Re: Digest Number 3255

[Guest guest]

General information on urinary problems: Prednisone use increases the risk of kidney stones. In layman's terms (which is what I can remember without unduly taxing my brain), Prednisone leaches calcium from the bones; the calcium then goes into the bloodstream, where the kidneys pick it up. Too much calcium in the kidneys can lead to kidney stones (or other kidney damage.) Too much calcium from dietary sources or supplements also harms the kidneys.

Interstitial cystitis is another autoimmune disease; it affects the bladder. Because this is a rare disorder, it often goes undiagnosed. In past times, women with it were often misdiagnosed and put in mental institutions, as no physical cause for the symptoms was observed. If you have frequent urination and/or intense aching in the bladder area but have no infection, ask about interstitial cystitis. Treatment options are limited and rarely meet with complete success. I was one of the lucky ones. I slept on the floor by the toilet, as I was never free from the intense urge to urinate. When I was alone, I walked bent over from pain. After my sixth bladder injection/infusion of DMSO, I had no symptoms at all.

Harper

[Guest guest]

Sue,

Thanks for the info on the Imuran. That's exactly how I felt the first time we tried it. I hope I don't have to go back on it.

Thanks again.

[Guest guest]

Amy and Bozena and ;

Yes, the 250mg level of Imuran was high - the reason so high was the

prednisone was really causing problems - platelet counts over 1 million,

racing pulse (149), diabetes, bone loss at a concerning rate and elevated

LFT's that were having a hard time coming down. So, we needed to

get off the prednisone and work in the Imuran to replace it. However,

no matter how much we increased the Imuran and lower the prednisone, my

LFT numbers would remain elevated or go up!

I had two of the special blood test to see how my body (liver) was metabolizing

the Imuran. The first one looked hopefull. The 'good' side

was still low (so we increased the Imuran), the 'bad' drug was only in

the 2,000 range (toxic over 5,000).

Well, after a period of increasing the Imuran (to replace/remove the

prednisone) we did the last test to see where I stood as far as reaching

the 'therapeutic' level (good drug). I didn't even reach half way

to the therapeutic level, and the drug was proving extremely toxic to me

(went over 25,000 on the bad drug).

I was removed from the Imuran immediately and since then have been on

prednisone and actigall for controlling the LFT's.

My GI was a little taken back by my body not metabolizing the drug in

the 'better' way.

At the 250mg level - I was sick, sick, sick. At work, when trying

to talk with my fellow programmer - I would have to stop talking for fear

of throwing up, swallow a lot and generally moved at half speed.

No energy, foggy brain (to the point of getting on the wrong bus to come

home - ended up in the mountains!), no appetite. Drank plenty of

milk for the carbs and protein.

AMY!!! I would love to learn rug hooking! Right now, I'm

a avid quilter. Just finishing up another baby quilt for my new grand

niece coming in two weeks. Sometime, maybe you can help me get started!

Sue

wrote:

[Guest guest]

That Lilly Story says they post trials going back to 1994, that is at least 10

years after the studies on Prozac. So how can they say they were transparent

about Prozac?

Sincerely,

Amy Philo

Visit our Family Website and new blog: Philog!

http://www.myspace.com/amyphilo http://360./amyphilo

http://www.youtube.com/amyphilo

Be wise. babywhys.org http://amyphilo.blogspot.com/

Join the group at: babywhys/

Undercover Mother cafepress.com/undercovermom

Join CHAADA today! http://www.chaada.org/contact.html

uniteforlife.org - Join the UNITE group today!

uniteforlife/

http://uniteforlife.blogspot.com/

http://www.teenscreentruth.com/psychiatry_drugs_suicide.html

www.ssristories.com www.breggin.com www.drugawareness.org

http://www.psychquotes.com/

Re: RE: new member story

Hello, group members,

I've just recently joined this group, and I see that it is very active. I am

really appreciating the posts. So I thought I'd share my story. I am writing

this assuming that everyone is well read about Serotonin Syndrome, something

that I knew nothing about until after I became a psych drug widow. Some of

this is cut and pasted from my complaint to the State Medical Board.

