Psych Meds Can Kill?

Hi, I am new and I have a question about psychiatric medication. If any of you know whether or not long term use of these serious psych meds can kill us or make us sick by damaging our internal organs, eyes etc over a long period of time. Some doctors have said, "yes" to my Mom but she won't tell me anything. I already know that these meds whoop the tar out of our brains.

I think it may depend on the med that is being taken. Some require you to have blood taken to check the toxicity level, which can effect the internal organs it it goes too high. Others may have some effects that aren't proven as actual effects. I know that I never even had a headache in my life until I was put on anti-depressants. Then it was terrible, & couldn't live with the migraine pain. Of course, I don't know if my body would have started having migraines anyway at that point, but it was quite a coincidence. Of course, I abused the meds quite often & ended up at toxic levels because of that. I don't know what permanent effect that abuse had. I might have caused what was only a side effect to be something long term, cause the migraines never went away even though I quit taking any psych meds. I never liked the way I felt while on any of the psych meds so couldn't justify taking them.

This is just my experience. Welcome to the forums. Hope we can help answer some of your questions. I take it by your name, you are into singing with a fairly low voice. I got my AA in music in 1973 as a flute player. Didn't go on from there in music cause couldn't bring myself to become a teacher, so continued it on as my hobby. Welcome again.
Debbie

There is an example of a psych med that could kill....Serzone (nefazodone) could cause a serious liver disorder called fulminant hepatitis, which can be fatal. The drug was withdrawn from the market, despite the fact that the adverse response was exceedingly rare, and probably triggered by genetic factors.

The idea that psych drugs are damaging to organs or our brain is unfounded by science. It seems to be a popular idea, though, because it is plausible. Plausibility is the sense we have that something could be true. I am a toxicologist, and I find no evidence to support that idea.

I'm one of those people who doesn't tolerate psych drugs well. In fact, in almost all cases, the effect of the drug was worse than what I was trying to treat, in the long run. That's probably got something to do with my genes, and my history of being abused, but that's an intuitive thing. Anyway, drugs saved my life, because they kicked me headlong out of suicidal ideation. They just don't help me in other ways.

Psych drugs are powerful, and should not be used indiscriminately. I don't quite know what you're suggesting when you say that they "whoop the tar out of our brains", but if they did more harm than good, they wouldn't be available to us.

If you have some specific concerns, or specific drugs to talk about, I'd be happy to discuss this further.

Lar

Gee, good question, but almost any med taken long term can cause damage to our bodies, organ function, etc. such risks are not limited to any particular kind, such as psychiatric meds. The best I can say, is ask the doc, pharmaceutical company too, sometimes you can reach them on the internet.
I take psych.medication, so far I haven't had any problems, I do wonder in the back of my mind what will be long term, but also ask myself where would I have been if I didn't use the medication, which can be more damaging than the medication, sometimes we need to weigh the risks, and also understand that not "all" medications are dangerous if taken as prescribed.
I wish you luck with this

DE

The meds given for schizophrenia in the '60's like Thorazine, Compazine, Stellazine, prolixzin etc were horrible! The side effects were tormenting, and grueling. I suffered extreme agitation, nervousness etc. I know that one of my psychiatrists told me not to stay on Mellaril too long because drugs like these can cause Tardive Diskinensia (spelling?) There are other effects that patients get like Parkinsons Syndrome, and Akinesisa (spelling). These are terrible to have. Common Sense tells you that being on these mind-controlling and brain- chemical-altering substances can be very debilitating over a long period.
I was diagnosed as having Schizophrenia in the 1960's, then Schizo-Affective Disorder in the early '80's--this was later changed in the late '80's to Bipolar Disorder and Dissociative Identity Disorder and when I was given Lithium I began to get a lot better. The longest I stayed hospital free was 12 years. Till about 5 years ago and I had a lot of ongoing stress.

