Psychiatric Drugs

The FDA recently approved lisdexamfetamine (LDF) for the treatment of the newly minted DSM-5 diagnosis of Binge Eating Disorder. This caused me some consternation and this blog will be as much about my reaction to this news as to the news itself.

This is the first of a series of excerpts from Cracked Open, a book whose unintentional beginning came after I became addicted to Ativan in 2010. After a year of following my doctor’s orders for daily use to treat insomnia, my body began to fall apart. My story is much like the stories I’ve read on MIA.

Common scientific beliefs about serotonin levels in depression and how antidepressants act on the brain appear to be completely backwards.

-Forbes reports on the "boom" in psychiatric drug research that is going on, after a short period where onlookers were claiming that pharmaceutical companies were leaving the business.

-The New York Times looks at the rising campaign to "educate" the public and physicians about "binge eating disorder" and how to "treat" it with an amphetamine.

There are no proven treatments of any kind for children or adolescents experiencing psychosis or schizophrenia, according to a meta-analysis of randomized comparison trials published in PLOS One.

In the first systematic review of withdrawal problems that patients experience when trying to get off SSRI antidepressant medications, researchers found that withdrawing from SSRIs was comparable to trying to quit addictive benzodiazepines.

-Michael Pollan visits the resurgence of interest in the psychotherapeutic properties of psychedelic drugs in an essay in The New Yorker.

-Various sources discuss how marijuana could be more risky to the brain than helpful, and suggest that we should be careful about expanding its use.

A six-year program run by the NHS Foundation Trust aimed at reducing high rates of inappropriate polypharmacy and overprescribing by physicians and psychiatrists to mental health patients in UK inner cities was successful.

People who take antipsychotic medications experience many side effects which have "major disruptive impact on their lives," according to research in the Journal of Mental Health Nursing.

-Pharmaceutical drug policy researcher Alan Cassels discusses the role of name changes and marketing in depression treatment.

Doctors who intentionally or unintentionally communicate to patients that they do not believe or understand them could be causing patients' symptoms to worsen.

-The Washington Post reports on a study that found that "expensive" placebos were more effective than cheap placebos.

Back in 2006, when my son Franklin was in his late twenties and living in a group home in the Boston area, he refused to take Clozaril any more because of the required bi-weekly blood draws. His doctor prescribed Zyprexa as a substitute, and Frank suddenly began to gain weight ... a lot of weight. Later, I would learn that UCLA psychiatrist Dr. William Wirshing had said of Zyprexa prior to its 1996 approval by the FDA: “It is just un-stinkin’-believable. It is the best drug for gaining weight I’ve ever seen.” The doctor indicated that taking ten milligrams of the medication was equivalent to ingesting 1,500 extra calories per day. My outrage knew no bounds.

The US Food and Drug Administration has expanded the approved uses of an ADHD drug to make it the first-ever drug treatment for "binge-eating disorder."

ProPublica has provided an update on their investigation of Dr. Michael Reinstein. "A former Chicago psychiatrist who was the nation's top prescriber of the...

It's been five years today since I completed a six year withdrawal process from a large cocktail of psychiatric drugs. Today is also my 50th birthday which, frankly, seems much more remarkable to me at this point. Inside I am only aware of eternal youth. Upon having done an informal and small survey, it seems most people feel that way though it's not talked about much among the adults of our species. That which watches and experiences our lives in these bodies does not age. It's actually a wonderful thing. So I'm here wondering what comes next in this amazing trajectory which is the life being lived in this body that my parents called Monica.

Millions of patients find themselves caught in the web of psychiatric sorcery - a spell cast, hexed, potentially for life. They are told that they have chemical imbalances. They are told that the most important thing they can do for themselves is to "take their medication," and that they will have to do so "for life." Most egregiously, patients are sold the belief that medication is treating their disease rather than inducing a drug effect no different than alcohol or cocaine. That antidepressants and antipsychotics, for example, have effects like sedation or blunting of affect, is not a question. That these effects are reversible after long-term exposure is.

When I was researching Anatomy of an Epidemic and sought to track the number of people receiving a disability payment between 1987 and 2007 due to “mental illness,” I was frustrated by the lack of diagnostic clarity in the data. The Social Security Administration would list, in its annual reports on the Supplemental Security Income and Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) programs, the number of people receiving payment for “mental disorders,” which in turn was broken down into just two subcategories: “retardation,” and “other mental disorders.” Unfortunately, the “other mental disorders,” which was the category for those with psychiatric disorders, was not broken down into its diagnostic parts.

According to an ex-chief of the FDA, Johnson & Johnson knew long before it started warning people that Risperdal could cause boys to grow breasts.

Greater cumulative doses of drugs that are anticholinergic or block the neurotransmitter acetylcholine are associated with significant increases in dementia and Alzheimer's.

Three independent studies in two journals reported strong links between antipsychotics and falls and fractures.

A popular Alzheimer's and dementia drug has been linked to two potentially fatal conditions.

Food and Drug Administration-approved information and public advertisements are misleading the public about the actual neurodegenerative risks from second-generation antipsychotics.