RxISK blog

Pyridoxal-5-Phosphate and Akathisia
May 26, 2023 | 3 Comments

This post came from a regular contributor to RxISK and DH posts.  An earlier comment pointed to something interesting and has developed into this post which should be of interest to anyone who has a withdrawal problem that entails some kind of akathisia. When I came out of a psychiatric hospital in Summer 2019, I […]

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Withdrawal Mysteries. Jon and Justin’s Journeys
May 15, 2023 | 8 Comments

Being Hooked to and having to Withdraw from Antidepressants, especially any that act on the serotonin system, is one of the greatest public health issues of our day.  Close to 15 per cent of the population of most Western countries are affected. Peter Groot and colleagues in the Netherlands have done more than anyone to […]

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International Society of Sexual Medicine
May 8, 2023 | 10 Comments

This weeks post was supposed to be just about Sexual Mysteries. What’s in a Touch? As it was waiting to be posted, a controversy blew up about the International Society of Sexual Medicine and claims by Dr Anita Clayton that there is no such thing as PSSD. There did not seem to be enough for […]

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Sexual Mysteries. What is in a Touch?
May 7, 2023 | 2 Comments

This is an important post for anyone hunting for a test for PSSD.  If the CT fibres mentioned here are not fibres that show up distinctly on either skin biopsy or CCM, then these tests may not pick up a very real problem.  We need some research on whether CT fibres show around the ankle […]

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PSSD Patients Needed for CCM Investigation
May 1, 2023 | 16 Comments

A brief recap In October 2022, we ran a blog post aimed at recruiting patients in the UK with post-SSRI sexual dysfunction (PSSD) who could be tested for small fibre neuropathy. This was to be done by skin biopsy which is the standard method for investigating the condition. The project was in response to information […]

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The Day the Science Died
April 26, 2023 | 10 Comments

Back in October 2021, I was talking to Patrick about ADHD and his book Obedience Pills.  ADHD has since become a very big and polarizing issue in the UK.  Katinka Newman has had a prominent and hard-hitting article in the Daily Mail two weeks ago on these issues. There have been earlier RxISK posts on […]

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The Window to the Body and perhaps the Soul
April 20, 2023 | 7 Comments

It might sound corny but it has long been said that our Eyes are the Window to our Soul. Whatever about the soul, every medical student gets told by ophthalmologists that the Eyes are the Window to the Body. They claim to be able to detect almost every possible disease by looking at our eyes. […]

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Touch Fibres, Autonomic Fibres and Kissing
April 12, 2023 | 11 Comments

Someone, who regularly emails breaking research that I haven’t spotted or don’t have time to spot, got in touch recently with great insights on an article about Kisspeptin that I had seen.  But I had managed to miss several things he spotted that may be important to anyone thinking about PSSD. A Kiss Before Sex […]

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Benzodiazepine Facebook and Other Groups
March 30, 2023 | 5 Comments

Nicole Lamberson who will be familiar to many from Medicating Normal asked Barbara Connolly from Benzo Warrior to write a piece on Benzo Support Groups especially linked to Facebook.  This was to fill a benzodiazepine shapeed hole in the DD and AA group post.    Nicole Lamberson asked me to write something about what a […]

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DD and AA Groups Similarities and Differences
March 20, 2023 | 15 Comments

Illustration: Is There Life After Meds?, © 2014 created by Billiam James DD in this case stands for Drug Damaged.  AA for Alcoholics Anonymous.  Some of the material in this post is likely to disturb some readers.  Reading it in conjunction with Here We Stand We Can Do No Other and Dos Centavos – Veinte Euros […]

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PSSD and Small Fibre Neuropathy Investigation Runs Into Problems
March 8, 2023 | 33 Comments

In October 2022, we ran a blog post called “PSSD Patients Needed for Small Fibre Neuropathy Investigation”. It’s worth reading to get some background on the situation before continuing with this post. We had connected with a neurology department in Sheffield, UK, with the aim of recruiting several patients with post-SSRI sexual dysfunction (PSSD) who […]

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Queen’s University PSSD Research Project
February 23, 2023 | One Comment

Caroline F. Pukall, PhD, CPsych Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Sexual Health (CIHR) Professor, Department of Psychology, Centre for Neuroscience Studies, Queen’s University, Kingston ON K7L 3N6, Canada Email: caroline.pukall@queensu.ca; Lab website: http://www.sexlab.ca/ Twitter: @QSexLab; Instagram: qsexlab; Facebook: /sexlab.ca Editor of Human Sexuality: A Contemporary Introduction Research Seeking participants for an online research study. Participants must be: 18 […]

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Did My Doctor Make Me Alcoholic or Substance Abusing
February 12, 2023 | 17 Comments

AnneMarie Kelly is among the most impressive researchers I have met and I’ve met Nobel Prize winners like Arvid Carlsson and Julie Axelrod. I have told the story in many venues how she, with no background in healthcare or university research, taught me things about the serotonin system that I, who have a PhD in […]

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What Twitter doesn’t Want you to Know about Sex
February 6, 2023 | 5 Comments

This brief post links to a development since the last – Everything you Want to Know about Sex – post. Twitter like Woody Allen seems to believe you shouldn’t be allowed to ask certain questions. A few weeks ago I did a podcast with Liz Tucker on her What Your GP Doesn’t Tell You podcast series […]

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Everything You Want to Know about Sex *
February 1, 2023 | 8 Comments

Lost in Medication. Ask your doctor about the sexual side-effects of your meds. Based on Adam and Eve painting by Lucas Cranach the Elder in 1526.  © Billiam James 2014 The title for the post comes from the W Allen movie Everything you Wanted to Know about Sex * But were Afraid to Ask.  Not […]

