@justin_garson
Even from a commonsense position, I find it intolerable that anyone has the arrogance to suggest that they know what is going on in my mind better than I do. It's *my mind*.
@akheriaty
@Coucou_CFC
“All our science is just a cookery book, with an orthodox theory of cooking that nobody's allowed to question..”. Brave New World. 1932.
@Dr_Ellie
@thismorning
@hollywills
@Schofe
Sorry to say
@Dr_Ellie
you have repackaged the myths of ADs: restoring chemical imbalance cf. diabetes meds, need for long term use, short term withdrawals. Failed to mention dependence forming, 25% suffer extreme withdrawals, lifelong PSSD risk.
'If you go to a doctor feeling suicidal on a new drug, there is an increasing likelihood s/he will double the dose of the medicine you are on, add another drug, or have you committed to hospital.'
'Serotonin is critical for the working of sensory receptors and nerves linked to bones, joints, muscles, eyes and vestibules. Mess with serotonin and things fall apart.'
Join us for a special event on September 7 at 1 PM EDT. Dr David Healy
@DrDavidHealy
of
@RxISK
asks “Why Are Antidepressants So Difficult to Stop? A New Understanding of Drug Dsyregulation Syndrome and How to Manage It”
#antidepressants
#ssri
Register:
@VincentRK
Of course the benefits outweigh the risks for vast majority of people. But what is needed is clear guidance on how to recognise earliest symptoms of blood clot reaction and reassurance about treatment for the tiny minority who could be at risk.
You’re not alone – a global
#prescribedharm
community, whose life or death struggles with esp. psychotropic iatrogenesis, also campaign against the risks of overmedicalisation.
Rammya Mathew: Tackling overmedicalisation must become a political priority
‘We have suffered life changing harm from antidepressants-some of us have been personally disabled for life, some of us have had our children or husbands killed by the adverse effects they induce. ..others may suffer the same fate, due to disinformation'.
‘I am too scared to live a life in impotence and disability. Do not let them convince you that this is just depression. These drugs are the problem. End of the story.’ 28yo with PSSD - who took his own life.
@ShaunLintern
"She was prescribed antidepressants and began showing signs of becoming suicidal." Important to at least investigate this element of the story. Suicidality is a known ADR to ADs, especially in young people and those already feeling suicidal, enshrined in NICE guidance.
‘The notion of ‘destigmatizing mental illness’, which is bandied about in psychiatric circles, is laughably incoherent. It is not logically possible to ‘destigmatize’ a status which is born out of stigmatization.’
Let no-one imagine that one rigourous, high profile systematic umbrella review of ‘The serotonin theory of depression’ has overturned a culturally embedded myth. More work to do.
@MHRAgovuk
Please can we abandon this intrinsically diminishing and peripheralising word, ‘side effects’.
#PSSD
is a life destroying adverse effect with no cure, first reported over 30 years ago and still unrecognised by
@MHRAgovuk
"Unless psychiatry as a whole is prepared to abandon the failed 'disease' paradigm, its future will be as shameful as its past".
@ClinpsychLucy
That's it - in one sentence.
@DrAdrianJames
Nothing more revealing about an organisational culture than its supposedly private internal communications.
@rcpsych
has every reason to be horrified by the mindset exposed by this email – as do patients given the ‘diagnosis’.
@SamWhyte
What if you could never orgasm ever, ever again? If you lost all sensation in your genitals? If you could never feel a lover’s touch – ever again? That's what
#PSSD
means. Don’t you think it’s at least worth docs warning patients of an est 1/216 chance of a life without feeling?
@dysclinic
Imagine how patients feel. Professionals really need to work together to curtail this 'anything that moves'
#FND
market share grab - and restrict the diagnosis to its rightful place.
‘my study showed mainstream psychiatry does not have an articulated model of mental disorder to guide its treatment, research & teaching.For that reason, modern psychiatry cannot claim to be a science of mental disorder..it has all the features of an ideology of mental disorder.’
@chrisaikenmd
No
#PSSD
is not ‘unproven’ - case reports go back 30 years. It is epistemic injustice - disbelieving thousands of patients - that perpetuates unnecessary iatrogenic suffering-time after time.
.
A response from the President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists
Is claiming a ‘lead role’ in AD wd awareness (30 years late) – and a corporate sales pitch – an adequate response to patients suffering life changing harms and bereaved families?
