Informed Consent! Truth!

[seeingred]

Swim read an article today on BBC international website. Not sure if SWIM can link to the page so won't but it was interesting to SWIM. The focus of the article was that a person working in the medical field who wanted to point out this: Medications that treat mental illnesses such as Depression, Bipolar, Schizophrenia, Anxiety actually do not fix or 'correct' a chemical imbalance. What they actually do, and this has been known but surpressed, is induce a psychoactive drug state that basically makes a person 'feel' better...like for depression there is really no true substantial information to back up 'seratonin' imbalance being a cause. But the chemicals will make a person feel happier. There is also the placebo effect. For SWIM it's been easy and hard and this article helped. To know that your brain isn't actually 'broken'.

The woman was saying that patients should have the right to informed consent. And yes SWIM can see where the 'effect' could be helpful, but it is still important to note the difference between cause and effect. She said that basically 'they don't have a clue what is going on in your brain'...which makes sense because how could they? They base it on observation. The situation seems to be escalating and the worst case scenerios could happen if people don't wake up.

This is what happens when science becomes hollywood, or something like that. SWIM just wants to mention this. It is possible that 1. the medication you take is not 'correcting' anything and there really is nothing wrong with the structures in your brain or chemicals 2. the medication you take may not be doing anything at all 3. the medication you take might be helping because you think it does... and it's the placebo effect. People take for granted how incredibly strong and powerful the human mind and brain is. If you believe something enough you can make it happen.

Thoughts? Opinions? Insight? Does anyone think there is something seriously wrong with that?

[coelho]

For swim it is not news, unfortunately. Swim always thought the medical / pharmaceutical industry only really cares about its own profits, and so as more meds they can push to the unaware patients, as better for them, no matter if the meds actually works or not.

In fact, swim thinks there are even meds that are prescribed by doctors who knows they have a lot of side effects, but are prescribed nonetheless, so the patient must take another meds to counteract the side effects of the first one. Why sell only one med when you can sell two? (or 3 or 4?)

Swim had enough experience with doctors (who took care of his already deceased grandparents and other old relatives) to distrust most (if not all) doctors/medicines nowadays. Sad... but true.

[seeingred]

Yeah, and then you think about the number of children who are prescribed medications. If the parents thought it was more than a chemical imbalance, would the parents be so trusting?

Some people would welcome the psychoactive effects, but the ones who are told that they'll 'need' them for life are just being lied to. Flat out lied to and used. In the end, the government will fund more research to invent something that people can believe...it will still be a lie probably.

Here is this War on Drugs and while they instill and commercialize fear of drugs that aren't controlled by the government, at the same time instill fear in us NOT to take THEIR drugs...drugs for profit and control of our brains and thinking processes.

Of course it comes as no surprise. We've become IMMUNE. We're numbed out to the violence and propaganda. We're so afraid of ourselves.

A lot of people have told SWIM that it seemed a little 'too good to be true' that SWIM was recovering so well because they figured it really wasn't true..that there was no illness in the first place.

But to the people out there who've been abused in this control system, does this sink in? Do they care? Is this just another freedom that is slowly being taken away and there's nothing we can do about it?

Reputation Comments on this post:

true and honest posting!

[g666d]

swims friends who use P or methamphetamine were mostly on ritalin when kids. lol maybe they change their supplier by preference.

[seeingred]

Originally Posted by g666d

swims friends who use P or methamphetamine were mostly on ritalin when kids. lol maybe they change their supplier by preference.

Of course and it makes perfect sense.

[Gradient]

This is an interesting thread. seeingred, any chance you can furnish this BBC article? I'd love to read it. Here's an example of how news articles are posted around here.

[Alias: V]

I've always hated the terms "mental disease," and "personality disorder," as if certain people are simply born "undesirable," and have to be medicated into normality. It's sad that so many people buy into this pseudoscience bullshit.

Unfortunately, It's just like Coelho said,

Originally Posted by coelho

In fact, swim thinks there are even meds that are prescribed by doctors who knows they have a lot of side effects, but are prescribed nonetheless, so the patient must take another meds to counteract the side effects of the first one. Why sell only one med when you can sell two? (or 3 or 4?)

These companies are interested in nothing other than making money, and they'll use whatever they can to convince us we need to be medicated.

