Posted by simon levane on January 31, 2006, at 8:52:20
In reply to Suicide on Effexor, posted by Devastated Mother on January 21, 2006, at 2:23:04
I lost my 20 year old daughter in May 2004 under very similar circumstances. She had been prescribed effexor by a highly rated specialist in a Mental Health and Addiction Foundation for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and General Anxiety Disorder. I had no idea that the drug had risk. She had a long history of personality disorder "acting out" and some previous attempts with overdoses of tylenol, but never a "final act". Neither the specialist, nor a psychiatrist she was seeing, nor our family doctor who was prescribing the drug advised us of the risk. I had let the family doctor know that she was abusing her use of ritalin by stealing extra doses from me, but he was clueless about the real risks of ritalin addiction, and the potentially deadly combination of tranquilizers and ritalin and the effexor. My daughter killed herself in the subway the day after her dose of effexor was increased.
This whole ridiculous aspect of medical confidentiality is so stupid when facing an at risk young person whose judgement was completely questionable due to her illness. Doctors are supposed to provide information if there is a serious risk of safety. When we later saw her medical records and I understood the total picture which I did not when she was alive from emotional exhaustion (not uncommon with troubled kids) and because I could not have imagined the stupidity and lackadaisical attitude of doctors about prescribing mind influencing drugs.
The pain of losing a child is just beyond comprehension. I wish that my daughter's medical caregivers could experience my pain for one day -- they would never ever forget to look after their patients. My daughter was full of life in spite of her illness and had so much to look forward to. Now I live in an agony that she could never have imagined being inflicted on me. It is a wonder I have not actually killed myself.
Many parent survivors of loss of their children to suicide feel just like that.
Doctors simply do not want to be accountable for this unbelievable kind of disaster. They would rather rationalize that "depressed people kill themselves", instead of accepting their own failure to duly inform family members of risk of medications.
poster:simon levane
thread:601406
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20060129/msgs/604786.html