Mass psychosis in the US

[formercia]

How Big Pharma got Americans hooked on anti-psychotic drugs.
James Ridgeway Last Modified: 12 Jul 2011 06:20

Has America become a nation of psychotics? You would certainly think so, based on the explosion in the use of antipsychotic medications. In 2008, with over $14 billion in sales, antipsychotics became the single top-selling therapeutic class of prescription drugs in the United States, surpassing drugs used to treat high cholesterol and acid reflux.

Once upon a time, antipsychotics were reserved for a relatively small number of patients with hard-core psychiatric diagnoses - primarily schizophrenia and bipolar disorder - to treat such symptoms as delusions, hallucinations, or formal thought disorder. Today, it seems, everyone is taking antipsychotics. Parents are told that their unruly kids are in fact bipolar, and in need of anti-psychotics, while old people with dementia are dosed, in large numbers, with drugs once reserved largely for schizophrenics. Americans with symptoms ranging from chronic depression to anxiety to insomnia are now being prescribed anti-psychotics at rates that seem to indicate a national mass psychosis.

It is anything but a coincidence that the explosion in antipsychotic use coincides with the pharmaceutical industry's development of a new class of medications known as "atypical antipsychotics." Beginning with Zyprexa, Risperdal, and Seroquel in the 1990s, followed by Abilify in the early 2000s, these drugs were touted as being more effective than older antipsychotics like Haldol and Thorazine. More importantly, they lacked the most noxious side effects of the older drugs - in particular, the tremors and other motor control problems.

--snip--

A remarkable series published in the Palm Beach Post in May true revealed that the state of Florida's juvenile justice department has literally been pouring these drugs into juvenile facilities, "routinely" doling them out "for reasons that never were approved by federal regulators." The numbers are staggering: "In 2007, for example, the Department of Juvenile Justice bought more than twice as much Seroquel as ibuprofen. Overall, in 24 months, the department bought 326,081 tablets of Seroquel, Abilify, Risperdal and other antipsychotic drugs for use in state-operated jails and homes for children…That's enough to hand out 446 pills a day, seven days a week, for two years in a row, to kids in jails and programs that can hold no more than 2,300 boys and girls on a given day." Further, the paper discovered that "One in three of the psychiatrists who have contracted with the state Department of Juvenile Justice in the past five years has taken speaker fees or gifts from companies that make antipsychotic medications."

--snip--

More at the link:

http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/07/20117313948379987.html

[firehorse]

1. seroquel an anti psychotic med, is commonly prescribed off label for insomnia

It has a sedative quality and is supposedly is non addictive. So it is prescribed in very low doses to alcoholics people with other addictions, people with PTSD, chronic insomniacs (off label) instead of prescribing highly addictive sleep meds.

[HockeyMom]

2. Americans are a drug dependent society

Got this ailment? There is a PILL for you!!!! I live in Florida now. I listen to countless TV ads for this pill and that pill. I did NOT see these ads in New York. I am 62. When I went for a pre-employment physical 4 years ago, I had to fill out a SIX PAGE packet of my medical history. Part of that included TWO PAGES listing medications taken. I put a line through all 2 pages saying NONE. There was a 19 year old girl next to me who had to fill this out also. She actually started CRYING when she saw all this. "There is NOTHING WRONG WITH ME." Well, hello my dear, me too. When I saw the Nurse she got VERY MAD when I told her I take NO MEDICATIONS, as if I had committed some CRIME by not pill popping. Is that Un-American now too?

BTW, my daughter is BiPolar. She stopped taking ANY meds 6 years ago because she said they were screwing up her body. You know what? She is just FINE now.

Stop FEEDING the pharmaceutical corporations, which I have worked for one of the largest in the past. You cannot imagine the PROFITS they are making off your ailments/addictions.

[Deep13]

3. I was raised by a crazy woman. Consequently, I will never be normal.

I can be lonely, paranoid and suicidal with unpredictable mood swings or I can take a mild psychiatric drug. I will never go back to the way I was. I envy your perfect health, but I cannot share it. Frankly, you are a statistical anomaly.

