Tardive Dyskinesia: Jen's Story

A charming young woman with some digestive problems was given psychotropic (antipsychotic) medications. Medical decisions made for her have permanently disabled her; she has Tardive Dyskinesia - TD - and is in a wheelchair - probably for life.
Jen's Pages
"Why is this young woman in a wheelchair?"

"Tardive dyskinesia is characterized by repetitive, involuntary, purposeless movements. Features of the disorder may include grimacing, tongue protrusion, lip smacking, puckering and pursing of the lips, and rapid eye blinking. Rapid movements of the extremities may also occur. Impaired movements of the fingers may also appear. For comparison, patients with Parkinson's disease have difficulty moving, while patients with tardive dyskinesia have difficulty not moving.
Other closely related neurological disorders have been recognized as variants of tardive dyskinesia. Tardive dystonia is similar to standard dystonia but permanent. Tardive akathisia involves painful feelings of inner tension and anxiety and a compulsive drive to move the body. In the extreme, the individual undergoes internal torture and can no longer sit still. Tardive tourettism is a tic disorder that can closely mimic Tourette Syndrome, sometimes to the point where the two can only be distinguished by the details of their onsets. Tardive myoclonus, a rare disorder, presents as brief jerks of muscles in the face, neck, trunk, and extremities."
- Wikipedia

Antipsychotics are not the only medications that can cause TD. You can also get this condition from antidepressants. Depending on where you live, your doctor may or may not be legally bound to tell you about side effects of medications s/he prescribes for you, This information is available from drug companies - pharmacists in the US can show you in the "Big Red Book" and in Canada in the "CPS" - and on package inserts.
This information is in the Merck Manual too. Another online resource, very amusing and factual, is here.

Get good information before you make a medical decision; mistakes can be very costly.

A Culture Soaked in Alcohol and Drugs - Daily Kos

From the diary:

"How many of you have been told you were stupid, lazy, no-good, a failure who'd never amount to nothin'?" Glodoski asked the students. Easily four-fifths of the students raised their hands.

"What the thinker thinks, the prover proves," I thought to myself.

Some of these kids will be lucky enough to escape this tiny town. Some will be resilient enough to endure it mostly intact . . . but they may still pass the same pattern down to their own kids, if only in a watered-down form. Most, sadly, will repeat the cycle unless something is done to save them. And no one is doing enough to save them. The underfunded school district, where teachers with master's degrees make only $35,000 a year, can't save them. Their families aren't equipped to save them. And unlike in the inner city, where at least a drop-in center or a street outreach program can make contact with thousands of children and maybe make a difference for a few dozen, here there is no such thing, because there's no critical mass of population to make such a thing possible.

No wonder Republicans are in a panic about the state of the American family. Get outside a large or medium-size metropolitan area, and the state of the American family is apocalyptic, a confusing mess in which stability is a fantasy, violence and verbal abuse are pervasive, and everyone resents someone for something. No wonder the residents of "red" counties flee to "family values" churches for security -- out here, it seems like church is the only force that can counter the disintegration, and even church can only do so much.

With jobs drying up, without money for the schools, without the population density for recreation and enrichment activities, what is there to relieve the bleakness of life? There's TV. There are video games. There's gossip. And there are drugs and alcohol.

This is America today.

This is what the flight of jobs has done to us.

This is what underinvestment in schools does to us.

This is what violence, despair and lack of empathy do to us.

This is what the loss of our dignity does to us.

This is the peril we're in.

What are our leaders going to do about it?

What are we going to do about it?

Link

Study after study in prisons and schools have demonstrated that addictions, bad behavior, failure to learn, lack of productivity and poor social values are related to poor nutrition. So the first thing to do is - fix the food.

Drug Safety and Health Canada Going, Going… Gone?

Health Canada’s drug safety procedures lacking, says study
April 20, 2009 | National Office | Topic(s): Health, health care system, pharmacare | Publication Type: Press Release

OTTAWA—Health Canada’s drug safety procedures leave a lot to be desired, says a new study released today by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

Drug Safety and Health Canada: Going, Going… Gone? by Dr. Joel Lexchin says Health Canada’s priorities are skewed in favour of rapid approval of new drugs at the expense of the post-marketing pharmaco-surveillance system.

