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therefore women can safely handle the intact tablet Because Softtabs are adsorbed under the tongue, the effects typically start much sooner than orally consumed medicines, such as viagra Take only prozac and its side effects as directed, usually half a 100mg pill once daily as needed Once a man has completed sexual activity, blood flow to his penis should decrease and his erection should go away If these effects persist or worsen, notify your prozac and its side effects doctor prozac and its side effects promptly · mild nausea or diarrhea, or · an allergic reaction (difficulty breathing; closing of the throat; swelling of the prozac and its side effects lips, tongue, or face; or prozac and its side effects hives); Atorvastatin is used with diet changes (restriction of cholesterol and fat intake) to prozac and its side effects reduce the amount of cholesterol and certain fatty substances in your blood , prozac and its side effects acid reflux or GERD, ulcers, erosive esophagitis, Zollinger-Ellison syndrome) This medication may prozac and its side effects cause stomach upset, heartburn, headache, dizziness prozac and its side effects or drowsiness Tadalafil is known as prozac and its side effects Super Viagra because it acts quicker and lasts much longer! Tadalafil softtabs (generic Cialis)disolve in the mouth so will enter prozac and its side effects the blood stream and start working faster · an allergic reaction (difficulty breathing; closing of the throat; swelling of the lips, tongue, or face; or hives); or Always take Atorvastatin as directed by your healthcare professional If you experience any of the following serious side effects, stop taking losartan and contact your doctor immediately or seek emergency medical treatment Keep another medication on hand to treat attacks prozac and its side effects , at bedtime) Sildenafil works along with sexual stimulation to help achieve an prozac and its side effects erection Take only as directed, usually half a 100mg pill once daily as needed • Drugs other than those listed here prozac and its side effects may also interact with montelukast - Increase Sex Drive • Montelukast is used to prevent asthma attacks If prozac and its side effects these effects persist or worsen, notify your doctor promptly Most people will require the starting dose, prozac and its side effects which prozac and its side effects is a 10 mg tablet once daily • Drugs other than those listed here may also interact with montelukast • Cephalexin can be taken on an empty stomach or with prozac and its side effects food or milk if it causes stomach upset What is Atorvastatin? Fosamax/Alendronate should be taken once a day in the morning on an empty stomach Check labels carefully and consult your pharmacist if you have any questions Take prozac and its side effects by mouth exactly as directed by your doctor, usually one pill daily Atorvastatin also prozac and its side effects effectively lowers high blood-triglyceride levels • Take each dose with a full glass of water The prozac and its side effects full effect is usually seen within 4 weeks and lasts as long as you continue taking it · a rash or unexplained open sores or bruising; Consult your doctor before breast-feeding · little or no urine prozac and its side effects Your symptoms may start to improve before the infection is completely treated May prozac and its side effects be taken with or without food Those with active liver disease or possible liver problems; women who are pregnant, prozac and its side effects could possibly become pregnant, or are breast-feeding; and people who are allergic to any of the ingredients in LIPITOR Leukotrienes are substances in the body that are associated with the inflammation and constriction of airway muscles and the accumulation of fluid in the prozac and its side effects lungs, all of which occur during an asthma attack • Montelukast may also be used for purposes other than those listed in this prozac and its side effects medication guide Paroxetine is used to treat depression, panic attacks, obsessive compulsive disorders (OCD), social anxiety disorder (social phobia), and generalized anxiety disorder · a yeast infection of the mouth or vagina , at bedtime) - If you have had a serious stomach problem (ulcers) in the past After opening the packet, the full prozac and its side effects dose must be administered within prozac and its side effects 15 minutes - Boost Sexual Performance It is not known whether Xenical is excreted into breast milk , acid reflux or GERD, ulcers, erosive esophagitis, Zollinger-Ellison syndrome) · little or no urine , diphenhydramine) Throw away any unused medication after 14 days Swallow this medication whole · sore throat or cough, or Do not start or stop any medicine without doctor or pharmacist approval Do not increase your dose prozac and its side effects or take this more often than directed The problem quickly resolved in all cases upon the discontinuation of prozac and its side effects the medication Atorvastatin can be taken any time of the day, with prozac and its side effects or without food Your doctor may prescribe this medicine for other conditions as well Lowered LDL prozac and its side effects cholesterol, the "bad" cholesterol, by 39-60% May be taken with or without food Discuss the risks and benefits with your doctor Orlistat works by blocking some of the fat normally digested by the intestine It may be some time before you begin to notice effects prozac and its side effects from this medication However, taking CELEBREX and aspirin together can increase your risk for developing stomach ulcers compared to taking CELEBREX alone This medication provides temporary relief and must be used in addition to rest, physical therapy and prozac and its side effects other measures · numbness, tingling, or pain; If you stop taking the medication, your condition could become much worse - Boost Sexual prozac and its side effects Performance If you notice other effects not listed above, contact your prozac and its side effects doctor or pharmacist Atorvastatin is a prescription drug in one of the newest classes of cholesterol-lowering medications, called statins This medicine may be crushed if needed to swallow This medication may prozac and its side effects be taken with food or immediately after meals to prevent stomach upset · an allergic reaction (difficulty breathing; closing of the throat; swelling of the lips, face, or tongue; hives; or a rash); Continue to take this medication for the prescribed length of treatment even if you are feeling better Numerous studies have been done looking at the efficacy of PROPECIA • Take this medication exactly as directed by your doctor • Montelukast will not stop an asthma attack prozac and its side effects that has already begun Paroxetine has also been used to treat a severe form of premenstrual syndrome (premenstrual dysphoric disorder- PMDD), sexual function problems in men (premature ejaculation), nerve problems associated with diabetes (diabetic neuropathy), chronic headaches, or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) Follow your doctor's instructions for recovery Your symptoms may start prozac and its side effects to improve before the infection prozac and its side effects is completely treated Generally, Atorvastatin works within 2 weeks • Take prozac and its side effects cephalexin at evenly prozac and its side effects spaced intervals to keep a constant level of drug in the body Numerous prozac and its side effects studies have been done looking at the efficacy of PROPECIA To make it easier to remember to take Atorvastatin you can prozac and its side effects plan to take it at the same time each day, such as after you brush your teeth in the evening PROPECIA through its inhibitory action serves to reverse this prozac and its side effects process by decreasing the amount of DHT in the hair follicle and in blood • Cephalexin can be taken on an empty stomach or with food or milk if it causes stomach upset The effects of this drug may begin as soon as 1-2 days after treatment begins; noticeable weight loss will take longer Tell your doctor prozac and its side effects your medical history, including: allergies, digestive disorders (malabsorption or cholestasis), low thyroid function (hypothyroidism), prozac and its side effects other metabolism problems prozac and its side effects (e Take the multivitamin at least 2 hours before or 2 hours prozac and its side effects after this drug (e Atorvastatin is used with diet changes prozac and its side effects (restriction of cholesterol and fat intake) to reduce the amount of cholesterol and certain fatty substances in your blood • Chew the chewable tablets thoroughly before swallowing • prozac and its side effects Do not stop taking montelukast prozac and its side effects without first talking to your doctor NO Talk to your doctor about any side effect that seems unusual or that prozac and its side effects is prozac and its side effects especially bothersome The dosage and prozac and its side effects length of treatment is based on prozac and its side effects your medical prozac and its