[HockeyMom]

5. My BiPolar daughter is also?

She quit all those meds cold turkey and hasn't looked back. She has called them "happy pills". "I learned how to be happy, and sad, all by myself without a pill to give me false happiness."

[Deep13]

18. I guess I just don't believe you there.

I number of possibilities: she isn't really bi-polar, she's lying to you about not using medication to avoid your puritanical views on them or you are making the whole thing up. Anyway, one anecdote is not proof of anything, even if it is accurate.

Just what is "false happiness?" Happiness is a subjective, emotional feeling. If one feels happy, whatever the cause, it is still happiness. Anyway, I don't take "happy pills," I take an anti-depressant so I can function. I still feel sad at times, just not a grinding sense that life has no purpose and that it is too much trouble to continue living.

[greenbird]

78. My daughter was also diagnosed as bipolar at age 17.

And is very nearly off of her meds after 15 years. She is better, and more herself, than she ever was medicated. She has been cutting back slowly and carefully over the last two years (she was heavily medicated). I myself, after 18 years on antidepressants, was finally able to get off of them (it took me a year of cutting back). Highly addictive stuff, hard to get off of. I'm better now than ever. Although I still believe that these drugs help a few people, I am more and more coming to the conclusion that the majority of prescriptions for these drugs are unnecessary, and even harmful. Not one doctor that I ever saw advised me about how difficult it is to get off of them, once you begin. I'm not sure that most doctors even KNOW how addictive they are.

[get the red out]

7. I absolutely understand

I finally gave in and started taking anti-depressants last year and I would now never give up finally feeling nearly human, I didn't want to be one of those medication people. I was also raised by a mentally ill mother, who is now one of the geriatrics taking medication for major psychiatric problems. When my father died she lost her enabler and the only way our remaining family could deal with the situation was to get her in to see a psychiatrist, at long last. It was not easy to get mental health institutions to pay attention to her problems since she escaped diagnosis until age 75, they wanted to say all her problems stemmed from dementia (yea, she had the dementia at 40 when her instability was exactly the same minus memory impairment); but after she flew into a rage at me when I was trying to help her with her other medications one night and slashed both her wrists horrifically, we got some attention.

It is not easy to get mental health attention or medication for an elderly person in my experience, and I do believe many go lifetimes without being diagnosed with problems they and their families suffer with in silence.

I used to be upset at our medicated nation, well in the state of misery I was in I was upset about everything; now I have a whole new perspective. Yes, there is misuse, as with young children that have no voice, but these medical advances have restored many lives.

(edited because I don't know singular from plural half the time)

[larwdem]

10. yes

I was totally scared of every thing. I found out it was anxiety and depression I needed them pills and a lot more people are in the same boat

[The Flaming Red Head]

31. Have you seen the Black Box warning about giving these drugs to Seniors

WARNING: INCREASED MORTALITY IN ELDERLY PATIENTS WITH DEMENTIA-RELATED PSYCHOSIS

Elderly patients with dementia-related psychosis treated with antipsychotic drugs are at an increased risk of death. Analysis of seventeen placebo-controlled trials (modal duration of 10 weeks), largely in patients taking atypical antipsychotic drugs, revealed a risk of death in drug-treated patients of between 1.6 to 1.7 times the risk of death in placebo-treated patients. Over the course of a typical 10-week controlled trial, the rate of death in drug-treated patients was about 4.5%, compared to a rate of about 2.6% in the placebo group. Although the causes of death were varied, most of the deaths appeared to be either cardiovascular (e.g., heart failure, sudden death) or infectious (e.g., pneumonia) in nature. Observational studies suggest that, similar to atypical antipsychotic drugs, treatment with conventional antipsychotic drugs may increase mortality. The extent to which the findings of increased mortality in observational studies may be attributed to the antipsychotic drug as opposed to some characteristic(s) of the patients is not clear. ZYPREXA (olanzapine) is not approved for the treatment of patients with dementia-related psychosis .

When using ZYPREXA (olanzapine) and fluoxetine in combination, also refer to the Boxed Warning section of the package insert for Symbyax.

