Topic: Very important info for anyone thinking about psychiatric drug
Cass A
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 11134
posted
Dear Friends,
Here's a link to a posted video from an ex-drug company rep.
Please be advised that any psychiatric diagnosis is not an actual DISEASE. Psychiatric drugs have many serious adverse effects that are often down-played in reports.
posted
Very interesting although not suprising. This of course calls into question ALL drugs not just psych meds.
I firmly believe and have forever that there will never be a cure for cancer, diabetes, MS,Parkinsons ect. because there is just too much money in it.
With all the treatment centers and hospitals out there treating cancer currently, can you imagine what a cure for cancer would do? Millions out of work. Drs, Nurses, accountants......... And the pharma companies would lose trillions!! This would decimate the economy.
Now I am not a conspiracy theorist by any means but it just just human nature not to be self defeating. If someone told you that if you keep working so efficiently you would soon be out of a job, the vast majority of the population would say to themselves: I'd better slow down here.......I need that paycheck.
Now I sincerely appologize to anyone who gets offended by what I am saying. No offense is meant and I am certainly not trying to diminish hope of anyone whos loved ones have presently uncurable illnesses.
One thing that really sticks out in this vid is the fact that Gwen stated essentially that if you can't be diagnosed by conventional methods than you don't have a disease you have a condition.
Well guess what....... that means since accurate tests have not been developed we on this site do not have Lyme disease. We have Lyme condition?? and oh by the way.... antibiotics won't help. You just need to change your diet and exercise more. C'mon.
Perhaps I misunderstood. Don't think so
-------------------- If you play at the beach, expect to get some sand in your shorts Posts: 223 | From central pa | Registered: May 2010
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nefferdun
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 20157
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I don't think she is saying antibiotics are part of the scam of getting people hooked for profit. I believe she is referring to conditions that are clearly about lifestyle; what I call self inflicted disease like type 2 diabetes caused from obesity and "food" choices.
I do believe though that there are types of depression brought on for various reasons that are completely out of the person's ability to manage and control. I believe the mind can be chemically altered. It is a good idea to search for the reason for that altered state before resorting to drugs to cover the symptoms. So I am back to agreement with her (- although I don't know if I will stay with both feet across her "line").
Schitzophrenia for instance can sometimes be cured with a high dose of niacinamide. If we look to optimize our health with good nutrition and life style choices, we can at lease reduce the impact of some if not most conditions. There should be a reason - and the drug companies are not looking for reasons. Finding the reason is finding the cure. That is what she is saying.
Another example is fibromyalgia. My daughter has a nickel allergy. When she began smoking, as a teenager, she developed fibromyalgia because tobacco is full of heavy metals, nickel being one of them. To my annoyance the doctor gave her a pill, rather than a life style choice. When my daughter finally quit smoking the fibromyalgia went away almost immediately and it never came back (she never had lyme).
I believe that lyme and co-infections can cause all kinds of mental problems and this is NOT about choices. I believe antibiotics are the first line of defense when trying to bring the body and mind back to health when a person has lyme. If a person does not kill the organism causing the disease, then there is no chemical that can control or manage the symptoms. It will just get worse and worse.
But there are times when taking a chemical to control symptoms might help you function. The antibiotics increase symptoms which makes you so miserable, you just sink more and more into despair. This affects everyone, not just yourself. People with children and jobs have to be "be there".
But like she said, the problem can be getting off those chemical crutches. So you have to weight and balance the choices. If the suffering is short term, then maybe it is better to just bite the bullet.
There is always the possibility that permanent damage can be done by these infections. That is not brought about and cannot be affected much by food and lifestyle choices. Maybe certain supplements can help repair the damage but not for everyone. There are some people that just need help.
On the other side of the table of those profiting by selling "cures", are the supplements dealers. With lyme disease there is always a new expensive supplement promoted to cure us. I am equally suspicious of these dealers as everything I have tried has failed me so far. I think we are just being ripped off and exploite. . . . , period.
So it is not BLACK versus WHITE.