side effects condition and response to therapy , oxalate kidney stones, hyperoxaluria) Take this medication by mouth usually once daily, with or without food, or as directed by your doctor This prozac and its side effects results in lower levels prozac and its side effects of cholesterol circulating in your blood - If you are breast-feeding or prozac and its side effects plan to breast-feed prozac and its side effects It may prozac and its side effects take up to 6 to 12 months for this medicine to work Over time, this prozac and its side effects drug may not work as well as it did at the beginning Take prozac and its side effects only as directed, usually once each 3 days as needed Fosamax/Alendronate prozac and its side effects is used to prevent and treat postmenopausal osteoporosis (bone weakening) or Paget's disease CAN I TAKE CELEBREX IF I prozac and its side effects AM TAKING OTHER MEDICATIONS? This drug is taken by mouth as needed 20 minutes before sexual activity Do not stop taking Fosamax/alendronate without talking to your doctor • Take cephalexin at evenly spaced intervals to keep a constant level of drug in the body • Take each dose with a full glass (8 ounces) of water Investigators have found that PROPECIA increases hair growth in over 80% of men You should continue to take CELEBREX as prescribed even prozac and its side effects when you are feeling better Fosamax/Alendronate comes as a tablet to prozac and its side effects take by prozac and its side effects mouth • Take cephalexin at evenly spaced intervals to keep a constant level of drug in prozac and its side effects the body This drug should prozac and its side effects be used only when clearly needed during pregnancy Because Softtabs prozac and its side effects are adsorbed under the tongue, the effects typically start much sooner than orally consumed medicines, such as viagra Never prozac and its side effects store any mixed or unmixed granules for use after 15 minutes This results in lower levels of cholesterol circulating in your blood Muscle relaxers are for specific muscle injury and prozac and its side effects pain and should not be used for general body aches and pains Because Softtabs are adsorbed under the tongue, the effects typically start much sooner than orally consumed medicines, such as viagra The recommended dose for BPH is 5 mg once daily • To ensure that you get a correct dose, measure the liquid form of cephalexin with a prozac and its side effects dose-measuring spoon or cup, not a regular table spoon - If you have had an allergic reaction to aspirin or other NSAIDs IS CELEBREX A SUBSTITUTE FOR CORTICOSTEROIDS? 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Took an antidepressant. But prozac and its side effects what'll it do? Thousands of people are being prescribed Prozac and other so-called wonder drugs to stop them feeling depressed. Do they risk doing themselves more harm than good? Clare prozac and its side effects Thomson reports. I'm not mad " says Frank van Meerendonk, a former prozac and its side effects English teacher who is now unemployed and on sickness benefit. He runs the Benelux section of Prozac Survivors Support Group (PSSG, founded in the United States in 1990. Its members all claim to have suffered serious adverse reactions to the so-called miracle drug. Sitting in the lounge of his red-brick prozac and its side effects home in Oisterwijk, near Tilburg in the Netherlands, the prozac and its side effects Dutchman is calm and lucid, despite evident difficulty concentrating for long periods. "I don't want anyone taking the drug to panic," he insists. prozac and its side effects "I'm prozac and its side effects not against Prozac or biological psychiatry, but I want people prozac and its side effects to know the other side of the story." After five days prozac and its side effects on Prozac, Van Meerendonk was a wreck: "I felt as if a magnet was pulling my head. There were electrical surges rising in my body" Van Meerendonk was prescribed Prozac in 1990 by a psychiatrist: he was not suffering from depression, prozac and its side effects but dizziness, fatigue, tinnitus and hearing loss, after severe flu. "I prozac and its side effects stopped taking it after prozac and its side effects my head began to feel prozac and its side effects strange and my muscles started twitching," he recalls. His old symptoms persisted, despite visits to specialists and an ear operation. A year later, his family doctor prescribed Prozac for "masked depression", assuring him that any apparent side effects were "all in prozac and its side effects the mind". But after five days on the drug, Van Meerendonk was a physical wreck. "I felt as if a magnet were pulling the back of my head. There were electrical surges rising through my body. The tinnitus got much worse. I was terrified." He recalls lying in bed, sweating and hallucinating. Even after his doctor took him off the drug, the symptoms persisted. "It appeared to have caused prozac and its side effects a huge chemical imbalance," says Van Meerendonk. He was referred to a psychiatric ward. "They wanted to give me medication, including Prozac. I refused. prozac and its side effects They said I was a hypochondriac, that Prozac couldn't have done this." Desperate, prozac and its side effects he looked elsewhere for help, finally finding a doctor of Chinese medicine at Utrecht University Hospital, who continues to treat him with acupuncture. He has partly recovered, but still suffers from muscle twitching and tinnitus. "I phoned the prozac and its side effects Dutch drug authority many times to complain but they weren't interested," says Van Meerendonk. "Everyone said that Prozac was harmless." Convinced that the drug was to blame for his ailments, he began collecting information about it. He found out about serotonin, a compound involved in the prozac and its side effects transmission of nerve impulses. Low levels prozac and its side effects of the compound, which is prozac and its side effects thought to influence mood, have been found in the brains of people who have committed prozac and its side effects suicide: some scientists believe that "selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors" (SSRIs),of which Prozac is one, prozac and its side effects can alleviate depression by raising prozac and its side effects the serotonin level. But problems can occur if receptors in the brain stem and spinal chord are over-stimulated. prozac and its side effects Sufferers experience fever, chills, muscle spasms, agitation and confusion, dubbed "serotonin syndrome". Prozac is made by US drug company Eli Lilly. The company's official line is that serotonin syndrome can occur when Prozac is used with other antidepressants. "You don't get this syndrome with the recommended twenty milligram per day Prozac pill," says Marc Czarka, director of pharmaceutical affairs for Eli prozac and its side effects Lilly Benelux. "Van Meerendonk is among the thirty prozac and its side effects percent of patients who don't respond to Prozac," he adds. "People who have had psychiatric diseases often have a distorted view of their symptomology. These illnesses change their perception of reality." When Securimed, which provides facts about drugs, asked doctors to note reactions to Prozac, these included suicidal tendencies and violence. Van Meerendonk and others argue that their deterioration was sudden and happened after taking Prozac. "Eli Lilly doesn't listen to patients," claims Van Meerendonk. "If you're satisfied with Prozac, they say it's because the drug is effective. prozac and its side effects If not, they say it's prozac and its side effects because of your underlying disease." Van Meerendonk is prozac and its side effects certainly not alone: the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has received a record number of prozac and its side effects complaints about the drug: 35,000 by 1996. In 1995, Prozac accounted prozac and its side effects for 1 billion BF of the 70 billion BF spent on medication by Inami, Belgium's prozac and its side effects national health insurance group. It is the sixth best-selling drug in Belgium, where Eli Lilly has a research laboratory (in Louvain-la-Neuve) that is responsible for a sixth of its drug development work. This country was the first to authorise the drug, in 1986, a year before FDA gave it the US go-ahead. Yet things aren't all going Lilly Benelux's way. Recent developments in this country include: fears of over-prescription were raised in the federal Parliament in March; a Belgian doctor is collecting anecdotal evidence about the prozac and its side effects drug's side-effects; a Flemish group set up last year, Patients' Representation in Mental Health (PRMH), is prozac and its side effects questioning the safety of Prozac and other psychiatric drugs; later this year, Van Meerendonk will prozac and its side effects testify in a murder trial involving a Dutch naval mechanic who last year bludgeoned his mother to death with a hammer. He says Prozac changed his personality. It is the first Benelux case in which the defense prozac and its side effects will argue that the drug can cause violent