Posted by missliz on August 5, 2002, at 0:18:04
In reply to Atypicals (Re: Nardil) » missliz, posted by JonW on August 4, 2002, at 3:55:26
If novel APs work for you thats great- BUT- you would be in the minority if you never had a side effect. Hie yourself down to Barnes and Noble and find a copy of "Mad in America", the name of who's author escapes me, but he's a respected medical journalist, and maybe a few scales will fall from your eyes. There have been huge scandals and horrendous patient abuse in the testing and marketing of these drugs, especially Zyprexa. Drug companies serve the stockholder, not patients. We're just cash cows for sacrifice.
You'll find more than excellent sources and annotation for the content of this book, but for me it just confirmed what I already knew from taking the drugs and going around and talking to people about their experiences. Lots of people, as I was working for Freinds NAMI and got to deal with other psych patients all day. For every success story like you (and how successful is that?) there are people who's lives are made hell by side effects. Or just the effects. APs are not always nesassary, and novel APs are definately not for everyone. Maybe Denise deserves to be supported in her resistance to using them. I don't like the tone of "crazy patient who can't make her own treatment decisions" that runs through the culture of psychiatry. Isn't this site supposed to be part of liberating us from that? Maybe she knows what she needs and should be given more credit. I've fought pdocs tooth and nail before to do it my way and I was right.
I gained almost 100 pounds in six months on Zyprexa, and did I ever see a scale in my shrinks office? Doctors are supposed to moniter known possible dangerous side effects. Psychiatrists seem to be excused from the "Do no harm" clause though. My feet and knees blew apart from the strain and I'll be doing my fifth reparative orthopedic surgury in two years on Tuesday. LSU Orthopedics has seen more than a few cases like mine.
Drug Co.s have huge marketing budgets to push the newer and MUCH more expensive drugs as a panacea for everything. These drugs are in my opinion overused and often misused. Been on them all, and a lot of the old ones too. What a lovely rose colored world they make, and what an inconsequential life. For every decent quality of existence they restore ADs make someone less than human. PMDs love them though- a patient with an iced and warehoused mind is "compliant". The fact that the rest of society thinks fat and stupid doesn't seem to matter. The regular doctors are horrified by what they see these drugs do to some people
My statement about only Risperdal with MAOIs comes from the lips of James Barbee MD, who you've never heard of but your psydoc has. He's a research psychopharmacologist dealing with anxiety and mood disorders, and probably knows better than any body who posts here how not to fry your brain on bad MAOI interactions. They do learn stuff in med school.
Oh, and we all live with the nasty cold hand of suicide on our shoulders here. If you need Geodon to shake it off fine. Respect that the rest of us need different things. Geodon just gave me a rash.Miss Liz
poster:missliz
thread:114761
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20020731/msgs/115232.html