Rxlist.com

[get the red out]

37. I don't prescribe my mother's medications

It took a long time and a lot of effort, but we found an extremely good psychiatrist who is very careful. I am grateful for him. Considering my mother would not have lasted long in the state she was in after my father's death, especially.

She had nearly stopped eating and she slit her wrists, that should require a gigantic "Black Box" warning, if there were a box labeled mental illness to put it on.

[rbnyc]

34. Sympathy, but...

...I was raised by a crazy woman too, and locked in a basement full of roaches and raped when I was 4 and had to sleep in cars and steal food when I was in 5th grade because no one was feeding me and my house was full of puke and shit and garbage. I've survived a suicide attempt, I've been in a range of therapies, and have been medicated at times in my life and I am...

...normal and non-medicated.

Never say never.

[Deep13]

45. Well I guess you're just better than me. nt

[rbnyc]

50. I'm not better than you...I'm just saying "Never say never."

Your post was so absolute and frankly, defeatist. It may well be that being on meds perpetually is the right thing for you, or maybe not. All I was saying is that it is actually possible to overcome things and that horrible things that were done to you don't lock you into pathology forever.

I am absolutely not saying I'm better than you or anybody. But I do offer myself as an example of the possibility of getting better, which I think starts with believing it's possible.

[Deep13]

51. I really don't care if you like my attitude or not.

I was not asking for advice. Your own good mental health is not a rebuttal to my problems. I have tried much and the only two things that have ever worked are medication and not talking to my mother.

[rbnyc]

54. When you have a conversation in a public forum...

...you are inviting people to participate. I am not trying to rebut, refute, oppose or invalidate your experience or your expression of your experience. I was trying to comment on your fatalistic language and offer my experience as an example that those who have been victimized may not necessarily be doomed for all time.

I admitted a lot of personal and sensitive things. I did it in good faith. I appreciate that you've tried a lot of things. Maybe you have tried changing you're attitude. I don't know. A positive outlook takes a lot of practice, that's for sure.

Peace.

[provis99]

64. Scientology saved you!

[rbnyc]

66. Interesting...

...I actually don't know much about Scientology except my impression from tabloids. I'm generally non-creedal.

[Old Time Pagan]

47. I had a hellish childhood

back in the 50s & 60s, I'll turn 59 next month and am delighted to say that I take NO prescription medications. Some of that is good fortune and good genetics, but an awful lot of it is not believing that some pill is going to fix whatever is going on with me. We've been sold on the idea that we're machines and as such need someone else to fix us when we're "broken."

I live an active life as a farmer. I eat good food without being a fanatic about it, drink lots of clean water, breath clean air an pay attention to my body when it talks to me.

I recommend reading some of what Bruce Lipton has written and see if it resonates with you. We really are responsible for ourselves and have way more control over our bodies than this insane society wants us to believe. Don't let them make you believe you're a victim.

Peace and respect

[Deep13]

49. I was writing about my own situation.

Glad you are doing well, but your own situation is not a rebuttal to mine.

[rbnyc]

52. Not everything is an argument or a rebuttal, btw.

Some things are just to add information and expand perspective.

[Deep13]

53. Thanks, but I already knew that there are health people in the world,...

...including some that come from abusive backgrounds. I haven't actually met any, mind you, but I know they exist. For those of us that really do benefit from medication, it is an entirely irrelevant point. It's like if I told someone stuck in a wheelchair that I walk just fine without one. So what?

[rbnyc]

55. Wheelchair...

Funny, in a way, that's a great example, if a person cannot be rehabilitated. But I actually have an example in my own life on this point, as well. I was in a wheelchair, from largely recoverable injuries that took a lot of work. I'm still recovering. I perhaps could have done better. I keep trying. I know someone who had very similar injuries, and really was more interested in collecting disability than walking again and has neglected rehab so thoroughly that he now needs to use a scooter to get around. Attitude makes a difference in all forms of recovery.

I'm NOT saying I'm better than him. But I did have a different attitude and it did make a difference.

I am NOT saying I have the secret to resilience and a perfect life. I have loads of challenges. I do my best. Sometimes my best sucks. I keep trying.

For example, I may never figure out how to make my point in this conversation in a way that is unoffensive and has any sort of impact.