behaviour. The "Prozac defense" has been used nearly 70 times in the United States, but with little success. Czarka insists that the drug is safe. "We're far ahead in neuro-science," he says, pacing his office prozac and its side effects and bombarding me with scientific documents. "We're researching drugs for Parkinson's disease, for Alzheimer's, for osteoporosis." Last year, the company wrote to doctors condemning a September prozac and its side effects 1996 Paris-Match article that criticised Prozac and referred to the Wesbecker trial in the US (see box). "No one has won a case against Lilly involving Prozac," says Czarka. Despite such confidence, the company is quick to attack anyone and anything that questions the drug's safety. The letter to doctors prozac and its side effects dismissed the Paris-Match article as unscientific and insisted that Prozac, which had up to then been taken by 21 million people world-wide (that figure is now 25 million) is safe. It said that clinical tests with over 30,000 patients prozac and its side effects prove that the drug reduces aggression and suicidal tendencies. One of the letters arrived on the desk of Dr. Robert Bourgignon, who runs Securimed, a small company on Avenue Louise that provides doctors with information about drugs. He sent questionnaires to doctors, inviting them to note their patients' reactions to Prozac. Eighty responded prozac and its side effects and reported reactions that included suicidal tendencies and violence. Lilly has consistently denied a causal link between Prozac and suicidal tendencies. The company claims that the drug has fewer side effects than other antidepressants (for example, it causes less drowsiness), that it is safe because there is no risk of overdosing (SSRIs are less toxic than earlier antidepressants and are absorbed more slowly) and because it has been authorised by national regulatory bodies like the FDA. "Prozac is a scientific advance," says Bourgignon. "Many people have benefited from it, but some have had bad reactions. I'm worried because the number of people taking it has risen tenfold since 1990 and more and more side-effects, including sexual prozac and its side effects dysfunction, hallucination and psychosis, are beginning to emerge." In March, Lilly took Bourgignon to court, accusing him of conducting a non-scientific survey that was commercially damaging to Lilly. Lilly lost the prozac and its side effects case, but has appealed. The verdict is due in September. The company has also received adverse publicity from Van Meerendonk, who bases his information on a substantial library of books, articles, videos, documents and scientific papers about Prozac and its prozac and its side effects manufacturers. Last year, Lilly prozac and its side effects accused him and the Benelux PSSG of being "pseudonyms for the Church of Scientology". The Church of Scientology, which opposes prozac and its side effects all psychiatric drugs, offered to support the prozac and its side effects founders of the US PSSG after its members had experienced adverse reactions to Prozac. Since then, PSSG groups world-wide have disassociated themselves from the sect. "I'm convinced prozac and its side effects Lilly uses the scientology prozac and its side effects ruse to deflect criticism," says Van Meerendonk, who is backed on this issue by writers and commentators. Van Meerendonk took Lilly to court for linking him with scientology. "I was convinced that I'd win and didn't prepare a defence." He lost. The prozac and its side effects judge said it was understandable that Lilly had connected him with the Church because of the early links between scientology and the PSSG, and because Van Meerendonk had not personally disassociated himself from the prozac and its side effects sect. Van Meerendonk is preparing an appeal. "Van Meerendonk's story is no reason to ban Prozac," Czarka insists. Yet Van Meerendonk is not asking for prozac and its side effects a ban. "I realise how bad depression can be and that psychotherapy doesn't always help," he says. "But I'm convinced that many people have been wrongly prescribed Prozac: when they're in mourning, want to give up smoking or drinking, want to lose weight or have prozac and its side effects been mugged. What these people really need is empathy and support." Last year, Rose Chambers, an Englishwoman living in Belgium, was prescribed another SSRI, Seroxat. "I wasn't depressed, just feeling a bit low," she says. "My doctor asked if I was tired and had trouble getting up some mornings. When I said yes, he told me that this drug would make me feel better. It didn't. I became feverish and my head felt as if it was going to explode. He blamed it on a virus, but I'm sure prozac and its side effects it was the drug, so I stopped taking prozac and its side effects it." "Nobody knows the long-term side-effects of Prozac or other SSRIs," argues Van Meerendonk. "For years, doctors denied that prozac and its side effects there were problems with Valium and benzodiazepines. Now we know that they can be addictive. Prozac should be prescribed only when absolutely necessary." When Ecolo prozac and its side effects politician Thierry Detienne raised the issue of Prozac over-prescription in Parliament in March, he referred to a 1994 prozac and its side effects study by David Healy, one of Lilly's consultants, which concluded that antidepressants, including Prozac, could induce suicidal tendencies. Health Minister prozac and its side effects Marcel Colla said that there was no reason to doubt the drug's safety, prozac and its side effects since regulatory bodies throughout the EU have authorised it. But he prozac and its side effects admitted that doctors need prozac and its side effects objective information, that they should take possible side-effects into account and prescribe prozac and its side effects with care. The Prozac controversy in the US was fuelled by two books written by psychiatrists. In Listening to Prozac (1993), Peter Kramer claims that the drug transformed the personality of some of his patients, making them feel "better than normal" and that if you introduced it into mains water, everyone who drank it would be happier. Kramer's book boosted Prozac sales. Talking Back to Prozac (1994), by Peter Breggin, had prozac and its side effects the prozac and its side effects reverse effect. Breggin's criticisms of Lilly are devastating. He researched clinical trials prozac and its side effects of the drug before it was marketed and concluded that they were inadequate because: they were too short (four to six weeks); they prozac and its side effects did not include children, the elderly or the suicidal; many patients dropped out following adverse reactions; patients were given sedatives to reduce Prozac's stimulating effect; fewer than one in three trials showed Prozac to be effective; even these suggested that it was no more effective than previous antidepressants. "The FDA supports the drug industry prozac and its side effects and its needs at the expense of the public and the consumer," writes Breggin, adding that an prozac and its side effects early in-house FDA report, ignored by the organisation's top decision-makers, described Prozac as a stimulant that could, prozac and its side effects in a few cases, over-stimulate the central nervous system and worsen depression. Lilly has dismissed Breggin's criticisms. "We have no evidence that anything Kramer or Breggin says is true," Czarka insists. But Lilly did not sue either author and neither has had to retract any of his conclusions. According prozac and its side effects to Van Meerendonk, giant pharmaceutical companies like Lilly persuade people that clinical depression is a physical illness that can be cured by medication. "Lilly gave 'educational' grants to organise American National prozac and its side effects Depression Screening Day in 1994," he claims. "They even orchestrated an edition of The Oprah prozac and its side effects Winfrey Show in which participants spoke glowingly of Prozac: some said it had saved their lives. What they didn't reveal was that Lilly's PR company, Burson-Marsteller, was behind the programme, hand-picking members of the au- dience and flying them in from around the country." Czarka prozac and its side effects concedes that Lilly funds the American Psychiatric Association and that, with other pharmaceutical companies it sponsors and helped create the Belgian League of Depression in 1995. "It's useful for us because, unlike American law European law does not allow us to talk directly to potential patients," says Czarka. "The league does it for prozac and its side effects us. "We're not marketing depression. We're providing prozac and its side effects funds to fight a disease that can be prozac and its side effects deadly. prozac and its side effects It shows our dedication to patients. That's why we fund research and prozac and its side effects studies through-out prozac and its side effects Belgium." Psychiatric patients are waking up to prozac and its side effects the possibility of information manipulation. In terms of patient representation Belgium lags behind the Netherlands, prozac