Editorial Note: This post by Heather and David Roberts is about their son Olly and the struggles he and they had with the health system, acne and its treatments.
Our son Olly had RoAccutane prescribed for him aged 21, getting ready to celebrate his birthday at Bristol University and wanting to look his best. He was studying Biological Sciences. His results from his first year exams were outstanding and the Dean wrote to tell him he was on track for a First.
The only cloud on Olly’s horizon was his cystic acne, which had begun when he was 14, for which he had suffered significant bullying at school. He had, over time, been prescribed antibiotics, lotions, and had finally even consulted a homeopath, whose treatment, sadly and to our surprise, made it worse. The only thing that had improved it was using the Stone Age diet when he was 15. But this required disciplining himself. On finally seeing a dermatologist, she told him the diet was a waste of time and ‘he would never get rid of the scarring.’ Her words made him lose faith in the diet and feel very worried about having a permanently ugly body.
He ate whatever he liked again, as nothing could change the future ugly outcome, except RoAccutane. His experience with homeopathy made him feel that RoAccutane – isotretinoin, a ‘wonder drug’ with a few warnings, could not do him much more harm than that. He also lost faith in us, his worried parents with our concerns. He believed doctors were scientists, and would know best about safety. He used to say ‘You’ve got to get the science right, above all else.’
Starting RoAccutane
Warnings inside the packs of pills in 1998 were not as comprehensive as they are now, as more and more suicides were reported over time amongst those taking it. In 2003, a European Medicines Agency report confirmed that discontinuing the drug might not be enough to alleviate adverse reactions. We did know that it was contra-indicated if there was a history of mental illness in the family. Our son’s maternal grandfather had become manic-depressive after open-heart surgery in 1940. Olly’s doctors were informed of this. They brushed concerns aside.
We had also worried about the side effect of blurring of vision and night blindness, knowing that he needed his eyes for his microscope work and photography, and also knowing that once having taken it, he could never apply to be an airline pilot. For this reason, we had tried to persuade him not to go along with the recommendations of the doctors, but once he was 21, we felt he should take his own decision, he was a scientist himself, after all.
Within a few weeks, he changed from a cheery outgoing person, enjoying company, full of ideas and enthusiasm, into a quiet withdrawn anxious young man who began to find tears trickling down his face for no apparent reason. His concentration plummeted, as did his self-esteem. He began to hear voices telling him he was useless and suggesting he kill himself, because he was so ugly. He had dry skin, major regular nosebleeds with significant blood loss, aching joints, dry eyes, (apart from the tears), inability to tolerate sunlight, or noise, and above all, constant agitated worry.
He thought he was going mad. But he didn’t tell us at the time. He took time out from his studies, ostensibly to help me because his father and I had been in a car collision with a bus and I had broken my neck. We put some of his silent sadness down to the fact that he thought I might die. But he said so little, he was so unlike his old self. He seemed shut off from everything, emotionless.
Adding to the cocktail
I made a good recovery but this did not alleviate his low mood. He consulted an aesthetic surgeon about work to remove the scarring from his back and chest, and this Consultant referred him to a psychiatrist to discuss adapting to the results of cosmetic procedures. The psychiatrist offered Olly Seroxat to lift his mood, saying it was good for shyness too. This made him feel far worse, but he persevered with it for some months.
When he’d completed the first course of 3 months on RoAccutane, he seemed to become more like himself again. The pills had helped his skin a little, but not as well as the Stone Age diet had done. We saw from his Medical Notes that his liver results were not as good as they should have been, but his GP brushed aside our concerns. During the summer, Olly went off to America to make films of wild life and to visit the Grand Canyon. He was trying to distract himself from the low mood so uncharacteristic of him. He stopped taking Seroxat whilst away, as he was travelling with a medical student friend and didn’t want him to think he was mentally unstable, needing an anti-depressant. No one as far as we know had ever suggested to him that he should tail things off slowly.
When he came back for the Autumn Term, he began to suffer panic attacks in the Lecture theatres, uncontrollable muscle shaking, and overwhelming fear and dread. He said he did not know what he was afraid of. All he could remember was the bullying at school and being told he was ugly. But he had long since left all those thoughts behind – until now.
He tried to block the suicidal voices but they were incessant, like an OCD. By November he was in such a bad state that he found himself wandering across Bristol’s suspension bridge, deliberating as to whether to jump. He telephoned us from there in the middle of the night saying he didn’t know where he was or how he got there. We rushed down to find him and brought him home. He was constantly telling us that he knew he must die. We were terrified to hear him talking like this.
The perfect circle
Our GP came to our home to see him where he had retreated to his bedroom, feeling suicidal, and berated us for being over protective, saying we should send him straight back to the care of the Student Health Service at University, and having discovered he had resorted to taking some St. John’s Wort for depressed feelings blamed us for that as well and said it could be very dangerous. We didn’t know he was on it. We were described as Olly’s problem, the ‘fussing over protective parents’.
We did help him to go back to Bristol straight away, and the Student Health Care service there was good for a short time, but he was given more medication and his agitation became even worse. He drove home again and asked to go into hospital for his own safety as the voices were ceaselessly imploring him to kill himself. He couldn’t keep still, pacing, picking up scissors and putting them down again. We bought him a mini trampoline, which he thought might tire him out and stop the restlessness.
When he was being referred to the in-patient unit, we raised again the question of his taking RoAccutane and Seroxat, having read their listed side effects, but were firmly told by both the GP and later the psychiatrist, not to be ridiculous. ‘Nobody takes any notice of the PIL, it means nothing in reality’ said the dismissive and irritated psychiatrist.
We were told our son may have body dysmorphic disorder, hence his concern about his acne and the memories of the school bullying. Olly just wanted his acne to go, so was not interested in the RoAccutane worries that we kept raising and felt the doctors knew best. After all, they were trained in medicine, and he was concerned about his mind functioning properly right now, and had been assured that RoAccutane could not be the source of his problems. The kidnap had begun, and he was slowly slipping away into ‘the Perfect Circle.’
Down and down
In hospital Olly was given higher doses of SSRIs and anti-psychotics. On Risperdal his tongue started moving in and out strangely and his legs were shaking. He couldn’t sit still. He became convinced he was the Devil and the police were coming to get him. When we raised our concerns again about the drugs, we were barred from visiting him. It was difficult to get any opportunity to speak to the busy psychiatrist who said he had no time to see us nor to read letters, reports or faxes. Olly was being told however that we were his problem, over-protective, interfering fussy parents. The staff were only allowed to speak to him for a few moments each day as he was asking for reassurance, and he apparently had to be broken of this habit.
However, our son’s mobile phone was not taken from him and he called us instead, constantly, telling us how evil he was, apologizing and telling us he knew how much we must hate him as we didn’t come in to see him any more! We tried to ignore the phone but it was ringing in our house, all day and all night. So we recorded the conversations and gave a copy to the psychiatrist. He made no comment to us, but was apparently angry with Olly.
Luckily our young vicar said he would go and see Olly as ‘his spiritual adviser’, to try to convince him he was not the Devil. This man was able to get into the hospital when we couldn’t, because Olly was one of his parishioners. Our son was by now in a terrible state, lying on his face on the bed, shaking from the effects of more and more drugs and fearing that the police were coming to take him to prison.
