RxISK blog

Benzodiazepine Facebook and Other Groups
March 30, 2023 | One Comment

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 | 14 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 | 21 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 | 93 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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ADHD and Polypharmacy. American Conditions?
September 27, 2022 | 7 Comments

This post tackles two RxISK themes – ADHD and Polypharmacy. While working through Pfizer’s Serious Adverse Event narrative file, see The Fog of a Special Medical Operation, the term ADHD – attention deficit hyperactive cropped up quite often. There was one predictable feature to this – all cases came from the United States with none […]

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Sensory Receptors, Small Fibres and Neuropathy
September 21, 2022 | 33 Comments

RxISK began in 2012.  One of its main goals was to offer people an opportunity to report problems they had on treatments – any treatment – and generate a report they could take to a doctor in the hope this might get the doctor to take their problem seriously. I had seen my first cases […]

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Marilyn Lemak: Trial or Clemency?
September 14, 2022 | 8 Comments

A few weeks ago, an original set of four posts about Marilyn Lemak – Trial and Punishment, Then and Now, Clemency, When the Music Stops elicited mostly supportive comments from those who comment regularly on RxISK. The three posts last week, Eric Zorn and Marilyn Lemak, People Respond and Janet Lagerloef responds,  drew a very […]

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Janet Lagerloef Responds to Eric Zorn
September 9, 2022 | One Comment

The following was written by Janet Lagerloef, a writer from Sugar Grove who is finishing up a book about her 10-year friendship with Marilyn Lemak, who is serving a sentence of life without parole for killing her three children in their Naperville home in March,1999. In last week’s issue, I covered the details of that crime […]

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People Respond to Eric Zorn and Marilyn Lemak
September 7, 2022 | 8 Comments

Does Marilyn Lemak deserve mercy? Readers weigh in These messages are in reference to items in last week’s issues of the Picayune Sentinel. On my interview with Marilyn Lemak Julie S.  Marilyn Lemak may have been a model citizen before and after her appalling crime. But the idea of “clemency” for her makes me queasy. I […]

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Eric Zorn and Marilyn Lemak
September 6, 2022 | No Comments

Rxisk has featured four posts on Marilyn Lemak, Trial and Punishment, Then and Now, Clemency Hearing and When the Music Stops. Eric Zorn is a former opinion columnist for the Chicago Tribune. His bio and contact information is here.  He now writes the Picayune Sentinel, where Marilyn Lemak speaks out about her bid for clemency first […]

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New Sex and Drugs Research Forum
August 24, 2022 | 4 Comments

RxISK Research Forum for Enduring Sexual Dysfunction RxISK is pleased to announce a new Research Forum.  This was trailed in a recent post  Our Love Life Needs you to be Wi(c)ked. Since this post we have had a lot of input from many folk offering to help out – mostly advising us to keep it […]

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All DRESSed Up With Nowhere To Go
August 9, 2022 | 5 Comments

This post was written by several members of the RxISK Team drawing on the work of Jorge Carrasco – see below.  There is a prior RxISK post on DRESS Syndrome – No Way to Treat a Lady. María Elisa Rangel was 38 and a mother of four children when she signed up for a phase […]

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