Posted by med_empowered on February 28, 2005, at 11:04:44
In reply to Re: Is Thorazine really that bad?, posted by Dinah on February 28, 2005, at 9:45:34
Thorazine just has a kind of shady history...it was originally used as a pre-op sedative. Docs noticed the apathy it caused their patients and decided to try it on people hospitalized in mental institutions. Deniker, Lehmann, and other early researchers of the drug (the early research was mostly done outside the US) described Thorazine as a sort of "chemical lobotomy". Deniker, a French researcher, was using more low-end doses (300mgs or so); Lehmann's dosage levels varied more, from a couple hundred milligrams up to 2,000+ mgs. Anyway, that's how Thorazine was originally described in the literature: it wasn't called an "anti-psychotic" until the drug reps gave it a makeover. It was originally referred to simply as a "neuroleptic," and doctors tended to emphasize that it could subdue formerly aggressive and unruly patients...it was this aspect of the med, its ability to "tranquilize" the mentally un-well, that seems to have led to Thorazine's incredible success. Contrary to popular belief (and what a lot of shrinks claim), Thorazine and the other neuroleptics didn't empty the mental hospitals; states had actually put de-institutionalization efforts into place around 1951...by 1955, when Thorazine made its way to the US, the movement was already well underway.
poster:med_empowered
thread:464204
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20050227/msgs/464394.html