Desperate to get the psychiatrist to listen to our assurances that our son had never behaved like this before he took these medications, we approached the local MIND, thinking they might act as intermediaries between us and the doctors. They must have known there were concerns about Seroxat at this time in 2003, but they would not help us.
Their in-house psychologist suggested that as Olly’s mum, I was ‘afraid of angry men, and needed counselling’ myself. I said I’d be delighted to go for counselling but implored them to quickly help us explain about the medications and their effect on Olly. Months later a counselor linked with our GP surgery, who I saw several times, was very supportive and said both we and Olly had been treated appallingly by both MIND and the doctors, and by certain other intermediaries.
An angel
After a few weeks of Olly’s time in hospital, miraculously another patient took him home with her one weekend. He had told the staff he was going to see his brother. This kind lady who self-harmed and was an alcoholic, told Olly on that fateful weekend that he must try to get his act together and get out of this cycle of anti-depressants and anti-psychotics or he would end up like her, with a revolving door into that hospital.
He was luckily always purely a voluntary patient. By another miracle, a job was offered to him by a work contact to use his web design skills, and he took it, even though he was feeling very anxious. Nursing friends of ours advised him to move to another area where the care was better, so he did. This all took some doing, getting a new rented flat, living away from friends and family, and doctors expecting him to manage on his own, without help from us, whilst he was shaking with fear. Our help had to be covert. We felt we were viewed as criminals for caring about him. We smoothed the way for him as best and secretly with him as we could.
A demon
The psychiatrist in his new area, although more approachable, still didn’t grasp the link between the onset of his illness and his starting to take RoAccutane – isotretinoin and later Seroxat, and didn’t want any conversations with us as a family. Nor was he interested in the fact that Olly had had fits on Risperdal, which had also been ignored by our family GP at the time. He did not seem to understand Olly’s constant acute anxiety, feeling of dread, and worst of all, the endless suicidal thoughts. He appeared to put all these down to body dysmorphia from the acne.
Nothing else made sense
Olly did too, because nothing else made sense. His life was otherwise fine and he had such plans and interesting ideas, and the skills to carry them through. Olly told us that he could only assume his suicidal thoughts were linked to the times when some of his peers at school had described him as ugly, and he had feared ugliness ever since hearing the damning words of the Dermatologist when he was 15.
He never returned to University, but the Dean assured him that his place would be kept open for him indefinitely. He managed to find work experience in various big web design and e-commerce companies, battling the paranoia and panic, which beset him particularly on the train journeys to and from various cities. The worst part of it all was that he couldn’t fathom where these feelings were coming from.
Eventually he formed his own publishing company and his own web design and e-commerce business, becoming an employer. He did extraordinarily well, and garnering all the determination he had, managed to give presentations to large groups of clients in major companies. They would never have guessed he was battling incessant background thoughts telling him to kill himself, and shakiness and fear. He was driven by a need to overcome the weakness he felt must be within him as a person, causing his symptoms.
He built such a successful business he could afford to get his acne properly treated and any scarring removed. He went to Professor Chu, a well respected London dermatologist specializing in acne. Over the years up until 2011 he had had several courses of RoAccutane but they had not made a lasting or significant difference. This consultant used Blue Light and laser treatment.
Dr Chu was quoted in the Daily Mail in 2013 Chu warning that, while isotretinoin treatment can be a cure in some cases, ‘in my experience 50% of patients will relapse after a course of treatment. This can be very fast, within two weeks of stopping the drug, or it may be several years later. Another rare side effect I’ve seen is chronic fatigue. I once had a bright straight-A-star patient who developed this after taking RoAccutane for four months. It had persisted after stopping the drug. He subsequently dropped out of Oxford University. Although his acne cleared, he never recovered from the chronic fatigue and sadly two years later I learnt that he’d taken his own life. I think his suicide may well have been related to RoAccutane. Although the drug only stays in the system for about a month, the effects on the brain can in some cases be permanent. A biological switch is flicked by RoAccutane and sometimes it doesn’t turn off or on again. All these side effects are rare but there is no way of predicting beforehand whether a patient may be affected. My experience has made me very cautious about prescribing it. You have to weigh up the benefits against the potential side-effects – in severe cases of acne that hasn’t responded to treatment, it is worth it, but in milder cases, it probably isn’t.”
Over the years, more courses of RoAccutane did nothing for Olly, except to make him even more anxious and suicidal. As far as we know, Dr Chu did not prescribe it for him but his skin improved amazingly and the laser work took away a great deal of the scarring.
Malignant alienation
On the recommendation of his psychiatrist who he now saw rarely, Olly also found himself a London psychologist who dealt with anxiety triggered by body dysmorphia, which was the only thing Olly could think of that might be causing him subconsciously to still have the overwhelming low mood and agitation. He was delighted with his skin now. He and we had never heard of akathisia. The psychologist suggested Escitalopram which a psychiatrist prescribed. We noticed at once that he became even more anxious and at one point, in total desperation, he got in touch with Samaritans, who were very supportive and invited him to attend courses.
Sadly, in April 2012 he was put under a lot of stress due to work and social pressures and moved flat to get away from a romantic and uninvited complication. He really also felt so ill by this time, having had the dose on the Escitalopram raised, that the psychologist suggested a few days in our local NHS hospital, where he assumed he would get good care. The in-house psychiatrist there said he could not find anything wrong with Olly but changed his medication to Venlafaxine. Hospital was the wrong place for him, as he was scared, out of his depth amongst very ill people who berated him about his love life, said he looked ugly and possibly gay and generally insulted him. He was frightened to ask if he could leave, his mind so confused now on Venlafaxine and off Escilatopram that he didn’t realise that he was only there voluntarily.
The hospital offered Home Treatment for 6 weeks, which meant a social worker would come to see him daily for a few moments to deliver Venlafaxine, Diazepam, and Zopiclone and to talk about writing a diary, sleep hygiene and CBT. This went well for a week or more, and then the Home Treatment Psychiatrist came to do an Assessment. He would not listen to any history whatever. He raised his arms and said he didn’t need to know, he had already made up his own mind (in half an hour or so!). He told Olly that he was not depressed and therefore the drugs were doing him no good, so he should stop them at once.
Olly was relieved to feel that there was nothing wrong with him, but there were unpleasant veiled hints about immaturity and personality disorder, and parental ineptitude, and this puzzled him and us even more. Olly asked what would happen if the CBT being offered did not work. He had been doing CBT with his psychologist for a long time and could have written a book on it. The psychiatrist laughed and said if it didn’t, he would shoot the social worker. It was all very jovial. Olly was in one way pleased that the expert thought there was nothing much wrong with him, but in another, wondering why he had been suffering this anxious hell for so long.
He stopped Venlafaxine and all other medications immediately as he’d been instructed, and within two days he again became what we now know to be very akathisic. He couldn’t rest. He was trying to run his business from a distance, and he had sensations like electric shocks zapping his forehead, skull, and into his nose. He couldn’t sleep but if he momentarily did drift off, he had terrible nightmares. The feeling of dread was overwhelming.