The anti-psychotic meds were devastating and never helped me. The Mellaril eventually made me have heart murmurs and blood pressure problems. Plus the dr. told me that Mellaril causes blindness in rats. My local Mental Health has a sign posted by their pharmacy department about the side effects from taking anti-psychotics for a long time. I think from 1965-1986 is quite a long time and I won't let any doctor ever give them to me again! Askinensia is the one that gives you the facial Tics and nervousness in the legs were you can't keep still. Tardive Diskeninsia is the one where you can't control your tongue sticking out of your mouth. Who the heck wants this to happen to them. And Parkinson Disease is where you cannot control your movements of your body.
I want to get off all my meds. I hate meds!! I don't even get high off anything I don't even drink. I am over weight because of this mess and Neurontin (Gabapentin) gave me Panic Attacks and almost caused me to have Blood poisoning because I had red streaks going down my arms. I wish a real doctor could answer us here sometimes, but thanks to everyone who answered.

*Yes, I sing Tenor/Baritone in my church Choir. I am mostly a Baritone.*

First thing I want to say is that I'm sorry if you thought I was trivializing any adverse effects of drugs. The ones you mention are perhaps the most powerful psych drugs in existence. I'm sorry if you feel that you may have received them inappropriately.

Tardive dyskinesia (late-developing defect in movement), and akathisia (uncontrollable urge to move around, often in stereotypical ways), are very powerful side effects.

I'm glad that you have found some stability with lithium. Your response to it suggests that you may have had a bipolar spectrum disorder with some elements of psychosis?

I'm not a doctor, but I am a scientist who specializes in the same things that some doctors do. I'm a toxicologist, and I study the effects of chemicals on living organisms. Drugs, chemicals, the same things happen inside a body, just maybe to different degrees. If there's anything that you might like to question me about, I'd be happy to try and help you get an answer that satisfies you.

Lar

I had the Parkinson's effect from taking thorazine & compazine at the same time. I'm not sure how long I was on them before it started, but one day, found that I could not walk. Even lying in bed hurt my whole body. It was strange to have to have some one walk me into the bathroom. I couldn't eat because I couldn't coordinate my hands & food. At first I wondered what awful thing I was to live with now, but after going to the ungent care, they suggested that I go off the thorozene. I stopped that immediately, figuring that it might take about a week to get out of my system. I continued the same for weeks...scared me to think I would be like this forever. I went back to my neuroligist, & he did some tests & reviewed the meds I was on. He thought to dc the compozine, so I tried that. I continued like that, which really made me think there was no hope. Several more visits, & I continued to not take those meds. Finally one day, I found that I could actually lay comfortably in bed, & could actually walk again, & even feed myself. After that experience, I have been so careful as to putting any meds into my system. It scared me to the point I don't want to take anything for fear of what it can do to me.

I wish you could find out the real deal with drugs like Lorazepam and Lithium and Provigil, Premarin, Progesterone. Being a Toxicologist you should be able to find out the negative sides to these drugs.

My oldest brother, was first DXed Schizophrenic when he suddenly crumbled, no longer the person we knew, this was in the early 60's and had been given many of the meds you mention, made matters worse, Lithium was a Godsend, he has been on it for over 30 years, after an excellent pdoc mde the correct Dx, Bipolar-I.
Many years ago, the American Psychiatric Assoc. thought Schizophrenia was the "catch all label" for many disorders, it took the pdocs from Europe and other participating countries to prove and convince that the Dx's were overused, and that it was the fact many of the patients were Manic Depressive, now referred to as Bipolar, I guess the first name was too hard for the public to deal with it and asnother bad stigma for those with such disorders.
I am Bipolar - II (mild) and try to educate those that have not a clue, and so often are ready to stigmatize.
Back to the "older meds", many of them screwed my brother's mind than his actual illness, thank God for many of the newer ones. One proven thing, that Lithium has the longest track record for helping with Bipolars.
I better run, I need my sleep

I wish you luck with all of this stuff, and always remember to talk to your pdoc if your meds aren't helping or making you feel unwell, etc.