-------------------- old joke: idiopathic means the patient is pathological and the the doctor is an idiot Posts: 4676 | From western Montana | Registered: Apr 2009
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Cass A
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 11134
posted
Dear Nefferdun,
Thanks so much for the very thoughtful post about medicines, nutritional changes, lifestyle-created problems, and supplements. I'm sorry that you've not found something that works for you. I'm, to some degree, in the same boat, as some of the most debilitating problems associated with Lyme are still with me, 13 years after being infected.
It truly is an heroic effort trying to sort out which situation and which remedy actually applies in one's own personal situation!!!
In my opinion, INFORMED CONSENT is a must, for any treatment. This includes the possible adverse effects. Otherwise, a person can mistake serious changes for changes in the "disease," when they are actually caused by the treatment.
Unfortunately, this is usually not given with psychotropic drugs--especially the potential risks of suicidal thoughts, suicide, homicidal rages, brain damage, and inability to quit the drug, among others (which include diabetes and heart problems).
In my experience, patients being offered drugs to treat actual physical conditions are given more thorough discussion of what the drug is likely to do, its potential side effects, and possible alternatives.
Best,
Cass A
Posts: 1245 | From Thousand Oaks, CA | Registered: Feb 2007
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posted
Excellent points nefferdun and agreed that she is not specifying antibiotics in the scope. I just wanted to point out that following her logic, all drugs for all illnesses must then also be questioned.
What aggravated me was the statement that if you cannot be diagnosed by typical testing methodology than you have a condition not a disease.
Now let me add 2 instances where these conditions were not lifestyle choices but rather genetics or circumstantial.
My wifes' sister is bi-polar. It has nothing to do with anything she ate or any choice she made. If she is not controlled with medication she will spiral ever deeper into a delusional and combative state. Here is one instance where not only do I agree that someone NEEDS medication in spite of potential risks but informed consent is not even realistic. She is often incapable of reason or logic and can not make this choice.
In cases like hers I believe it should be mandatory that she be on medication (forcefully if needed) because the risks of her not being controlled are far greater both to herself and others. I would go so far as to say those with this affliction at this level should have to prove they are taking their medications just the same as parolees released on drug convictions have to prove they are not taking illicit drugs by regular testing.
A good friend of mine has a daughter who is diabetic. She is diabetic not because of any choice she made but as a result of a viral infection at the age of 2. Her temp spiked so high that a number of organs shut down. Fortunately the only lasting effect was that her body can no longer produce insulin. Now that may seem odd to say she is fortunate but keep in mind she almost died.
Sorry to stray there but while I am in complete agreement with Gwen in the video that some meds are useless and more harmful than good, and also that these drug companies have too much at stake to actually find cures. I can't agree with her generalized statements that most conditions stem from lifestyle choices.
The information is excellent but she blew the delivery by adding her own personal beliefs and theories. What ever happened to "just the facts mam"
Cass thanks for posting that and you are right that often times there is not informed consent where warranted. I myself have a good deal of pain ever present because of lyme and co. and have been offered some high powered meds. They told these meds may control the pain. What they didn't mention was they will most certainly alter your brain chemistry. Very irresponsible on their part. Fortunately I knew enough going in that I politely refused.
-------------------- If you play at the beach, expect to get some sand in your shorts Posts: 223 | From central pa | Registered: May 2010
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chiquita incognita
Unregistered
posted
I've been wanting to post a thread with a long list of links about how the FDA and BigPharma are betraying and even very deliberately hurting us. Very deliberately keeping us sick.
Cass A, in addition to the side effects you already mentioned, I have read the handouts about drugs and also have looked on Pubmed about drug studies.
Oh boy!
Cancer, leukemia, tumors (non-cancerous, from Rifampin FYI), coma, death....The FDA approves them all, BigPHarma fakes the "studies" and "side effect rates", the FDA knows this and looks the other way.
We are all taking exceptional risks with these drugs. Yet at times we also may need them.
