Tag: 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 question the long-term use of antipsychotics and suggest increased research and investment in psychosocial interventions.

Peter Gøtzsche: The MIND organization in Denmark and the psychiatric guild suppressed information regarding the discontinuation of psychiatric drugs.

The prominent psychiatrist explores why antidepressants remain highly overprescribed and offers solutions to the problem.

Very few doctors know anything about withdrawal and make horrible mistakes. If they taper at all, they do it far too quickly because the few guidelines that exist recommend far too quick tapering.

Anti-stigma campaigns reinforce a belief that people with mental health issues must have treatment and thus, push discussion of withdrawal and negative aspects of psychiatric drugs into anonymous spaces.

Harmed patients are frequently unable to control the narrative of their own treatment and are subject to gaslighting, dangerous medical advice, and termination.

MIA's Richard Sears interviews psychotherapist Anne Guy about working with clients withdrawing from psychiatric drugs.

A new article discusses the lack of research dedicated to discontinuing psychiatric drugs and reviews existing strategies.

Adverse physiological symptoms of antidepressant withdrawal are regularly mistaken to be other problems to the detriment of the patient.

Online withdrawal forums document an assortment of risks associated with discontinuation of psychiatric drugs. Such information is readily available and must be disclosed during informed consent.

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.

Sami Timimi provides a discussion of the ways medication may be helpful for some, and advice and information on discontinuing psychiatric drugs.

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.

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

Researchers review a new synthesis of the existing evidence and conclude that the harms of antidepressants outweigh any benefits.

New strategies for tapering psychiatric drugs achieved by acknowledging withdrawal symptoms and valuing service-users’ first-hand knowledge.

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

After suffering PTSD in the late 1980s, I reluctantly accepted antidepressants. In time, I had resolved the trauma, but when I tried to stop the antidepressants (Prozac, and later Zoloft), I assumed my desperate feelings and “return” of depression were an indication I had an imbalance and needed those drugs. I didn’t understand I was experiencing withdrawal. (I was never told that for most people, psychiatric medications need to be tapered.)

Recent claims about antidepressant effectiveness have been based on misleading statements and misunderstandings of the science.

Researchers examine how rapid discontinuation can mimic the relapse of mental health symptoms and confound psychiatric drug studies.