@drjanaway
My impression is a lot of anger comes from psychiatry leaving a global prescribedharm community in its wake – due to wholly unintentional but nonetheless destructive failure to understand the risks of a succession of 'psychiatric' drugs (ofc ADs mostly rx by general practice).
'I thought my brain shared the same abnormalities as everyone else with OCD & that these were the root causes of our obsessions.. Gillan explained that, on the contrary, psychiatric diagnoses are not based on biomarkers, they are subjective constructs.’
“As I dived deeper, I encountered ideas that shook me and my message at the foundations: decades of criticism, not just of diagnosis but of the entire medical model.
I put down my laptop, lay down on the sofa and cried.”
@DegenRolf
Am I reading this correctly - your sample was people who 'self-indentified as being in love'? Um, well obviously SSRIs were not affecting their capacity for romantic love. Deleterious effects of AD class of drugs on sexuality has been known for decades.
‘I can only imagine their mounting horror as, completely alone with their despair, they learned from a computer screen that there is no known cure and that for many people the symptoms endure indefinitely. ‘
"The disorder has traumatized my child, leaving them in a constant state of despair and hopelessness and by extension has also caused much worry and stress for the rest of the family... "
@ProfRobHoward
NICE warns explicitly of suicidal behaviour associated with ADs esp. amongst children, young adults & people with a history of suicidal behaviour. How is it ‘anti-psychiatry’ to warn patients of this risk? Surely it's anti-patient not to warn them.
'Treating and stopping is not the same as not treating. Attempting to stop can be highly dangerous. The safest course of action is not to prescribe in the first instance.'
Deprescribing may be right for us or it may not. We need a relationship based medicine over an algorithm to help us off meds. For those unable to stop meds, medication reviews that halt drugs abruptly are putting us at greater risk.
'Maybe SSRIs saved your life, but that doesn’t mean they haven’t devastated the lives of others. And maybe you are asexual and have never taken antidepressants. But how dare you shut someone down who has?'
'The terror I experienced during these years – was so profound I felt like I was being suffocated by my own skin..I was trapped in a chemical prison that my psychiatrist was unable to grasp.’ TG you escaped on your own - with help from peer support. Brilliant piece, Anna.
@iatrogenic_harm
@Industryideator
I don’t know where you’re getting that information but that just isn’t correct. Some people really do benefit by changing the chemicals in their brain that were unbalanced. It’s not all just placebo and numbing for every single person on earth. Some do benefit.
@drjanaway
Many of those who advocate for alternative approaches to supporting humans in extreme states of distress, e.g. Dr Johnstone, Dr Read, probably have even more experience than you do working directly with those patients.That experience has driven their desire for more humane care.
@_roseyesha
Patient stories of harm are essential safety signals-mostly absent from commercially driven trials-and, it appears, regulatory focus. Too often ignored and dismissed until it’s too late. Critical data - esp with accelerated drug approvals.
#listentopatients
@euthymiatech
Alternative theory : adverse effects of psychotropic medications are commonly misdiagnosed as relapse or a new condition, because iatrogenic effects, including withdrawal, have been minimised in company driven RCTs embedded in medical education.
@ProfRobHoward
Nobody shames suffering patients for taking medication that benefits them. What is shameful is patients who have been harmed by medications who, as
#Cumberlege
recognised, have to *campaign* for attention & support from the system.
#PSSD
‘I’d rather not take any medications. Today, I don’t feel as good as I did ten years ago. I don’t think it’s from age. I think it’s from mixing all those drugs together. Maybe the long-term effects aren’t so good.’
@DrLadeSmith
There never was a myth antidepressants were ‘addictive’. This is rewriting history to circumvent a truth – antidepressants cause dependence.
@atomicaceso
Curiouser & curiouser:
'Sedation is dangerous if you have dementia,' says Dr Robert Howard, 'While antidepressants are effective for treating depression in the general population, the evidence shows they don't work in dementia patients.'
This is an absolute tragedy.
#PSSD
took Julian's life. Do we really think this BNF warning (eg sertraline) is adequate?
'Symptoms of sexual dysfunction may persist after treatment has stopped.'
It is with heavy hearts that we acknowledge the recent passing of a member within the PSSD community:
Julian, 38 years old from Germany.
