New Paper on How to Stop Antipsychotic Drugs Deemed ‘Historic Breakthrough’

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From Metro: “Researchers have published the first scientific paper looking at how patients can safely come off antipsychotic medication while minimising the risk of withdrawal effects . . .

Titled ‘A method for tapering antipsychotic treatment which may minimise risk of relapse’, it has been released by the same group who recently developed guidelines with the Royal College of Psychiatrists on how to stop antidepressants safely.

The principles are similar for both classes of drug: doing so cautiously by small amounts and waiting for any withdrawal symptoms to settle before making further reductions . . .

Authors said that ‘standard guidelines do not mention antipsychotic deprescribing, or tapering, although some current guidelines encourage reduction to minimum effective doses without specifying how to do so.'”

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16 COMMENTS

  1. Just waiting for a pharmacist to croon that a new “tapering elixir” is available. One that takes a long long long long long long long long long long long long time to help you plump the cushionyness of your brain back to normal. A tapering capsule that sets your brain to looking like you never did take a pill in your life. A sublingual lozenge at bedtime with a milky drink, to leave it looking “just so….”

    But what would it be called? A new tapering adjunct that is a life long medicine for our life long medicine? Any ideas?

    How about “Snailoslowzac”
    or “Notnowfreezepam” or “Tapierseattapers” or “Onlynevercomeoffit”?

    The Blue Whale in the room is that there are NO free “people support clinics” to offer free “people care” to help people withdraw. The poor brain damaged are expected to think it is the FAULT of their long or short tapering that ails them so and they must shut up and go and crawl under a rock and shoogle the glitter of broken pills onto weighing scales borrowed from heroin addicts.

    A cigarrette factory says “Oh sorry you got hooked but worry no more, studies say if you snip your cigarrettes into fluffy clippings of tobaco over the course of two years you might acquire a taste for water and apples and healthy things….eventually.

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      • Couldn’t Adderall start being used universally to override the effects of all sorts of neurotoxins for as long as it takes? Something tells me plain old meth would do that, so what the hell. I’m sure there’s an impressive clinical name for that approach.

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        • I think the clinical approach is called either “corruption” or “stupidity.” We could give it a fancier name if you’d like.

          Adderall can certainly counteract the effects of “antipsychotics,” especially the traditional ones like Haldol that act solely on dopamine. It appears that is why smoking is so very common for users of neruoleptics. (What, it’s not because they are all lazy, irresponsible addicts? But, but…) But what sense is there to raising dopamine levels with one drug while lowering them with another? Meth would absolutely work similarly. Stimulants are pretty much all the same, except perhaps for cocaine.

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        • Oldhead, Adderall is a stupid drug. It is highly addictive. As a meth type drug, it’s a stimulant and is related to those evil diet drugs sold in the back pages of the old cheap magazines they used to sell in gas stations, etc. And, why use one drug to stop the effects of another drug? Oh, that’s something that’s been tried and still is being tried and not only harms but fails. One of my psychiatrists tried me on Adderall for about a month or so. She said, oh, this will help you concentrate. Did I concentrate? No! I just almost got fired, but smartly quit my job. Thank you.

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    • They already have deadly drugs for painful psych drug induced diseases such as tardive dyskinesia, and Akinithsia. These drugs work in the same way psych drugs work. Drug companies did short term studies loaded with pro-drug biases such as the placebo group being in withdrawal, the drug group being unblinded, multiple instances of cherry picking, and hiding of negative effects/data. The drugs marketed for TD cause sedation, and cognitive impairment which psychiatrists pretend helps so they can avoid their guilt. Though there is a good argument that the purpose is to sedate and impaire people so that “normies” don’t have to deal with them. Just like psych drugs long term studies find these drugs have no benefits. In fact cogenten maintenance does worse than cogenten withdrawal. Yet the deadly dementia causing drug is still given.
      Psychiatry resembles an opioid or alcohol addiction taking meth. It gives out one deadly addicting drug with zero long term benefits and then hands out another deadly drug that has opposite effects because the first caused harm. Any serotonin or stimulant with a neuroleptic, benzo, or other sedating drug is an example.

