MISSD is grateful to all who attended our annual Chicago fundraiser. Thank you to our generous sponsors who donated amazing items for the silent auction. Thank you to all who support MISSD throughout the year and were with us in spirit in Chicago on Thursday. Together we reached milestones in 2019 and have identified many new goals for 2020.
Only 3 more days until the MISSD annual gala. If you’re in the Chicago area, please consider joining us. Although our foundational goals are a serious matter, our annual gala is a lighthearted event with good food and great people. Get your tickets online or at the door.
England’s National Health Service (NHS) announces new guidelines alerting the public of withdrawal problems associated with commonly-prescribed depression pills. The guidelines make it clear coming off SSRIs can cause long-lasting symptoms. NHS is England’s drug regulator and is similar to America’s FDA.
“We have amended the guideline to recognise the emerging evidence on the severity and duration of antidepressant withdrawal symptoms,” said Dr Paul Chrisp, director of the centre for guidelines at NICE, a watchdog for NHS.
SSRIs include Paroxetine (sold as Seroxat in the UK and Paxil in the US); Sertraline (sold as Lustrol in the UK and Zoloft in the US), and; Fluoxetine (sold as Sarafem in the UK and Prozac in the US).
MISSD promotes critical dialogue and accurate info on World Mental Health Day.
“We need to have meaningful public conversations about adverse drug effects and mental health. Lives can be saved when people are well informed.” — Wendy Dolin, MISSD
“We were talking about dad tonight & I think something’s not right,” said daughter whose dad started Cymbalta 3 weeks earlier.
Gail, who discusses her late husband’s akathisia tragedy here in our podcast series, says, “I really wasn’t educated on any of the side effects of any of these drugs.”
Mental Illness Awareness Week is a good time to learn more about adverse drug effects that can negatively impact normal cognitive functions. Akathisia is caused by 100s of different drugs, many of which are not prescribed for mental health challenges.
Akathisia can occur when stopping, starting or changing the dose or type of certain medications. While the severity of symptoms varies, this MISSD video shows what akathisia sometimes looks like.
When adverse drug effects are misdiagnosed as signs of mental illness, it can cause avoidable suffering & death. In recognition of Mental Illness Awareness Week, let’s increase awareness of adverse drug effects that can look like mental illnesses but are not.
Click here to take our free, 1-hour, accredited Akathisia 101 course or visit MISSD.LearnUpon.com
Accutane and Roaccutane are being linked to at least 14 deaths this year–mainly from suicide. An inquiry in the UK has been opened after consumers shared adverse experiences to include young men who claim to have been left impotent & families whose children died from what they believe to be prescription-drug-induced suicides.
Study finds benzodiazepine prescriptions doubled during a 12-year period with more doctors prescribing them for conditions other than insomnia and anxiety.
“The problem is in the long term, they lead to more problems than they solve,” said Dr. Anna Lembke, Medical Director of addiction medicine at Stanford University. “People develop a tolerance, and they need more and more to get the same effect. They develop a dependence, finding when they don’t take them their anxiety is worse. And they think, ‘Oh, I need it because I have an anxiety disorder,’ but in many instances they’re actually medicating withdrawal from the last dose, so you can get into this vicious cycle.”
In episode 4 of Akathisia Stories, we hear from international drug safety advocate, Kim Witczak, who discusses the akathisia-induced death of her late husband, Woody, and her subsequent advocacy.
“Woody took the three-week sample pack, did what the doctor said – you know, take week one, week two,” says Kim, who was out of the country on a business trip when Woody started taking Zoloft as prescribed. When Kim came home, she saw Woody drenched with sweat. “He dropped his briefcase at the backdoor; went into a fetal position on our kitchen floor with his hands wrapped around his head like a vice, going: ‘Help me, Kim; help me. I don’t know what’s happening to me. It’s like my head’s outside my body looking in.’”
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