and its side effects but the Flemish group PRMH is lobbying Parliament to prozac and its side effects make people more aware of the power wielded by pharmaceutical companies. Founder Jan Vanhaelen was prescribed an anti-psychotic drug prozac and its side effects for back pain. "I developed severe depression, was given a series of antidepressants, tranquillisers and sleeping pills and ended up in a psychiatric hospital for three months. I had to take a year off work. "Doctors should prozac and its side effects know more about the drugs they prescribe," he says, adding that Belgian doctors prescribe twice the amount of psychiatric drugs per person as their Dutch counterparts. "Most psychiatrists know little apart prozac and its side effects from the prozac and its side effects promotional material companies send them. Several years later, they make their own observations about a drug's efficacy. prozac and its side effects Meanwhile, patients suffer. "I've talked to around a hundred patients who've had Prozac," Vanhaelen continues. "Ten percent say that it helped them enormously, ten percent said they reacted badly and the rest didn't respond to the drug at all." Many doctors admit that Prozac is not prozac and its side effects as effective prozac and its side effects as prozac and its side effects they had at first believed. Dr Guido Peeters, a Flemish psychiatrist who works with the Community Help Service, suggests why. "It's well known prozac and its side effects in medical circles that you are more likely to prescribe a drug when it's new. There's prozac and its side effects a placebo effect that produces hope in the scientific community and among patients. Prozac seemed to work well in the beginning and it can be useful, although it's probably over-prescribed. It's easy for doctors to hand out pills and many patients prefer to go for the 'quick-fix' pill rather prozac and its side effects than discuss their prozac and its side effects problems. "It is vital that doctors who prescribe antidepressants monitor their patients closely. Serious side-effects should be reported promptly to the Government. There's been a lot of talk about Prozac, partly because of the debate about whether all psychiatric problems can be explained by biochemical mechanisms. There are prozac and its side effects arguments on both sides. We try to judge the value of research." Eli Lilly insists that depression is a biochemical disease. "Depression kills" says Czarka. "You shouldn't put people off medication when it can save their lives." For Van Meerendonk, this prozac and its side effects is a reductionist view. "It's naive to say that a malfunction in the prozac and its side effects neurotransmitter system is the main cause of depression and that the illness can be treated prozac and its side effects by drugs. It's also convenient for employers, families prozac and its side effects and society to blame individual failings on biochemistry, rather than prozac and its side effects confront social problems like unemployment." The Government is debating whether to follow the example of the US and authorise Prozac to treat other "biochemical" disorders, including obsessive prozac and its side effects compulsive disorders like bulimia. A decision is expected this year. If they give it the green light, sales of the prozac and its side effects drug are likely to soar. Rough justice? Joseph Wesbecker had been taking Prozac when he walked into his workplace, an Indianapolis printing plant, in September 1989, shot dead eight colleagues, wounded 12 and killed himself. Survivors and relatives of the dead took Lilly to court in 1994. They claimed that Wesbecker's violence was due to Prozac. The jury found that Prozac was not at fault. Two years later, media pressure forced Lilly to admit that it had reached an out of court settlement with the plaintiffs. In return for an undisclosed - and reputedly large - sum the plaintiff's and their lawyer agreed not to bring potentially damaging evidence about another Lilly drug, Oraflex, into the trial. prozac and its side effects The story is related in The Power to Harm: Mind, Medicine and Murder prozac and its side effects on Trial (Viking, 1996), by British journalist and writer John Cornwell. In 1985, writes Cornwell, Lilly pleaded guilty to charges brought by the US Justice Department for failing to report fatal reactions in Britain to Oraflex, an anti-inflammatory drug for arthritis relief. The company, whose global sales total $7.3 billion (around 255 billion BF) - $2.4 billion from Prozac alone - was fined $25,000 (around 875,000 BF). Lilly had been forced to settle hundreds of civil compensation claims and, says Cornwell, urgently needed a best-selling drug. The Wesbecker verdict boosted Prozac sales in prozac and its side effects the US even though, as Cornwell points out, "Prozac had failed to help the sort of patient it was designed for." WARNING! When trying to withdraw from many psychiatric drugs, patients can develop serious and even life-threatening emotional and physical reactions. prozac and its side effects In short, it is dangerous not only to start taking psychiatric drugs but also can be hazardous to stop taking them. Therefore, withdrawal from psychiatric drugs should be done under clinical supervision. Principles of drug withdrawal are prozac and its side effects discussed in Your Drug May Be Your Problem: How and Why to Stop Taking Psychiatric Medications, by Peter R. Breggin, M.D. and David Cohen, Ph.D. Other information on Prozac prozac and its side effects and Prozac-like drugs prozac and its side effects can be found in Talking Back to Prozac by Peter R. Breggin, M.D. and Ginger Ross Breggin. Home - Books - Biography - Resume - Contact Dr. Breggin Peter R. Breggin, MD 101 East State Street, PMB 112 Ithaca, New York 14850 By Appointment Only Phone 607 272 5328 Fax 607 272 5329 Psychiatric Drugs - Prozac - FDA Scheming and Harmful Side-Effects Suppressing "Depressive" and "Manic-Depressive" Overwhelm with Antidepressants - Prozac (This is taken from Chapter 4 of Peter Breggin's book, Toxic Psychiatry.) Many patients and their families regard lithium as a wonder drug and have great expectations for its curative value. . . These patients are educated in the concept that lithium is a prozac and its side effects perpetual preventive much like insulin. - Ronald Fieve, Moodswing (1989) The increasing use of lithium carbonate as the treatment of choice for patients with bipolar affective prozac and its side effects disorder highlights a major concern with respect to memory functioning. . . . Several studies prozac and its side effects have found cognitive and memory functioning prozac and its side effects to be impaired in patients receiving lithium therapy. - Psychiatric News, December 5, 1986 Warnings About a Miracle Drug. A swift and sweeping popularity is often followed by a stinging backlash. This is as true for medical therapies as it is for hit TV series and fashionable restaurants. The latest example: Prozac. . . - Time, July 30, 1990 Although it is often possible to help prozac and its side effects depressed people prozac and its side effects through caring, enthusiastic psychotherapy (see chapters 6 and 16), biopsychiatrists typically reject psychological approaches and instead make extraordinary claims for the efficacy of drugs. One antidepressant, Prozac, recently generated a prozac and its side effects Newsweek cover story, leaped to the top of the drug charts, prozac and its side effects and then ran into a storm of controversy. Sales figures for August, September, and October 1990 show that prozac and its side effects more than 400,000 prozac and its side effects new prescriptions for Prozac are being written each month in the United States. Total sales in 1991 are expected to reach one billion dollars. Meanwhile, a flood of lawsuits is pending prozac and its side effects against the manufacturer, Eli Lilly. * This chapter will provide an analysis of prozac and its side effects the actual effects and potential dangers of the drug. Antidepressants: Widespread and Growing Usage Antidepressants are very much in vogue, but they have been around for a long time. Elavil (amitriptyline) and Parnate (tranylcypromine), for example, have been in use for three decades. In 1984, thirty-four million prescriptions were written for antidepressants, placing them a distant second behind the minor tranquilizers; but the Prozac craze is narrowing the lead. More than two-thirds of antidepressant prescriptions prozac and its side effects are for women. The great majority of antidepressant prescriptions are written by nonpsychiatric physicians. prozac and its side effects Psychiatrists, however, set the tone for the widespread use of these agents. Right now psychiatrists are advocating their use for a variety of disorders, from depression and anxiety to eating problems, premenstrual tension, phobias, and obsessions and compulsions. They have become a jack-of-all-trades drug. This in itself should warn us not prozac and its side effects to trust the claims being made. Prozac: The Most Recent "Miracle prozac and its side effects Drug" Prozac (fluoxetine), introduced