RxISK blog

Better Times Will Return

Better Times Will Return

January 4, 2018 | 38 Comments

The following blog post comes from Mary Hennessey. It’s a wonderful example of the generosity we have seen in response to our RxISK Prize campaign, in support of men and women who have been left with permanent sexual dysfunction after using antidepressants, finasteride, or isotretinoin. Commissioned textile art piece – to be sold I commissioned […]

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PGAD: Clitoridectomy or ECT?

December 22, 2017 | 12 Comments

Editorial Note: Following on from The Princess and the Frozen Pea, this is a second post in a PGAD series. There will be one more on the range of conditions mentioned here that are often linked to PGAD – interstitial cystitis, pelvic floor dysnergia, prostatitis and others. See also PGAD Video Persistent Genital Arousal Disorder […]

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The Princess and the Frozen Pea: PGAD

December 15, 2017 | 7 Comments

Imagine: sitting with friends – maybe a couple of people you have never met before also present – having supper. You’re uncomfortable; it’s hard to sit still. You try hard to concentrate on the conversation – the political turmoil erupting around you, or a film someone’s just been to see – but you can’t. Because […]

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POIS: A Whole New Meaning to Man Flu

December 7, 2017 | 6 Comments

The following article about Post-Orgasmic Illness Syndrome (POIS) by Andrea Downey appeared in The Sun on November 29, 2017. (Keep reading after the article). COMING DOWN WITH SOMETHING? BOYS, do you get a stuffy nose, fatigue and the sweats after you’ve had sex? No, it’s not because your performance was so mind blowing your body […]

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RxISK Prize: Campaign & Challenge

November 28, 2017 | 8 Comments

The RxISK Prize campaign took off 3 months ago. The generosity of donors from all walks of life – many out of work because of the impact of these conditions on them – has been astonishing. There have also been substantial anonymous donations. While many of those affected have lost faith in doctors and pharmaceutical […]

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Post-SSRI Sexual Dysfunction: Getting a Diagnosis

November 21, 2017 | 30 Comments

When reading about the experiences of people with Post-SSRI Sexual Dysfunction (PSSD), one of the common themes is the difficulty that some sufferers have faced in trying to obtain a formal diagnosis. However, this isn’t always the case. There seems to be a disparity between the experiences of different PSSD sufferers when engaging with the […]

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RxISK Map: Relationship Based Medicine

November 14, 2017 | 15 Comments

Editorial Note: This is the third in a RxISK Map series of posts – See Reformation Day and Here We Stand. These link closely to the RxISK Prize. There are two aspects to finding a cure for an adverse event. One is understanding the biology. The other is getting it established that the effect happens. […]

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Here We Stand, We Can Do No Other

November 7, 2017 | 28 Comments

Editorial Note. This post runs hand in hand with Vampire Medicine and Cisparency on David Healy.org. It is the second of three posts, following on from Reformation Day laying the basis for a RxISK Map which is linked to the RxISK Prize. When you are facing down the barrel of a tank… Pharmaceutical companies, medical […]

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RxISK Reformation Day

October 31, 2017 | 31 Comments

Five hundred years ago, Martin Luther nailed a set of theses to a Church door calling time on a scam. A scam that had the backing of the political and religious authorities of the day. When challenged his response was “Here I stand, I can do no other”. Today is Reformation Day. The drama in […]

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RxISK Prize: Stigma and Recovery

October 25, 2017 | 26 Comments

This continues the series of posts about the RxISK Prize. It lays the way for the RxISK Prize and Map which will feature next week Stigma PSSD, PFS, PRSD and PGAD come with a heavy burden of stigma. This is a problem AIDS activists met head-on and conquered in an extraordinary fashion. It had never […]

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Map of 300 cases

RxISK Prize: Global Impact

October 16, 2017 | 44 Comments

Globalization is not a word that’s in favor at the moment. In the face of this very recent economic development that seemed to be sweeping the board in the 1980s and 1990s, we now want to reassert national boundaries, hang onto “our” jobs, and keep out others – sometimes those who have done a great […]

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RxISK Prize: Relationships

October 9, 2017 | 37 Comments

The RxISK Prize campaign has now had over $10,000 from 51 donations coming from 48 donors in 12 different countries. People from Korea to Argentina are engaging with the issue. We will give more details later in the week. It seems clear that Adverse Events – Drug Wrecks – are a Global Disorder, the greatest single source […]

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RxISK Prize: No Nos

October 4, 2017 | 16 Comments

The RxISK Prize throws up one surprise after another. I would have thought as organizations that save lives and pillars of the economy, it should be relatively easy to contact a pharmaceutical company. It isn’t. I have lots of contacts in organizations that liaise with pharma and used to have many contacts in pharma but […]

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RxISK Prize: The Golden Rule

September 26, 2017 | 15 Comments

This post follows Launching and How You Can Help which are also now on our Prize page on the Main Menu. Launching the RxISK Prize has been eye opening. Everyone who has donated or will donate will hopefully get some sense of this. If you’re not getting it, you need to remember this Prize is yours […]

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RxISK Prize: How you can help

September 18, 2017 | 84 Comments

As will be clear from some of the helpful comments on the first post about a RxISK Prize, you are going to have to work with us to make this work. Your input can take several forms. The greatest need The biggest block to making the Prize work is the same block everyone suffering from […]

