DRUG QUESTONS

While it my be helpful to ask about drugs from members of this forum if you go to

http://www.askapatient.com/

There is database of several million people who have used specific drugs and their detailed reports

What it does not tell you in detail is that most drugs used to treat fibro can cause lasting changes in the central nervous system that can take months to years of increased and new symptoms (withdrawal) once the medication is stopped

Three good web sites for this is

http://survivingantidepressants.org/

PaxilProgress.com

http://livingwithcfs.com/understanding-antidepressant-withdrawal/

Or that some fibro medications can actually prevent the patient from recovering

Good discussion on this at: Dr. Peter Breggin

Since there is no cure at this time for fibro doctors often try to do something just to placate the patient - it is critical that we be 100% informed patients so we are not further harmed

Andre-One thing,which I have said to you before. Your use of absolutes to characterize your beliefs jeopardizes your argument significantly. Few, if any, doctors, researchers, or scientists will state their reading of the research as starkly one-sided as do you. If you wish to have a conversation regarding medication use, you need to try to restrain your biases and listen to both sides of an argument.

There is a wide swath of anti-psychiatry and patient-blaming at work in Breggin's work, which damages his message. Suggestions that medications only have side effects and not benefits, that patients bring mental illness on themselves due to weaknesses, and that the medical establishment is complicit in labeling mental illness as "not medical in nature" and indebted to Big Pharma--All these make him an unreliable advocate.

Some doctors concede that Breggin may have some valid points in that ADs have been over-prescribed. Few reputable sources, however, endorse his views, and believe his message is tainted by accepting a premise and cherry-picking the research to prove it.

However, they also argue that his science is not strong and based largely on anecdote, and that his advice may lead patients into danger when they stop using their prescribed medications.

ADs are medications that work to change the brain chemistry. Any such medications *can be* dangerous, if used incorrectly. Any medication can be used incorrectly.

The biggest knock that I see on Dr. Breggin's views is that he does not seem to differentiate between the different causes and sources of depression, and instead mandates a one-size-fits-all-comers treatment. Dr. Breggin advocates for the idea that ADs should be removed from treatment options completely, and as most realize, every patient is different.

"People like Peter Breggin do a great disservice to the mentally ill by feeding the ‘you-can-cure-yourself-if-you-just-believe-you-can fantasy’ many of us have." (a former patient, Bi-Polar)

Dr. Jerrold (cq) Rosenbaum, Harvard Medical School psychiatry professor and Massachusetts General Hospital associate chief of psychiatry, has deemed Breggin "an anti-psychiatrist." "He makes his living offering a consistent, one-sided criticism of psychiatric medications."

Post Edited (Myself 09) : 10/25/2015 10:44:36 AM (GMT-6)

You still can't say that the bad effects take away from the good effects. I so far have done well on AD medications and have been on them for over 20 years. Just saying. I am sure that there are others who have been helped with AD's. But if only used for pain, then the side effects would out way and they probably shouldn't be used for just that. Though Cymbalta sounds like it helps for pain. Side effects and withdrawal effects usually brutal.

I experienced horrific withdrawal symptoms when I weaned off Lexapro and Valium. I understand there are millions of people who benefit from these drugs and some don't experience any kind of problems when they decide to go off. But the segment of the population who do suffer should not be dismissed.