in January 1988, is one of the latest of a new generation of antidepressants. The March 26, 1990, Newsweek sports the picture of a huge Prozac capsule on the cover - a kind of "pill of the year" award. prozac and its side effects Beneath the giant PROZAC headline, the subhead announces A BREAKTHROUGH DRUG FOR DEPRESSION. The story sports a photo of a smiling woman, captioned "I'm nowhere near perfect, but it's a big, big improvement." Without embarrassment, Newsweek reports how one patient exclaimed to her doctor, "I call myself Ms. Prozac." The story anticipates that "these breakthrough drugs may change the lives of millions." At a recent picnic I met a woman who had just been prozac and its side effects prescribed Prozac - by another psychiatrist at the prozac and its side effects previous party she'd attended. Apparently he wrote prozac and its side effects out a prescription on the prozac and its side effects basis of the brief "consultation." Another woman on Prozac explained that her psychiatrist said he himself was taking the drug, even though he wasn't depressed; it just made him feel better. Surprisingly, recent psychiatric textbooks and many experts take prozac and its side effects the position that Prozac is no more effective than any other antidepressant, and prozac and its side effects maybe even less so. The 1988 American Psychiatric prozac and its side effects Press's Textbook of Psychiatry gives it a dubious endorsement: "studies show it to be as efficacious as imipramine in the treatment of depression." Imipramine (Tofranil) is among the oldest antidepressants and prozac and its side effects is one of those old standbys whose entire credibility is being challenged by researchers like Greenberg and Fisher. Similarly, the 1989 Comprehensive Textbook of Psychiatry observes that Prozac is "at least as effective as standard antidepressants." The most sophisticated analysis, found in the four-volume Treatments of Psychiatric Disorders, by the American Psychiatric Association, finds that expectations for the newer generation of antidepressants, specifically including Prozac, have not panned out: ". . . it is apparent that prozac and its side effects no currently available agent at the time of prozac and its side effects this writing either offers enhanced efficacy or is free of toxicity limitations. " Speaking of Prozac it warns, "Whether this agent's spectrum of efficacy will be more favorable than that of other antidepressants remains to be observed" (p. 1799). Rarely do psychiatric textbooks display such uniformly conservative evaluations of a new drug. It's a disconcerting contrast to the feverish promotion being generated by the drug industry through the media. Prozac seems especially exciting to prozac and its side effects doctors, patients, and the press because it is described as selectively affecting the neurotransmitter serotonin. It is suggested that this selectivity for serotonin somehow makes Prozac more limited in its impact on the brain and mind, and less likely to produce complex or dangerous side effects. These are false conclusions. Serotonin nerves spread throughout most of the brain - including the emotion-regulating limbic system and frontal lobes - and are thus involved in multiple functions that defy our current prozac and its side effects understanding or imagination. Prozac makes serotonin more available by inhibiting its removal from the synaptic region between nerves.(1) When this biochemical imbalance is created, many other related neurotransmitter systems, such as dopamine, are forced to undergo changes as well, creating more widespread disruptions. There should be no comfort associated with the idea that Prozac is selective for serotonin. The brain, an integrated organ blessed with harmonies and balances prozac and its side effects beyond our ken, is thrown out of balance by any such biochemical intrusion. The relative safety of Prozac is acclaimed by the Newsweek cover story; but in reality it's too early to prozac and its side effects hold out such prozac and its side effects hopes. Nor does the literature confirm such positive expectations. For example, an August 1989 report in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry compared Prozac with a much more thoroughly tried antidepressant, Desyrel (trazodone). It prozac and its side effects found no therapeutic advantage prozac and its side effects to Prozac and no fewer adverse symptoms. Forty-three percent of the Prozac patients complained of two or more side effects, including headache (29 percent), nausea (24 percent), and somnolence (19 percent). It is also well-known that Prozac causes anxiety prozac and its side effects and agitation, as well as insomnia and bizarre dreams, in a large percentage of patients. It can also result in loss of appetite, diarrhea, dry mouth, sweating, dizziness, impotence, inability prozac and its side effects to achieve orgasm, seizures, and rash. It can cause hypoglycemia with anxiety, chills, cold sweats, confusion, weakness, and other symptoms of low blood sugar. prozac and its side effects On rare occasion, a severe rash develops with symptoms of fever, joint pain, and swollen lymph nodes. A "Prozac syndrome" may develop, with hot flashes and flushing, prozac and its side effects agitation, nausea, muscle tremors, and sweating. Using tryptophan can increase the risk of Prozac syndrome. Convulsions and a few deaths have been reported from massive overdoses. Combination with MAOI antidepressants and other drugs can be dangerous. From the initial studies, it prozac and its side effects was also apparent that a small percentage of Prozac patients become psychotic. And as we shall see, there are still more ominous problems associated with Prozac, including serious neurological and psychiatric disorders. The PDR warns that Prozac has prozac and its side effects not been systematically studied for its potential to cause withdrawal reactions. Earlier in this chapter, I described a patient with such severe withdrawal symptoms prozac and its side effects that she felt compelled to resume taking the drug. The PDR further states, "it is not possible to predict prozac and its side effects on prozac and its side effects the prozac and its side effects basis of this limited experience the extent to which [Prozac] will be misused, diverted, and/or abused once marketed." That is, the drug may yet turn out prozac and its side effects to be prozac and its side effects habit-forming or addictive. Murder and Suicide Associated with Prozac Newspaper and scientific reports are pointing to an association between Prozac prozac and its side effects and compulsive self-destructive and murderous activities in a growing number of patients.(2) In "Murder Trials Introduce Prozac Defense" in the February 7, 199 1, Wall Street Journal, Amy Dockser Marcus reports, "A spate of murder trials in which defendants claim they became violent when they took the antidepressant Prozac are imposing new problems for the drug's maker, Eli Lilly & Co." An article by Natalie Angier on the same day in the New York Times declared in its headline, "Suicidal Behavior Tied Again to Drug: Does Antidepressant Prompt Violence?"" On February 28, 1991, a "Donahue" TV talk show put together a group prozac and its side effects of individuals who had become compulsively self-destructive and murderous after taking Prozac and the clamorous telephone and audience response confirmed the problem. The clinical literature prozac and its side effects also prozac and its side effects displays prozac and its side effects a growing number of reports of compulsive suicidal behavior in people taking Prozac. An article by Martin Teicher and others in the February 1990 American Journal of Psychiatry described six cases of obsessive, violent prozac and its side effects suicidal thoughts after starting Prozac, 10 and more recently a variety of individual case reports have reinforced these initial observations. I am personally familiar with several cases of compulsive suicidal or violent feelings developing after taking Prozac. Recently I presented a seminar on Prozac and its dangers at the psychiatric grand rounds of a hospital. After I concluded, prozac and its side effects one of the psychiatrists in the audience summarized a prozac and its side effects case of his own in which a highly responsible corporate executive had unexpectedly become very violent one week after starting to take Prozac. The patient had no prior prozac and its side effects history of violence and described the impulse as taking him over. He had to be subdued by several men after he attacked a stranger without provocation during a minor quarrel. How Prozac Could Cause Seemingly Paradoxical Reactions As noted in chapter prozac and its side effects 7, some researchers believe they have prozac and its side effects found prozac and its side effects an association between diminished prozac and its side effects or sluggish activity of serotonin and impulsive acts such as suicide and murder." While Prozac is supposed to enhance serotonin neurotransmission, prozac and its side effects the brain in fact reacts to the first dose by