“In Canada 3-4% of drugs approved will eventually be withdrawn from the market because of safety issues and the number of people exposed to these drugs is increasing because of aggressive marketing tactics by the pharmaceutical industry,” says Dr. Lexchin.

According to the study, there are significant limitations to The Food and Drugs Act.

“Health Canada cannot force a drug company to recall drugs deemed harmful from pharmacy shelves,” says Dr. Lexchin. “Nor can they directly compel a company to revise product labels to reflect new safety information.”

In order to improve drug safety, the study makes several recommendations for Health Canada, including:

Stop the treatment safety information as confidential and make it public available promptly after approving a new drug;
Decrease dependence on industry for safety information by using progressive licensing and ensuring post-market studies are undertaken, analyzed, and reported on, independent of industry;
Reorient priorities so that post-marketing pharmaco-surveillance is on equal footing with the approval of new drugs; and
Undertake a systematic study to examine whether faster drug approvals lead to more post-marketing safety issues.
–30–

Drug Safety and Health Canada: Going, Going… Gone? is available from the CCPA website at http://www.policyalternatives.ca http://www.policyalternatives.ca

For more information contact Kerri-Anne Finn, CCPA Senior Communications Officer, at 613-563-1341 x306.


Link

Lyme Disease in Neurology and Psychiatry

Chinese-American author Amy Tan thought she was losing her mind. After receiving a proper diagnosis and treatment, she is recovering from Lyme Disease, and writing again.

Lyme Disease can affect anyone! Read about the neurological manifestations of Lyme Disease
here

Seven-year old on antidepressants hangs himself

'Weeks before his death, Gabriel Myers, the 7-year-old Broward boy who hanged himself in the shower of his foster home, had been prescribed a powerful mind-altering drug linked by federal regulators to an increased risk of suicide in children.'
Link
Please, let's stop these tragedies.

Too long a sacrifice
Can make a stone of the heart.
O when may it suffice?
- W.B. Yeats.

Pharmawater everywhere, and not a drop to drink

"PHARMAWATER I
Pharmaceuticals found in drinking water, affecting wildlife and maybe humans

By JEFF DONN, MARTHA MENDOZA and JUSTIN PRITCHARD
Associated Press Writers
A vast array of pharmaceuticals including antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones have been found in the drinking water supplies of at least 41 million Americans, an Associated Press investigation shows.

To be sure, the concentrations of these pharmaceuticals are tiny, measured in quantities of parts per billion or trillion, far below the levels of a medical dose. Also, utilities insist their water is safe.

But the presence of so many prescription drugs and over-the-counter medicines like acetaminophen and ibuprofen in so much of our drinking water is heightening worries among scientists of long-term consequences to human health.

In the course of a five-month inquiry, the AP discovered that drugs have been detected in the drinking water supplies of 24 major metropolitan areas from Southern California to Northern New Jersey, from Detroit to Louisville, Ky.

Water providers rarely disclose results of pharmaceutical screenings, unless pressed, the AP found. For example, the head of a group representing major California suppliers said the public "doesn't know how to interpret the information" and might be unduly alarmed."




This special AP investigation - Pharmawater - addresses a matter we have been concerned about for years.

April 20th: Anniversary of Columbine Shooting

Today marks a sad anniversary - the
Columbine High School massacre. Did medications cause the Columbine shootings - and many others?


Film by Gary Null, 2005

'In the absence of any objective medical tests to determine who has ADD or ADHD, doctors rely in part on standardized assessments and the impressions of teachers and guardians while the they administer leave little room for other causes or aggravating factors, such as diet, or environment. Hence, diagnosing a child or adolescent with ADD or ADHD is often the outcome, although no organic basis for either disease has yet to be clinically proven. Psychiatrists may then prescribe psychotropic drugs for the children without first without making it clear to parents that these medications can have severe side-effects including insomnia, loss of appetite, headaches, psychotic symptoms and even potentially fatal adverse reactions, such as cardiac arrhythmia. And yet, despite these dangers, many school systems actually work with government agencies to force parents to drug their children, threatening those who refuse with the prospect of having their children taken from the home unless they coooperate.'

PDF: Treatment-related mania: antidepressants can cause bipolar disorder

Since product infomation documents and inserts WARN of these very side effects, isn't it time we stopped this?

Statistics on antidepressant murders, suicides and other tragedies are here

This is Dr. Ann Blake Tracy's site on the dangers of psychotropic drugs: Drugawareness.org