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Launching the RxISK Prize

September 12, 2017 | 78 Comments

This Prize is part of a two-pronged attack on the unwillingness of the medical and regulatory establishments to listen to people with adverse events in general – not just the sexual dysfunctions mentioned here. The second front in the attack will be unveiled in a few weeks’ time. The problem The idea for a RxISK […]

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After the Rot Sets In: Teeth on Treatment

August 28, 2017 | 32 Comments

Editorial Note: In the midst of recent posts about SSRIs and homicide and other events, there has been a continuing input of reports of changes in hair on drugs or skin and this one on teeth. All of these can have an impact on confidence but there is another worry – the treatment is […]

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Prescription for Murder ABCD

August 8, 2017 | 42 Comments

If you look at the adverse events section of the sertraline – Zoloft – label you will see in small print that sertraline has been linked to psychosis, hallucinations and aggressive reactions. Its there in small print. These links have been there since the mid-1990s. Vanishingly few doctors understand what is going on here. […]

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Prescription for Murder

July 26, 2017 | 49 Comments

Editorial: This evening a Panorama program aired on the issue of antidepressants and violence. The driving forces behind this were Andy Bell and Shelley Jofre, prompted in the first instance by Katinka Newman. The story is to my mind compelling. There have been considerable efforts to cloud the picture – see Honey I Shrunk the […]

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Withdrawal & PSSD: Terminal Diagnoses?

July 17, 2017 | 96 Comments

There has been something of a hiatus on posts on DH and RxISK in recent weeks. There are a few reasons – one of them outlined here and one to come next week. Part of the problem has been knowing what to say to people with PSSD and severe withdrawal. I have been swamped with […]

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Malignant Alienation

June 26, 2017 | 21 Comments

Gaming is becoming one of the biggest areas of human activity on the planet – bigger than movie-making, newspapers and most other media. Its power to shape the way we view things is clearly huge and likely to increase with Virtual Reality. Some weeks ago, a group released a new Escape from the Asylum game. […]

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I Took Antidepressants and I Still Feel Medicated

June 18, 2017 | 38 Comments

I suffered from a pretty bad biological anxiety that runs in my family and was very difficult to control without medication. Prior to the timeline of events below, I have taken other medications (Paxil, Effexor, Cymbalta) each causing sexual dysfunction at the lowest possible dose and genital numbness almost immediately upon taking them. I stopped them […]

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What a Surprise: RxISK taking entrepreneurs

June 12, 2017 | 7 Comments

It is worth wading through some slow moving stuff at the start of this post to get to the juicy bits. The Things Drugs Do Drugs do things. Company marketing divides these things into the one good thing the company wants you to focus on – good for a company bottom-line and the ninety-nine other […]

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Shipwrecked by the Cure

Drug Wrecked: Where Does Change Come From?

April 24, 2017 | 51 Comments

Editorial Note: There are two elements to RxISK. One is identifying adverse events in order to keep people safe and to widen our knowledge about what drugs do. But just as important is taking on a power structure that some of us get a glimpse of when we raise the possibility of an adverse event […]

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The Sheriff of Nottingham

April 6, 2017 | 13 Comments

On Friday March 31st, British airwaves were full of news about a significant change in Britain’s National Health Service. Bleeding Obvious? After its 8 AM news headlines, Radio 4’s flagship news program, Today, featured the boss of the National Health Service, Simon Stevens, explaining how the new system would be better even though long-established targets […]

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The Pills That Steal Sex

March 23, 2017 | 48 Comments

This post is the original piece written by Katinka Newman, author of The Pill That Steals Lives: One Woman’s Terrifying Journey to Discover the Truth about Antidepressants, by Katinka Blackford Newman (John Blake £8.99), thepillthatsteals.com. A slimmed down version appeared in the Daily Mail. Its unusual for a day to go past when I don’t utter […]

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You’ll Come a Taltzing Matilda with Me

March 6, 2017 | 21 Comments

Editorial Note: This post links to Are you Aware that Siliq causes Suicide and Otezla: Birth Defects and Suicide. Pharma companies have a great deal of skin in the dermatology game at the moment – perhaps more than in any other area of medicine. Taltz, aka ixekizumab, is yet another new drug for psoriasis. Others […]

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Otezla: Birth Defects and Suicide

February 27, 2017 | 16 Comments

We’ve been here before – a woman in come hither mode or able to plunge into come hither mode at a moment’s notice without the worry of being compromised by a minor skin blemish just below her hairline. See Stacy London and Welcome to Troy. AbbVie pioneered advertising like this for Humira, a hugely costly […]

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Injectable Psoriasis Drug

Are You Aware Siliq Can Cause Suicide?

February 20, 2017 | 12 Comments

There are a host of new drugs coming to market for respiratory and skin problems. These include Brodalumab, aka Siliq, Apremilast, aka Otezla, and Daliresp. Prepare to hear a lot more about Phosphodiesterase antagonists and drugs acting on Interleukin 17 or 23. These drugs can cause suicide. The companies have made strenuous efforts to hide […]

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Illnesses Worse than Side Effects?

February 13, 2017 | 21 Comments

This extraordinary image is from an advert for Clozapine. Mental illness can unquestionably bring distress – it can be haunting, dislocating and deeply disturbing. But the side effects are often more severe. Drugs like Clozapine are used by the military for torture purposes. Healthy volunteers commit suicide after a few days exposure to them. Treatment […]

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