He reported this to the social worker. Another meeting was set up, a week later in Olly’s own flat and the whole Team came, as did we. We again tried to tell the psychiatrist about the acne treatments and how all this anxiety had started way back with RoAccutane in 2001, but we were shouted down again and ridiculed. He berated Olly for non-co-operation, saying he was sure he would kill himself but he would rather he did it in hospital than out in the community where it might affect any of the public. He told him if he didn’t address his OCD suicidal feelings, as he called them, he would have a terrible life as they would go on forever. He then described in detail Olly’s suicide plans in front of us all. He ended by saying he was stopping all Home Treatment, there and then. Olly begged to be allowed to keep it, saying he would do anything to make amends for whatever he was seen to have done wrong. ‘No,’ shouted the psychiatrist, ‘its too late, you’ve done it to yourself.’
He added that he’d been looking back at the Notes of 2003 and it was ‘the same old story’. Yes, of course it was, it was the same akathisic reaction to the medication as we could have explained, but this man seemed too arrogant to listen. He put Olly onto Olanzapine, which made his akathisia even worse, and then a new Out Patient psychiatrist added 200 mgs of Sertraline for good measure. Olly’s acne was coming back with a vengeance, and he had been totally humiliated and branded as attention-seeking in front of the Team. Something triggered the acne again – it may have been the Olanzapine. It broke his spirit, having spent so many hundreds of pounds on treatment, to see it all being undone before his eyes.
Twenty days later, having been so humiliated, lost all hope and self- esteem, and having made a Will, he attempted to drown himself at midnight in a river out in the countryside, cutting his arm open first. At the last moment, the shock of the cold water gave him second thoughts, and he dragged himself out and drove to our home. We found him covered in blood and mud, dripping on our doorstep at midnight. Police arrived with paramedics who bound up the arm to stop the blood flow, and we took him to A&E where he sat all night with us in a cubicle eventually having been stitched up. Next morning, despite having told us that the pain in his head was so terrible he would have to die to escape it, and begging us to kill him, he was discharged when we were momentarily absent, having told the social workers he was fine now, and all was well. And they believed him!
For a further month he had a few home visits from another social worker, one that was responsible for overseeing his care. This very aggressive man used to say ‘Still alive then Olly, not dead yet?’ when he answered the door to him, and ‘we know you didn’t really mean to die, if you had, you’d have done it properly and cut an artery.’ Olly’s father, sometimes present and witnessing these exchanges, suggested that this attitude was extremely unhelpful.
Olly was now complaining of terrible bursting pains in his head for which he was taking paracetamol. We had known him for 32 years, and knew he was never attention-seeking so we tried to raise the alarm with our own GP, trying to get anyone to take seriously the fact that he was beyond all hope now, before the inevitable happened. But no one with power would listen. We were confidentially warned by other staff not to antagonise the psychiatrist by complaining to the Service because he would become even angrier and take it out on our son. We were advised to try to change consultants, but the first appointment he was offered was 3 months away. His new GP tried to speed things up for this referral but seemed to be blocked.
By the end of September Olly was dead. He had made sure the method he used was fail-safe this time and it was done in such a considerate way that no member of the public was inconvenienced, not even his mum and dad. We had tried so hard to save him, and felt we had fallen at the last fence.
Continued in Roche and The Perfect Circle.
annie says
Drugs, drugs and more drugs and all those fatuous comments coming out of the mouths of babes..
And, the shining lights in this spiralling journey to nowhere; meet the parents..
What these people don’t realise as they come out with so many jumped up and inordinately egoistic and hubris driven remarks is how this combination drives the outcome
Those searing remarks to Olly when his mind was trying to cling on to himself will not have helped him in any way shape or form
You were far from alone in being excluded as his loving parents.
This seems a common theme when someone is ‘under the care’ of psychiatrists
The Seroxat denial was evident to my own mother, who at 82, tried to take the line that you and David did. She was brushed aside, haughtily and disrespectfully. All she wanted to know was, what was wrong with her daughter. My mother took the brunt of it as it got to the point I was too bedridden to see anyone..
She was constantly stonewalled and made to feel inadequate for asking the obvious. We ended up taking matters into our own hands as if we hadn’t, I would not have lived and it would have ended up as with drugs, drugs and more drugs and more and more condescension.
My mother had the patience of Jobe and was acutely distressed, but, her profound belief in herself and me and my little family unit, set her on my road to recovery with the physical help and the mental help during the first horrendous withdrawal and then the second the following year
What chance did Olly have when they were excluding the parents and excluding the mix and match of all those drugs
A vulnerable man with a poor image due to acne and really Heather and David, his ‘treatment’ over all those years was frightful
We don’t forget do we, those belittling and unnecessary barbs…….your story is bravely told and you were fighting a losing a battle right from the beginning when Seroxat came along
All credit to Olly for all those years that this went on and how he was so badly let down and I really can’t see what more you could have done..
All these things you are doing in his memory are right and true…..this takes courage
Carla says
Dear David and Heather,
I am so sorry for the loss of your beautiful son, Olly.
What on earth is going on with these medicines?
Unfortunately, it seems that many people I talk to, seem to be suffering from severe anxiety issues, related to the medicines they are ingesting.
If clinicians are informed about this, they will surely say that it is coincidental, a mental condition or something else?????
How can patients be their own doctor if these meds are impacting their minds????
If the patients stop taking the med(s) that may be causing the problems, the poor patients experience severe horrible withdrawal symptoms.
If another med is added to compensate for the other med that was inducing the problem, the results to one’s mind can be catastrophic.
Prescripticide is real and very dangerous.
Poor Olly was experiencing terrible bursting pains in his head.
The poor man was put into a ‘grid lock’ and did not know how to alleviate his unforgivable symptoms.
Pain killers would of only compounded the situation.
These medicines, once combined, are a ‘nasty cocktails’ of chemicals drugging to the delicate brain.
What are some clinicians thinking when they mix meds?
David and Heather, I grieve with you.
I am lost for words.
Every living being is a gift and Big Pharma are responsible for the unnecessary deaths we are witnessing.
If meds improve lives, why are so many minds being destroyed by the very meds that save lives???????
I question how many poor people could not cope, once they are at the mercy of these meds.
One story, can be another parents worst nightmare.
We need to embrace each other and make other people aware about the RXISKS of these meds.
I am so sorry that no one understood the anguish he was going through. Only David and Heather understood the pain their lovely son was in.
David and Heather, you are wonderful parents.
You did your best.
If your son’s life was tragically ended because of these horrible meds, other parents and teenagers, need to know.
What does one do when the meds permanently impact the mind?
One has to wait a long time before these meds come out of the system.
Even then, it may be too late because permanent damage may have already been resulted.
By telling your story, David and Heather, as difficult as it may be, you are helping others to make better informed choices.
Let Olly be the light.
Let there be HOPE for others so that many do not need to suffer unnecessarily.
Be brave, be strong because I know Olly would be proud of both of you.
All my love and best wishes, Carla
mary says
Heather and David, words seem insufficient to portray my deepest, most sincere sympathy for your suffering. I have read a good few comments from you, Heather, on David’s blog over the past weeks – those were snatches of your story. Reading it again now, as part of the full picture, is extremely harrowing. It is hard to believe that any human ( never mind a professional person) could treat a fellow human in such a way – and, unfortunately, to those who haven’t suffered in such a way, it probably is classed as ‘unbelievable’ and dismissed. However, those of us who have gone through similar ( thankfully weaker) experiences can fully empathise with your suffering.