Julian wanted to live, but he felt his life was destroyed by PSSD. He could not go on any longer.
We send our condolences to his family
'A 77-year-old woman was able to leave her wheelchair and walk with a cane after cutting her daily pills from THIRTY TWO to SEVENTEEN She had arrived sedated and unable to communicate, and a few months later, she was back to her hobby of knitting.'
"Swallowing a handful of pills is a daily ritual for many people, from young adults coping with anxiety to older adults managing chronic conditions."
Our failing "healthcare heroes" that prescribe handfuls of pills to teenagers 🙄
"On average, studies funded by the pharmaceutical industry found that antidepressants had no impact on suicide risk at all (risk ratio 0.96). In contrast, studies performed by independent researchers found that antidepressants doubled suicide risk (risk ratio 2.02)’".
Why is there almost no discussion on Twitter Psych of this excellent study? It points to one of the bleakest ironies in modern mental health - that SSRI antidepressants may be linked to increased suicide risk. Please retweet to try help turn this around!
I’ve seen 2 doctors recently-neurologist and a sexual function specialist - and they say they’re seeing new cases of this every week..It’s very hard for doctors to diagnose if regulators aren’t really reconigizing it as something that needs to be listed and looked out for.“
We would like to thank journalist
@LucySarret
for her recent article on Post-SSRI Sexual Dysfunction (
#PSSD
) and medical gaslighting.
The article in the
@Daily_Express
includes contributions from three PSSD sufferers and
@DrDavidHealy
.
‘Drug toxicity cuts across classic syndromes and faces specialists with features outside their specialist area. Scared to blame the drug, and not wanting to offend colleagues who have prescribed SSRIs, the path of least resistance is to blame the patient.’
New video recording of a recent talk I gave for
@MedicatingNorm1
in Lexington, Kentucky. This is about what antidepressants do and where they do it and covers issues that need input from everyone on how best to move forward with these treatments.
"..worked for 10 years in the NHS with the most suicidal people of all ages, and it is nearly always for social reasons like separation, losing jobs, the social problems associated with poverty. These issues can be addressed, but a head injury on top of this wouldn’t help."
'I was then cycled through every antidepressant drug there was. Every time I tried to quit the antidepressants I would spiral into worse and worse states of catatonia and suicidal ideation. Doctors shouted at me there was no such thing as antidepressant withdrawal.'
Stolen Lives : Helena took her last antidepressant in 2021 after years of iatrogenic harm - I was told by my GP I had a chemical imbalance in my brain and that a new drug called Prozac
‘There are a number of influential psychiatrists who now argue that psychiatry never supported, what they now call “the trope” of a “chemical imbalance”. This is bollocks. Or bollocksology as Dr Margaret McCartney might describe it.’
"I feel detached from my true self; isolated from society and distant from other people. I am unmotivated as I am unable to seek pleasure; I live a mechanical and soulless existence. Without the desire that once drove me I merely go through the motions."
#PSSD
"I went to a doctor for help and ended up in a horrible place; a place that I did not think could even exist. The medical system violated my trust and my body. They took advantage of me during a period of weakness; and then they left me on the scrapheap."
'We are not acting against antidepressants, but against a policy of non-information which presents antidepressants as a happiness pill,” says the lawyer for the two families.'
Bereaved parents in France have joined together to file complaints about the serious & sometimes fatal adverse effects of
#paroxetine
. Both families lost sons to sudden and out-of-character death shortly after their sons started the drug.
@BadMedicalTakes
Accurate take:
'This might be a risk worth taking if there was evidence the drugs saved lives or prevented suicide attempts. They don’t. More people died on active treatment in antidepressant trials submitted to FDA than on placebo.'
‘FYI, psych drugs have no proven “neuroprotective properties” & mental illnesses are not “brain-destroying” conditions. Stop spreading such rubbish. The studies that purport this are heavily flawed. However, there is very strong evidence that psych drugs & shocks destroy brains.’
Why I Resigned from Mental Health America
by Jill Edwards
"When MHA lobbied for expanding forced treatment, I could no longer allow myself to be a cog in the oppressive, profit-driven, psych industry wheel."
"..the testing of psychiatric drugs is a charade. It is a process designed not to inform, but—as long as the drug makes it past FDA review—to produce a commercially valuable soundbite. These studies were riddled with elements of bad science".