I really wish you all the best.

I have to go now.

[rbnyc]

69. I'm also NOT saying...

...that there aren't many people who actually need wheelchairs, just in case anyone thought I might be saying that all it takes is hard work and a good attitude and anyone can do anything. I thought that went without saying, but I guess not.

[Old Time Pagan]

56. My response was not intended to be a rebuttal

to your situation since I really know nothing about it. Rather I wanted to suggest that early childhood trauma can be dealt with using means other than merely pharmaceutical.

I'm not interested in preaching, really not at all interested in converting anyone to anything. Options are available, if you chose to explore them, that's great. If you don't that's great also.

Hope things work out for you.

Peace and respect.

[eilen]

4. I'm 46 and don't take any medications.

Sometimes I take vitamins though.

[patrice]

9. Ask the nurses, some of their biggest & RECURRING problems with Elders are med

quantities, schedules, and INTERACTIONS on top of INTERACTIONS.

[TZ]

16. Gee I guess people like me with bone marrow disorders should just toughen up

and not take any meds. Clearly if I think positive my bone marrow will work right..As will my sister with chronic Lupus, she's obviously been brainwashed by the Pharma into thinking she's ill. GIVE ME A FUCKING BREAK. You do know that true mental illness and chronic disease are quite common in the US. Most of the "pills" sold aren't for cosmetic purposes. For someone who claims to know the business you are completely ill informed...I work for a company that all it does is research antibodies for chronic diseases like COPD, asthma, cancer, Lupus, psoriasis, and many more. I suspect all you know about Pharmaceuticals is from ads on TV. What the hell do I know? I only work on clinical trials so know what is being developed?

[Deep13]

24. No, no, no. Those are physical disorders.

Mental disorders require spiritual remedies. :crazy: Once I am right with god, I will be all better.

[get the red out]

38. No, we just don't have what it takes

Aren't good enough, not tough enough, probably should be discriminated against (because that's where it all leads, this screeching on people because they are found to benefit from particular medications by their doctors).

Conservatives would scream "get Jesus" but I guess some liberals just want to shout us defectives down until we crawl back into our hole or take their medical advice and admit the horrible error of our ways.

[rbnyc]

72. It's a difficult issue.

Looking at just one tiny piece of it, I perceive a tendency to over-prescribe and over-diagnose young boys. My son has some "red flag" behaviors. I don't want him to get swept up in this propensity to diagnose and prescribe and want to manage his issues very carefully and make absolutely sure that if he does eventually need Ritalin or another drug that it is truly the right thing. I believe I have seen cases where it is not the right thing. I believe I am in an environment where it would be very easy to make the wrong choice for my son. At the same time, I must respect each parent's right to do what they think is best, and I do acknowledge that in some cases, the pharmaceutical works and helps.

I do think both the profit motive in the industry and many factors in our school systems help to create an environment where kids are over-medicated. I do want to protect my son in this environment. I do think that there are trends and reasons for trends that need to be examined. That doesn't mean that a person who benefits from meds is the enemy or wrong or weak or any such thing.

As I parent, I feel safer erring on the side on non-pharmaceutical intervention. I'm very happy (and lucky) to have found other things that work.

[rbnyc]

71. It's not one way or the other.

Physical and mental diseases are real. Pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceutical treatments are valid. Whether or not to use one or the other or both has to be a case by case exploration. Attitude will always have some impact in any situation, but obviously a good attitude will not grow legs on an amputee.

This article is about trends. This conversation is a blend of touching on the reasons for trends and talking about some specific and personal cases.

Emotions are running high. You have valuable experience to add to this conversation, but I don't think anyone is saying that people with bone-marrow disorders (or bi-polar or schizo-affective disorder) should just toughen up.

[BobbyBoring]

6. Take this med and then sue when it fucks you up!

That's the new American way. The bastards aren't content with just medicating adults. Now, children as young as 3 are "Diagnosed" with all kinds of mental health issues.

I bet most of them are just being kids!

[patrice]

8. Why do all of the PC drugs belong to Pharma? Is this economic discrimination? nt

[TZ]

17. ummm who but drug makers make drugs?