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  2. Well, some things in this article seem right and some I am not so sure. Of course, this is “across the pond” and not the US. Although, there may be some tapering in the States, I sincerely doubt it will last long unless they can taper you from one evil drug to another. I remember clozapine came out. Time Magazine had a long article about how it was a breakthrough drug for schizophrenic patients, but, they had to do weekly test for white blood counts and when they got out of whack, the patient had to stop the drug. This was in the early 90’s, I think. I thought well that’s similar to Tegretol which they had taken me off of because my white blood count had got so low, it was endangering my immunity. Willoweed is on spot about this drug thing. Psychiatrists are literally like the kid down the street who sells the drugs to school children on the playground; except the psychiatrist is an alleged accepted authority with a degree and a license and he peddles the drugs in a office and the school children are of all ages. Oh yes, the gateway drug—it could be anything the psychiatrist pulls out of sleight of magic bag. I mean no disrespect to legitimate magicians who entertain, not damage, destroy, and sometimes kill. Thank you.

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  3. I know that I always seem to sound like I know everything and that I am smart and have insight. I have no idea if that’s true. But, I am going to now show I don’t know everything and I apologize for ever pretending to act like I do.
    In this article, they state that one of the side effects of “psychotic drugs” is “brain shrinkage.” I am aware of some of the other side effects, including the fact that they do quite a number on your brain, but, I am not quite sure what is meant by “brain shrinkage” and how it affects your thinking, etc. There may be a lot of etc. Also, does anyone know how it might affect someone even several years of no longer taking these psychiatric drugs. Is it related to the TD or akinithsia in any way? Thank you very much.

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    • My understanding is that the shrinkage is primarily in the basal ganglia, where a lot of dopamine is processed on its way to the frontal lobes. (If I recall correctly, this was the part of the brain that lobotomies attacked, leading some to call neuroleptic “treatment” a “chemical lobotomy.”) This makes sense, because dopamine is the target of the “antipsychotics” aka neuroleptic drugs. I also seem to recall something about reduction in white matter, the stuff that surrounds the neurons. Tardive dyskinesia is clearly and unarguably caused by damage to the dopamine system, only seen in people taking dopamine inhibitor drugs like the neuroleptics, and it would stand to reason that damage to the dopamine system would associate with TD, though I have not researched that question.

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  4. This is very Good News.

    As doctor Peter Gøtzsche has advised this week or last week; the so called “anti psychotics” are not “anti psychotic” they are Major Tranquilizers.

    And the best way go come off a Tranquilizer is to come off it as slowly as possible. These drugs have been around for more than 60 years so this “ground breaking discovery” is late in the day – but still welcome.

    The other side of things is the damage done by the drugs while in the system i.e. the creation of “High Anxiety”. Whether someone can cope with coming off these drugs or not, can be dependant on their ability to negotiate this “phenomenon”.

    We know now from the different groups and treatments that have sprung up over the years that the “original distress” can be dealt with without Major Tranquillisation – to begin with.

    So We Need To Stop AntiPsychoting People To Begin With.

    Dr. Peter Gøtzsche seems also to be very positive about – (just normal) people helping each other when in crisis.

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  5. how wonderful to see more honesty about tapering arguably the -worst- class of psych drugs…

    from way over in the UK, lol. I am thankful that slow, gradual, steady tapering of the neuroleptics/major tranquilizers is -finally- gaining traction, in ‘expert’ circles, as a possible maneuver…

    i live in the us. if thy psych drug doth offend thee…ask about another one! add on, switch, something just as needed, maybe you were misdiagnosed and need a different 3-5 drug cocktail? on and and on and on..

    meanwhile, the ‘recovery model’ has been incredibly ’empowering…’ to all the -wrong- people. i don’t know if it is the nature of the mental health industry, or if its the mix of mental health + US socioeconomic factors, but…

    ‘the asylum without walls’ is here, and it is frightening. 🙁

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  6. Quote “Researchers have published the first scientific paper looking at how patients can safely come off antipsychotic medication while minimizing the risk of withdrawal effects.”
    No it does not.

    Quote: “The paper, described as a ‘historic breakthrough’, suggests that extremely slow tapering with small reductions over months or even years could make it less likely for patients to relapse”

    Actually it describes nothing at all. It characterizes in place of describing.

    I hope that this “historic paper” is deleted before it causes more disappointment to unsuspecting antipsychotic-dependent people. What is “relapse”?. What is “slow”?” What is “small”? Well what is a “break through”?

    It’s shameful to offer a specific breakthrough and publish fuzzy claims in its place.

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