My husband was very upset over the loss of his job in May 2003 and went in

June to the psychiatrist he had gone to 30 years earlier when he was a

troubled college student. (Translation: he felt the weight of his childhood

with a terrified, raging father from a Polish Jewish refugee family and

overwhelmed- -4 kids, no life--mother, plus painful Crohn's disease, and the

feelings of hope and limitless possibility as a soon-to-be-graduate . That's

" bipolar. " ) He believed the medical model had saved him then (psych drugs)

and with his Crohn's disease, so back he went.

From that time until his death in February 2005, Dr. F gave him one drug on

top of another. (Total: seven psychiatric drugs.) She titrated doses rapidly

up and down, contrary to medical standards. She induced the extremely

dangerous, sometimes fatal condition known as the Serotonin Syndrome, which

is the well-studied, predictable consequence of excessive serotonergic

drugs. She did not recognize or checklist for the syndrome, and in fact as

Mark became more symptomatic, she administered more serotonergic drugs. His

symptoms worsened, and she again increased his serotonergic medications.

During this time, Dr. F did not prohibit alcohol or OTC medications that

further augment hyper-serotonergic status. She had him on a low dose of a

non-serotonergic mood stabilizer, yet rather than increase it to dosages

recommended for adults or even children, she added more serotonergic drugs.

The forensic psychiatrist who reviewed the case described this as

" disturbing " , " incomprehensible " , and " a lesson in what not to do. "

Afflicted with unidentified Serotonin Syndrome, my husband believed he was

falling apart physically and mentally. With classic symptoms-sweating,

shaking, leg-twitching, agitation, clumsiness, sedation, unrestorative

sleep, hypomania, confusion, extreme forgetfulness- he assumed, having no

other explanation and being in a frightening state of cognitive impairment,

that he had irreducible mental illness and that his condition would never

change. He ended his life through suicide.

Losing him has been devastating beyond words. The shock and grief have been

profound. We were a very compatible, communicative, affectionate couple who

took great joy in living together and marveled at how our love continued to

deepen. Mark wanted to live very, very much. He was a compliant patient

precisely because he did want so much to live-he even said so explicitly; he

felt he could trust Dr. F and the medicinal approach. I miss him terribly.

And he will never get to do the many things he looked forward to-a special

trip we planned, his sister's kidney transplant, old age together. He is

missing everything, and that is incredible for someone who savored life as

much as Mark did.

Medication Malpractice:

Wrongful Administration of Adversely Interacting Drugs; Failure to Recognize

the Predictable Consequence; Failure to Use an Appropriate Medication:

Mark and I knew nothing of Serotonin Syndrome. Apparently, neither did Dr.

F, despite the fact that it is the subject of frequent medical journal

articles and her practice is pharmacotherapy* . (*The Serotonin Syndrome was

first described in 1959; the common term for it was agreed upon in 1986; and

the landmark, often-cited article in Am J Psychiatry, June 1991 proposed the

checklist of symptoms that has been used universally since.)

If she had, she never would have prescribed five concurrent serotonergic

medications. She never would have added one on top of another. She never

would have, on November 17, 2004, resumed Lithium (which she had

discontinued, and which is serotonergic) , while leaving Mark's Lamictal dose

at only 200 mg.-when 600 mg. is safely given to pediatric populations, and

Lamictal serves the same purpose (mood stabilization) without augmenting

serotonin levels or other side effects. She never would have added, that

same day, a serotonergic atypical antidepressant/ antipsychotic called

Zyprexa. She would have observed that after the discontinuation of Klonopin

(a benzodiazapine, which mitigates some syndrome symptoms) on November 17,

Mark became more obviously symptomatic of the syndrome. She never would have

added, one month later (December18) , the SSRI Lexapro.

[PS to group: I am actually against ALL these drugs. But I wanted to make

the point to the Board that he could have been weaned off the huge load of

serotonergic drugs with a higher and safer dose of the non-serotonergic

Lamictal, according to the forensic psychiatrist who did the expert review.

Then, my personal retroactive wish, veerrry gradually and safely off that.]