You think McDonalds should be manufacturing drugs? :wtf: You know that even making a drug requires skill and special equipment and is highly regulated right?

[Capitalocracy]

21. God.

OK, nature, whatever. There's a lot of promise in psychiatric treatment with shrooms, LSD, MDMA, and marijuana, but the studies are years behind where they should be because of lack of funding due to social stigma associated with drugs. The drug war has had a terribly negative impact on the advancement of psychiatric treatment. (And yes, I know only two of those are strictly naturally occurring).

Not that manufactured pharmaceuticals don't also have their place, and a very important one, but we're years behind because we don't research other drugs. Studies have shown for decades that treatment sessions with these drugs can really help accelerate the process of contextualizing traumatic events that cause PTSD and significantly reduce the degree of obsessive thoughts over long-term periods for OCD patients, just to name two examples.

[Deep13]

28. So, between ecstasy and acid, which is naturally occurring?

:shrug:

[Capitalocracy]

30. Did you read my post?

I said I know they're not naturally occurring. I'm not a holistic, natural medicine guy, I think all options should be on the table. (And for the record, I don't believe in God either, that was facetious).

So no, I'm not against pharmaceutical drugs, but it's also a serious problem that we've taken these other substances (yes, both natural and unnatural) out of consideration for treatment because of the drug stigma. And I don't know if that's economic discrimination as someone suggested, but it is definitely a form of discrimination that needs to be addressed.

[Deep13]

48. "(And yes, I know only two of those are strictly naturally occurring)."

Presumably marijuana is naturally occurring, that means you are claiming that one of the other two is as well. Just wondering which it is.

[Capitalocracy]

61. Shrooms.

That's the other one. Studies have shown they're quite promising in the treatment of PTSD, and further studies have failed to take place because of the drug war.

[AlbertCat]

41. So, between ecstasy and acid, which is naturally occurring?

Well, acid comes from rust mold.

I'm sure all the ingredients in XTC come originally from a natural source.

[patrice]

63. Uh, wow . . . you have heard of medical marijuana, right? Not to mention other

more naturopathic remedies such as other herbs, vitamins, amino acids and other stuff and procedures like acupuncture and therapeutic massage . . . all of which gets pretty much ignored, because the treatment routines require a different kind of commitment than just being sure that folks take their expensive pills from Pharma.

[Cereal Kyller]

11. What about Zoloft?

Am I :crazy: ?

[formercia]

77. Zoloft works

I take it for chronic Pain.

[BiggJawn]

12. Abilify causes tremors.

Stuff was supposed to be "helping" my Welbutrin. Gave me symptoms of Parkinson's instead.
I don't really need the Welbutrin, either. After all, it's perfectly "normal" to scream at people, throw things, and burst into tears with no warning, isn't it?

[Demeter]

13. It is more useful to describe drugs as Affecting Serotonin, or Norephedrine levels

than saying "anti-psychotic" or other prescriptive symptoms.

If one understands what a drug does, then one can tell if it's the appropriate drug for the patient, if the proper diagnostics have been done.

Otherwise, it's just guessing and hoping that something makes a difference. We've had too much of that. That's what junkies do.

[paparush]

14. I was an adult case manager for our local mental health consortium..

Zyprexa was new back then and was literally a wonder drug for several of the clients that I worked with. Compared to the meds they had been on, Zyprexa was truly beneficial.

[The Flaming Red Head]

33. Other than the 100lb weight gain and diabetes Zyprexa's just wonderful

but compared to the Extrapyramidal Symptoms (EPS) and Tardive Dyskinesia of Haldol I guess it is a miracle drug if you're not the one taking it.