Would anybody be interested in seeing such a thread? Or would it only be discouraging? It would take quite a lot of time for me to compile it, so I am asking for input before I do it.
posted
PS at risk of being accused of bias, I am going to post where the hope really is.
I am not making a dime in profit as I post to this forum. I am volunteering my time, for the public cause. I like to help, and I love to learn.
I personally have a friend-of-a-friend who recovered from cancer that "Science could not help" (said the mainstream docs) and she not only recovered, she has not relapsed for more tha n20 years! It was a homeopath/MD who got her out of it and cured her---really cured her!
An AIDS patient was found to have negative HIV in his blood, attributed to taking shiitake mushroom extract. See more in Christohper Hobbs's book Medicinal Mushrooms.
As for Lyme treatments, a naturopath on the web wrote that he would never recommend antibiotics for lyme patients. He says he has seen too many people get well with herbs and naturopathics alone, with much lower herx side effects.
In fact, he wrote, these "herx's" are really a combination of genuine die-off with...drumroll...drug side effects! That's his observation, based on working with people strictly going the naturopathic route.
Of course it takes the correct blend of herbs and other things to tackle the correct bug et al. And it takes an expert, licensed physician to guide you through it. This cannot be done alone.
My LLMD put me on a herbal regimen and true to that naturopath's word above, herx's have been few and gentle yet progress has been very good in only six months time!
For a balanced viewpoint and from another side of the aisle, my LLMD said he thought that the herbs had done their job and that we needed to "go deeper" with the antibiotics. That the herbs would no longer do the trick.
Opinions vary, and that is always the case.
I don't think it's about going one way or the other. I think it's about doing what works.
But...know your side effect profile first, ask your pharmacist before walking out the door with any mainstream drug! Further, ask how often these side effects occur, and in which situations.
YOu can always refuse a drug and ask to be prescribed a different one.
posted
Hey Average Joe et al Now I am going to contradict myself and chime in with you too.
I too question whether the claim that the meds are no more effective than placebo, is actually fact.
I *know* there is a time and a place for everything and that some people desparately need these meds.
I personally know a schizophrenic who works now, is a very friendly and successful guy...and who was non-functional/delusional/hateful prior to medication.
That does not mean the side effect profile isn't a real concern too.
What struck me about the woman's statement in the video about drugs being no more effective than placebo, is that when reading about herbal studies, again I mean no bias but it's true...I have seen that in herbal double blind studies, about 17% of people respond to the placebo and the others don't.
That's an average figure, of course, not applied to each and every individual study.
It *is* what I have read about most herbal studies, however.
So much for "old wives tales". In fact, the recent scientific studies of herbs is proving the "old wives tales" largely to be true, though a few of them are being debunked. But true, by en large.
This thread is not about herbs so please forgive the diversion. I still had to weigh in regarding side effects et al and keeping people deliberately ill. I agree with the lady on the film: The pharmaceutical co's and the FDA are both keeping us deliberately sick, for profit. I have seen way too many facts to think otherwise.
Again if anybody is interested I will post a list proving this assertion. Please weigh in with your "interested" "no thanks" input.
nefferdun
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 20157
posted
What brought me to this topic is the LLMD told me to fill my prescription for seroquil, an anti-psychotic med he gave me to take with the mepron. I was reluctant to fill so I didn't - at first. Then he told me it would help with my sleep and anxiety. He assured me the dose was so small I had NOTHING to worry about.
So I got it and took half a pill last night. I got up staggering in the middle of the night, holding the wall to get to the bathroom. This morning my mind felt like it had a flat tire - diffinitely had the running thoughts under control. Until it wore off at which time I could get up off the couch and walk.
So all day I am going back and forth about whether or not I should take it again. That sounds a bit like anxiety to me so I am saying it did not work.
But I am so skeptical of alternative "cures" these days. Some celebrity was on Oprah the other day promoting alternative medicine, saying it was a cure for cancer, a fountain of youth etc.
Promises like this give people false hope and in some instances actually kill them because they refuse what has been proven to work.
The pharmacies are getting rich, no doubt. But so are the alternative practitioners that successfully promote their products. How many people with chronic lyme and co-infections have actually been cured using ONLY herbs?
