In 2023 a new set of Canadian Guidelines for the Management of Alcohol Use Disorders put a serious problem on the radar for doctors that few of them likely expected. See Antidepressants, Alcohol and Anne-Marie. The antidepressants doctors commonly prescribed, often telling people these medicines would help them manage their alcohol issues, were likely causing the problem – … [Read more...] about Ostriches, Doctors, SSRIs and Tylenol
Pain-killers
The Future of Health App-ointments
Several of the many people who write or track RxISK posts, have had input to this one, which dovetails with Harriet Vogt's post last week Repairing Ruptures in Clinical Care and the work of Shane Cooke and Mary Hennessey in getting health systems to listen to the voices of those harmed by treatment. The post, maybe, casts an ominous light on our abilities to get medicine to … [Read more...] about The Future of Health App-ointments
Challenging My Doctor to Disclose
This recently published US strategy on Suicide Prevention epitomizes all that is going wrong in medicine today. It is stuffed full of references to Shared Decision Making, Informed Consent and Lived Experience. Stuffed full of token words, window-dressing, tick-boxing. It will increase rather than reduce suicide rates. It is clear that the people behind this, and … [Read more...] about Challenging My Doctor to Disclose
Deprescribing – Where does Responsibility Lie?
This post follows on from last weeks Potentially Inappropriate Deprescribing and has links to this weeks The Creation Narrative and God Complex. It brings up a painfully tricky point. Reducing Medication Burdens is perhaps the most important task in medicine today. Many well-meaning folk are aware of and raising the profile of this need and attempting to work out how to go … [Read more...] about Deprescribing – Where does Responsibility Lie?
Medicine, Civilization and Cradles
Hush-a-bye baby on the tree-top, When the wind blows the cradle will rock; When the bough breaks the cradle will fall, Down will come baby, cradle, and all. We face a problem as important or more important than Climate Change - the changing climate in healthcare - see Pharmageddon and Our Healthcare Climate. For a decade, RxISK has been pointing to a polypharmacy pandemic, … [Read more...] about Medicine, Civilization and Cradles
Drugs & Sex & Fertility – and SSRIs
Our Love Life Needs You © Nina Otulakowski August 2022 This post calls on everyone, male or female, currently or previously taking any drug who thinks that a drug may have impacted on their fertility. Fertility should be of interest to anyone taking serotonin reuptake inhibiting drugs - SSRIs, SNRIs, tricyclics, antihistamines, antibiotics, analgesics and related drugs - … [Read more...] about Drugs & Sex & Fertility – and SSRIs
Uterine Roulette and Consent
This post continues with the Lonesome Heroines theme - Consent. It needs reading in conjunction with Peter Selley's Coming Clean on Neonatal Deaths. The fact these posts deal with vaccines is semi-irrelevant - they are about a development model, a playbook, set up with SSRIs that industry now apply across all products. Our Bodies, Ourselves, a book by the Boston Women's … [Read more...] about Uterine Roulette and Consent
How the Safety of Drugs was Destroyed
Emer Cooke, the CEO of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) is Irish. This is Dublin's famous Halfpenny Bridge which for some reason features in an article outlining the history of the phrase Tail wags Dog which seems appropriate for what followed. I wrote to Emer recently about a bizarre letter I received from Kinapse - A Brush with EMA - who run EMA's medical literature … [Read more...] about How the Safety of Drugs was Destroyed
PPPD – Persistent Postural Perceptual Dizziness
This post is from R, whom I came into contact with at least a decade ago. She had significant SSRI dependence and withdrawal issues. And was very discombobulated by the difficulties she was having. Back in 1997 after a difficult and stressful house move I went to see my Family Doctor because I was getting a lot of headaches and panic attacks in crowded places. She said I was … [Read more...] about PPPD – Persistent Postural Perceptual Dizziness
Could Journalists be Doctors in Disguise
I had to give some workshops a few years ago to media students and either while thinking about what to say or in the middle of saying it, or soon after, it hit me that good doctoring has a lot in common with good journalism. Both hinge on getting the story right and key to that is having a real person whom others can contact to check out the story they have been told about … [Read more...] about Could Journalists be Doctors in Disguise