[TZ]

15. Ah yes, because of course true mental illness doesn't exist does it?

No one every goes crazy and hurts people cause they aren't medicated do they? And people don't kill themselves because they are depressed. No they kill themselves because Big Pharma told them too!:sarcasm:
FUCK THIS PARANOID BULLSHIT. If you don't know that there are lots of people who would not be alive today or who would have killed people they know without the benefit of anti-psychotics then you are an ignorant dickweed. But then, there are lots of ignorant dickweeds around here.
Signed, a relative of several people whose fucking lives were saved by anti-psychotics/anti-depressants.
I'd much rather these drugs overprescribed than under because despite what twits like you think, the drugs do far more good than harm..I don't know anyone who has been hurt by them..I know a whole bunch of people who were helped. Overpresciption is a problem in some cases, but again, anti-psychotics are given out to many PSYCHOTIC people who would murder family friends and strangers if they weren't on them

[ElboRuum]

19. Just because you don't 'know anyone who has been hurt by them'

... doesn't mean that there isn't anyone who is hurt by them.

[AverageJoe90]

22. And yet, back then...........

the corrupt, Establishment liars out there just said that kids who had behavior problems were just automatically being bratty and needed to have to have the tar beaten out of them. Not much different from the over-drugging of kids today, and was actually worse! The Establishment's M.O. may have had to change, but their agenda remains the same.

[ElboRuum]

23. Your determination of what is worse is immaterial, and wrong.

The fact is that treating someone who requires treatment is good and in the best tradition of medical practice. Treating someone who does not require treatment because one does not understand the causative agents well enough to make an accurate diagnosis and wants to be 'safe' is no better than failing to treat someone from the same position of ignorance. Overtreatment is as much a problem of undertreatment, especially if we know little about the chemistry involved, and it seems that the brain is one of those things we don't know enough about to be as certain as we have come to claim. Direct marketing of antidepressants and who knows what all to the general population? What? I remember a time where doctors were the ones you went to to find out if you needed to take a drug, now the pharmaceutical industry is claiming that we should 'ask our physicians if <insert drug here> is right for us'? Who is supporting the Establishment (TM) here by saying that overmedication is somehow better than undermedication?

[AverageJoe90]

57. You kinda read me wrong here.

"Who is supporting the Establishment (TM) here by saying that overmedication is somehow better than undermedication?"
That's not what I meant. I basically agreed with what you've said here.

[ElboRuum]

62. Apologies...

I honestly don't have a clue how I misread that.

[AverageJoe90]

76. It's alright.

We all make a mistake from time to time. No worries. Hakuna Matata. ;-)

[Deep13]

26. All drugs have side effects.

The point is that the disorder it treats are usually a lot worse. Sometimes, a doctor does not know how a patient will handle the drug until he or she tries it. My doc switched me from Paxil to Wellbutrin. That turned out to be a mistake as it made me very anxious. So we tried Cymbalta instead and that has worked out well. Sometimes I got a mild headache which I never used to. Still, small potatoes considering how I am without it.

These of course are mild mood-stabilizers, not anti-psychotics which are far more powerful, often have more serious side effects, but treat far more debilitating disorders.

[AlbertCat]

43. All drugs have side effects.

Indeed they do.

And not all patients respond the same to drugs. Chemistries are different in different people. Also drugs don't work forever. People build up a tolerance after a while. None of this is a reason to abandon them entirely.


But who needs a drug for Restless Leg Syndrome??? It's the making up of problems and then solving them with a drug that really annoys me.

[Deep13]

46. I would never suggest that drug companies or any other industry is above criticism. nt

[teknomanzer]

35. You clearly do not know what you are talking about...

True mental illness does indeed exist but that does not change the fact that anti-psychotics are over prescribed. It does not change the fact that dealing with emotional problems requires real effort, however we live in a culture of the quick fix and it is so much easier to pop a pill than to actually confront the source of our particular suffering. Or maybe its easier to prescribe drugs than it is to go trudging through the muck of human despair. No body wants to spend the time, or perhaps there is no time.

There is one thing I can tell you for sure and it is this. Anti-psychotic drugs killed my sister. She was thirty one years old when she passed away little over a year ago. I saw the decline in her physical health over the years as her so called therapists put her on so many different medications. She would sweat profusely at all times, she was constantly shaking, and she was getting morbidly obese. There were no signs of improvement in her mental health despite this regimen of drugs. Eventually she became diabetic, after that it was only a matter of time. I know the drugs killed her and that is not paranoid bullshit. She was not going to kill or harm anyone. She was not psychotic. She was, like me, merely depressed as a result of our childhood experience. There was no need for these drugs. They only served to cut her life short and did nothing to improve it. They did more harm than good.

