Guest Post: Life ‘at’ and Escape ‘from’ Paroxetine Island

The hell of Aropax withdrawal

Following on from Part I [Like a Lamb to the Slaughter] of Mark's trilogy of guest posts.

This post sees Mark describe the frustrations and hardships of withdrawing from GlaxoSmithKline's Aropax, known in the UK as Seroxat and in the US and Canada as Paxil.

Life ‘at’ and Escape ‘from’ Paroxetine Island [PI]

Life at Paroxetine Island(PI) can only really  be described in hindsight and with insight once one has spent time back on the mainland and drug-free. Here are some observations:

Reporting Adverse Events to Pharmaceutical Companies

Roche NZ, lengthy response to consumer query

So, you feel suicidal, maybe you've self-harmed, maybe your child has been born with a heart defect or brain abnormality - you could be a parent who has lost a child to suicide or a wife/husband who is mourning the loss of a partner.

If you fall into any of the above categories and antidepressants have been involved, chances are you'll accept that Joe killed himself because he was depressed or Lucy self-harmed because she has a psychiatric disorder and that's what people do when they are mentally ill. Maybe it was just God's will that young Daniel was born with a serious heart defect or Kate was born with defects to her skull... then again, maybe not.

I recently emailed 6 of the major pharmaceutical companies and asked about the protocol in place to respond to consumers who report an adverse reaction to them. Only two of the six replied. I'm grateful to Roche and Merck for their feedback.

SSRi Withdrawal - A Lesson For Doctors

Far be it from me, a blogger, to give doctors a lesson in managing antidepressant withdrawal... but I'm going to anyway.

I've been writing this blog for 8 years now and, over this period of time, have been inundated with emails from patients struggling with withdrawal issues from their medication. Most popular question is along the lines of "How long does it take before these terrible side-effects go away?"

A good 90% of the emails start off by telling me the side effects, crying, sweating, electric-like zaps in the head, shaking, most of these conditions, if not all, appear when the patient starts to taper off the drug on the advice given by their healthcare 'professional'.

ROLL UP, ROLL UP - PHARMED-OUT CONFERENCE IS IN TOWN

This year's 4th annual PharmedOut conference is hitting town and, judging by the speaker list, looks like it's going to be the best yet.

Highlight of this year's conference, for me at least, is the 'surprise guest' from a major pharmaceutical company who is going to be talking about ethical conflicts inside the industry.

PharmedOut is a Georgetown University Medical Center project that advances evidence-based prescribing and educates healthcare professionals about pharmaceutical marketing practices.

Some of their goals are:

Sara Carlin - 6 Years On

18 year old Sara Carlin

Today [May 6] marks the 6 year anniversary of the death of Oakville teen, Sara Carlin.

Sara tragically took her life back in 2007 and her much publicized 2010 inquest saw her parents, Neil and Rhonda, face teams of lawyers representing doctors and GlaxoSmithKline.

Sara had, around a year or so prior to her death, been prescribed Glaxo's Paxil [paroxetine], a drug that is infamous for inducing suicide, particularly in children and adolescents.

Sara was just 18.

The inquest, that I labelled the Glaxo & Friends Vs The Carlin Family, rolled out apparent SSRi experts who made various claims that 'suicide is much more strongly related to cases of untreated depression' and in any event Paxil induced suicide is more common when first starting the drug.

Guest Post: Like A Lamb to the Slaughter

As this blog grows I get more and more requests from readers asking if they can write a guest post. This has proved very popular and gives a chance for people, patients to vent... none more so than the author of this post, Mark Carter.

As you will learn, Mark is yet another victim of the over prescribing of psychiatric medication, another victim of off-label prescribing.

Mark's story... and this is just part 1 of 3, is nothing new. Thousands, if not millions, of unsuspecting patients are, within minutes, walking out of consultation rooms with pills that are nothing more than loaded bullets. They are being diagnosed with ailments, in Mark's case sore wrists and arms, and then prescribed drugs that have no indication to treat the diagnosis.

This is, sadly, on-going globally.

Mark is from Auckland, New Zealand.

Here's part I of his story.

Patient Information or Litigation Disclaimer?

I was browsing through some SSRi patient information leaflets [PILs] earlier and have come to the conclusion that the manufacturers warnings about this, that and the other are merely coded messages to the consumer.

