want to add this one)It was the CBT study I was in and it has some info on one of the antidepressants and how they may only be useful in some subgroups, not all studies do that sort of analysis (often don't have enough people to do it).K.


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## Kathleen M. (Nov 16, 1999)

Mark--That About Herb site from Sloan Kettering is probably one of the best sites I have seen that gets the what it might be good for evidence and all the side effect/interaction, etc information that we may have.I wish they were more comprehensive in the list (rather than ones usually sold to cancer patients) but it is good to see that sort of information available considering so much of the info out there about various dietary supplements is nothing more than ad-copy from the people who sell it.K.


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## 13364 (Dec 8, 2005)

> quote:Originally posted by Kathleen M, Ph.D.:I did notice the first link is from the UK, which historically has had the bias against any treatment for IBS other than fiber and telling patients they are not dying so buck up in most of the position papers, which worries me. I think the establishement in the UK will never change from the opinion that IBSers are just a bit screwed up in the head and a pat on the back saying everything will be OK is all the treatment we need.K.


I'm a little confused here.It seems to be ok for Kathleen to criticise the medical establishment in the UK as a whole for being somewhat antediluvian in its attitude to ibs (and not having had consultations with a statistically valid subset thereof, I couldn't possibly comment), but when I have tried to criticise one particular member of the UK medical fraternity for saying "IBSers are just a bit screwed up in the head", on the grounds that that's exactly what he said to me recently, I get jumped on.There's evidence, and then there's evidence. I have (as near as dammit) contemporaneous written notes; and a witness.


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## Kathleen M. (Nov 16, 1999)

I don't remember all the context of all the conversations here (so i may be thinking of the wrong conversation, or who said what to whom), but I think that I am fairly consistant against ALL of the people who say that "IBSers are just screwed in the head".If it was me I think maybe I thought that you were USING that bad advice to prove the point that IBSers=head cases?? (I though you were arguing on the side that this is exactly what is going on...but I may have mis-read you) If that wasn't what you were using it for, I am sorry. (and if it wasn't me they may have read that comment the same way).Yes, there are some people here that do beleive that IBS is just "all in the head" and they may not like it when you or I say that this just isn't so. They jump me sometimes just as much as anyone.K.


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## 13364 (Dec 8, 2005)

Kathleen - I was perhaps being a little unfair in that I was referring to a post on another thread, where I wanted to identify one particular so-called IBS "expert" in the UK, who I had seen, and who had ascribed (wrongly) my gut problems to long-past psychological traumas







. I would like to name (and shame) him







, but it appears I can't







, even though you can shame the UK medics as a whole. That's my point.(With regard to the other aspect, where someone had posted & claimed IBS was "all in the head"; I thought we were banned from taking that further ?!







)I'm pretty much an independent here, not a party member on one side or the other.


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## Kathleen M. (Nov 16, 1999)

I don't know why you can't say his name here?







The thread that was "all in the head/delusion" I believe got closed because of behavioral issues of people discussing the topic, not so much the topic discussed.There is a "guidelines" thread posted stuck on the top of the main boards, it is worth checking out. There has been a history of people posting page after page of nothing but flinging abstracts at each other or hijacking otherwise perfectly good threads with attacks of other posters. Neither of which really fits the people with IBS supporting other people with IBS kinda thing. You got anger management issues, work them out on a board that is for flaming each other, not here. It is the not playing nice and by the rules that is typically the problem, not the topic discussed (and as a moderator, keeping track of the behavior is more than enough of an issue without coming up with a list of which topic/doctor's names, etc. are banned, I mean Lord knows plenty of other doctor's get their names dragged through the muck here, so I'm not sure why you were told not to name names







If it was on a thread that was locked it may have been locked for other reasons, not that you were going to out a doctor you saw as a jerk in your opinion)Posting a link to an abstract or webpage when it is part of making a particular point is one thing, but running through every abstract on Medline because you and another person can't agree to disagree is something entirely different. All we ask is those that can't get along to do the make your point on a thread and then leave it alone. Long debate threads and endless copied information only with little or no discussion of their own thoughts by the poster posts really just detract from the board's purpose. There are people that won't agree with you, ever, no matter what you post, no matter how many times you post the exact same thing, learn to live with it.Back to your doctor, I would probably avoid long personal vendetta rants about any given individual. I mean at some point it could be seen as slander or libel or harrassment, or any of those sorts of messy legal things that I'm sure everyone wants to avoid. I mean there does need to be some room to discuss your experience of a doctor. Especially when it is a matter of someone else thinking about seeing them and they want input on the person to make a decision. K.


