Tag: antidepressant withdrawal

I watched my son’s life change almost overnight. He developed akathisia from antidepressants, taken as prescribed for just a few weeks for garden-variety anxiety.

Psychiatrists have made hundreds of millions of people dependent on psychiatric drugs and yet have done virtually nothing to find out how to help the patients come off them again.

Researchers find a lack of current literature on safe, effective ways to manage antidepressant withdrawal and make suggestions for future research.

Online communities are stepping in to help people facing withdrawal effects amass information and receive support for their withdrawal experiences.

Protracted Withdrawal Syndrome characterized by long-term adverse experiences after coming off of antidepressants.

A new study looks at how online communities provide information and support for patients experiencing psychiatric drug withdrawal.

Patient advocates join with researchers and service users to present first-hand experiences of antidepressant withdrawal.

“My life was very, very good.” That’s how Michael sums up how things were for him—prior to his suffering from devastating withdrawal effects after discontinuing GlaxoSmithKline’s blockbuster drug Paxil.

Our new discussion series aims to explore what we do and don’t know about safe withdrawal from antidepressants, antipsychotics, benzodiazepines and stimulants.

That is the truth about withdrawal syndrome: It’s like a 50-50 chance that you’re going to have a problem. If you’re in the unlucky half, you’re gonna be really unlucky.

Medically-induced harm—affecting tens of millions of people worldwide—has taken the field decades to take seriously.

If academic psychiatry is evidence-based, why did it take two decades to recognize SSRI withdrawal as widespread and chronic among patients?

Royal College of Psychiatrists’ former president demands support for patients coming off antidepressants.

We interview Dr. Stuart Shipko, a psychiatrist and author who has a particular interest in the side effects and withdrawal effects of SSRI antidepressants and the need for informed consent when prescribing.

A new study by Peter Groot and Jim van Os investigated whether tapering strips can help people stop using antidepressants.

Slower tapering of antidepressant dose is generally more comfortable. However, success or failure after stopping completely mostly relates to whether tardive akathisia occurs.

Trials of antidepressants for relapse prevention are confounded by withdrawal effects caused by the drugs.

In June 2014, Arif Khan et al. published a trial of 361 patients randomised to three groups: abrupt versus 1-week taper versus no discontinuation of desvenlafaxine. Curiously, although all patients had depression, the readers were told that data on depressive symptoms “are reported elsewhere.”

My personal and professional experiences have taught me that the only way to address mental health is holistically. If you are struggling with anxiety or depression, I believe it is necessary to attend to all of your bodies—physical, mental, emotional and spiritual—in order to achieve wellness.

Through my research and experiences, I've found that what the Veterans Administration has been doing to fight the veteran suicide epidemic isn't working and appears to be unintentionally exacerbating it. These problems are fixable. But I need your help.

Peter Gøtzsche and Anders Sørensen on trying to get a review of methods for safe antidepressant withdrawal published in Cochrane: "They sent us on a mission that was impossible to accomplish" to "protect the psychiatric guild."

Researchers suggest that the pharmaceutical industry had a vested interest in using the term “discontinuation” in order to hide the severity of physical dependence and withdrawal reactions many people experience from antidepressants.

A review of 73 antidepressant studies finds that 12% more people drop out of clinical trials when taking antidepressants than when taking placebo, evidence that many find the adverse effects of antidepressants difficult to tolerate.

We discuss the release of guidance which has been specifically written to support UK psychological therapists and their clients in having discussions about taking and withdrawing from psychiatric drugs. The guidance is a collaboration between counsellors, therapists, psychologists, peer support specialists and psychiatrists.

Researchers interviewed people who were given medical advice to discontinue antidepressants.