The woman in that video was wearing a white lab coat. Why? It was, in my opinion, a psychological gimmick to give her credibility. Not to say that she isn't credible - but everyone is doing the same thing. Who are we to believe? Is she selling a book?
I relapsed every time I went on herbs and I was using a huge amount of them. Instead of drops it was dropper full doses. Instead of one capsule it was up to 20. And I used everything recommended. I also was on strict diet control.
But this topic, I think(!), was about drugs for psychosis, not antibiotics. I have to agree that some people need those drugs, like average joe said. But it does seem that doctors are eager to prescribe anti-depressants for whatever is going on. And I know they sometimes get kick backs for giving certain drugs.
There are herbs, like St. John's wort, that can treat milder forms of depression. And there are times when addressing an imbalance will correct a mental/ physical problem, such as B12 deficiency. Even correcting zinc/selenium can help with thyroid issues which affects memory etc. What doctor checks for any of these imbalances before taking out his prescription pad?
I know what you mean about the danger of a lot drugs. It is laughable, but not funny, when they list some of the side effects on the TV commercials. "If you have thoughts of suicide (or murder), stop the drug and contact your health professional. . . "
While taking levaquin I was only worried about the possibility of getting tendonitis but I was assured the risk was so minimal there was nothing to be concerned about. Well, I got tendonitis.
Then I found out it can also cause irreversible psychosis! Yet the bartonella is proven to cause psychosis so what do you do? I concluded the risks of being brain damaged from these infections is far greater than the risk of being brain damaged from one of the drugs used to fight it.
I tried St. Johns Wort and it actually helped me with the anxiety without the hang over.. It is just two BIG pills as opposed to one little tiny pill. I guess Maybe I will do the two big pills.
-------------------- old joke: idiopathic means the patient is pathological and the the doctor is an idiot Posts: 4676 | From western Montana | Registered: Apr 2009
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chiquita incognita
Unregistered
posted
quote: But I am so skeptical of alternative "cures" these days. Some celebrity was on Oprah the other day promoting alternative medicine, saying it was a cure for cancer, a fountain of youth etc.
Promises like this give people false hope and in some instances actually kill them because they refuse what has been proven to work.
The pharmacies are getting rich, no doubt. But so are the alternative practitioners that successfully promote their products. How many people with chronic lyme and co-infections have actually been cured using ONLY herbs?
There is a brand new movement in herbalism called phytotherapy, and also lots of clinical research being done with nutrient supplements. This is a science-based movement in which herbs and nutrients are studied...
In the test tube, on consenting patients, on animals in laboratories, in double blind studies, in groups large and small....
The science is largely proving the old wives tales to be true FYI. A few are being debunked by the science but most are being proven true.
As for naturopathics not curing cancer, I am sure it depends on the type of cancer, the expertise of the physician or alternative health practitioner...but yes it can and does work.
Often without relapse.
Why?
Because of the strategies used. Naturopaths work to a) balance hormones b) cleanse the body of chemicals that inhibit the immune response and allow cancer cells to grow unchecked. If the immune system is strong, cancer will not grow, say the naturopaths on www.healthy.net c) starve out veins that feed cancer tumors.
The naturopaths also say the following about chemotherapy and radiation:
Chemo drops the immune T-cells so low that often it is the immune deficiency from chemo and not the cancer itself, which claims lives. That is their thinking.
Further to bombard the body with chemicals and radiation that cause immune inhibition (and therefore cancer) in the first place, is only to contribute to the disease.
Can cancer be cured naturopathicaly? Read above, I know someone who was given two months to live and told "science" could not help her. She has not relapsed for more than 20 years after a homeopathic MD, expert in cancer mind you, treated her.
Again it's all as good as the expert. And opinions may vary. Some cases may vary too, Some may need the mainstream model. Everybody is different.