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## 13364 (Dec 8, 2005)

No problem at all with what you say Kathleen.







I am aware that the people who run this board don't want libel hassle.And, thus far, I haven't named names, for lack of evidence. But if, in collaboration with my GP, I find out what's wrong with me, and fix it, I *will* name here (with evidence)the people who have caused me to waste thousands of pounds in self-funded medical fees & 2 years of my life. As you say, it would be remiss of me *not* to warn others.


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## SophieUK (Dec 18, 2000)

Hi Mekis - if you mean the thread where I said "There really are no IBS experts today who believe that IBS is caused by stress" then I stand by that - BUT I don't refute at all the fact that your doc told you that IBSers are a bit screwed up in the head.In fact, I agree with both yourself and Kathleen - the UK attitude to IBS is sometimes appalling, although with notable exceptions such as Michael Mahoney (IBS Audio Program), Dr Jonathon Brostoff (works on food allergy/intolerance research) and Dr Peter Whorwell (hypnotherapy pioneer).When I said that there are no experts who believe that IBS is all in the mind, I should have clarified - I certainly didn't mean that you won't find consultants or GPs who will ask you to swallow this rubbish. My own GI told me to take milk of magnesia and gave me a pitying look as I cried in his office, no doubt he thought I was weak-minded or something similar and unable to cope with the rigours of modern life.This attitude, to me, means that this particular kind of doctor is automatically ruled out from being an IBS expert - anyone who thinks all we need to do is to 'buck up', as Kath puts it, is deranged.So, if it was my comment that you interpreted as being jumped on I didn't mean to question your experience at all - I meant to question the credentials of the doctor who told you that load of old rubbish!


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## SophieUK (Dec 18, 2000)

P.S. I don't think there's any problem if you want to name the doctor - it's fair comment if you had a bad experience.


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## 13364 (Dec 8, 2005)




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## Talissa (Apr 10, 2004)

If anyone's interested, the FDA issued an even stronger warning re: adults taking the following antidep's in June 2005~Celexa (citalopram) Cymbalta (duloxetine) Effexor (venlafaxine) Lexapro (escitalopram) Fluvoxamine Paxil (paroxetine) Prozac (fluoxetine) Remeron (mirtazapine) Serzone (nefazodone) Wellbutrin (bupropion) Zoloft (sertraline) "*Adults being treated with antidepressant medications, particularly those being treated for depression, should be watched closely for worsening of depression and for increased suicidal thinking or behavior*."http://www.fda.gov/cder/drug/advisory/SSRI200507.htmMakes no sense to me...And if anyone experiences liver damage on these drugs, there are a TON of lawyers out there doing the mass litigation thing....Every single antidepressant carries the real risk of liver toxicity...And this is very interesting~"...When it comes to spin, the drug companies make the government look clumsy and amateurish. At the heart of the worries over SSRIs is the growing belief that the drug companies have been less than honest in their account of the risks involved. But it is not just SSRIs that are given a positive gloss when the evidence points the other way. In January, for instance, Swiss prosecutors began a criminal inquiry into the pharmaceutical giant Bayer AG, "on suspicion of fraud and grievous bodily damage", following the recall last year of the cholesterol- lowering drug cerivastatin (otherwise known as Lipobay in Europe and Baycol in the US). The prosecutors are accusing Bayer of suppressing vital information about the drug's potentially fatal interaction with another drug, which has been linked to more than 50 deaths.*Could the drug companies do such a thing? The editors of the world's top 11 medical journals, including the Lancet, the British Medical Journal and the New England Journal of Medicine, certainly think so.* Last September, the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors issued a joint statement calling for more openness in the way drug companies report their results and less readiness to hide unfavourable ones. The editors declared that they will now "require authors to attest that they had full access to all of the data in [a] study and . . . [to] take complete responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis".The point about having "full access to all of the data" is crucial, because it lies at the root of how science works. Only if they can look at the raw data are other scientists able to judge how reasonable is the interpretation. But all too often, the results from drug trials are presented in the form of tables, and the drug companies refuse access to the raw data on the grounds that it is commercially sensitive..."http://www.biopsychiatry.com/bigpharma/index.htmlThis is not meant as a "scare tactic". It's revealing FACTS that may be glossed over by peeps' MDs, as well as some peeps here...