Sincerely,
DE

Hello: What do you think about taking anti-depressants, mostly zoloft, paxil and wellbutrin ongoing for 10 years total - 1994 - present. I have had major depression since I was 12 (I'm 47) and anxiety since I was 9. I've been on and off on meds since I was 15.. mostly off until 1994. Now, I've been on several different ones continuously. I am currently dissatisfied with my pdoc of 9 years... so am looking for a change. One thing I like about current pdoc is that he never has given me over 2 or 3 meds at a time (this is counting xanax prn). I hate the thought of getting a doctor who wants to load me up on drugs.. which, of course, I won't tolerate.. I'll just move on to someone else. Newest med out is Cymbalta and my current pdoc of 9 years wants me to take it. Zyprexa was the best med I've ever taken as far as taking the edge off my anxiety and depression, but the aspect of diabetes came up, so I dropped it lot a hot potato on March 31, 2004. I haven't been the same since, but I won't start it up again. My pdoc of 9 years wants me stay on some type of antidepressant for life. I read there isn't enough research to determine what happens to a person after many, many years of psychotropic drugs.

So, what is your take on the toxicity of taking meds continuously for 10 years... as opposed to only taking them when needed?

Some of the newer meds are causing problems--big problems in some patients. You may have heard of some anti-depressants such as Zoloft, Paxil, Wellbutrin, and that popular one with a "P" that got a bad name too. Causes some peeps to think or commit suicide. I don't think they do enough research on the newer ones and are too eager to give to patients because they are the patients are being used as guinea pigs. Besides myself, I have a family whose most members belong in Arkham Asylum (just joking). Some of our friends are messed up too. We have a lot of experience with all types of anti-psychotic meds, and anti-depressant drugs. These meds are dangerous, but we just don't have anything else to take to help us out. Maybe one day we will. I think psychiatry and forensic meds knows the long term dangers of these drugs. Get a Good Book and you will see. Read the dangers, side-effects, contraindications on these drugs. And if you can get your hands on the DMS-IV I think it is called and have a good read.

MrsDePoint:

The jury is out on taking anti-depressants long term. The general recommendation that I've found, which seems to be on its way to being a consensus view, is that someone who has experienced recurring episodes of depression for a long time should stay on anti depressants indefinitely -- but generally at a lower dose than that which resulted in remission. A prophylactic dose of antidepressant, in effect. I'm not sure how I feel about that, but I do know that I have a recurrance when I'm unmedicated. The newer meds are different from the older meds, because there really are fewer adverse effects from a medical standpoint.

And BariTenor, the newer drugs are actually tested extensively -- much more extensively than the older ones. The problem has to do with the privatization of the FDA -- thank you very much, George W. Bush -- and the fact that the drug companies can choose which studies they show publicly. They never have to release adverse results, which explains a lot of recent stories, from Vioxx to Zyprexa to Serzone, etc. No one knows what the drug companies actually know about their drugs, until it shows up in clinical experience. But that doesn't mean that we're guinea pigs in the sense that the companies haven't tested their drugs. They test, and they test -- the testing procedures these days are more than adequate. It's the regulating procedures that leave much to be desired.

I guess the final answer comes down to this: which is worse, the disorders for which we take these drugs, or the drugs themselves? Hard question, with no right answer, no good answer, just the least bad answer.

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Some of the newer meds are causing problems--big problems in some patients. You may have heard of some anti-depressants such as Zoloft, Paxil, Wellbutrin, and that popular one with a "P" that got a bad name too. Causes some peeps to think or commit suicide. I don't think they do enough research on the newer ones and are too eager to give to patients because they are the patients are being used as guinea pigs.

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There is a lot of misinformation in the press about what is really going on. I guess it sells newspapers if you come down on the drug companies. If you look at the underlying data, as I have done, the picture is not nearly so bad as we have been led to believe.

An example. Paroxetine (Paxil) was said to cause a seven-fold increase in suicidal ideation and suicidal acts in adolescents. That is actually not even close to true. The full clinical trial data, including individual patient reports, was made available on the drug company website. So I read it. All 500+ pages of it.

There was no adverse effect reporting category for suicidal acts, or thinking. They had a category for "emotional lability", so reports of a suicidal nature, and others unrelated to it, went there. For each of these incidents, complete records were included in an appendix.

At the outset, it was apparent that there were seven times more reports of emotional lability in the paroxetine group, compared to the placebo group. However, only about a half of those in the paroxetine group were considered "moderate to severe". And when you hear what was described in those, you'd have to wonder what might have been in the "mild" reports. Anyway, we're already down to four to one, and we haven't even looked at what happened yet.

I'll give two examples from the Paxil group. One girl quit taking Paxil, her mother gave her another drug for two weeks, then she overdosed on Tylenol. The report was coded (by a blind observer) to indicate no link to the drug being tested (correctly, as far as I'm concerned).