[bammyjastard]

Swim recently sought his GP's advice regarding the anti depressants swim had been taking for approx 4 yrs. swim current meds of about 2 yrs (mirtazipine) worked a hell of a lot better than previous 2 (fluoxetine , err cant remember the other). However, swim is feeling a lot better in himself and asked GP about coming off anti's alltogether. Swim saw a different gp 1 yr ago about this and dosage was reduced by half (30mg-15mg nightly). Last weeks visit to GP, advice was "well just come off them then" Swim has spoken to various ppl in the health profession in the past and this goes against everything the have said! Surely having had certain chemicals in your brain for a sustained period of time and then just cutting off the supply in one go, bang, can't be healthy for swims wellbeing??
After a heated discussion, swims gp bactracked and said "ok, best to come off them gradually, take one every second day, and gradually reduce from there" No actual timetable was advised. Swim is actually being told to self medicate lol

Anyway, enough rambling, my real point is, maybe a suggegstion in this thread is correct. Judging by swims GP's flippant "just come off them" advice points to the following: The anti depressants are prescribed in the hope of delivering a placebo effect and encouraging swim to feel that the meds are making him better. Or maybe swims gp is an incompetent twat
The tosser should just have prescribed Mephedrone

[teagy]

Originally Posted by bammyjastard

Swim recently sought his GP's advice regarding the anti depressants swim had been taking for approx 4 yrs. swim current meds of about 2 yrs (mirtazipine) worked a hell of a lot better than previous 2 (fluoxetine , err cant remember the other). However, swim is feeling a lot better in himself and asked GP about coming off anti's alltogether. Swim saw a different gp 1 yr ago about this and dosage was reduced by half (30mg-15mg nightly). Last weeks visit to GP, advice was "well just come off them then" Swim has spoken to various ppl in the health profession in the past and this goes against everything the have said! Surely having had certain chemicals in your brain for a sustained period of time and then just cutting off the supply in one go, bang, can't be healthy for swims wellbeing??
After a heated discussion, swims gp bactracked and said "ok, best to come off them gradually, take one every second day, and gradually reduce from there" No actual timetable was advised. Swim is actually being told to self medicate lol

Anyway, enough rambling, my real point is, maybe a suggegstion in this thread is correct. Judging by swims GP's flippant "just come off them" advice points to the following: The anti depressants are prescribed in the hope of delivering a placebo effect and encouraging swim to feel that the meds are making him better. Or maybe swims gp is an incompetent twat
The tosser should just have prescribed Mephedrone

lol m8 scripted up on mephedrone
carlsberg dont do gps but if they did they would probaly be the best gps in the world

[seeingred]

Originally Posted by bammyjastard

Swim recently sought his GP's advice regarding the anti depressants swim had been taking for approx 4 yrs. swim current meds of about 2 yrs (mirtazipine) worked a hell of a lot better than previous 2 (fluoxetine , err cant remember the other). However, swim is feeling a lot better in himself and asked GP about coming off anti's alltogether. Swim saw a different gp 1 yr ago about this and dosage was reduced by half (30mg-15mg nightly). Last weeks visit to GP, advice was "well just come off them then" Swim has spoken to various ppl in the health profession in the past and this goes against everything the have said! Surely having had certain chemicals in your brain for a sustained period of time and then just cutting off the supply in one go, bang, can't be healthy for swims wellbeing??
After a heated discussion, swims gp bactracked and said "ok, best to come off them gradually, take one every second day, and gradually reduce from there" No actual timetable was advised. Swim is actually being told to self medicate lol

Anyway, enough rambling, my real point is, maybe a suggegstion in this thread is correct. Judging by swims GP's flippant "just come off them" advice points to the following: The anti depressants are prescribed in the hope of delivering a placebo effect and encouraging swim to feel that the meds are making him better. Or maybe swims gp is an incompetent twat
The tosser should just have prescribed Mephedrone

Yeah it is an almost frightening and unbelievable concept! Swim doesn't want to promote disinformation. In previous years with a psychiatrist swim dealt with this. The psychiatrist never advised on how to go up or down on doses. Just filled out the paper with the dosage amount. So swim went from 100mgs to 300mgs of Seroquel in one night and had a seizure-like reaction. It did a good job of knocking swim out too. It was very inconsistent basically, Swim got a new psychiatrist and knew this was a good option because although nobody seemed to notice it seemed this previous one had no clue and was just helping things get worse. Plus the place was pretty ghetto then. New psychiatrist kept saying how great swim looked and swim had to work out a way to get this right...and now is off meds with the help of the psychiatrist.