Don't underestimate the power of naturopathics, however.They can indeed be very powerful. One man was found to have zero AIDS virus in his blood after taking shiitake mushroom extract.
posted
PS to answer your question about lyme/herbal treatments:
Herbs are type-cast to individual body types. Therefore, it is not a one-size-fits-all approach. The right formula for the right constitutional type is key.
That's where having a herbalist or naturopathic doctor guide you is important.
It also needs to be a very well-done formula, targeting the right bugs et al.
One naturopath I read on the web, who specializes in nothing but infections, said he has seen people get completely well without any abx and that they have much fewer herxes.
Taking herbs myself, I have found this to be true. I have been miserable on the abx (still recovering after 6 weeks of being off the one that really made me sick) and had very few herx's with herbal treatment. Yet I made very good progress.
No more fingers curled up into palms of my hands, no more left foot dragging, very little facial stiffening et al. fingers still fall asleep but no more curling up. I have only been on the herbs for 6 months.
I may thumb my nose at my doctor and tell him, not ask him, that I will go back on the herbs and only if I don' t make further progress, then I will go back onto the abx. Cautiously, and reluctantly, and very watchfully.
I know the abx can work fyi and are sometimes necessary.
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posted
Good conversation and all valid points! Nice to have a debate where it's not taken personally just people offering differing opinions.
By the way chiquita, last fall I was on rifampin. I started having pain in my side and after about half a dozen tests they found a tumor on my liver.
It is non cancerous at least at this point but I never had this particular pain in my side and certainly had no tumor prior to rifampin.
Coincidence? I don't know. It could be I guess but ...... Now I am not saying I should not have taken it, or that it caused the tumor. Just simply stating a fact.
I am also not discouraging anyone from taking rifampin. It seems to have helped a great deal of people.
I do believe, perhaps wrongfully that for every illness, disease, there is something natural on this planet to counteract the issues. Whether it has been found yet is another story. If you look into a good deal of meds you will find that many are derived from naturally occuring compounds.
Now of course the pharma companies can't and certainly wouldn't tell you that the cure for cancer is to eat 3 palm leaves daily.(Just made that up. It is not to my knowledge a cure for anything) They certainly would not make any money that way. So what they must then do is find a way to synthesize the coumpounds.
In doing so they must make educated guesses as to what part of these compounds are effective in targeting the issue. They must also find a way to keep the compound stable to maintain efficacy.
Obviously they can't take into consideration all possible variables, hence the unwanted and sometimes very severe and even deadly side effects.
So what we are left with is needing both pharma AND naturopaths and a system of legitimate checks and balances. Unfortunately the checks and balances system is broken here as it is throughout all government.
Any suggestions on how to fix this??
-------------------- If you play at the beach, expect to get some sand in your shorts Posts: 223 | From central pa | Registered: May 2010
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chiquita incognita
Unregistered
posted
Hello Average Joe Well said, on all counts! You are no average joe intellectually, applause!And thanks so much for this great input. Loved your image of eating palm leaves, that was hilarious! :-) Thumbs up.
I am sorry indeed to hear about the liver tumor. I don't know how long those things take to develop so I couldn't say if the rifampin caused it. I also am not a doctor and to diagnose would be misleading at best! HOwever, it is great that you are weighing in with this experience and thank you.
I too don't mean to discourage anybody based on fear. I am sure that the side effects are different for everybody based on constitution, and also some may never have side effects at all.
That said, unfortunately I have to respectfully disagree that the drug companies don't know about this in advance of marketing hte drug. They pay millions for drug studies (part of the reason why they cost so much, though greed sure is involved too) and unfortunately, they tweak the results. I have been to doctors' lectures and heard examples of this from the doc's own mouths, read studies on Pubmed et al. They lump people into the "pre-existing conditions" category and then get away with it. The FDA turns their head and looks the other way.
Big cancer is big business. After all why did the FDA approve a "food"---aspartame, the artificial sweetener---and it causes brain tumors? Why do they approve "medications" that kill people and let the companies advertize their biased results, that such things rarely happen?
Because there is huge industry involved. Profits.
Are these people criminals? In my mind, absolutely yes. You had better believe it!