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## Talissa (Apr 10, 2004)

Source: Georgetown University Medical Center Date: 2006-01-20 *Commonly Used Antidepressants May Also Affect Human Immune System*"Drugs that treat depression by manipulating the neurotransmitter serotonin in the brain may also affect the user's immune system in ways that are not yet understood, say scientists from Georgetown University Medical Center and a Canadian research institute. That's because the investigators found, for the first time, that serotonin is passed between key cells in the immune system, and that the chemical is specifically used to activate an immune response. They do not know yet, however, whether these SSRI (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) drugs "including the brands Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil and others" could have either a beneficial or a damaging effect on human immunity. "The wider health implication is that commonly used SSRI antidepressants, which target the uptake of serotonin into neurons, may also impact the uptake in immune cells," said Gerard Ahern, Ph.D., assistant professor of Pharmacology at Georgetown and lead researcher on the study. He said that while it may be possible that SSRI drugs may restore a healthy immune function in people who are depressed and prone to infections, it is possible that they might also bolster immunity to the point that they trigger autoimmune disease. "At this point we just don't know how these drugs might affect immunity, so we really need to clarify the normal role of serotonin in immune cell functioning," Ahern said. ...Drugs that block serotonin reuptake "likely change some of the parameters of T-cell activation, but we don't know yet if it enhances or inhibits the total immune response," Ahern said. "But it is something that should be explored because we really have no idea what SSRIs are doing to people's immune systems." http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/...60119230939.htm


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## 13922 (Jul 12, 2005)

IBS is scary enough. It took me close to a year to make the decision to use an antidepressant. I thought I would never do such a thing. I have to say it is the ONLY thing that helps with pain and I have tried: probiotics, acupuncture, hypnotherapy, herbals, antispasmodics and the list goes on. For me and for a lot of people the benefits outweigh the risks and "living with Ibs" is not really living, it is merely existing in agony. Though everyone is entitled to an opinion, I'd prefer not read only reports that are looking for and therefore find negative results. People who come to this BB are looking for support and encouragement because this is the ONLY place to find people who truly understand i.e. IBS sufferers. We don't need to have our heads filled with second guesses and and more anxiety.


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## Talissa (Apr 10, 2004)

Hi Piper,I don't know what to say, I'm sorry this has upset you. And I'm glad taking the antidepressants have helped you so much--clearly the risks are outweighed by the reward, for you. But not everyone knows the risks, and there are varying levels of IBS--yours was obviously severe. Someone whose pain isn't quite as debilitating may be on the fence abt taking these. For them the risks may outweigh any poss reward, but only if they are aware of the risks. That's who this info is for. It's FDA info, studies by MDs financially backed by co's who did want them to work, and the stories of people who had severe adverse reactions who had wished someone would have told them the risks before they got on board--so that's why they share their stories. To poss help others.And if you read the above article, it says antidepressants may actually be good for peeps' immune systems. But they don't know for sure, it could go either way....There are risks taking the fiber & the antibacterials that I take. Even the new probiotic I'm trying. Not the same, but there they are. At least I know about them and can make a decision for myself about risks vs poss reward...Again I'm sorry this upset so much. I'm glad the meds are working so well for you.Talissa


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## 13922 (Jul 12, 2005)

apology accepted!!! ibs is a very frustrating thing to have to deal with and i wasn't trying to attack you. I hope your treatment works for you and that you can get back to a normal life - it feels great! good luck Talissa.


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## Talissa (Apr 10, 2004)

Oh Thank God.







I'm so glad you're not mad at me, thx. I'm at 99% normal myself(It'd be 100%, but w/o all the #### I take, I'd be in the bathroom all day, having to worry abt what to eat, ugh). And it does feel fantastic!Diff strokes, right?Keep on keepin on, T-


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## 13364 (Dec 8, 2005)

Talissa - you are an important part of the balance here. I certainly don't agree with all that you say, but nor do I slavishly toe the pharma line. We need the balance!


