Antipsychotics | RxISK - Part 2

Tardive dyskinesia

Robbie’s Tourette Syndrome Story

August 8, 2016 | 6 Comments

Editorial Note: This post by DG continues a series begun a year ago looking at the effects of aripiprazole on Tourette Syndrome Abilify, Tourette Syndrome and Me. The key point here is not just the effect of a drug to trigger effects but the ability of someone who has the disorder and takes the treatment […]

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Olanzapine: Still Treading Water

July 31, 2016 | 24 Comments

Editorial Note: Ages back, Sally MacGregor wrote this piece to follow up to her Olanzapine experience – Olanzapine Withdrawal: Sally’s Story. The original piece has routinely been among the top ten RxISK blog posts visited. This update slipped between the cracks. But here it is. Time for a progress report. I was in feisty mode […]

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Natalie at Rain Forest Cafe 10th Birthday

Kidnapped: Natalie’s Story

July 6, 2016 | 25 Comments

Editorial Note: Natalie’s story parts 1 and 2 are by her mother Kristina. Natalie, celebrating her tenth birthday in 2003, shortly after being prescribed Prozac. Her left eye was starting to show signs of amblyopia, more commonly called “lazy eye.” This adverse drug reaction worsened and was one of many Natalie suffered from unnecessary prescribing. We […]

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Hands tied with rope

A Kidnapped Daughter 2

June 13, 2016 | 12 Comments

Continued from Part 1. Put on mirtazepine my daughter deteriorated rapidly. The crisis intervention team descended. They started by counting pills. When they found the number correct, they assumed I had destroyed the pills. They seemed perplexed. One of the team would take her out for some one–to-one. They would visit the local park, go to […]

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Hands tied with rope

A Kidnapped Daughter

June 7, 2016 | 8 Comments

Editorial Note: This is the first of a two-part post by a father and daughter who want to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals – a very real and realistic fear. This is about how my daughter was “led away” (the literal meaning of abduction), in a cruel and calculated act undertaken by people to whom […]

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Kidnapped: Arthur Hippe

March 28, 2016 | 4 Comments

Editorial Note: This post by Lois Sampson, an Elders’ Rights Advocate with the Seniors At Risk Coalition, is the first of several on this theme. The message for readers who think that neither they nor their relatives have been or are likely to be in the position that Arthur Hippe was in is that Arthur’s […]

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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 […]

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Benzodiazepine and Antidepressant Dependence

August 31, 2015 | 14 Comments

Sally MacGregor has written about the horrors of dependence on olanzapine – see Olanzapine Withdrawal and Back In Olanzapine Waters. Here she picks up a conundrum – Primary Care Doctors react to the idea of Benzodiazepines as though they have been the greatest threat to the stability of society since World War II, while at the […]

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The Maintenance Man: Fata-nomics the cancer plaguing healthcare

July 13, 2015 | 11 Comments

Editorial Note: This post is from Johanna Ryan “You murdered my dad. You poisoned him. You tortured and murdered my dad.” The sentencing hearing for Farid T. Fata, M.D. at the federal courthouse in Detroit last week did not lack for drama – and Piero Zanotti’s daughter was not the only victim to accuse him […]

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Drugs and Smell: Smells of SHIT

June 22, 2015 | 17 Comments

Medication can mess up your sense of Smell. This post links to the Magna Farta post on david healy, which tells the story of Zicam and Matrixx Pharmaceuticals. For anyone interested in adverse events, this is one of the most important stories in medicine. It also links to the SHIT Happens and SHIT happens 2 […]

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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 […]

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The Year of My Life that was Stolen

May 19, 2015 | 19 Comments

This post is by Katinka Blackford-Newman, who can be seen here running a half-marathon to raise money for RxISK but who also since the events described here has been involved in several criminal trials, believing that it is important that juries get to hear stories like hers when faced with the challenge of assessing what […]

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Abilify Maintena

The Once and Future Abilify: Depot Injections for Everyone?