See this, Price Pfizer conducted trials of NIgerian children/infants born to illiterate parents without telling them of side effects, the children died. They were sued, but slapped on the wrist with merely one or two months of income to pay out, and no jail time : articles.mercola.com/.../pfizer-accused-of-massive-corruption-in-killing-african-children.aspx
And see this, another manufacturer was caught with people climbing into vats to scrape them clean (and leave their own bacterial imprint behind), mixing drugs into the wrong bottles and kids had side effects, wrong dosages in bottles, more: articles.mercola.com/.../sixty-minutes-exposes-why-you-cant-trust-drug-companies.aspx
Then there was the swine flu "pandemic". I myself went to the Center for Disease Control's website and found out that (at that time, the figures climbed a bit later) 171 people had died. Not a small number of people and we don't want even one of them to be lost. However, out of 304 million Americans, that can hardly be called a "pandemic". The figures rose to ...one thousand plus? A few thousand plus?? Still, out of 304 million, is that a pandemic?
Yet they cried out "Rush, rush to get your (thymerisol-loaded, ie mercury-spiked) vaccine, NOW! Fear ye, fear ye!"
Yet hte real pandemic, cancer, remains a tight-lipped non-discussion. Or, not so loudly and vociferously battled, anyway. THe National INstitutes of Health posted an article stating that 40% of Americans will have a brush-up with cancer in their liftime, of whom 21% will die from it. They attributed the *true pandemic* to inadequate control of chemicals spewed into our environment.
More than 300 new and untested chemicals per year, writes Elizabeth Lipski, CCN MS in her book Digestive Wellness. Yet Europe requires that chemicals be tested and that any manufacturer exceeding one ton per year, log onto a centralized database.
Not in America.
NOt to mention that Margaret Hamburg, FDA Commissioner ,used to earn an executive salary of $200K+ in the amalgam industry. Coincidence that the USA won't stop putting toxic mercury into peoples' mouths, where 8 other countries have banned it? Funny, an attorney Charlie Brown organized a multi-government summit meeting in which our own FDA was laughed down for a 2-day period. They finally "caved" and had a kangaroo meeting..silence. Okay now, they relent and say that children and pregnant women should eb cautioned.
What about others who stand to have illness from mercury? No concerns.
What's to make of all this? Shall we connect the dots? Is the FDA really on our side? Or are they actively working to keep us sick for profits? I have lots more evidence to support this assertion, and I am no conspiracy theorist.
As a matter of fact, I believe in looking at the good in people and in life.
Too much of a track record---to repeat beyond what I have already posted---exists to rule out any reasonable doubt. At least, not in my mind.
Penny for your thoughts?
Thanks so much for this conversation, and it's nice talking with all of you!
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chiquita incognita
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Hello again everybody Here is a note of hope for anybody who may be interested.
I do believe, FYI that we each must go our own path and do whatever medical modality we each believe in, are most comfy with, etc. That is very important.
For anybody who is interested in a possible solution to the problems above, here some studies and a doc's article that I have found to be very enlightening.
There's a psychiatrist at the Paracelsus Clinic who writes about bipolar disorders (which includes agitated states as lyme can also cause) arising from a combination of:
BLood sugar fluctuations, hypoglycemia
A lack of a liver enzyme so that you can't metabolize your own adrenaline, causing the manic depressive highs/lows. HOwever he has a nutrient supplement regimen to help the liver to break down the adrenaline and to help stabilize the moods. This is an absolutely cutting edge article, when I posted it to another site a depression researcher stepped forward to say that they research depression in multiple countries and this is really good information: www.alternativementalhealth.com/.../bipolartreatment.htm
Fish oil supplements have been seen to aid depression in bipolar or ordinary depression alike. See this doc's webpage which parallels multiple studies in this area. He deliberately chose the weaker studies for a non-biased result, and even so the studies mention "sharply reduced relapse rates" et al. Dosages are not completely clear but outcomes are very interesting to see: www.psycheducation.org/depression/meds/Omega-3.htm
I hope this helps. Best day to everybody! CI
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