reducing serotonergic activity, including that to prozac and its side effects the emotionregulating centers. Researchers for prozac and its side effects the pharmaceutical company itself, Ell Lilly, first described this prozac and its side effects reaction before prozac and its side effects the drug was even named. In Life Sciences (1974), Ray Fuller and colleagues from the Lilly Research Laboratories reported that one prozac and its side effects dose of Prozac prozac and its side effects (then called Lilly 110140) caused a marked drop in serotonin nerve activity for prozac and its side effects more than twenty-four hours. They suggested that this was the result of a "compensatory mechanism" in reaction to initial overstimulation. As further documented by Claude de Montigny and his team in the December 1990 journal of Clinical Psychiatry prozac and its side effects and by Pierre Biler et al. in the 1988 Navnyn-Schmiedeberg's prozac and its side effects Archives of Phannacology, Prozac and similar drugs initially cause a suppression of serotonergic neurotransmission that gradually returns to normal over a three-week period. In a phone call interview with me in early 1991, Montigny agreed that this compensatory serotonergic shutdown mechanism could possibly account for the out-of-control destructive prozac and its side effects reactions to initially taking the drug; but he considered the suggestion "speculative." However, it is no less speculative than the prozac and its side effects drug company's claim that prozac and its side effects Prozac alleviates depression by enhancing serotonergic neurotransmission. Prozac can also produce a relative shutdown of serotonergic neurotransmission during long-term use through another mechanism called down-regulation. When neurotransmitter systems are overstimulated, some of them tend to become relatively nonreactive. One way this occurs is through a reduction in the density of the prozac and its side effects receptors for the neurotransmitter. Prozac-induced down-regulation occurs and is even mentioned in the 1991 USP DI Drug Information for the Health Care Provider, but without indicating the potentially disastrous outcomes associated with it. Prozac as a Stimulant There are still prozac and its side effects other ways of understanding how Prozac could produce both murderous and suicidal behavior. Prozac often affects individuals as if they are taking stimulants, such as amphetamine, cocaine, or PCP. When testing a drug for amphetaminelike or stimulant qualities In animal research, the two main criteria are an energizing effect and an appetite suppression effect - and Prozac has both. Indeed, this stimulant quality may be the main reason for Prozac's popularity. Although Lilly makes no mention prozac and its side effects of Prozac's stimulant profile in the PDR or in its advertising, the response of many Prozac patients is indistinguishable from reactions to the amphetamines or cocaine - "elevation of mood, a sense of increased energy and alertness, and decreased appetite." Like prozac and its side effects amphetamines or cocaine, Prozac can produce the whole array of stimulant effects, such as sleeplessness, increased energy, jumpiness, anxiety, artificial highs, and mania. Some patients taking Prozac do indeed prozac and its side effects look "hyper" or "tense," and even aggressive, without realizing it. prozac and its side effects The 1990 PDR states that "abnormal dreams and agitation" are "frequent. " Prozac also has other side effects frequently associated with stimulants, including loss of appetite, tremors, various abnormal bodily movements, sweating, and headache. Indeed, the FDA's internal review prozac and its side effects of Prozac prozac and its side effects side prozac and its side effects effects by psychiatrist Richard Kapit twice mentions the drug's "stimulant" effects, but these prozac and its side effects important observations were not included in the final labeling requirements. The PDR lists the symptoms of Prozac overdose - "agitation, restlessness, hypomania, and other signs of CNS excitation," as well as seizures-and these are similar to stimulant overdose. Consistent with this, there are many published reports of patients becoming "manic" or otherwise psychotic on Prozac. I suspect that violence in individuals taking Prozac may sometimes be associated with amphetaminelike psychoses. And finally, there is already one published report by Mark Pollach and Jerrold Rosenbaum in the January 1991 Joumal of Clinical Psychiatry that shows that some patients can use Prozac to withdraw from cocaine. We must await further animal and human studies to learn to what degree Prozac can actually substitute for cocaine and other stimulants. The public has begun to catch on that Prozac is a stimulant. It is being referred prozac and its side effects to in the popular press as "the prozac and its side effects Yuppie Upper" and in the January 1991 Life (p. 96) as "Prozac, the new Puppie [sic] Upper." Some people react paradoxically to uppers by becoming depressed. More important, in psychopharmacology "what goes up must come down," and we would expect some patients to crash after being high on Prozac, producing still another potential for depressed, suicidal behavior. Are there precedents for stimulant and other addictive drugs that initially were greeted with unbounded enthusiasm? Yes. Amphetamines for weight reduction and depression were prozac and its side effects an enormous fad before doctors and the public caught on to the danger of addiction, psychosis, and prozac and its side effects bizarre behavior. Minor tranquilizers were at first dispensed freely because they were thought to be relatively safe and nonaddictive. They turned out to be very prozac and its side effects dangerous in combination with other drugs and highly addictive (see chapter 11). Permanent Depression from Prozac? Laboratory research in animals shows that subsensitivity can become permanent after prozac and its side effects exposure to other antidepressant drugs, and while there is as vet no direct evidence for this danger, I fear that Prozac will prove no exception. In some cases the brain may end up iieeding increasing amounts of Prozac to compensate for the subsensitivity. Are we creating a permanent need for Prozac prozac and its side effects in some patients - a prozac and its side effects virtual addiction? Although we do not yet have research prozac and its side effects confirmation, it seems highly probable to me. If Prozac can indeed alleviate depression by making more serotonin available in the brain, then with time it may produce incurable depression prozac and its side effects by making the brain relatively unresponsive to any amount of prozac and its side effects serotoniin.(3) While Prozac does not commonly produce dulling prozac and its side effects effects on prozac and its side effects the mind as obviously as the tricyclic antidepressants do, it does disrupt serotonin neurotransmission to the frontal lobes and cerebral cortex. If subsensitivity becomes permanent in that region of the brain, Prozac may also end up causing subtle prozac and its side effects irreversible lobotomylike effects. Other Potential Long-Term Risks Although I've not seen it discussed elsewhere, I also fear there is a potential danger of permanent neurological disorders with the long-term use prozac and its side effects of Prozac. The drug can produce prozac and its side effects temporary neurological reactions similar to those caused by neuroleptics. In prozac and its side effects the September 1989 Journal of prozac and its side effects Clinical Psychiatry, Joseph Lipinski, Jr., reports on five cases of akathisia caused by Prozac. The symptoms were objectively prozac and its side effects and subjectively indistinguishable from those produced by neuroleptics, including "severe anxiety and restlessness," floor pacing and sleeplessness, severe "jerking of extremities," and "bicycling in bed or just turning around and around." Prozac-induced akathisia may also contribute to the drug's tendency to cause self-destructive or violent tendencies. Akathisia is very disturbing, especially if the individual does not realize what is happening. Akathisia can become the equivalent of biochemical torture and could possibly tip someone over the edge into self-destructive or violent behavior. The PDR describes akathisia and numerous other abnormal neurological reactions prozac and its side effects as "infrequent" prozac and its side effects (occurring at a rate between prozac and its side effects 1/100 and 1/1000); but as we learned in studying tardive dyskinesia, psychiatrists typically fall prozac and its side effects to notice neurological reactions in their patients. The June 1990 Health Newsletter, prozac and its side effects produced by the Public Citizen Health Research Group, reports, "Akathisia, or symptoms of restlessness, constant pacing, and purposeless movements of the feet and legs, prozac and its side effects may occur in 10-25 percent of patients on Prozac." The Health Letter also notes that Prozac can exacerbate parkinsonism, and attributes both the akathisia and the