New MIA Report by Robert Whitaker:
Corrupting influence of pharmaceutical money on all phases of the drug development process—testing of drugs, reporting of results in journals, selling of newly approved drugs to the medical community—is ever-present.
'For us in psychiatry, if the BMJ authors are correct, this is a huge setback, as all of the publications and policy decisions based on the STAR*D findings that became clinical dogma since 2006 will need to be reviewed, revisited, and possibly retracted.'
"As most serotonin is found outside our brain, SSRIs primarily impact our “bodies”, especially our senses...the drugs give rise to a “Drug Dysregulation Syndrome” affecting different systems.."
Has industry’s fixation with locating ‘depression’ in our brains obscured reality?
Save the date! At 1 p.m. on Sept. 7,
@DrDavidHealy
(of
@RxISK
) will speak with Robert Whitaker on the difficulty of stopping antidepressants -- and how to manage Drug Dsyregulation Syndrome.
'We have suffered life changing harm from antidepressants – some of us have been personally disabled for life, some of us have had our children or husbands killed by the adverse effects they induce'.
How has the President of
@rcpsych
responded to this urgent communication?
@constantgarden4
@Melanie84410075
@markhoro
@shvogt
Saying it as a psychiatrist with 30 years of clinical experience- based on his achievements so far, Dr. Horwitz has a stellar future career as a consultant psychiatrist for the good of his patients and the field, including his jealous senior colleagues.🤔
'Most importantly people are not being given informed consent. Wouldn't you want to know a drug had a side effect where it can cause *permanent sexual dysfunction*?' Important viewing.
‘Those of us who have been diagnosed are not objects to be acted upon. We are fully human subjects who can act and in acting, change our situation. We are human beings, and we can speak for ourselves. We have a voice and can learn to use it.’ Pat Deegan
A narrative review of debates concludes that the biomedical model, which became the dominant paradigm of care following the publication of DSM-III in 1980, is giving way to a “person-centered, biopsychosocial spiritual model”
'Despite fatal mistakes in her brother’s care, Sidle showed compassion to the staff who gave evidence at the inquest by thanking them for their honesty & even hugging one of those involved. “I forgave all those people because they are also victims of a dysfunctional system'.
'One day, it was like the penny dropped and I laughed out loud when I realised that I had been prescribed medication to treat my psychiatrists’ anxieties. They should have been the ones taking my pills'.
@drjanaway
Perhaps we could devote combined energies today to supporting those who, following docs advice, ended up w/ their sensual & emotional lives destroyed by
#PSSD
.
It’s the PSSD community’s own relentless hard work that has brought this to public attention.
'PSSD has been dismissed by many doctors as a psycho-somatic illness – e.g. result of untreated depression. It is still typical for patients to be disbelieved,.."
'Shamefully, we haven’t put this condition on the map. Instead, we have detained people for their crazy ideas, diagnosed them w/ somatic delusions, or accused them of being abused in childhood & unable to remember it. GPs have laughed at patients.'
@NutritionalThe3
Maybe we should abandon expression - ‘side effect’ – altogether. Implies a drug reaction that is insignificant, minor in relation to an assumed greater benefit.
#PSSD
(&
#akathisia
, drug drug induced movement disorders, suicidality etc.) are all major adverse drug reactions.
Correct.
#patientsafety
is my obsession. For a class of drug, rx to 25% of local pop, known to cause wd in est 50% (with patchy prescriber understanding),
#PSSD
, suicidality, why aren’t specialist support services your obsession too?
"This amounts to a loss of personality which changes the experience of being me. The world has gone “quiet”. Manufacturers of these drugs have no idea what they are messing with."
SSRIs & Loss of Identity via
@RxISK
@DBDouble
No argument - there is a psychological dimension to any patient's relationship with ‘my medication’ and its withdrawal – just like caffeine, nicotine etc. But to use this to somehow override the very real physiological process of adaption & withdrawal is just plain bonkers.
'According to MHRA data, fluoxetine has prompted 9,237 serious and fatal alerts relating to adverse reactions since the year 2000. Of these, 438 were related to “suicidal and self-injurious behaviours” and 286 were linked to anxiety symptoms.'