We find it very hard to forget those words and looks which, roughly translated, meant “back off, he’s my patient – he’s only your molly-coddled son”. We still remember clearly our horror as more and more drugs were added – either as replacements or as dose increases. We can still remember the rejection we felt whenever we tried to explain the reason, in our humble opinion, why things were so dark for our son during that time. It all began with Seroxat – but that statement was like a red rag to a bull and brought out the worst side of the professional. It always reminded me of the advert of old for Smash, where the aliens found an actual potato and made enquiries about it. On being told that it was a potato, they fell about laughing – remember it? Well, quite honestly, the professionals we encountered in those days behaved in much the same way! – and this was soon after the Panorama programmes on Seroxat!
I said that we find it hard to forget – but we are lucky enough to still have our son. Many of the ways of Olly were also the ways of our son ( who, funnily enough, I never do name here simply because he IS still alive). Many of those ways are still with him now. We almost lost him to a massive overdose at one point – but thankfully he surprised all hospital staff and recovered. The fact that you lost Olly must make the suffering so much harder to bear.
I can only say that you must both take comfort from knowing that everything you could possibly do, you did for Olly – and therefore need not question yourselves or feel any guilt about what happened. It was the professionals, the ones PAID to care for him, that let Olly down. Both of you, who voluntarily cared for him through love, gave your all to keep him safe. In the end Olly, himself, decided to end his life on earth and to return to a place where he knew he would be safe and welcomed. Despite knowing that your hearts would be broken – he knew he’d live forever in your hearts. He also, unfortunately, knew that he’d immediately be forgotten by the professionals as they moved on to treat the next unsuspecting patient.
At this time of year, your days will appear harder I’m sure but I sincerely hope that by reflecting on the true message of Christmas, your time will be spent remembering the better times and leaving the bad times behind for a well-deserved break from your battle. May you have a quiet, peaceful Christmas – and we’ll hope that there is a real ‘awakening’ on the public front in respect of these horrid drugs in 2017.
annie says
This is good, very good, Heather and probably follows much of your line of thinking as it draws attention to a few aspects you have talked about in your Odes to Olly and for us to get some “satisfaction” from a rolling stone gathering moss..
Hope you like it and we are not all petitioned out..Leah Wood has status and appeal and a knack for getting it right…?
http://www.mhraremodel.com/leah-wood-for-reform-mhra
http://www.mhraremodel.com/why-campaign
http://www.mhraremodel.com/the-campaign
We’ve added your signature to the petition:
Jeremy Hunt MP & Lord Prior of Brampton: Remove Big Pharma Influence over MHRA
Share this petition
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/172576
tim. says
Heather and David,
The pain and desperate anguish you must both have endured to place on record the scale of Olly’s suffering and despair, the callous, cruel contempt, and predictable failure to recognise iatrogenic akathisia must be immeasurable.
Those who have pleaded and begged, for both GP prescribers and psychiatrists, to consider that their none specific and irrationally prescribed “medications” are both causing and intensifying the alleged “disorders” they believe they can treat, understand your despair.
We share the disbelief and incredulity that such appalling words, actions and deeds can replace the basic tenets of safe and scientific medical practice.
To those familiar with the hubris of psychiatry – (based on it’s own practitioners “drug dependence” to pass muster as “clinical care) – find every unfolding paragraph painfully predictable.
We too could see our own dear soul being poisoned and destroyed, abused and injured in brain body and soul, but every appeal for fastidious listening and understanding of the true history of the presenting complaint, lead to them to excommunicate us.
With contrived malevolence, they were simultaneously and maliciously coercing a delusion that: – “your parent’s interference is preventing us from making you better”.
We found that trying to explain our convincing evidence of overwhelming drug toxicity was received as if we had delivered an IED.
We were to be scorned and despised in our pitiful ignorance.
You similarly had to endure Olly’s suffering and your own torment, and in addition, suffer their contempt and ridicule.
What a deplorable manner in which to pose as doctors and experts in the twenty first century.
After reading Olly’s story for the second time, I was compelled to read thrice the words written by psychiatrist, Simon Wessely in the Huffington Post,
6th December 2016 (in the context of the prevention of suicide).
I have been as careful as I can to be accurate: –
“As a psychiatrist I know that often the best asset here is not myself, nor another mental health professional, but someone close to the person in crisis, such as their partner, parent, carer or close friend” – –
Also;-
“However the painful experience of many parents who have lost their sons or daughters to suicide is sufficient testament to the need to improve practice in this area”.
Whilst acknowledgement is made to the context that professional perceptions of confidentiality are preventing this from happening, I do hope that even a few of his colleagues might be convinced of the value of this belief.
They would of course have to recognise that their drugs cause akathisia, suicidality, aggression, self harm and harm to others as well as toxic delusions manic shift and can mimic none-drug induced psychosis.
They would also need the strength and skill to confidently and compassionately discuss these facts with the newly “re-befriended” loved ones and family.
———————————————————–
Please accept our own intense sorrow and despair for the avoidable loss of Olly and the destruction of all those whom he loved and who, so understandably loved him.
He would be so pleased with this post, and this seized opportunity to save others at risk from prescripticide: –
BY SHOUTING THE WORD AKATHISIA IN THE EARS OF THOSE WHO SO URGENTLY NEED TO HEAR IT.
Tim.
Heather says
Annie, Carla, Mary and Tim, thank you so much for all your wonderfully kind and uplifting responses to Olly’s story. The one thing, apart from such comforting solidarity from you all, that I am grateful for, is the end of the gut-wrenching fear which dominated our lives for 11 years whilst we constantly dreaded every time the phone rang, that the awful news would come that we had lost our battle to keep him safe. I still can’t hear the little Vodafone ringtone without a lurch in my stomach. I don’t think the prescribers can possibly imagine how their poisons affect the lives and wellbeing of entire families.
You are right when you say he is safe now, because I feel he is. His agony is over. We have managed to cope without him by trying to raise awareness of what happened to him. We went through all the proper NHS Trust complaints procedures, battled the MHRA and Roche, begged the GMC to listen, and apart from adding to our frustration, none of it made much obvious difference. But finding RxIsk and its amazingly supportive community, has renewed our hope and our determination.
Today, by coincidence, came the CQC Report stating that no Trust investigates such deaths as Olly’s properly and with transparency, as well we know. At the same time, another NHS official, who will have to remain nameless, told me today that raising the subject of Akathisia in an NHS meeting recently was inappropriate and ’embarrassing for the other attendees’. There are so many mixed messages out there, kidding us along that lessons are being learnt from these tragedies. But RxISK tells it like it is, and thank goodness for this honest forum. Bless you all for your encouragement and enormous kindness.
mary says
With you all the way on the dread of a phone call and the Vodafone ringtone, Heather. A call after 9pm has my stomach lurching to this day and my mobile going off at night (which rarely happens thankfully) causes a real feeling of panic. Our son doesn’t phone in crisis mode anymore – he now shares his concerns far more openly and takes advice – but when that phone rings, all I can hear is his voice and his pleas for help. I guess these feelings will remain with us, Heather, and are a small price to pay compared with their suffering through those dreadful times.
annie says
Heather, thank you, and, this is not goodbye it is hello..
