The Pharmaceutical Journal reports that NHS data shows there’s been a 41% increase in the number of children aged 5–12 years who were prescribed antidepressants in the last six years. Yet withdrawal problems including akathisia are seldom discussed prior to prescription.

Kristen Shukla, a child psychiatrist at Oxford Health NHS, states, “The difficulties with withdrawing from these drugs has only more recently been acknowledged. There is a very high risk that children who start taking these drugs when very young will continue taking them for many years and into adulthood.” Read the full article at https://www.madinamerica.com/2022/05/nhs-data-41-rise-antidepressant-prescribing-children-aged-5-12-since-2015/

Geraldine and Cindy discuss her late father’s prescribed harm. Louis was given drugs marketed as antidepressants and later prescribed Seroquel off-label. He soon grew increasingly anxious and developed classic symptoms of akathisia that were not accurately diagnosed and treated. He paced, rocked back and forth, and remarked on his new and worsening symptoms. Louis eventually ended his akathisia suffering by ending his life. Listen and learn at https://www.studiocchicago.com/akathisia-stories

The overprescribing of psychiatric drugs is a growing health problem that puts people at risk of permanent harm. One out of six Americans are now prescribed psych drugs, often without warning of drug dependency and critical risks to include akathisia.

Read the full article at https://www.theepochtimes.com/the-problematic-overprescription-of-psychiatric-drugs_4429336.html

A new study finds that antidepressant drugs may not improve long-term quality of life. “If we don’t expect improvement from the continuous use of these medications, then the correct decision might be to stop the continuous use of these medications,” said Omar Almohammed, a pharmacologist at King Saud University in Saudi Arabia and a co-author of the study.

Read the full article at https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/21/well/antidepressants-ssri-effectiveness.html

“Passengers on the Tube are routinely informed to “Mind the Gap” at each stop to help ensure a safe journey,” said MISSD founder Wendy Dolin. “Similarly, our train adverts spotlight a major healthcare gap so that patients can be better informed and safer. Most patients have never heard of akathisia, and some prescribers are unaware of the causes, symptoms, and potentially fatal risks.”

Read more about MISSD’s London Underground Awareness Campaign at https://www.einpresswire.com/article/568379273/new-adverts-on-the-london-underground-are-increasing-akathisia-awareness-to-reduce-suicide

MISSD’s new akathisia awareness campaign on the London Underground is gathering attention from the press and fueling a Twitter storm. These ads are different from the MISSD ads that previously ran on Chicago, San Francisco and New York City trains. Tomorrow we’ll have more info about the reasons why.

Here’s an article published today in London’s newspaper, The Telegraph: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/search.html

“April is a month dedicated to raising awareness about important health issues,” said Dolin. It’s National Counseling Month, National Stress Awareness Month, and today is World Health Day. While MISSD works daily to increase awareness of akathisia, many health and suicide prevention organizations fail to discuss akathisia. Pharmaceutical ads that mention suicide “side effects” also neglect to communicate that these risks are frequently caused by akathisia. Such omissions increase the likelihood that psychiatric adverse drug effects are falsely attributed to life challenges or the consumer’s underlying condition and not to the pharmaceutical product.”

See MISSD’s press release at https://www.einpresswire.com/article/567162202/suicide-can-be-an-adverse-drug-effect

Like most doctors, Kerri’s prescribers never ran any lab tests before they gave her SSRIs. As a result, Kerri suffered iatrogenic harm for years. She shares her story on our akathisia podcast and the Fiddaman Blog so that others might be better informed about metabolism issues and appropriate lab tests.

Read her guest post at https://fiddaman.blogspot.com/. Listen to her interview at https://soundcloud.com/studiocchicago/episode-13-of-akathisia-stories-kerri-lynn?utm_source=clipboard&utm_campaign=wtshare&utm_medium=widget&utm_content=https%253A%252F%252Fsoundcloud.com%252Fstudiocchicago%252Fepisode-13-of-akathisia-stories-kerri-lynn.

Knowing the causes and symptoms of akathisia prior to starting, stopping, or changing dosage or type of certain medications can save lives. Had these families been in formed of the risks prior to receiving these prescriptions, they likely would never have had an akathisia story to share in our public health video. Listen and learn at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibCOhnmM608

See and share our public awareness video, “What Does Akathisia Look Like?” Akathisia is often missed or misdiagnosed in part because of the false belief that all akathisia sufferers exhibit uncontrollable movements. Some akathisia sufferers do not exhibit movement and others are able to control movements for short periods of time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ER4JGnRssSk