At that point, two months before his death, Dr. F had Mark on five

prescribed serotonergic drugs:

a.. Paxil and Lexapro (SSRIs-selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors)

b.. Wellbutrin (a dopamine agonist, which when taken with serotonergic

drugs, will increase the availability of serotonin, leading to serotonin

syndrome)

c.. Zyprexa (a serotonergic atypical antidepressant/ antipsychotic)

d.. Lithium (a mood stabilizer that increases serotonin release)

She did not prohibit his occasional use of alcohol, his frequent use of

ibuprofen (including 800 mg. every Friday night before dancing) and of

Sudafed (p.r.n., fairly often), and his occasional use of cough medications

with DM. All of these interact with serotonin neurotransmission. She did not

evaluate his hypertension (another Serotonin Syndrome symptom): did it exist

independent of the serotonergic drugs, or was it caused by them, or were the

drugs exacerbating the pre-existing hypertension? She did not correlate his

bouts of diarrhea (another symptom) with the medication increases. Although

Mark had Crohn's disease, he had no active disease during this very period,

as verified by his GI surgeon.

And if Dr. F were aware of the Serotonin Syndrome, she never would have

taken Mark from 0 mg. Paxil (she rapidly discontinued it during January to 0

in early February 2005; not surprisingly, he experienced terrible rebound

from the far-too-rapid titration) to 50 mg. in one day, February 17, and

each of the days that remained. Paxil, a powerful SSRI, especially at that

dose, slammed a huge serotonin load on top of the other four serotonergic

drugs. He suffered immensely that week, the last week of his life. She was

aware of his suffering from daily phone calls, and writes " I am very worried

about this gentleman " in the medical record, yet does not take any emergency

action. When I called in alarm a few weeks earlier, she never returned my

call (although it is recorded verbatim in the medical record) but rather

told Mark to reassure me that she knew what she was doing. He was very

adamant about following doctor's orders, " because I want to live. "

Mark attended an all-day work meeting that Friday, February 25, making notes

about phone calls and actions to make on Monday for his job as a social

worker. That evening he took his usual 800 mg. of ibuprofen, on top of what

was now one week of the largest load of serotonergic medication that he had

ever been on, and went to his folk dance, where he could not shake the

confusion, the clumsy/rigid muscles, the new wave of non-IBD diarrhea, and

it was then that he truly gave up. I was able to piece this together from

things other people and I heard him say. He wrote me a loving farewell note

and took all the drugs at the same time while I was out from noon to five on

Saturday.

He died a man both impaired and in acute fear. He was aware that he couldn't

remember things. He was aware that he was sweating profusely and shaking. He

was aware that his mind often felt dull and confused. (These are all

Serotonin Syndrome symptoms.) He'd had manic episodes with certain

medication changes and now he felt awful, and he felt afraid and miserable

about feeling awful.

As we in this group all know (excerpted from journal article):

Serotonin syndrome is a hyper-serotonergic state, that is, an excess of 5-HT

(serotonin) in the central nervous system. It is usually associated with

high doses of serotonergic drugs, when combinations of serotonergic agents

are used together, or when antidepressants are changed without an adequate

washout period between drugs. It can also occur when serotonergic drugs are

used in combination with non-serotonergeric drugs, such as certain pain

medications, certain antibiotics, and others. Less frequently it can also be

caused by moderate dosage of a single serotonergeric drug.

The patient does not develop serotonin syndrome by natural processes alone.

Abnormally elevated concentrations of serotonin and clinical signs and

symptoms of serotonin syndrome develop because of drug-induced serotonin

augmentation.

I cannot believe that Dr. F was aware of Serotonin Syndrome. Otherwise she

would not have made the prescription choices I described above: she would

not have continued to add more serotonergic drugs at higher doses, and she

would not have under-utilized Lamictal. She would have gone through the

published (repeatedly, since 1991) checklist of symptoms with every contact

with Mark. This is inexcusable and criminal.

Nothing can bring back Mark, the man who wanted so much to live. No one

cared more about making life fair and good for all of humanity, on a large

scale and person by person. No one savored life more, enjoying music, dance,

food, nature, ideas, friends, and a deep committed love. Having suffered

such painful undiagnosed bowel disease as a young person, he saw life as

precious. Modern medicine served him well, through surgeries and

medications, in treating his Crohn's disease. If only this " medical

psychiatrist " (as if biopsychiatry had any validity) had been so competent,

he would still be alive.

My struggle since his death has been excrutiating- --and drug free. There's

more, but this is more than enough for now. Sorry it's so long, but there

it is.

____________ _________ _________ _________ _________ _________ _

Connect and share in new ways with Windows Live.

http://www.windowsl ive.com/share. html?ocid= TXT_TAGHM_ Wave2_sharelife_ 012008