Years ago, when SSRi's first hit the market, there were few warnings of side-effects. Sure, back then we had dizziness, nausea, sweating etc but that's standard for most, if not all, prescription medicines.

Today, after US litigation, patient reporting and, it has to be said, internet activism, the PILs take on a completely different look. They [the manufacturer] are telling us we can't sue because we were told.

It's almost as if pharmaceutical compliance departments had a eureka moment and turned really bad news into something that could be productive in the future. "Hey if we stick broad but vague warning labels on our drugs then we cover ourselves from future litigation... quick, get the number for that medical ghostwriting team we used back in 1998"

Let's take a look at Seroxat for example. [NHS Information]

An American Psychiatrist in New Zealand

"Beware the moon" - An American Werewolf In London [PolyGram Pictures 1981]

I wish this were parody. It's not.

A reader from NZ sent me the following audio . His GP was unable to explain the sexual dysfunction after exiting from 10 years of ssri use, given to him to cure repetitive strain injury from keyboard overuse, so he was referred to a psychiatrist to get some answers . He asked the psychiatrist what was the future prognosis. The psychiatrist, having just claimed he'd never heard of pssd (post ssri sexual dysfunftion), then went on to explain the reasons for the sexual dysfunction.

The audio is now available on youtube [video below] - For those who, like me, find some of the audio difficult to listen to, there's a transcript for you perusal.

The patient, Mark Carter, will be writing a series of guest posts for my blog soon. In the meantime, please listen to this remarkable audio.

Celexa/Lexapro... Or Your Money Back

Not for use in children and adolescents

Celexa [citalopram] and Lexapro [escitalopram] are two antidepressants in the family of SSRi's. Some would argue [I'm one of them] that both antidepressants are pretty much the same. Let's face it, Lexapro only ever came to market because the patent was running out on Celexa.

Forest Labs, the manufacturer, have argued that the two drugs differ, maybe so but the end result is the same particularly when it's been down to the marketing team of Forest Labs.

Once again, kids have been targeted despite these group of drugs bearing warnings that they were not recommended for pediatrics.

How do we know this for sure?

Global Medical (Mis) Information

I was sent a private email on Twitter a few days ago from Global Medical Education, known on Twitter as @GlobalMedEd. The blurb on their Twitter page reads, "GME is an online medical education resource that provides evidence-based medical education from faculty at Columbia, Duke, Harvard, Oxford, Stanford and more."

The content of the email was baffling considering I've been blogging about the dangers of antidepressants for over 7 years.

We're offering FREE access to 700 unbiased, evidence-based psychiatric videos Code: GMETwitter http://bit.ly/Pzvkhs  Limited time offer.

So, I checked out the GME website and watched a few of the videos on offer. Ones about ADHD, bipolar, depression and many other box-ticking illnesses.

I publicly tweeted GME and asked the following:

@globalmeded Do you have any educational videos on SSRi induced suicide?
— BOB FIDDAMAN (@Fiddaman) April 22, 2013

A day later they replied with...

@fiddaman you may be interested in this video here: ow.ly/kk8aT I hope that helps.
— Global Med Education (@GlobalMedEd) April 23, 2013

So, I checked out the video.

I watched it... then I watched it again... and to be sure I wasn't hearing things I watched it for a third time.

Canadian Network Report on Big Bad Pharma

Well worth watching.

As usual the pharmaceutical companies mentioned (Eli Lilly, Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline) in the 16×9 investigation failed to appear in front of camera, opting instead for the tired old "Our drugs are safe and effective" kind of statement.

The regulators come under fire too. Footage includes Pete Breggin and David Healy.

Good to see Canadian TV highlighting the flaws of antidepressants... only wish their limp-wristed regulator, Health Canada, were the same.




**If you can't get the video player to load you can watch it via the TV network [HERE]
Bob Fiddaman

JOIN THE FIDDAMAN BLOG ON FACEBOOK

Glaxo Add to Their List of Misdemeanours

GSK's addictive antidepressant, Seroxat

One would have thought that British pharmaceutical giant would still be licking their wounds after the record fine of $3billion they dished out a couple of months ago.

No sooner had that particular scab healed Glaxo find themselves [once again] in hot water.

And it's Seroxat that rears its ugly head [once again]

This time Glaxo haven't been accused of pushing it on kids via ghostwritten articles or Madonna tickets for doctors... they've been accused of not allowing other companies to get in on their act.

How did they do this?

I'll explain.