May 11, 2015 | 5 Comments

Written by Johanna Ryan, May 9, 2015 This column is partly a report on the marketing of Abilify, the atypical antipsychotic that has become America’s best-selling drug. It’s also an appeal for advice and feedback from the RxISK and Mad in America communities, and a call for some brainstorming about strategy. The plans laid out […]

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Bureaucrat thinks

Abilify, Tourette Syndrome and You

May 4, 2015 | 3 Comments

Editorial Note: This post follows on from one of the most compelling RxISK stories ever – Abilify, Tourette Syndrome and Me, posted last week. It comes in two parts. The first by last week’s author and the second by the series editor, Johanna Ryan. In our efforts to get our story told, raise awareness about […]

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Tourette Syndrome

Abilify, Tourette Syndrome and Me

April 27, 2015 | 9 Comments

Editorial Note: This post is by DG. It’s number three in the Abilify series, following Dodging Abilify and Abilify from the Inside Out. I was diagnosed with Tourette Syndrome (TS) as a child. It was always manageable. I did well in school and was actively involved with music programs at church and school. At 17, […]

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doctor holding timebomb

Abilify from the Inside Out

April 20, 2015 | 27 Comments

Editorial Note: This is part 2 of Johanna Ryan’s series that started with Dodging Abilify. Abilify is at present the best-selling drug in North America – how come? In last week’s column, Dodging Abilify, I described the fan-club enthusiasm for this drug among doctors I’ve met, my own reluctance to try it, and what I’d […]

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Abilify cartoon lady

Dodging Abilify

April 14, 2015 | 50 Comments

Editorial Note: This post is by Johanna Ryan, who has a unique ability to capture the American Nightmare. The best-selling drug in the United States isn’t a blood pressure pill, a painkiller or even an antidepressant. It’s Abilify, an antipsychotic agent with $6.3 billion in 2013 sales. Granted, Abilify isn’t the most prescribed pill, but […]

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I love to hear a doctor beg

Better to Die RxISKing It

December 15, 2014 | 8 Comments

Editorial Note: This post continues from last week’s Persecution of Heretics. It’s about how only a Popular Movement with those suffering adverse effects on drugs speaking up can save us now. It adapts a talk given a month ago to the International Society for Ethical Psychology and Psychiatry in Los Angeles. It loses something without […]

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October 20, 2014 | 12 Comments

Editorial Note: This extraordinary account of what it can be like to live on psychotropic drugs came by email out of the blue from Jim Seko. For the record, it looks from here that Jim cannot have had schizophrenia. His original problem almost has to be an acute and transient psychosis. The tragedy of these […]

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Back in Olanzapine Waters

August 7, 2014 | 18 Comments

Editorial Note: Courtesy of Fast Forward, here is a 12 month follow up to Olanzapine Withdrawal: Sally’s Story; some good, some OK and some awful. Sounds and speech Twelve months later, I continue to have problems with my hearing. The serious sensitivity to sounds has settled a bit – so I don’t jump out of my […]

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Olanzapine Withdrawal: Sally’s Story

August 5, 2014 | 215 Comments

Editorial Note: How long does withdrawal last? How much overlap is there between antipsychotic, benzodiazepine and antidepressant withdrawal? This is the first of two posts covering these issues. All answers later this week in part two. For Antipsychotic Withdrawal – see also Carole’s Story. I was prescribed olanzapine 20 mg in 2001, as a mood […]

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Dear Luise by Dorrit Cato Christensen

Written on Water

April 26, 2014 | 2 Comments

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 […]

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Dopamine Antagonist Withdrawal Syndrome – Carole’s Story

May 1, 2013 | 82 Comments

The last post outlined the horrors of dopamine agonist withdrawal syndrome (DAWS). This week’s features the equally grim horror of dopamine antagonist withdrawal syndrome (DAAWS). The dopamine antagonists include the antipsychotic, anti-nausea, anti-itch and other groups of drugs. The antipsychotics were the first of the modern psychotropic drugs to be linked to severe withdrawal, but […]

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