Swim's tried out anti-depressants and never suffered withdrawel but never took them longer than a couple months.

[bammyjastard]

swim is hoping to be completely off anti depressant meds within 6-8 weeks max. swim can then concentrate purely on recreational meds in future
"lol m8 scripted up on mephedrone
carlsberg dont do gps but if they did they would probaly be the best gps in the world"
If only man

[Princess]

SWIM was on all sorts of meds starting at age 7. SWIM has generalized anxiety disorder and ADD and was put on cocktails of antidepressants, antipsychotics, stimulants, amphetamines, benzodizaepines and a mood stabolizer. Those antipsychotics have nasty side effects. SWIM was on meds during SWIM's childhood, adolescence, pre-teen and teenage years and was on all sorts of different combinations and cocktails. SWIM got off meds over a year ago. SWIM used amphetamines and stimulants recreationally now. SWIM is much more mature and in reality off meds, when SWIM was on meds SWIM was very immature and in a fantasy. The antipsychotics are the craziest things, especially to give to a teenager.

[seeingred]

Originally Posted by Princess

SWIM was on all sorts of meds starting at age 7. SWIM has generalized anxiety disorder and ADD and was put on cocktails of antidepressants, antipsychotics, stimulants, amphetamines, benzodizaepines and a mood stabolizer. Those antipsychotics have nasty side effects. SWIM was on meds during SWIM's childhood, adolescence, pre-teen and teenage years and was on all sorts of different combinations and cocktails. SWIM got off meds over a year ago. SWIM used amphetamines and stimulants recreationally now. SWIM is much more mature and in reality off meds, when SWIM was on meds SWIM was very immature and in a fantasy. The antipsychotics are the craziest things, especially to give to a teenager.

That's horrible. But it's great SWIY is off them all and is maintaining a normal lifestyle without them. It is kind of like coming out of a fog when a person gets out of the 'system'. I imagine the clarity can last but for some the crippling effects of this are difficult to cope with.

Swim is dealing with a lot of surviving pain hurt & fear from this kind of system. It's just difficult to adjust when so much of our lives have become revolved around fear. For swim it wasn't just the anti-psychotics but the thinking patterns that were cultivated around it. If swim didn't think swim was sick why would she take them??

Just repeating the mantra 'there is nothing wrong with me' took swim out of the pain and into an incredible state of serenity. We're always told that we shouldn't deny things. But denial has been what helped swim, haha how odd does that sound? Deny your fears, embrace courage.

It also helped to get the psychiatrist to agree with it as well. She couldn't help herself commenting on how healthy swim was looking and what she was doing differently which led to the 'I'm getting off the meds' which led to the 'let me know if you experience symptoms and good luck' it was extremely helpful.

Swim's starting a blog which will probably be about experiences and points to others' who may not be portrayed by the media. There are some good forums out there for advocacy. The one swim frequents is amazing and full of people both patient and non patient med and anti-med, their blogs artwork...its kind of a collective underground called the icarus project.

[Richi]

Originally Posted by seeingred

Medications that treat mental illnesses such as Depression, Bipolar, Schizophrenia, Anxiety actually do not fix or 'correct' a chemical imbalance. What they actually do, and this has been known but surpressed, is induce a psychoactive drug state that basically makes a person 'feel' better...

It seems as though this is a different way to word almost the same thing. Yes, those drugs make a person 'feel' better, but this feeling comes from an increase in levels of serotonin or dopamine or whatever. Similarly, having not enough of such chemicals in the brain is termed a 'chemical imbalance'. They are one in the same.

[laststoptrainwreck]

I think the point was that even though claims are made that mental illnesses are CAUSED by certain chemical imbalances, such as not enough serotonin activity in depression, the truth is that no one really knows what causes depression and what neurotransmitters systems are out of balance in depression - and other mental illnesses.... So the claim is made that the system that is out of whack is the serotonin system BECAUSE the drug companies just happened to come up with a drug that effects serotonin levels and activity in the brain and just happened to discover that one amongst many of the effects these drugs had on lab rats was to make them act less depressed (and what really does a depressed rat look like? can we extrapolate that to humans effectively? The drug companies try but STILL thier most effective drugs fail to beat placebo!)

