Protracted Antidepressant Withdrawal
July 1, 2020 | 23 Comments

Following H’s report of difficulties with Effexor, we asked Will Hall, Altostrata, Bob Fiddaman and Josef Witt-Doerring, all experienced in this area, how they would Manage her Withdrawal. We also asked Peter Groot who helped develop the first Tapering Strips for Antidepressant withdrawal – who with colleagues has demonstrated that this can help many people […]

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Managing Effexor and SSRI Withdrawal
June 24, 2020 | 13 Comments

H’s nightmare with Effexor withdrawal was laid out in last week’s post.  Experts on antidepressant withdrawal were asked to comment – Will Hall, Altostrata, Peter C Groot, Bob Fiddaman, Josef Witt-Doerring have generously given time to do so.  James Moore, Stevie Lewis and Ed White, administrator for a Facebook venlafaxine withdrawal group, who have substantial […]

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Side Effexor Withdrawal
June 17, 2020 | 16 Comments

About 12 years ago I was diagnosed with mild depression and prescribed 75 mg effexor. I did achieve relief from my symptoms on this dose.  Later, maybe a few years, my dose was increased to 150 mg when my job became more stressful. There was no discussion about duration of treatment. I used to be […]

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Children of the Cure: Fear of Lying
May 27, 2020 | 15 Comments

Samizdat has just published Children of the Cure – the Preface of which is here  This Book is not a Game. Quotes from the text are in Hand of History on davidhealy.org. Most of the first chapter is below. Flying to Philadelphia Shelley Jofre was 32 when she got on a plane to Philadelphia in […]

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Montelukast: Beyond the Black Box
May 20, 2020 | 27 Comments

Dozens of these buttons flooded the United States Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) headquarters at a meeting for the widely prescribed asthma/allergy medication, montelukast (brand name, Singulair).  The message was simple: “The benefits did not outweigh the risks.” As each button approached the podium, the panel of experts heard gut-wrenching testimonials about the unimaginable psychiatric […]

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Catch San Marino if you Can
May 4, 2020 | 25 Comments

There have been some major developments on the RxISK Prize front. First we are hovering around the $66,666 point – depending on how exchange rates go we may be wandering back and forth over this line as I write. More important however is that San Marino has raced out in front as the donor leading […]

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Covid and the Market in Research
April 13, 2020 | 20 Comments

  There are 3 bits to this post – an interview with Joan-Ramon Laporte.  An article by Ariane Denoyel and a Q and A with Laporte and Healy. Laporte Interview As part of a series for ROAR Magazine, Frank Barat has run some striking interviews about aspects of the Covid pandemic not usually mentioned. Here […]

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Gateway to the Soul
February 3, 2020 | 79 Comments

Read the accompanying Sex, Withdrawal and Boundaries post first.  We are looking for anyone interested in the material raised there to comment on or add to the set of questions below. We are so insensitive to the fact that our skin and gut principally, but also bladder and maybe the inner linings of our lungs, […]

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Sex, Withdrawal and Boundaries
February 3, 2020 | 31 Comments

“Do you think studying monolayers of cells will tell you why you fall in love with a girl?” The quote comes from Rudolf Hess, who won the Nobel Prize for physiology in 1949.  His students remembered him as telling them never to study a neurotransmitter or even a cell without thinking about where this bit […]

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Healthcare or Health Service?
December 23, 2019 | 15 Comments

Up to 1800, no-one went near a doctor if they could avoid it.  At best doctors might amuse the patient while nature cured the disease – the doctor’s business was to take as much of the credit and the money as possible.  The best was rare.  In an effort to get the money, doctors liked […]

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Trust Withdrawal and Antidepressants
December 10, 2019 | 18 Comments

The images, which are a wonderful metaphor for the coming back to life, the restoration of emotions and senses that stopping an antidepressant can bring, comes from this news item – its worth clicking on the video link There have probably been more posts about withdrawal from antidepressants – especially if PSSD is included as […]

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Sleep Problems After Stopping Antidepressants?
November 5, 2019 | 72 Comments

It is well known that antidepressants can interfere with a person’s sleep, but it’s less clear what happens after they stop taking the drug. One of our earliest blog posts from 2012 was written by someone experiencing terrifying nightmares while withdrawing from Cymbalta. The post received a number of comments from other people reporting the […]

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Coming off Depakote
October 28, 2019 | 14 Comments

I stopped Depakote – See Going on Depakote. First Try This was a nightmare to cold turkey off. I felt crazy, like my brain was going to explode and was on fire. I kept an ice pack on my head for days and listened to meditation tapes. I am not sure how I managed to […]

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Going on Depakote
October 21, 2019 | 7 Comments

Beginnings Childhoods are difficult to remember in detail. My first few memories were about the age of 2 1/2, maybe 3. I had chickenpox and I got an encephalitis. I didn’t know that this is what it was until years later, when I became a medical provider. My experience was that I visually hallucinated (the […]

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Montelukast, Fluoroquinolone, Psychotropic Withdrawal & Toxicity
July 1, 2019 | 37 Comments

Last week’s post on Montelukast Withdrawal Syndrome has attracted comments at a higher rate than any prior post in 7 years of RxISK posts. It followed a post on Asthma causing Suicide and Homicide two weeks previously, which had links to the QuarterWatch 2015 report of adverse events in children fingering montelukast and suicidality as […]

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Montelukast Withdrawal Syndrome
June 24, 2019 | 146 Comments

When my happy, full-of-life, adventure-seeking 11-year-old son experienced severe, debilitating neuropsychiatric symptoms after stopping his asthma medication, I embarked on a journey in a desperate search for answers. How could a medication that acts on the respiratory system reduce my healthy child to a lifeless shell? How could our beloved doctor not discuss the potential […]