@AlinaV_Psy
@ruthelkan1
@DrEvans_Health
This isn’t some sort of game. Significant numbers of patients have had their sensual & emotional lives destroyed by
#PSSD
. Prevalence studies are needed to enable accurately informed consent- both an ethical and *legal* obligation.
#Montgomery
judgment
“SSRIs libido-dampening effects are so powerful that the drugs, including sertraline, have even been trialled on sex offenders in the past to help curb their urges. “ How was this not a neon safety signal for the risks of everyday prescribing?
Side effect warning over powerful antidepressants taken by millions: SSRIs like sertraline can 'destroy sex lives' even years AFTER patients stop taking them - prompting one leading psychiatrist (
@joannamoncrieff
) to say: 'Don't go anywhere near them'
@abcsoka
‘The sex instinct will be eradicated...We shall abolish the orgasm. Our neurologists are at work upon it now."
'1984' - written by George Orwell in 1949.
#PSSD
"they injected inmates with herpes..asbestos..even tested chemical warfare agents."
Public outcry & new reforms eventually made research in prisons difficult. '..who do we do Phase I trials on now?' We can't do them on prisoners..," says Elliott.
"The answer is poor people."
@rcpsych
Suggest you think more broadly - to include the risks of dying from ‘psychiatric medicine’.As Fava said, ‘in today’s medicine, we have banned any iatrogenic thinking'. The tragic suicide of this beautiful young woman is one of many avoidable deaths.
#PSSD
With heavy heart, I have to announce that my friend Lena, who suffered from severe PSSD and damage from Benzos, ended her life.
She wanted to live, but she couldn't go on without emotions, akathisia and hundreds other med induced symptoms. I will always remember her. 💔
"We need to move away from seeing distress as illness.
This model sets the scene for abuse by positioning a whole group of people as less rational, less able to make their own choices, and therefore legally vulnerable to coercion by others."
Disturbing to see evidenced based patient risks distorted into propaganda as - 'old chestnuts'. Long established that agitated, depersonalised states leading to suicidality & even homicality are known effects of many classes of drug.
#patientsafety
@DrAnnieHickox
@Mad_In_America
@DrDavidHealy
@RxISK
@jimgottstein
"Old chestnut"? Appears someone wasn't keeping up with the research in 2015. Or with the two studies published in 2016 with remarkably similar findings. And again in 2022. Those who tune in will get a chance to revisit it.
"..very easy to just dismiss somebody & say they are anti-psychiatry,rather than looking at the fact that,I am not anti-psychiatry, I am anti the very difficult iatrogenic effects of these drugs & some of the ways in which psychiatry can work to take away somebody’s autonomy."
Delighted to chat with
@TanFrankUK
about her book ‘Zig-Zag Boy: Madness, Motherhood and Letting Go’. A beautifully written account of dealing with mental distress which speaks movingly about broken healthcare systems in the US and UK.
Full interview:
'What is troubling is that the side effects that patients tell us (20,000+ in recent years),these side effects that doctors do not seem to believe, but they are recognised by the pharmaceutical companies themselves'.
Important viewing.
Discover how to watch Radio Canada's latest benzo expose, Cauchemar Sur Ordonnance (Prescription Nightmare), featuring two members of our medical advisory board, Nicole Lamberson, PA, and Dr. Jim Wright, in English for free.
@ahmedhankir
The only psychiatrist worth having is one - like you - who has lived through profound human distress. Now you've also been traumatised by psychiatry, you'll be able empathise even more with the people in your care, many of whom will have had the same experience.
"A class-action suit would serve society well. It would put teeth into the legal obligation for doctors to provide “informed consent,” and for a medical discipline to provide society with information that met this standard too."
Psychiatry, Fraud, and the Case for a Class-Action Lawsuit
By Robert Whitaker
As psychiatrists publicly commented on the Moncrieff et al paper (finding no evidence of an association between serotonin and depression), a second confession appeared...
‘Informed consent' is INADEQUATE.
Trust only full DISCLOSURE & COMMITMENT,viz :
‘If I suffer injuries from a treatment I’ve been put on & need to be hospitalized as a result, this is a medical failure that needs recognition as a failure if we are to move forward with decency.’