Personaly I think the endogenous opioid system and dopamine system are the main root systems out of whack for at least 1/3rd of people with depression and maybe more or less with Bipolar... I'm still not convinced that it is soley the dopamine system that is out of whck in schizophrenia though I do think researchers and big phrma are closer to the mark when it comes to dopamine targetted treatments in schizophrenia than they are with the serotonin and noradrenaline systems in depression. (The opioid system has HUGE effects upon ALL the other neurotransmitter systems and how active or inactive they are).


So anyways, back to the point; it is not good medicine to claim that a psychoactive substance works by correcting an imbalance that can not be proved to exist. And it shows a great deal of ignorant prejudice towards the more "illicit" psychactive substances out there that some people choose to use to "correct thier chemical imbalances", that even though it has been proven that the "chemical imbalance" theory is bunk, and thus that these psych meds we rx to people are in fact CAUSING chemical imbalances and putting a persons brain into a chemicaly altered state that is not natural... that it is considered perfectly acceptable to do the EXACT same thing to people that happens when they use an illicit drug, ie an altered state of conciousness, just so long as the drug we are using to do so targets neurotransmitter systems within the brain quite ineffectively and thus does not give enough of an altered state of conciousness (and thus measurable benefit beyond placebo) to be truely effective.

laststoptrainwreck added 19 Minutes and 37 Seconds later...

... And to add, I find it despicable that these drugs offer so little benefit (considering there are usually about 7-10 trials done that show these drugs to be only as -or less- effective than placebo, to every one study that shows even the most modest effect beyond the placebo effect, yet those studies get ignored and burried and the drug gets approved anyways just because two out of 15 clinical trials showed that the drug was 20% more effective than placebo.)... YET when it comes to getting off them the withdrawals can be just as bad as trying to come of herion. The only difference is that since you never actually felt a decipherable benefit from putting the pillin your mouth every day, you don't have to deal with psychological addiction... though if you've ever had to come off a psych med, like an antidepressant, after using it long term, you know that the lack of psychological craving for the drug does not make it any easier to go thru the psychological hell of the withdrawals.

So really they are the perfect drug for the pharmacuetical industry and psychiatry because they rarely ever make a person 100% better -and that allows for the practice of polypharmacy- so the drug companies can sell you even more drugs with the promise that is you just keep trying thier ineffective drugs you will eventualy be able to find a "cocktail" of drugs that will make you feel somewhat better...and the psych docs can get even more visits and cash out of you. And then in the end when you finaly feel like you have dealt with your issues and learned the coping skills you need to remain mentaly well without meds, well good luck getting off of them because the doctors ALWAYS tell you to try and get off the drugs waaaaay to quicly, ensuring that you will experience WD's and ensuring that they will have a chance to tell you "See, look, you really are still ill and you need to stay on these meds and keep deeing me because *your illness* is coming back as you try to quit these meds". WTF?! And good luck also with trying to convince hte doctor that it is WDs from the med you are trying to get off and not an underlying mental illness, they will tell you that people don't get WDs from psych meds because psych meds arent addictive. - Just what the pharmacuetical reps told them to tell you. (they're all bought and paid for puppets, I've never met a psychiatrist that I could trust with my mental health)

So it is PERFECT! The drug companies can legaly go around putting people on psychoactive substances (for just about any minor complaint these days) and promotng them because those substances don't actually induce a true sense of wellbeing (because if they did they would be psychologicaly addictive), and they can get people hooked on multiple EXPENSIVE half-assed medications versus just one actually effective one, and then those people can't get off those drugs because the medical community and the pharmacuetical industry refuse to believe that you can have physiological addiction to a psych med without psychological addiction - and so refuse to do ANY research into how to SAFELY and painlessly taper off of and detox off these meds... and that leaves people trying to figure it out on thier own, usually failing and ending up with a worse case of "mental illness and symptoms" than they had before they tried the meds... and they are told to stay on the meds, even if the meds never did anything at all to make them feel one bit better "because they need them since without them thier "illness" returns".