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EMA Acknowledges Persistent Sexual Dysfunction After SSRIs & SNRIs
June 11, 2019 | 49 Comments

The European Medicines Agency has just concluded a review into sexual dysfunction after the discontinuation of SSRIs and SNRIs. Before we discuss their findings, it’s worth looking back over the events of the past year. RxISK petition In 2018, we put together a petition requesting changes to SSRI and SNRI product labels to warn about […]

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Antidepressant Withdrawal Welsh Senedd Debate
May 24, 2019 | 35 Comments

Editorial Note:  For context see Welsh Government Response to Withdrawal Petition.  The image is of Janet Finch-Saunders. The cover image is of the Senedd building. Debate on the Petitions Committee Report: Petition P-05-784 Prescription drug dependence and withdrawal—recognition and support Motion NDM7053 Janet Finch-Saunders To propose that the National Assembly for Wales: Notes the report […]

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Welsh Government Response to Withdrawal Petition
May 21, 2019 | 10 Comments

  For Context to this post – See Welsh Senedd Withdrawal Seminar and Welsh and Scottish Petitions on Antidepressant Dependence. From Stevie Lewis Dear All, At the back end of last week I received the Welsh Government’s response to the Petitions Committee’s recommendations – see HERE. As you’ll see from the attached, they have accepted […]

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RxISK Rorschach: Do not Go Gentle
April 9, 2019 | 47 Comments

Last week’s RxISK post on Assisted Dying proved something of a Rorschach test.  People read diametrically opposite messages into it. It was written at the same time as Something Stupid This Way Comes and cross-referenced this.  This I thought made it clear that there is no such thing as Treatment Resistant Depression (TRD).  TRD is […]

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Assisted Dying: Going Gentle or Not so Gentle
April 1, 2019 | 53 Comments

Assisted dying has become a hot topic. For large parts of human history when people came toward an end, they might have been left in an outhouse by relatives or consigned themselves to a hut in the woods. Children too. When born, Spartan children were taken outside and their hands placed on the eaves of […]

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Encountering Doctors
March 18, 2019 | 9 Comments

Editorial Note: The image goes with a study headlined Doctors stop listening to patients several seconds into a conversation.  This post is from one of the many PSSD sufferers who behind the scenes has been helping push research on this awful condition forward.  It would be a lot easier if doctors did listen. Just as […]

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Ketamine: What’s God got to do with it?
March 11, 2019 | 23 Comments

The fuss about ketamine has generated interest in where it has come from. There were probably multiple beginnings. One was with Stan Grof, who moved from Prague to Baltimore in 1967.  His interest in therapy led him to a focus on early life experience. This stemmed from work with LSD and psilocybin in the 1950s […]

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Welsh Senate Withdrawal Seminar
December 17, 2018 | 28 Comments

Last week a seminar on dependence on and withdrawal from antidepressants took place in the Welsh Senedd, overlooking Cardiff Bay. It was the initiative of and organised by Aled Jones of Prescription Drug Awareness, Support and Treatment, under the auspices of Mark Drakeford – the First Minister.  The Senedd building was a stunning setting for […]

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Skin and Drugs and Sex
October 25, 2018 | 6 Comments

Editorial Note:  This post returns to PSSD – post SSRI sexual dysfunction – PRSD – post retinoid sexual dysfunction – PFS – post finasteride sexual dysfunction and PGAD – persistent genital arousal disorder.  See our RxISK PSSD page for the many prior posts on these conditions There is also post on davidhealy.org – Khashoggi and […]

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Stop suicide
Akathisia, Depression & Suicide: The List
September 27, 2018 | 35 Comments

This post closes our series on akathisia. Along with posts on davidhealy.org, the other posts were: Akathisia Anthem 500+ Drugs that Cause Depression and Suicide – AKA Akathisia Akathisia Challenge Even Politicians get killed by Akathisia In 500 drugs that cause depression and suicide, we mentioned building a new list of drugs that can cause […]

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Even Politicians get killed by Akathisia
September 18, 2018 | 11 Comments

Editorial Note: – This continues our series of the lethal effects of akathisia running on RxISK and davidhealy.org – with special reference to Little Red SSRIding Hood and Even Docs get killed by Akathisia. Akathisia and treatment induced suicide took a political turn over the weekend, along with the issue of whether teenagers should be informed […]

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Akathisia Anthem
August 29, 2018 | 10 Comments

A link to the Akathisia Anthem song and video is available on RxISK’s Akathisia page.  There will be follow up posts on RxISK and DavidHealy over the next two weeks. Akathisia anthem Akathisia, Akathisia You make me wanna Make me wanna Akathisia Thank you doctor for this little pill But the fact of the matter, it’s […]

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Crazy and it was
The WARM Network: Withdrawal and Recovery Meetings
June 27, 2018 | 17 Comments

New Initiative: The Withdrawal and Recovery Meeting (WARM) Network of Groups By Jennifer Bryant and Laurie Oakley This is a new initiative to give anyone who would like to start an in-person withdrawal group in their community a way to get started.  We have created a free “toolkit” that contains a Guide for Facilitators, Suggested […]

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The Woman Who Was: Looking back from Prescription Cascade
May 21, 2018 | 16 Comments

  Editorial Note:  This is M’s story.  She outlines a Prescribing Cascade.  In an email she also asks a question: does anyone have any evidence of SSRI withdrawal causing Vit D deficiency?   HRT HRT started it all.  Peri menopausal at 45, my GP did a FSH test and prescribed Climagest – oral oestrogen and progesterone.  […]

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