I sincerely hope that you will always give us thoughts on anything and everything that come to mind.
Olly took Seroxat and it is quite possible that everything that happened after this drug was ingested took him somewhere that no matter what was given afterwards, the Seroxat could have directed his mind.
Once on the Seroxat, this harrowing tale on the Seroxat might give you some understanding.
It has to be said
David Carmichael and Paxil
https://truthman30.wordpress.com/2016/12/15/seroxatpaxil-and-violence/
This is harrowing and appalling and awful and god bless, David Carmichael, but, it has to be said that once Seroxat is swallowed, anything can happen and what happens next is irrelevant as it was the Seroxat/Paxil that drives..
The pain cannot be extinguished
Accepted?
That is another matter..
DC speaks as a parent and father and the pain must be on a level that not many could withstand.
mary says
I totally agree with you Annie – the moment Seroxat was given to Ollie, the person that Ollie really was, would have been changed beyond recognition. So many of us have seen it happen before our very eyes. Those in denial can argue as much as they like but we know that we speak the truth concerning these drugs. It is not just a coincidence that we see so many similarities in our stories – the common denominator is a drug not fit for human consumption, yet handed out like a sugary treat.
Carla says
Thank you, Heather.
You and many others who are grieving, are always welcome to come here and tell us how you feel.
Your invaluable input is always appreciated. We are very proud of you.
No parent, or any other loved ones, should have to go through, what you, your son, I or others have had to endure, NO ONE!
It never ceases to amaze me how many other souls suffered with similar symptoms.
What worries me the most is, some clinicians will hand out more meds, to make it look like one has depression.
Wouldn’t anyone be depressed if they were suffering in horrendous pain and complete silence?
You are all in our thoughts and prayers.
I know, very soon, these meds will have to come with all the warnings that have been deliberately deleted.
No more EXCUSES!
Our voices will be heard.
Sending you lots of love and warm wishes, Carla
Rosie says
I’m so sorry. I have been in a similar situation because a severe crash of my ME (Myalgic Encephalomyeltisi) was deemed ‘catastrophising’. I am only here because my family recognised that the drugs were making an already bad situation horrendously worse and we between us (or rather ‘they’ as I was pretty much ‘out of it’ and bed bound for a year) used the Heather Ashton protocol to wean me from the cocktail of meds I had been Rx. I was very severely iatrogenically damaged..oh and 12 years on the akathisia doesn’t go away. I am much more unwell now because of my underlying disease, but I don’t suppose it will ever be possible to quantify to what extent that doctor-prescribed- harm has impacted my disease process.
There are so many of these stories… when will they ever learn?
Heather says
Isn’t it funny how some doctors make these bland descriptions like ‘catastrophising’ when they really don’t have any idea of the hell the patient is going through. It’s one thing to suffer, but at least you hope the doctor, ‘fount of all medical knowledge’ or at least having access to it, will help. But then, when your pain, symptoms, concerns, are rubbished, where do you turn? Like you said, you were ill, so naturally you were effectively out of it, but thank heavens your family understood, believed in you, and offered the Heather Ashton protocol. I’m so sorry to think of your long period of suffering, but delighted to learn that you’re coming through and coping, and with such a positive attitude.
It’s vital that families and carers trust their own judgment and don’t let themselves be bullied away by arrogant and unfeeling doctors. I shall always regret that we didn’t back our own judgment, knowing Olly as we did, and forcibly override the terrifying psychiatrist; naturally we felt we must defer to Olly, but we weren’t taking into account the fact that Olly was too ill to think or even care if he lived or died, his pain being too great and his fear too encompassing. With the gift of hindsight, and with the knowledge gained from RxISK, we would do things so differently now.
Heather says
It’s all down to TRUST in the end, isn’t it? We ‘trust’ the expert, ‘trust me, I’m a doctor’ etc. When Olly was told RoAccutane would clear his skin, he trusted the dermatologist. When Olly was told Seroxat was good for shyness, social phobia, low mood (or whatever it was he sensed had come in from left field to zap his normal feelings of well being), he trusted the doctor. We trusted the doctor. We blithely went along with hearing and accepting the calm platitudes because we trusted that ‘first they do no harm’. Where and when did TRUST become a dirty word? A mugs’ word. And we have the NHS TRUSTS now too….
Mary, you are so right. Once on the Seroxat, Olly was changed forever. We made excuses for the change in him. We put it down to stress, worry about his skin, his work, his concern that I would be paraplegic after the car crash, but no, it was the meds. And yet, we trusted that no doctor would, could possibly inflict something so unsafe on him. And every moment of every day, others now are trusting their doctors, just like we did. Because it makes us feel safe to do so, we hand over our precious trust, often because we are feeling ill and vulnerable and we expect to be treated as we would treat anyone ill and vulnerable reaching out to us for help.
The Perfect Circle describes the case of Olly and others like him. First the wretched acne, then the bullying at school because the skin looks different, then the RoAccutane – isotretinoin, then the weird low mood it sparks off, brain not working right, then the physical limitations from it too, so distractions like sports, creativity, socialising etc, get removed, then, ah, the trip to the doctor reporting feeling low. Have some Seroxat, says the smiling doctor. Then the free fall into paranoia, the fear (you know not why) and the insomnia, the akathisia. The skin may be better, but madness has arrived. Confusion reigns in your head. The downward spiral of terror. Friends fall away. You drop out of Uni, your planned future you began training for, slips away too, into the mist of lost memory. Like a drowning swimmer you keep reaching out for a passing lifebelt, another doc, who offers more meds…still smiling. When you don’t improve, the smiling doctor turns to sarcasm, disbelief, irritation, you are branded as attention-seeking, a time waster, a mollycoddled immature parasite, and you trust them all; you believe that you really are as they describe you, so you maybe struggle on as best you can for as long as you can, awash with suicidal thoughts which keep engulfing you, and then, when your poor brain hurts too much to bear, and your loved ones turn grey before your eyes with helpless worry, you think, ‘I am a burden’ and you fly away. Seemingly there was no way out of this Perfect Circle because of misguided innocent TRUST compounded by humiliation, heaped onto the patient and the parents by the trusted medical ‘experts’.
annie says
At our new supermarket, adjacent to our village, I was struck by one of the staff behind the till a few months ago. She was so cheerful, so polite, so articulate and had a very ready sense of humour.
One of my characteristics is to have a little chat with most people I meet and almost, at once, me and this person hit it off. Meeting her, buying the fodder, you had to come away feeling uplifted.
I don’t know if other customers noticed her, particularly, after all, the food shop is always fraught with decisions and choosing and it can be a relief to leave with at least something…
Anyway, today, we starting chatting about how we had come to be in Argyll.
She told me she used to have a position in Mental Health, had written papers and given talks and had left because it was like ‘hitting your head against a brick wall.’
We couldn’t go on much because a couple of people were behind me, so we wished each other Happy Christmas as it was her last day before the hols and her grandchildren were arriving.