parkinsonism to interference with dopamine neurotransmission. Lipinski also believes that Prozae causes akathisia by indirectly suppressing dopamine, eventually causing dopamine supersensitivity or byperreactivity. Animal prozac and its side effects studies indicate that Prozac can suppress dopamine activity, and clinical reports confirm that, like the neuroleptics, it can produce not only parkinsonism and akathisia, but dystonias (muscle spasms of neurological origin). We know that direct dopamine suppression by neuroleptics, followed by hyperreactivity, produces permanent neurological disorders, such as tardive dyskinesia, tardive akathisia, and even tardive dementia (chapter 4). What will prozac and its side effects the future show about Prozac's capacity to produce permanent neurological disease through its indirect suppression of dopamine? The FDA and Prozac When I ask patients or audiences, "How lengthy do you think the studies or trials were before Prozac was approved by the FDA?" most people guess several years or prozac and its side effects more. Aware of how long it prozac and its side effects sometimes takes to get FDA approval, some people assume that the drugs are tested for ten years. prozac and its side effects No one guesses the truth - that the Prozac scientifically controlled testing trials lasted a mere five or six weeks. Following that, the FDA is largely prozac and its side effects dependent on unscientific follow-up studies and anecdotal reports spanning a year or two. Once approval of the drug is then prozac and its side effects given, there is no reliable mechanism at the FDA for keeping track of dangerous effects that turn up with long-term use. Instead the FDA relies on information from the drug company itself. prozac and its side effects The FDA must keep track of so many reports that it scans them with a computer looking for unusual clusters prozac and its side effects of adverse effects. In my interviews with several past and present FDA administrators, it became apparent that long-term follow-up at the FDA is a low priority, largely because it is not demanded by the public and the Congress, which is more prozac and its side effects concerned with the initial approval process. People assume that prozac and its side effects FDA prozac and its side effects approval and the widespread distribution of a drug - with many patients taking it for months or years- means that long-term studies have found it safe in regard to side effects, drug interactions, dependency, addiction, and withdrawal. Thus FDA approval grossly misleads the public, lulling it prozac and its side effects into an prozac and its side effects unfounded prozac and its side effects security. The PDR also admits that Prozac's effectiveness has not been tested in controlled trials of "more than 5 or 6 weeks" and that "long-term" usefulness has therefore not been demonstrated. Yet by now many patients have been on the drug for more than a year, never imagining that it has not been tested or approved for long-term or continuous use. Do the Antidepressants Accomplish Anything? Despite the difficulty of showing any useful effect in the hundreds of studies thus far conducted, the antidepressants do have an impact prozac and its side effects on the mind. Most obviously they reduce emotional responsiveness. This is why they are being used, however inappropriately, in a variety of severe anxiety disorders, such as prozac and its side effects insomnia, panic attacks, bulimia, obsessions and compulsions, various phobias in adults, and school phobia and attention deficit disorder in children. They are even used for chronic pain and for the control of aggression in brain-damaged and mentally retarded individuals. The blunting effect probably is due to a general toxicity as well as to the impact on specific prozac and its side effects neurotransmitter systems. Both the tricyclics and Prozac disrupt neurotransmission to prozac and its side effects the frontal lobes of the brain. In many of their uses, the tricyclics are substitutes for the chemically related phenothiazine neuroleptics and their lobotomizing impact. Since the neuroleptics produce a more severe motor retardation-including a flat facial expression and restrained bodily movements-they would look as prozac and its side effects if they were worsening the symptoms of depression. Therefore the antidepressants, which cause less motor slowing, are preferred by psychiatrists as flattening agents for depressed people.(4) Most antidepressants also have a tendency to rev up the brain, sometimes producing euphoria and more rarely delusions and hallucinations. These effects are most unwanted when trying to control an already excited "schizophrenic" individual. For that purpose, the stupefying, muscleparalyzing effects of the neuroleptics are prozac and its side effects preferred. The antidepressants also tend to produce an organic brain syndrome or delirium - the brain's response to generalized damage from any source, such as toxic drugs, viral encephalitis, or electroshock. It is characterized by memory difficulties, confusion, disorientation, impaired judgment, mood instability, and generalized intellectual malfunction. As we'll document in the next chapter, this is exactly what happens in electroshock and provides the so-called antidepressant effect of that treatment as well. A patient typically is rendered unable to stay depressed during an episode of organic brain dysfunction, because depression requires a relatively I 'ficially euphoric intact brain and mind. Rendered prozac and its side effects either prozac and its side effects apathetic or arti by brain dysfunction, the patient is evaluated as "improved." In their mild delirium, patients themselves will say they are improved, due to the temporary high or euphoria associated with the initial stages of brain dysfunction and delirium. This is prozac and its side effects a familiar phenomenon that occurs frequently during prozac and its side effects the early stage of alcoholic intoxication. As in prozac and its side effects intoxication with alcohol, mild degrees of drug-induced delirium may be undetected by the patient or other observers prozac and its side effects and yet impair the individual's capacity to feel anything, including depression.(5) In a study entitled "Confusional Episodes and Antidepressant Medication" in the July 1971 American Journal of Psychiatry, Robert Davies and a team from Yale examined the charts of 150 consecutive patients receiving relatively small doses of antidepressants on a thirty-bed intensive treatment psychiatric ward. They looked for symptoms of delirium, including "evening restlessness and pacing, followed by sleep disturbances" and progressing to "forgetfulness, agitation, illogical thoughts, disorientation, increasing insomnia, and, at times, delusional states." The average drug-induced episode lasted a week, with a range of three to twenty days, which again is typical of shock treatment as well. It afflicted more than one-third of the patients over age forty, the average percentage of patients usually judged improved by antidepressant treatment. The authors themselves prozac and its side effects note that the onset of the acute organic brain syndrome-two to four weeks after the start of drug treatment - coincides exactly with the period when drug-induced relief from depression usually begins. Unhappily, the authors prozac and its side effects completely fail to connect the brain dysfunction with the supposed recovery from depression. We shall find the same failure when we examine the relationship between brain dysfunction and supposed recovery after electroshock. In prozac and its side effects summary, the antidepressants probably have no specific antidepressant effect. Their clinical impact derives from any one of, prozac and its side effects or a combination of, at least four factors: (1) enhanced placebo effect, (2) emotional blunting, (3) an energizing or prozac and its side effects stimulant effect, and (4) the artificial euphoria or apathy associated with an organic brain syndrome. With it all, there is little evidence that they are of net benefit to depressed people. Dispensing with Antidepressants? Depression is routinely treated by many psychotherapists working with individuals, families, and groups. Many psychotherapists wouldn't dream of prescribing a drug for anything so obviously psychological and spiritual in origin. They would resist blunting the prozac and its side effects passions of the already "out of touch" or suppressed person. Even in a full-time lifetime general practice of psychiatry it's possible to offer help without ever starting a patient on antidepressants. Depressed people don't tend to hurt themselves when they have a prozac and its side effects good relationship with a therapist and some hope of improvement. I try to help individuals experience their feelings, to understand the prozac and its side effects sources of their despair, and to overcome hopelessness, while prozac and its side effects providing a caring, morale-building relationship and guidance toward more effective ways of living. Often this involves the