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Podcasts, YouTube Channels, Blogs and Related
January 23, 2023 | 3 Comments

In some of the comments after the last post, POGO mentioned that Josef Witt-Doerring has done two interviews with me so far and posted them on his site. The Risks of Antidepressants  and Antidepressants and Mass Shootings/Murder Suicide: An interview has also appeared on Demystifying Science podcast with  Anastasia & Michael Shilo The Podcast called […]

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We Will Get Fooled Again
January 17, 2023 | 25 Comments

See We Won’t Get Fooled Again. A regular contributor got in touch two days ago, asking a question. I have described all my symptoms to the AI without mentioning PSSD, and chat.openai.com is of the opinion that it’s a rebound effect that I’m experiencing. Do you agree? I was too busy to respond A follow up […]

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Harry and Meghan and Narinder
January 9, 2023 | 19 Comments

Some weeks ago, in Antidepressants and Premature Death RxISK featured an article by Narinder Balsal and colleagues from Bristol in the British Journal of Psychiatry, which caused quite a fuss.  See below. Today we are posting about another article by her in PLoS Medicine.  This comes with an Animated Trailer – the first RxISK post to […]

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Charles Dickens and Red Tape, Alive and Well in 2023
January 1, 2023 | 15 Comments

This post is a follow up to Great Treatment, Patient Dead  and to last weeks ‘Twas the Nice before Christmas.   This image is almost unreadable but worth presenting as it’s the first mention of Red Tape – short for Red Tapeworm.  The full, readable text can be found here The Circumlocution Office. Red Tape is […]

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Twas the NICE before Christmas.
December 22, 2022 | 15 Comments

To the Sounds of a Drum © Nina Otulakowski November 2022 This letter, which has had no response, needs to be read in conjunction with Can you Hear the Suzerain Call? Letter to Dr S Roberts, CEO, Ms Nebhrajani, Chair, NICE November 30 2022 Dear Drs Roberts and Ms. Nebhrajani I wrote to your predecessors […]

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Getting Off Proton Pump Inhibitors
December 14, 2022 | 6 Comments

  I would like to describe my experiences with Omeprazole / Esomeprazole to warn others of the ease with which it is possible to become hooked on this medicine, or other so called Proton Pump Inhibitors PPIs. To start with here is an explanation of these drugs that could have saved me about 9 months […]

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A Cure for PSSD, PFS and Post-Isotretinoin Syndrome
December 5, 2022 | 104 Comments

The Holy Grail © Nina Otulakowski June 2022 You need to click on the image to get the full effects. In recent months, RxISK has been working closely with Luisa Guerrini in Milan, whose background is in research on regulatory proteins like p 63 and p 53, on which Thalidomide works. This discovery led to […]

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Our Unequal Struggle with Health Systems
November 23, 2022 | 21 Comments

This is Lacoon, a Trojan priest, and his sons being engulfed and killed by snakes from the deep as he tried to warn the Trojans about the Horse they were planning to pull inside their walls. Gordon Hughes case, outlined last week in Treatment Great, Patient Died, shares a lot in common with Evelyn, Kafka, […]

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The Treatment was Great, The Patient Died
November 16, 2022 | 15 Comments

This post contains a letter sent on October 31, 2022 to the Minister for Mental Health in Scotland about Gordon Hughes pictured here with his mother a few weeks before the events outlined below.  Pictures and headings have been added. Kevin Stewart MSP, Minister for Mental Wellbeing and Social Care, MinisterMWSC@gov.scot Dear Mr. Stewart, I […]

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Science, Kansas and the Wizard of Washington
November 10, 2022 | 8 Comments

This post follows on from Science, Kansas and Pancakes.  Peter is doing a good job spreading word of this article on the Prozac studies in children and featuring other aspects of this extraordinary story.  This post focusses in on one revelatory feature. Reviewer #3: A window with the view on the details of how drug […]

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Science, Kansas and Pancakes
November 7, 2022 | 10 Comments

A long time ago, following work on the Restoration of Study 329, I was approached by Peter Goetzsche, featured above, to work on restoring the two trials that had got Prozac (fluoxetine) approved for children for depression. I may have suggested this idea to Peter in that from 2004 or so I was aware that […]

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PSSD Patients Needed for Small Fibre Neuropathy Investigation
October 31, 2022 | 9 Comments

We recently ran a couple of blog posts about the possibility of a link between post-SSRI sexual dysfunction (PSSD) and small fibre neuropathy: Sensory Receptors, Small Fibres and Neuropathy Antidepressant Neuropathy and the Color of Life The posts recapped some of the things we had previously discussed on the blog and also included new information […]

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Remind Your Sister to get Vaccinated
October 24, 2022 | 13 Comments

The European Pharmaceutical Industry, in the guise of EFPIA, has a stranglehold on the European Commission in terms of policies for vaccination promotion and acquisition of healthcare data. Healthcare data is essential for Pharma to collect commercially useful realworld evidence of clinical illnesses and prescribing habits and trends. Both campaigns are supported directly or indirectly […]

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Is there life after meds?
Antidepressant Neuropathy and the Color of Life
October 10, 2022 | 16 Comments

Illustration: Is There Life After Meds?, © 2014 created by Billiam James Here is a Question put to the recent RxISK post on Sensory Neuropathy. I’m a psychologist and I have made numerous attempts to discontinue antidepressants only to experience significant withdrawal symptoms. I’ve been on antidepressants for 25 years at this point and have made […]

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Antidepressants and Premature Death
October 5, 2022 | 25 Comments

An article appeared in the British Journal of Psychiatry some weeks ago, by Narinder Bansal and colleagues from Bristol University. Having met Narinder I can tell readers she is a very impressive woman, with an impressive husband, Petros, who are both in one way or another working on population health.  She had been working in […]

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