Huge beaming smiles.
As I left, I suddenly, thought…..what’s your name?
She told me.
Having an investigative bent, I did a search on the pc.
This turned up, and there she was…the wonderful Tracey Holley giving her experiences of anti depressants, panic attacks and her doctor…
After I listened to her talk, I listened to this one
Agnes’ Jacket
http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/research/activity/social-policy/ceimh/film-resources/gail-hornstein.aspx
How stunning is that…and a very good speaker..
http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/research/activity/social-policy/ceimh/film-resources/index.aspx
There are so many people out there that usually we never hear about and it is uncanny how a brief encounter can become a major encounter
Agnes’ jacket…..the story was told:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Agness-Jacket-Psychologists-Meanings-Madness/dp/1906254451/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1482002963&sr=1-1&keywords=agnes%27+jacket
the check out girl:
http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/research/activity/social-policy/ceimh/film-resources/traceys-story.aspx
Heather says
Annie, I think this is what they call serendipity. Your chance meeting and conversation with the checkout lady has brought forth real riches. The ‘Agnes’ Jacket’ story is really wonderful, as is all the rest by the psychologist who tells it. Isn’t it funny how we get moved to speak to someone or take a course of action when really our conscious mind seems almost elsewhere. I want to listen to it all again and again, but felt moved to thank you for finding such a marvellous resource. Quite amazingly uplifting. I love the reference to Tony Blair and the psychologist’s comparison between his belief in weapons of mass destruction (which could not be substantiated but HE was not branded as paranoid and popped into hospital) in comparison with the patient who had been incarcerated in hospital for years for her own perfectly logical ‘paranoia’ triggered from her own earlier political activism. Horses for courses, perhaps?
mary says
Breakfast on BBC1 this week is, in part, looking at police work involved with mental health issues and ‘preventing suicide’ issues. Maybe it’s time to help them out with some examples of the reasons behind the increase in the number of suicides – and ways of possibly reducing the number of people who present ‘in crisis’? Let’s see if we can get a mention of the problem as we see it!
Benedikt & Beatrice says
We have the following sad story:
Our son Constantin, 26 years old, died on 7 June 2009 by hanging.
He was a sweet child, a charming young man, laughing with many friends, many interests, sporty like sailing, skiing, etc. Becoming a successful auditor at DELOITTE.
After two courses of Roaccutane, in total 1.5 years, 360 mg/kg weight, he complained of various deceases: Bowelache, headache, etc. He had a brain scan for pseudo tumor cerebry gastroscopy, stomatitis, changing his girlfriends, feeling nervous and sad.
He complained that he had no joy in nothing anymore. Nobody could help him.
We sent him to the psychiatrist, who could not find anything at his first visit. Two days later Constantin was dead.
A former director of Hoffmann LaRoche, Vienna, told us, in his career he had three cases of suicide by Roaccutane.
The strange thing was that the dermatologist of Constantin, a friend of us, did not give us the anamnesis. We only got it by the health insurance. Naturally the dermatologist did not want to be friend with us anymore.
It happens that a board member of Roche is a uncle of Constantin. He told us, we are the only one in the world, who believe that there is a connection between Roaccutane and suicide.
We ordered various medical expert opinions:
• A professor for pharmacology of the Medical University in Vienna. He said that nobody can survive this quantity of vitamin A, which Constantin has received.
• A psychiatrist from the USA confirmed that Roaccutane makes brain changes and is definitely the reason for the suicide of Constantin.
• A biology scientist in Vienna confirmed that there is no doubt that this treatment with Roaccutane, as Constantin has experienced, is the reason for the suicide.
• A further pharmacologist of the Medical University of Vienna said that all the expertises are right but everything will be done to make sure that you don’t get right.
That what Isotretinoin does, is changing the gen expression, telomerase-shortening and shrinking all the cells of bowel and brain specially.
We deposited affidavits at several lawyers in order to fix all those statements, which are partially given only orally.
All our own actions have not been successful. We filed a complaint at the criminal authorities in Vienna and filed a civil law suite against the dermatologist. In both cases our claims were dismissed, respectively withdrawn by us, based on the court nominated medical expert opinions from a professor in Vienna and a professor in Basel/Switzerland who were saying that there has never been a connection between Roaccutane and suicide of Constantin.
We would be so glad to safe lifes of young people.
Beatrice and Benedikt
Heather says
Benedikt and Beatrice, we are so terribly sorry about your loss of your dear son Constantin, this terrible loss being compounded by the wrongful denial by various professionals to you about the link between RoAccutane- isotretinoin and suicide.
Constantin’s and our son Olly’s story are so similar. (Funnily enough, Olly valued DELOITTES, along with Lufthansa and Honda, as clients in his very successful web commerce and design business in UK).
It is helpful and interesting to learn how you made every attempt to right this wrong, from Austria. We also thank you so much for having the courage and concern for others, to have added Constantin’s story to this RxISK Blog; many bereaved parents are so broken by what has happened that they struggle to know how to begin writing their accounts, as it is so terribly painful to re-visit these events. You have shown enormous courage by writing this and it will help so many others.
I am sad to say that I guess Roche, who make this drug, must be banking on the fact that most of us can’t bear to think about the horrors that have befallen our youngsters, and find it so difficult to talk or write about. Another element of Constantin’s story is the changing his girlfriends and no doubt this would become a convenient excuse for psychiatrists to assign his ‘depression’ to. But neither Constantin nor Olly were truly depressed, they were sad and life held no joy for them anymore. This of course makes relationships very difficult. Olly had a delightful girlfriend for 9 years who (along with her very supportive family) did all they could to help Olly to cope with his feelings of low mood for all of that time. Sadly she only met him in 2002/3 after his sunny carefree character had changed forever already, after he started on RoAccutane-isotretinoin in 2001, so she never knew the’real’ him, but nevertheless, they were together all those years as soul mates. He did not understand what had happened to his mind, and often said he could not marry and bring children into this world in case they should experience the mental agony that he did. He totally blamed himself for feeling so ill – we can never forgive the callous attitude of Roche for putting him, and those who loved him, through this hell, just because they refuse to admit the truth.
Like Constantin he loved ski-ing and sailing, he loved life (before he took RoAccutane-isotretinoin) and without him, our life is very empty. The loss of Constantin and Olly, and all the others we know of, is appalling, and sadly these losses will go on unless people speak out, as you have. There is a massive cover up going on, so NO WONDER you were told by your relative, who was a Board Member of Roche, that you are the only person who suggests a connexion between RoAccutane-isotretinoin and suicide! We hope after reading this, and also if you look at the Facebook page of http://www.ollysfriendshipfoundafion.org.uk you will see that you are one amongst MANY others. We light a designated white lantern candle for each of those we know about, for the anniversary of their passing, with a few words about them on that page, and on their birthdays we light a candle in a different coloured glass flower votive, and if they wish, their parents write a few words about them. If you would like us to include Constantin to our group of youngsters, just let us know.
Thank you for speaking out as you have, to save the lives of other young people. Constantin would be so proud of you and your enormous courage.