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## Talissa (Apr 10, 2004)

April 19, 2006 SACRAMENTOâ€""The Senate Health Committee today passed SB 1683, the Pharmaceutical Drug Right-to-Know Act. The bill, authored by Senator Jack Scott (Alta Dena) and sponsored by CALPIRG, would require drug companies to release the results of all their health studies for every drug sold in California.â€œ*The Vioxx and Paxil scandals have made it perfectly clear that drug companies wonâ€™t voluntarily tell the public the whole truth*,â€ said Emily Clayton, CALPIRGâ€™s Health Care Advocate. â€œThis legislation represents the best hope that doctors, researchers and patients have of getting some real answers about the safety and effectiveness of their medicines.â€In the wake of revelations that Merck, the manufacturer of Vioxx, and GlaxoSmithKline, the maker of Paxil, withheld critical health studies from the public, legislators from across the country have turned their attention to this problem. While bills are pending in several states, the California legislation is the most ambitious. If passed by the legislature and signed by the governor, the bill would give the public access to a wide range of never-before-seen health studies."http://calpirg.org/CA.asp?id2=23642___________________________________New York TimesPublished: April 20, 2006"More than half the psychiatrists who took part in developing a widely used diagnostic manual for mental disorders had financial ties to drug companies before or after the manual was published, public health researchers reported yesterday. ...In recent years, critics have said that the manual has become too expansive, including diagnoses, like social phobia, that they say appear tailor-made to create a market for antidepressants or other drugs.The study investigated the financial ties by sifting through legal files, patent records, conflict-of-interest databases and journal articles, among other records."http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/20/health/20psych.html


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## Guest (Apr 25, 2006)

If I can add my 2 penneth - quite agree, what seems significant is those early few weeks where, quite often, the side effects are worse than the depression they are trying to treat. I'm on mitrazapene (or god knows how its spelt) a modern drug and a derivative of the SSRI's. I attempted suicide both in the early stages of trying prozac (though not very "seriously") but took a huge overdose (which I mercifully survived) about 2-3 weeks into the drug that I'm now successfully making a recovery on, so, yes, one to be aware of.Thankfully I think suicidal thoughts made worse by anti-d's are quite rare but well done for adding this one to the forum.Sue


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## Talissa (Apr 10, 2004)

Thanks for your input Sue. And for sharing your experience. I'm so very glad you made through okay. (what would we do around here w/o your brilliant, british humor???)


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## Guest (Apr 25, 2006)

Thanks doll - well I think you've got to get some sort of perspective on all of this and I hope that I do give hope to those of us poor bloody sods unlucky enough to suffer from depression (and I believe I have actually suffered from undiagnosed depression for nigh on 20 years). I believe in being very open about unpalatable thoughts like suicide cos how on earth are others ever going to learn otherwise.Thank god (or whoever lurks up there) for being with me on the 13th March and thank god for dear old Mitrazapene (for me) and for all the other anti-D's. Yes, you can scare yourself outta your jacksey by reading "horror" stories on the net (there was one, by the wife of a user of the drug I'm on, who claims her hubby is a total zombie - hey, maybe I am!!) but you do have to take each case/perso on their own merits and I am more than ready to chat to ANYONE and I mean ANYONE who needs a lug 'ole to chat about depression cos I wouldn't wish it on me worst enemy let alone the dolls and total hereos who lurk on this site.You take careLove from sunny Manchester, my god you lucky so and so, have just noticed you are posting from the Caribbean.Sue xxxxxx


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## 16923 (Mar 25, 2006)

> quote:Originally posted by Talissa:"There are clinical trial and post-marketing reports with SSRIs and other newer anti-depressants, in both pediatrics and adults, of severe agitation-type adverse events coupled with self-harm or harm to others. The agitation-type events include: akathisia, agitation, disinhibition, emotional lability, hostility, aggression, depersonalization.


I had many of these just recently after quitting an SSRI. I'm still here though. I'm one of the survivors!Scare tactics or not, everyone needs to know all the pros and cons of a medication and make an informed decision with their doctor.Interesting thread!


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## Guest (May 26, 2006)

Couldn't agree more AK - its just that usually the press is very slanted against anti-D's - I'm very, very scared about coming off mitrazapene and am sure going to take things slowly if and when the time comes. I'd rather be on them for life than suffer those symptoms again thanksSue


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## 21723 (Aug 19, 2005)

Thanks for the info Talissa, It is very important that people know the risks and dangers of taking these medications. I am still going to start taking Effexor next week but will give them the utmost respect.


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## Guest (Jun 23, 2006)

Yeah well said pooman (great name by the way!!) - I think if you are aware of these risks (and I must stress by no means all peeps taking them experience these awful side-effects - unfortunately I did!!!) and work closely with your psychiatrist/GP whatever, the outcome should be good.Can I just say, in March I was suicidal, here we are in June, am feeling well, positive and optimistic about the future - yes, I'm still on mitrazapene and will be, probably for at least a year, but thank god for it, I'd probably be dead otherwise.Good luck to us all!!Sue


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