Clearly you do not understand that this class of drugs is being doled out to people who are in fact not psychotic. The reason for this as explained in the article (if you even read it) is the profit motive. The drug companies are not interested in curing illness of any kind. They have a product that they want to sell to make a profit. They will sell these drugs to treat your symptoms and that is about it. How many drugs can you name that cure rather than treat illnesses? They have a vested interest in repeat customers. How can it be any other way? Its a business and that is how business operates. You can believe otherwise but that would be ignoring reality.

I would suggest that you do a little research and some thinking before you start calling people paranoid or ignorant dickweeds. The only thing you have done is demonstrate your extreme ignorance on this topic. Have a good day.

[get the red out]

39. I agree on over prescription

While I don't support the general cry against any mental health medication that I often hear I agree that these medications are frequently over prescribed by unscrupulous doctors. I am so sorry for your loss.

I have been on both sides, over prescribed major anti-psychotics to treat my OCD and accompanying depression (and to get me comatose enough to be out of people's way) when I was young, and then emotionally and mentally saved by a newer anti-depressant with very few side effects in middle age. I refused any medical treatment for mental health for 18 years because of my horrible early experience; and there was suffering as a result but I did survive and function despite that until I was brave enough to trust a doctor again. I have also known people who have been helped by anti-psychotics for a short period of time, just long enough to be pulled out of a bipolar episode and get back on track in this case.

These discussions are always so difficult because there are so many sides to the thing.

[rbnyc]

40. Really balanced point of view.

Much appreciation.

[barbtries]

73. i'm so sorry for your loss.

:hug:

[Capitalocracy]

20. While I agree that they may be overprescribed,

it's narrow-minded hyperbole to say the sky is falling because people are using antipsychotics. Off-label uses of certain medications have proven very useful in psychiatric treatment.

Another common problem we have as a society is using pills instead of psychological treatment as opposed to in addition to psychological treatment (or more appropriately, as a part of psychological treatment).

And it is true that there is sometimes a conflict of interest in the relationship between pharmaceutical sales and doctors (one which wouldn't exist if we nationalized drug manufacturers... hell, we already pay much of the research costs!)

And I also agree that certain medications are overused in institutions, like juvenile detention centers and psychiatric hospitals, to dumb people down.

[Enthusiast]

25. Reining in abuses by the pharmaceutical industry

should be a top priority of Democratic legislators. The fact that it isn't demonstrates that corporate money is ruining our party and the nation.

[Deep13]

27. Oh for gods' sake. Really?

That's the top priority? Sure, I'd like to see less advertising, but I would start with the fast food and beer companies, not drug makers.

[Enthusiast]

36. Pharmaceutical prices are one of the major drivers

of our outrageous health care costs. You don't consider this a big problem?

[Quantess]

44. I agree that it should be more of a priority.

But there's no way that would ever happen because the pharmaceutical lobby has a death grip on our congress and house. Pharmacy is way too huge and powerful.

[Deep13]

29. We are living in a world evolution has not equipped us for.

Nothing in our evolutionary past has prepared us for the stress and regimentation of modern living. The question is not 'why do so many people need help for a pill' but rather 'how are people functioning at all?'

[annabanana]

58. I think you have hit on the crux of it there.

Evolution is a slow boat, and mankind changes his environment so quickly. Is it any wonder that things get messed up? We're only a couple generations away from going to sleep at sundown. We ALL outlive our second set of teeth.

We can only begin to speculate what all the instant info about people we will never meet does to our psychological sense of community.

[H2O Man]

59. Great point.

[formercia]

67. I agree

Chasing the Carrot is driving everyone nuts.

[IronicNews]

74. Beautifully Put

[rbnyc]

32. I have a son who is not nuero-typical...

...and it's pretty much my life's mission to keep him off pharmaceuticals.

In order to keep him in school, I've had to have him evaluated many times by many specialists with many varying recommendations. He's been classified and declassified.