Heather and David Roberts
Noel Hershfield says
I attended an “update “on anti psychotics,and was appalled that none of the speakers hardily even mentioned the horrific adverse effect of these drugs.One o0f them,who I have known for years said my take on the subject was hysterical!! on the subject of isotretinoin certainle discusses the central side effects,and like many of the anti psychotics the prominent anti-cholinergic actions. This case is a tragedy. This young man obviously had some deep major psychological problem even before he started all these meds.
Heather says
Noel, I am sorry to take issue with you, and your views on antipsychotics and isotretinoin are welcome, but I can assure you that neither Olly nor Constantin had any ‘deep psychological problem’ before either of them took RoAccutane- isotretinoin, and indeed, that is the whole point of what we have written on this subject. We have described in detail Olly’s history, explaining that he was a happy and well adjusted creative young man at Uni, very successful in both his work and his relationships. Yes, his acne was unpleasant, and bullying because of it at school was sometimes hard to deal with, but that did not mean he had ‘deep psychological problems’. The fact that he went on to achieve such amazing academic results despite this, and was popular and well loved by so many people, (200 friends attended his funeral service) surely indicates that he was funny, kind, reliable and well adjusted. Benedikt and Beatrice write in a similar vein about Constantin. I suggest maybe if you re-read the accounts of these two young men’s lives carefully, you will be able to understand the background better and will see that your judgement is inaccurate.
tim. says
Beatrice and Benedict,
I am so profoundly sorry for your suffering and loss.
Tim.
Carla says
Dear Baetrice and Benedict,
We are very saddened by the untimely loss of your beautiful son, Constantin.
We will keep you and your son in our thoughts and prayers.
Everyone who has been maimed or died unjustly, will be in my prayers.
These poisons are very dangerous and the continuous lies and cover ups, only makes us more determined to get the TRUTH out there.
Keep striving for the TRUTH, Baetrice and Benedict.
The more noise we make, the harder it gets to ignore what we are trying to say.
Keep raising awareness.
We are all in this together.
If these poisons are causing more harm than what they are worth, the populace needs to know about it.
Stay strong and thank you for your courage.
Everyone, needs to hear our stories.
Love and blessings,
Carla
Gaye says
Olly was the most delightful young man I have had the pleasure to have known.
So kind & caring.Olly loved nature.A very talented young photographer .Very level headed .He suffered with acne and so started using Ro-Accutane, which seemed to change his character.Olly was a friend of our son, Chris,who thought the world of him.The boys were friends from prep school.
Such a loss; It angers me to think about these drugs companies burying their heads in the sand & not taking the blame for these beautiful young people taking their lives.Its tragic.
Gaye
Tim. says
We must all keep presenting and publicising our knowledge and awareness of the facts: –
Our happy, productive and socially integrated lost-souls were indeed lost to heavily marketed, profoundly psycho-toxic and often casually prescribed “medications”.
Those who misdiagnosed their overwhelming ADRs as “psychotic depression” or “bipolar” et al, applied these committee defined, biased, value-judgement labels, and then prescribed, enforced and injured even more gravely.
They then ignored contemptuously, the cumulative and obvious brain, endocrine and other multi-systems, iatrogenic maiming.
They have no interest in their “patients” pre-poisoning achievements, success, status and joy of life, or the joy and delight they gave to others.
They are incapable of identifying or understanding what exquisite human attributes existed before our loved ones were exposed to marketing masquerading as medicine.
“Each new psychiatrist only sees the damage caused by the previous psychiatrist”.
“This is not medicine”.
Their G.P.s – who may have struggled to understand how the charismatic and delightful young person they once knew and prescribed for perished, – are subject to intense and unrelenting “mental health” propaganda.
They are also wholly dependent on pharmaceutical company funded and fastidiously controlled “Continuing Medical Education” to achieve their professional re-accreditation.
The relentless denial of the reality of each tragedy drives our equally unrelenting demand for acceptance and acknowledgement.
Forensic toxicology, genomic sequencing, knowledge of variant metabolism and the realities of akathisia, awareness that real science exists, and fully explains the grotesque, iatrogenic patho-physiology.
Only when this becomes part of the postgraduate medical education core curriculum will these medical catastrophes be abated.
Until then, psychiatry means “Never Having To Say You Are Sorry”.
Not even to those who never, ever, had any psychiatric condition.
Heather says
The point for us of having been given the opportunity to tell Olly’s story, and show what RoAccutane-isotretinoun and subsequent psychotropic drugs did to him, is to ‘help others’, pure and simple. For those who may visit RxISK whilst deliberating about whether or not to take RoAccutane-isotretinoin, we hope his tragic story, and the stories of many others like him, will give them some facts which they may not be made aware of elsewhere.
But what help can we offer to others who are already trapped in the RoAccutane Perfect Circle? From various RoAccutane sites and forums all over the Internet, we gather that for many people there has been permanent damage to minds, colons, livers, pancreas, eyes, land sexual function, as well as other body part damage. And yet there are plenty of accounts too of successful use of this drug, with minimal side effects like dry skin. So, why is this? What causes this Russian roulette situation?
There is no doubt that high doses of Vitamin A can be toxic. One of Beatrice and Benedikt’s experts confirmed this. And we’ve known this since polar explorers became psychotic after having to eat polar bear livers, full of vitamin A. If we ingest a toxin, we need to get rid of it. Does the disparity between accounts of using the drug happen because some users can metabolise and excrete it easily and quickly, and some cannot, so it reverts to attacking the areas like brains and colons, maybe following the purpose it was invented for originally as a chemotherapy drug, hunting out tumours. Maybe where there is no tumour, they work viciously in those areas anyway, because they are programmed to do so. Could a deficiency of the enzyme CYP450 indicate that some people cannot tolerate this drug without dire and sometimes permanent side effects which ruin their lives?
But what can we offer those who are already trapped and damaged? What helped Olly? How did he keep going and finding at least some joy in life, across those 11 years? I’m sorry to say that because doctors and social workers did not know much about RoAccutane and believed that antipsychotics and antidepressants were a cure all solution to ‘low mood’, he had to reach out to other forms of help. We have to remember too that he didn’t credit his mental confusion with damage from his acne drug. He was beyond rationalising that out for himself because his mind had already been ‘captured’. That is the horror of RoAccutane-isotretinoin. It brainwashes you so you can’t see what it is doing, till too late.
Olly’s most helpful resource was The Samaritans. After starting to feel really ill on Escilatropram (akathisia kicking in again – but it was not recognised, tragically, by anyone) and in desperation, he secretly called Samaritans. They were wonderful. For one thing, they are there to listen without judging you. Sure, they probably didn’t know about the acne drug, but then, even Olly didn’t make the connection, so he wouldn’t have told them. They sent him on courses in groups they ran. They listened to him. They gave him hope. He felt that by talking to them, he didn’t have to tell us how desperate he was, because his pride and independence mattered greatly to him, right up to the end.
Other things which kept him going were: love, the most vital thing, from those around him, company, distraction into creative work projects, both commercial and charitable, and looking forward with hope to better days ahead. Trying to keep a positive attitude no matter how ill he was feeling. Exercising in a gym, cycling, getting away sometimes to the sea, capturing the beauty of nature in photography, growing plants – planting a seed and hoping that by the time it flowered, better days would have come.
