Prescription for Murder ABCD
August 8, 2017 | 33 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.  […]

Read more ....

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 […]

Read more ....

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 […]

Read more ....

Antidepressant site specific action
Greg’s Dilemma: Feeling Blue
December 31, 2015 | 27 Comments

Magic bullet In Greg’s Dilemma 1 and Dilemma 2, Greg outlined more than one dilemma linked to getting hooked to antidepressants and benzodiazepines. The responses to these posts were all over the shop – from pull yourself together, to entrust your life to God, to support for descriptions of positions others find themselves in. The […]

Read more ....

Burning feet
Kicking Lyrica
August 24, 2015 | 124 Comments

Editorial Note: This post was put together by Johanna Ryan from reports to RxISK on Lyrica – Pregabalin. Lyrica is closely related to Neurontin. Many anticonvulsants such as carbamazepine have been used for forty years for pain syndromes such as trigeminal neuralgia. Neurontin but especially Lyrica have been promoted heavily for this. Both cause dependence […]

Read more ....

Antidepressants and Violence: The Numbers
August 17, 2015 | 19 Comments

How on earth could an antidepressant drug drive someone to murder? In the past two columns RxISK has heard from two people who know they can. In The Man Who Thought He Was A Monster, Steindor Erlingsson shared his own story of being tormented with urges to stab his wife and young children while on […]

Read more ....

Is there life after meds?
Doctors and Withdrawal from Antidepressants
July 20, 2015 | 56 Comments

This is a follow-up to Katie’s post, Girl on a Hot Tin Roof, about drug withdrawal and burning feet. I have been profoundly affected by adverse events from medications. I attempted repeatedly to talk to my psychiatrist about my concerns and hoped he would believe what had occurred so that he could partner with me. […]

Read more ....

Blender
My Trip Through the Polypharmacy Blender
July 6, 2015 | 34 Comments

By Rory Tennes I was asked by David Healy to write my own story after he read my comment on another RxISK story. I agreed but have been surprised how hard it was to sit down and do it. I knew the story, the words were in my head. Yet I avoided getting started. Perhaps […]

Read more ....

Cesar Ruvalcaba
Because Veterans Are Worth It
June 8, 2015 | 7 Comments

Editorial Note from Johanna Ryan: Cesar Ruvalcaba is a veteran of the U.S. Army, 10th Mountain Division, and served in Somalia in the early 1990’s. He’s now a dedicated antiwar activist and a member of Vietnam Veterans Against War (VVAW). He told this story May 25 at a Memorial Day rally in Chicago organized by […]

Read more ....

Aircraft
Pilots and Antidepressants
March 30, 2015 | 11 Comments

Editorial Note: This post is by Julie Wood, the central figure behind SSRI Stories in its current incarnation. SSRI Stories has collected and posted 47 stories about pilots flying and crashing while on antidepressants. The majority are airplanes but several of the crashes involve helicopters. With the current focus on the possible contribution of psychoactive drugs […]

Read more ....

Dear Luise by Dorrit Cato Christensen
Written on Water
April 26, 2014 | One Comment

Editorial Note: This is a brief synopsis of Dear Luise by Dorrit Cato Christensen – a story of power and powerlessness, and a most extraordinary book. Extraordinary because of the horror it outlines. Extraordinary because of Dorrit’s restraint when writing about her daughter. Do things go as badly wrong as this often – yes. Are we doing anything to stop disasters like […]

Read more ....

The Pre-Pregnancy Dilemma Survey: Part 1
August 21, 2013 | No Comments

This is the first of two five minute surveys covering dilemmas that have been thrown up by the Panorama program on antidepressants, anticonvulsants and birth defects. The dilemma arises from the fact that women going on them are kept in the dark about a number of important issues. First, they aren’t told that these drugs can […]

Read more ....

Alice in Wonderland syndrome
Go Ask Alice
July 3, 2013 | 2 Comments

Editorial Note: RxISK is all about people discovering things for themselves and alerting others to something that can make a real difference. There have been some wonderful examples outlined in posts here on RxISK from Anne-Marie Kelly’s discovery of a cure for alcoholism – stop your SSRI and perhaps try a serotonin-3 antagonist like mianserin or ondansetron […]

Read more ....

Epilepsy
Facts About FACS (Fetal Anti-Convulsant Syndrome)
September 5, 2012 | 2 Comments

Janet’s story I was diagnosed with epilepsy at the age of 14. After trying different drugs my seizures were controlled by a combination of Phenytoin (Epanutin) and Sodium Valproate (Epilim). What they didn’t tell me was that Sodium Valproate carried the highest incidence of birth defects to the unborn baby. In my ignorance I continued […]

Read more ....