Before Drs ask our patients to sign an “Informed Consent,” maybe patients should ask us for … Full Disclosure? Here are some of the things patients have a right to know:
@ProfTonyDavid
@ProfRobHoward
Shame on you for laughing at the suffering of patients – patients sensually and emotionally neutered as an ADR to SSRIs. MEN <30 years with the penile tissue of 80 year olds. What is hilarious about this living death?
"But what if, in the rush to end the stigma around using antidepressants in the first place, the very real risks of taking them — and perhaps more importantly stoppingthem — are being overlooked?... And what if — to coin a phrase — it’s the help that kills you?"
#PSSD
This piece very clearly outlines PSSD. A good one to send people who have no idea about the condition.
PSSD: The Devastating Sexual and Emotional Side Effect of Antidepressants by Dan Tickner
@drjanaway
If any HCP tells you - ‘antidepressants work and save lives’ – refer them to Stone et al's 2022 analysis and suggest they pay attention to the detail:
I was floored by this monologue from
@JesseBWatters
This is the best summation I’ve ever seen on cable about the broken incentives of healthcare, our metabolic health crisis and SIMPLE empowering solutions we can take today to fix it.
Every network should be covering this.
‘The Royal College of GPs told Panorama family doctors were "highly-trained to have frank & sensitive conversations" w/ patients about the risks & benefits of ADs’ Ofc they are-but are they exposed to all the research evidence themselves?
#PSSD
sufferers don’t think so.
'But society is all for people getting off heroin. Around our cultural campfires, there is no urgency around SSRI damage to the brain and nervous system. It’s like having an arm blown off and someone knits you a scarf.'
“If I were a heroin addict, I’d be given a hospital bed and palliatives. Instead, I’m invited to self-care, exercise, journaling, chamomile tea.”
After years struggling to get off Prozac, K longs for her old self—or simply to be believed:
‘It is clear that the people behind this, & increasingly in charge of clinical medicine, do not want your Lived Experience if it includes the experience of harms on meds’. Viz:
'Important to say that withdrawal symptoms are not dangerous' Dr Paul Keedwell ‘Science’ Media Centre.
Before Drs ask our patients to sign an “Informed Consent,” maybe patients should ask us for … Full Disclosure? Here are some of the things patients have a right to know:
@TheDissenterYT
@camillalnord
Perhaps neuroscientist
@camillalnord
is unaware of the
#prescribedharm
community – 100s x 1000s patients worldwide harmed by ‘psychiatric’ drug ADEs & withdrawal-of which most prescribers have been unaware & are unable to treat. Less of a backlash and more of a scandal perhaps?
@jersey_flight
Incorrect. Not 'anti-psychiatry' (that tired old defensive move), pro
#patientsafety
. These patients have had their sensual lives destroyed. There is no 'cure' and virtually no help. Why don't you lend support?
'The highest rates of diagnosed depression occur among England’s poorest people, but the government probably prefers prescribing antidepressants to trying to solve poverty.'
@JRBneuropsiq
Friend v fortunate to have your expertise. Misdx of drug ADEs & ensuing prescribing cascade not uncommon - eg
#akathisia
misdx as agitated depression/psychosis, AD activation as BP II, AD tremor as FND, withdrawal as relapse, PSSD as depression (!) etc. This is
#prescribedharm
.
Police stopped and searched friend who was pacing 'nervously' round spermarket carpark for 30 minutes. Guess what they found in his pockets? 1 x packet tissues, 2 spare facemasks (one cute Scottie dog design).
#akathisia
destroys lives in so many ways
@akathisiaalli
@NickWebb30
'Governments are supposed to *protect consumers from harm*. 2018, PSSD Awareness community submitted a petition to the
@US_FDA
, pleading with them to add warning labels to certain medicinal products... They were unsuccessful. Perhaps this will change in the year 2024?'
“Some ECT researchers seem oblivious to the fact that electricity cannot resolve child abuse or neglect, loneliness, low self-esteem, or any of the many other causes of depression and suicidality in our children and teenagers.”
“That’s what bothers me the most, even more than my father’s death,” one interviewee tells him of her father’s forced treatment for mild dementia.."The violation of his agency, his integrity. The more he tried to assert his rights, the more he was accused of not making sense.”
The number of Americans and Canadians detained for psychiatric treatment is more than double that in Europe.
An exhaustive new study by
@robwipond
finds that forced treatment does not improve mental health.
My review
@PsychToday
#Psychiatry