In our group of youngsters, some realised the RoAccutane was making them ill, some didn’t. The ones who did were seem to be the ones with the least amount of acne. NONE of them had previous mental health problems, but they all just wanted their acne to go. Nothing mad about that. Totally normal reaction. The worse the acne, the more they wanted the drug to work, and the less they wanted to blame it. Hence our term ‘The Perfect Circle’. Once SSRIs were added to the mix, things got far worse.
This is the REAL tragedy. This is the real horror of the situation, and this is why immediate attention needs focussing on a safe, effective, affordable way of treating acne. To make RoAccutane-isotretinoin like Thalidomide, a drug never used again, because the deaths and deformities it caused were eventually admitted to. And we need ways of minimising the damage already done to those trapped in The Perfect Circle, so they don’t end up like Olly, Constantin, Jon, Elliot, Jesse, Jack, James, Diana, David and hundreds and thousands of others. Our beloved brave children.
Carla says
Dear Heather, Tim, Annie, Mary, Benedict & Beatrice and many brave souls who I have forgotten to mention,
I admire your intelligence and understanding of how these medicines not only injure the delicate brain but how they damage other organs of the body that are so delicately interconnected.
Be brave and strong. Speak up and let the passion within you be the driving force that ‘overrides’ the nonsense that some clinicians and big pharma spin.
Many innocent people have paid the price and we do not need to be further insulted, belittled or have our dignity stripped away from us, by those who lack compassion and are only interested in the $$$ or their pathetic self-interests.
Ongoing research and education ~ what a joke!
Why don’t they invest in researching how to fix the damage these meds induce!!!! ~total denial. It is funny how they blame the injury or disease on something else!
Don’t worry!!!
They will always have a med to fix up a problem and then create another problem.
I’m sorry to say this but, in my opinion this is definitely not a dignified way of healing!
Their main interest is to have your business at your body’s expense.
Western Medicine needs to be revamped because in this day and age, it is causing more problems that what it is worth.
Quality of lives are compromised and Western Medicine has failed so many peoples good health. We have to go back to the basics and learn from our ancestors.
Why do you think we have so many research facilities?
To generate jobs and to undo what the meds and other toxins induce to our bodies. Then if you come up with a solution, you are considered a hero!
caveat: They don’t tell you that the remedy induces other health problems, do they!
My philosophy of medicine is to gently heal ~ not harm!
Thank you to all for your outstanding contribution.
Your commitment and passion are second to none.
keep up the great work.
Love Carla
Carla says
Tim puts things so eloquently.
The medical establishment are responsible for denigrating, destroying, falsely defaming, insinuating and discrediting the sane mental health of many innocent patients.
This undignified cruelty of peoples mental health, not only reflects how unjust the professionals who run the show are but, shows a level of immaturity and just how low many can get, just to ruin someone’s mental health and name.
I am quite appalled and totally shocked how the medical establishment framework abuses patients who have been harmed by meds.
This kind of ‘indignity’ that strips the people of any rights because of the false labels that are placed on them, only goes to show how shallow, mean spirited and how demonic some professionals truly are.
The change has to come within the ‘big boys club’, that continuously abuses their power and authority over those who are innocent and have had no say in their unfortunate outcome.
Yes, collateral damage at its worst!!!!!!!
Some, really don’t care about psychological vilification they inflict on innocent people.
Shame, shame, shame on some of you professionals who call yourselves doctors. What a disgrace to the Hippocratic oath!
Some of you carry on as if you have not pledged your oath and you still call yourselves a doctor?????
Benedikt & Beatrice says
Dear Heather, dear Carla,
Thank you so much for your comments. You are so right.
Dear all other parents who had the same loss. It is certain: Our sons are heroes and angels in heaven.
Beatrice & Benedikt
Heather says
Dear Beatrice and Benedikt,
Your message of solidarity is wonderful to read, and gives us courage to go on. We have all been brought together by the most terrible experience any loving parents can ever have to endure. The only way to find a silver lining in this is to warn others and fight for justice, even though we meet with denials from those who seemingly have power. They will not always have that power. If we only save one life by someone having read our stories and because of their new knowledge, then avoiding the use of RoAccutane- isotretinoin, then we have done some good in the name of our dear sons, who will be there when we meet again one day. Heroes and angels, indeed they are.
Heather and David
Simone says
Hello
I am a mother of a 15 yr old boy and i have experienced the worst situation/s in regard to DOCTORS/ Dermatologists and the prescribing of Isotretinoin to my Son.I have felt angered like never before that this drug is so seemingly standard treatment procedure that i had been the subject of losing a long battle with my fight to stop isotretinoin being prescribed to my Son. My Sons Father instigated the appointments with Drs for my Son to receive Isotretinoin AGAINST MY WILL.I. begged my Sons Father not to ever give my son isotretinoin ( was just 14 at that time) yet he continued to do so even to the point of stating to the department of child protection that i was not giving my son the medicine he needed – ( my son had skin disorder – although the condition settled and was no longer an issue) and the department of child protection advised to The family court that i wasnt giving my son the medicine he needed and with a Drs note to the family court also stating that my son needed isotretinoin……..i lost custody of my son as of April this year.i have much to say regarding the entire situation yet i have felt desperate and alone and in desperate need to share my story with the right persons as i know my Son has been damaged by this drug
Thankyou Simone
B says
Dear Heather and David,
I’m so sorry for your loss. I read this wholes story and was dearly hoping to hear that your son was doing better at the end. I also have had a reaction to RoAccutane similar to his depression, but was never fed varying cocktails of other drugs and antidepressants with it and was able to stop taking it and slowly recover afterwards. I am so sorry for the disgusting treatment you received from these health professionals. Anyone with a mental health disorder needs all the help they can get, you were only doing your best to provide it.
Recently a family member of mine took their own life. He also had struggled with mental health for a long time, and while we never want our loved ones to leave us it’s sometimes cruel to expect them to keep struggling. My mother likened his depression to swimming in the middle of an ocean trying to find land with no success; sometimes you would see a boat that promises reprieve but then it drifts away while you become more tired. We mustn’t blame the swimmer for needing rest.
I hope you have found some peace since his passing.
With deepest sympathy,
B.
Zacharie Diotte says
This is a tragedy. I am so hurt and horrified by your loss and what Olly, his loved ones and countless others including myself have had to go through due to the crisis in medicine and health.
I think there is only one way forward for everyone. To draw the link between the profit system – capitalism – and the crisis we are seeing before our very eyes in health, in war, in poverty, climate catastrophe, and so on. Health under capitalism is a dinosaur, not oriented towards optimal health but profit, towards the treatment of symptoms – allopathic – and not the curing of the cause – functional. This crisis will continue because this socio-economic system cannot provide for the great breadt of humanity whilst all of the world’s assets remain in the hands of a privileged minority, who care about profits first, second, third and fourth. They must be overthrown.
The working class by virtue of its position in the economy – it produces everything – has the power to cease and halt its production and take control of the rich resources squandered and put it towards society’s needs like health and create a better and more harmonious socio-economic system. They are the only ones who can and will do it. The fight for medicine and science to reign over disease is the fight for socialism over capitalism, nothing else.