MISSD is pleased to release our latest educational video to help healthcare professionals, consumers and caregivers increase their awareness of akathisia and reduce avoidable suffering and death. “Akathisia: In Their Own Words,” features firsthand experiences of people who suffered akathisia and family members who witnessed akathisia before their loved one’s death.

Please see and share our latest video to increase akathisia awareness and reduce avoidable deaths. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibCOhnmM608

It’s critical that consumers and caregivers are accurately informed that drug withdrawal can cause withdrawal akathisia. Safe and slow tapering of depression pills can reduce the possibility and/or severity of suffering from akathisia.

“Over the course of a few appointments with my well-meaning psychiatrist, I listened politely as he talked about halving my antidepressant pills every couple of days and hoping for the best in my next psychotropic-cessation experiment.”

Read the full article at https://www.madinamerica.com/2021/04/how-i-became-my-own-psychiatrist/

Withdrawal akathisia can occur when stopping certain drugs. It’s critical clinicians and consumers have conversations about akathisia so that early warning signs can be recognized.

“A large review by Public Health England identified the need to educate both the public and our clinicians about the likely benefits and effects of psychiatric drugs and withdrawal from them. They are also overprescribed because when people try and come off the drugs, their withdrawal responses are often mistaken as relapse. So people come to believe, “I’ve got to be on this drug for life.”

Read the full interview at https://www.madinamerica.com/2021/04/how-therapists-can-help-with-drug-withdrawal-an-interview-with-anne-guy/

Many prescribers don’t realize akathisia can start when certain drugs are stopped. It’s critical that health care consumers and doctors understand the symptoms of akathisia–and have critical conversations about adverse drug effects prior to prescribing.

“A key factor to successfully discontinuing psychotropic medication is access to supportive, competent physicians who can assist their clients in tapering in such a way that is safe and minimizes withdrawal symptoms. Unfortunately, however, doctors traditionally do not learn how to most effectively taper people off medication, focusing instead on putting individuals on medication.”

Read the full article at https://www.madinamerica.com/2021/04/little-guidance-available-discontinuing-psychiatric-drugs/

MISSD is pleased to see the adverse effects of SSRI withdrawal in the news but dismayed the author seems unaware these symptoms have a medical name: Akathisia.

The article states that after stopping SSRIs (and other types of drugs), if you start feeling: “anxiety, insomnia, headache, dizziness, tiredness, irritability, flu symptoms, nausea, sensations of electric shock and symptoms of depression, call your doctor.”

Read the full article at https://radiofiji.com.fj/antibiotics-antidepressants-and-other-medications-that-you-should-not-leave-without-medical-indication/9256/

Adverse drug effects are a leading cause of death, yet coroners aren’t required to report what drug(s) the deceased was taking, or withdrawing from, at the time of death. In Ireland, one family is courageously petitioning for positive change.

The coroner at Mr. O’Neill’s inquest stated that the Sertraline (Zoloft) “possibly contributed” to his death, but his consumption of this drug was not recorded on his death certificate.

Mr. O’Neill’s niece, Colleen Bell, is campaigning for “change to the coronial system to ensure all the pharmaceutical drugs a person has been taking in the lead-up to their death, are officially recorded by coroners.”

Read the full article at https://www.thedetail.tv/articles/calls-for-northern-ireland-coroners-to-record-pharmaceutical-drug-use

“Surprisingly, there are no published guidelines on how to come off antipsychotics. Stopping medications is an important part of the job of a psychiatrist, yet it has received relatively little attention.” 

More than 50% of individuals who have taken antipsychotics reported negative experiences, including but not limited to suicidality, emotional numbing, sedation, weight gain, and cognitive difficulties.

Read the full article at https://www.madinamerica.com/2021/03/major-publication-tapering-antipsychotics-released/

A routine medical records request helped this healthcare consumer identify errors regarding akathisia.

Akathisia: “One of the oldest and most ghoulish side effects” that can vary from a mild, knee-bouncing restlessness to a hellish, suicidal dysphoria…”

Read the full article at https://www.milwaukeemag.com/how-seeing-my-mental-health-records-helped-me-and-didnt/

A new article in the Journal of Critical Psychology, Counselling, and Psychotherapy, discusses the dangers of misdiagnosing SSRI withdrawal as other conditions. Prescribers “often mistake patients’ experience of withdrawing from antidepressants as Medically Unexplained Symptoms (MUS) or Functional Neurological Disorders (FNDs).”

Read the article at https://www.madinamerica.com/2021/03/antidepressant-withdrawal-misdiagnosed-functional-disorders/

“Contrary to prominent claims, we find no reliable evidence that antidepressants protect against suicide. Instead, it appears that antidepressant use may even increase suicide risk,” state researchers who conducted a meta-analysis.

Further, Hengartner et al. found that “studies funded by the pharmaceutical industry were far more likely to find lower suicide rates than studies performed by independent researchers. Studies that make antidepressants look poor are far less likely to be published.”

Michael Hengartner, Simone Amendola, Jakob Kaminski, Simone Kindler, Tom Bschor, and Martin Plöderl recently published the findings in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. Read the full article at https://www.madinamerica.com/2021/03/antidepressants-still-linked-increased-suicide-risk/