Another example was one girl in the study who couldn't count her meds properly. Participants were given foil-pack meds, twenty at a time, but told to take one pill twice a day. They were to turn in unused meds each week, when they were given the next week's meds. This one girl returned 1-2 fewer pills than she should have, three weeks running. She said she had trouble remembering if she took her pill or not. No adverse symptoms were reported, but because these incidents had occurred in consecutive weeks, they were defined in the study protocol as "intentional overdose". I don't think that fairly describes what happened here. If she had done the same thing every other week, there would have been no report filed.

In contrast, that incident in the placebo group, was a gravely serious incident. After being rushed to the emergency wing with severe blood loss, unconscious, this subject's blind was broken to determine if she was on any medication. She was not, and she was admitted to an inpatient psych facility for followup care. This was the only real suicidal event, and the only incidence where a blind was broken.

What I saw was not a seven-fold increase in suicidal ideation and/or acts over placebo, but instead, I saw no suicidal acts in the paroxetine group (attributable to paroxetine), and one in the placebo group.

A recent re-analysis by the FDA was conducted, to see if a "signal" for suicidal ideation or behaviours was "hidden" in the clinical trial data. I reviewed the actual reports the FDA panel considered. Even when they lumped all adolescent clinical trial data together, all the SSRIs as if they were a single drug, the results did not show a significant difference between drug and placebo. Only when they included venlafaxine (Effexor), which isn't an SSRI, and the data for trials not related to depression, did they get a significant measure on one estimate (but not on another supposedly identical estimate). Even still, the difference in suicidal acts or ideation was 1.7. That is a relative risk estimate, a comparison between drugs and placebo. If you believe that the suicidal gesture rate in the placebo group was very low (and it was), then taking 1.7 times that very small number is still a very small number. We're not talking about a huge surge here. It was so small that it could only be found by taking extreme liberties with the data. The assumptions required to perform the meta-analysis, and the equivocal results (barely significant and non-significant results), argue against concluding that SSRIs are a serious risk.

It seems to me the FDA was reacting to public pressure far more than they were making a scientific decision. All antidepressants *ever* used have the unfortunate side effect of potentially inducing suicidal behaviour early in treatment. The rate of that induction is unchanged across MAOIs, tricyclics, SSRIs, and the atypicals (with a few exceptions such as Wellbutrin). What is astounding to me is that anyone might have thought SSRIs would be different. One motive for developing them in the first place was to find a non-toxic-in-overdose replacement for the toxic tricyclics.

I think everyone should read everything they can about their drugs before taking them, but in some cases (such as severe depression), I can't imagine that someone might make sense out of the information in the drug monograph. Still, you can go to http://www.rxlist.com/ and read the same detailed information that's in the PDR. You'll find that detail linked to the generic drug name, not the brand name, though.

Lar

Yeah. Personally, I've experienced the risk of suicidal behavior when starting a drug - Cymbalta - and also when it was reduced. When I started it, I attempted suicide because it affected implusiveness - but the suicidal ideation was already present. That event was the result of poor accountability at such a risky point in treatment. The attempt when it was reduced was obvious enough, I crashed because I was no longer getting the thing that was helping me. At both times in treatment a patient should be closely monitored - the medications themselves advise this, citing the risks I'm describing. The fear from the media is ludicrious; they ought to only be providing warnings to monitor patients - especially adolescents - when changing medicine.

He He He. Ok. But I really go by how the meds affect me!
I got on Zoloft and when I was on it for almost two months, guess what? I was getting adverse effects from it and the effects were so negative I stopped taking it and the negatives went away. I am sorry for those patients who took anti-depressants and were made worse. But you know I don't care how many times Drug Companies tell you about their research, it seems these days people are not being absolutely "real" and "honest" about their studies. For instance, look at the "weight loss" meds and how many people that have had their hearts messed up by those companies who are out to make a quick buck on those desperate people.
I try and take as little meds as possible. I try and keep my environment as stress-free as I can. I just try and keep out of trouble so I won't need to ask any doctor for extra meds or something different that I never had.
The implants they want to give us are coming, so look the heck out. The FDA has already okayed them.