There have been benefits, like having access to resources and services that have helped us nurture and care for him and for ourselves - living in this world where it is so difficult to be non-typical.

But so many of his peers are medicated and we have to be constantly up-front and vigilant in our commitment to non-pharmaceutical strategies.

There's nothing really wrong with my son. He's just different. He processes things differently, he learns differently, he has different needs than most of the other children in his school. (He is mainstreamed and in public school.) In the long run, I think these differences will be great assets. He could be an inventor, a leader, an artist. But the struggle for now is how to keep him in an environment where differences are seen as a deficit - not to the student, but to the system which is not prepared to respond to differences and whose primary function is more to assimilate than to educate.

I used to be on medication for acid reflux. I had a terrible problem. Then I stooped eating chocolate after 4pm and stopped eating fried food. Now I don't have acid reflux anymore, so I don't need to be medicated. This made me see Prevacid more as a mechanism to enable people to have terrible diets than to relieve people from the symptoms of a disease. It's the same thing with medicating our kids - it enables the system not to adjust itself. Ritalin is not for our kids, it's for our schools.

That said, I know there are some people who actually don't respond to changes in diet and need Prevacid and there are probably some kids and families who are truly helped by Ritalin. But these are the exceptions. Companies don't make huge profits catering to the exception - and people are (in general) lazy - why change your diet, why train teachers, why look at the context we create and see what adjustments can be made there?

All this drives me psychotic, especially when people are in jail for growing marijuana.

EDIT: typo

[mckara]

42. The Trap: What Ever Happened to Our Dream of Freedom? (BBC) Adam Curtis

You must find this DVD and watch it.

[lunasun]

60. and also heart trouble

work with pediatric cardiologist lot of heart disease after taking these as teenagers
seems all the wards of this state are in need of drugs
at first it was unthinkable until I started to think
These are not convicts just children of the state in institutions I encountered

[999998th word]

65. -read the posts and I am truly amazed at some

of the veiled nastiness they contained
The implication made by some,is,people who are in need these medications are weak,lazy,lacking real character, would rather prefer to be disabled and need to 'toughen up'.
Many people need these meds,and they're useful if appropriately prescribed.Not as a quick dodge by medical practitioners and insurance companies to avoid expensive diagnosis
and treatment of a legitimate health issue.
Most people in these situations do the best they can and are far from lazy.
Trust me on this.People don't like to feel like crap.People don't like to be made to feel like crap,because they feel like crap- by other people who don't feel like crap,-for whatever reason.This kind of thinking,on this site,somehow just seems wrong..
Is the glass 1/2 full or 1/2 empty,broken or full of shit ?
We really aren't in a position to know enough about what happened to a person to pass judgements on their attitude.

[rbnyc]

68. I hope you're not talking about me.

If so, I expressed myself poorly. I totally acknowledge that many people do benefit from meds. I also acknowledge that mental illness is real and requires real treatment. I do also believe that attitude does make a difference in all forms of recovery. That is NOT the same thing as saying that if a person hasn't fully recovered without medication it's only because of their attitude. I also believe that there is an issue with over-prescribing and under-utilizing non-pharmaceutical alternatives and this is a result of the profit motive in the pharmaceutical industry and a cultural proclivity toward the quick fix. That is NOT the same as saying that anyone on meds is lazy.

I also do think that some people DO like to feel like crap. In my own life I know that I have had a hard time changing negative situations even though they in part made me feel terrible because there was some sort of pay-off for staying stuck. It's a very hard thing to ask oneself what that pay-off might be and decide if it's really worth it to stay stuck. But in some (not all) cases, that's really the issue.

There's also a difference between judgment and suggestion. This is often difficult to convey online because a reader can easily bring their own tone to a post, and a writer, like me, may not always be adept at conveying the right tone.

[potone]

70. For anyone who is interested, I can recommend two articles about this.

In the June 23rd issue of the New York Review of Books there is a book review about three new books on the subject of psycho-active drugs. It is the first of a two-part article on psychiatry in the US. The second is published in the July 14th issue. The latter article focuses on the diagnostic process.
I found them both very informative, although disturbing.

[Fire1]

75. This I believe. It's quite evident. n/t