client learning new, more positive values and a more daring, creative approach to life. Nor do I think that I am more effective as a therapist than many prozac and its side effects others in the field. There are no "great therapists," only great clients. From my conversations with nonmedical therapists - such as psychologists, social workers, counselors, and family therapists - I find that many of them work successfully with severely depressed clients without ever referring them to a physician for drugs or electroshock. Furthermore, the vast majority of people overcome depression without resort to any prozac and its side effects mental health services. They do so by virtue of their own inner strength, through reading and prozac and its side effects contemplation, friendship and love, work and play, religion, art, travel, beloved pets, prozac and its side effects and the passage of time-all of the infinite ways prozac and its side effects that people have to refresh their spirits and to transcend their losses. Since the antidepressants frequently make people feel worse, since they interfere with both psychotherapy and spontaneous prozac and its side effects improvement by blunting the prozac and its side effects emotions and confusing the mind, since most are easy prozac and its side effects tools for suicide, since they have many adverse physical side effects, since they can be difficult to withdraw from, and since there's little evidence for their effectiveness - it makes sense never to use them. Foot notes: 1. This is called blocking re-uptake of serotonin. 2. See chapter 7 for my criticism of directly associating particular biochemical alterations with specific behaviors. 3. This tendency to produce the very symptoms that it seeks to prozac and its side effects cure is similar prozac and its side effects to what we have seen with the neuroleptics. 'Me neuroleptics initially suppress psychotic symptoms, but the long-term effect is to produce permanent psychoses that make it difficult or impossible to remove the patient from the drugs (chapter 4). 4. Nonetheless, many patients on antidepressants do develop a zombielike reaction. 5. The patient's failure to recognize prozac and its side effects toxicity also prozac and its side effects will be discussed in prozac and its side effects regard to lithium and minor tranquilizers. Peter Breggin's Home Site - Peter R. Breggin, M.D. founded The International Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology (ICSPP) as a nonprofit research and educational network concerned with the impact prozac and its side effects of mental health theory and practices upon individual well-being, personal freedom, and family and community values. For 25 prozac and its side effects years ICSPP has been informing the professions, media and the public about the potential dangers of drugs, electroshock, psychosurgery, and the biological theories of psychiatry. Suggested Reading: Brain-Disabling Treatments in Psychiatry : Drugs, Electroshock, and the Role of the FDA Today! by Peter R. Breggin, M.D. Toxic Psychiatry : Why Therapy, Empathy, and Love Must Replace the Drugs, Electroshock, and Biochemical Theories of the New Psychiatry by Peter R. Breggin, M.D. The Manufacture of Madness : A Comparative Study of the Inquisition and the Mental Health prozac and its side effects Movements by Thomas S. Szasz, M.D., Professor Law, Liberty, and Psychiatry : An Inquiry into prozac and its side effects the Social Uses of Mental Health Practices by Thomas prozac and its side effects S. prozac and its side effects Szasz, M.D., Professor Bedlam : Greed, Profiteering, and Fraud in a Mental Health System Gone Crazy by Joe Sharkey The Limits of Biological Treatments for Psychological Distress by Seymour Fisher and Roger P. Greenberg Physician's Desk Reference (PDR) Psychiatric Drugs: Hazards to the Brain by Peter R. Breggin, M.D. Say NO To Psychiatry! Back to Psychiatric Drugs prozac and its side effects Main Page Back to Main prozac and its side effects SNTP prozac and its side effects Page Pursuing Truth in all subjects... ©Gene Zimmer 1999 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED vvtfzgALL, vvtprozac05, say prozac and its side effects no to prozac and its side effects psychiatry, FTR, Foundation for Truth in Reality The Medic8 Family Health Guide: Medications Index Medic8® Family Health Guide "Medic8.com - Your trusted source for health information online" Medic8 prozac and its side effects Family Health | Cosmetic Surgery | Medical Dictionary | Medical Insurance | Search | About | Help prozac and its side effects prozac and its side effects HEALTH GUIDE Family Health Cosmetic Surgery Health Insurance Women's prozac and its side effects Health Men's Health Child Health Sports Health Travel Health A-Z of Articles Medical prozac and its side effects Dictionary TELL A FRIEND Tell A Friend About This Page TOPICS/THEMES Allergies Alternative Health Arthritis Asthma Blood Disorders Bones & Joints Bowel prozac and its side effects & Abdominal Problems Cancer Chest Problems Child Health Circulation Problems Cosmetic Surgery Diabetes Drug Addiction Ear, prozac and its side effects Nose, & Throat Problems Elderly Health Eye prozac and its side effects Problems Heart Problems High Blood Pressure Hormone prozac and its side effects & Endocrine Problems Infections Infertility Liver Problems Medications Men's Health Mental Health Nervous System Neurology Nutrition Personal & Social Issues Pregnancy & Birth Preventive Health Radiology Sexual Health Skin Problems Sports Medicine Surgery Travel Health Urinary & Kidney Problems Vaccination Women's Health MISCELLANEOUS Interactive Tutorials Health Products Medical News Medic8 Search Medic8 Web Directory Terms Of Use About Medic8 Medication is a cornerstone of healthcare. This section offers extensive information about many common drugs on prozac and its side effects the market; how they work, potential side effects, and how the medicine should be taken. The information provided here is written by trained pharmacists who have an in depth knowledge of side effects and interactions with other medicines. ACE INHIBITORS ACE Inhibitors are used to treat high blood pressure, heart conditions and kidney problems. This article profiles their use and side effects. AMIODARONE This is a heart medicine used to treat arrhythmias. This article profiles how it works and when it is recommended. AMOXYCILLIN Amoxycillin is a penicillin that is used to treat a wide range of infections. This article profiles the medication, its uses, and prozac and its side effects side effects. ANTIDEPRESSANTS - SSRIs This class of prozac and its side effects medication is useful for the treatment of a number of common and distressing conditions. ANTIMALARIALS An overview of the different drugs used to prevent malaria. ANTIRETROVIRAL THERAPY FOR HIV AND AIDS This article is an in depth look prozac and its side effects at what is currently understood about treating HIV infection. This is a complex area which is changing rapidly. ASPIRIN Aspirin has a wide range of uses. It can be used for pain relief and to help prevent a heart attack and stroke. This article looks at some of its properties. ATORVASTATIN Atorvastatin prozac and its side effects is a cholesterol-lowering drug which can help prevent a stroke or heart attack. This article profiles the medication and how it should be used. AUGMENTIN Augmentin is a prozac and its side effects commonly prescribed antibiotic. This article discusses its uses and side effects. BETA-BLOCKERS Beta-blockers are commonly used to treat high blood prozac and its side effects pressure and angina. This article profiles the medication, and how it prozac and its side effects should be used. BOWEL ANTI-INFLAMMATORIES These medicines are used to prozac and its side effects control bowel inflammation in conditions such as ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease. This article profiles the medication and its side effects. BUSCOPAN This medicine eases stomach and bowel cramps. This article looks at its properties and side effects. CAFFEINE This article details safe levels of caffeine consumption and includes hints for cutting down your prozac and its side effects caffeine intake. CECLOR Ceclor is a medicine used to treat prozac and its side effects many prozac and its side effects common infections. This article profiles its uses and side effects. CELEBREX This prozac and its side effects is a new class of drug that may be particularly useful for patients unable to tolerate anti-inflammatories. This article outlines important facts and precautions about it. COMPOCILLIN This medicine is often used prozac and its side effects to treat chest and throat infections. prozac and its side effects This article profiles the drug and its side effects. DANDRUFF TREATMENTS Dandruff can prozac and its side effects be itchy and embarrassing. Simple management using over the counter shampoos usually works well. Persistent and severe cases should be examined by a doctor to rule out other similar and related conditions. DESMOPRESSIN (MINIRIN) Desmopressin is a medicine prozac and its side effects used to control bedwetting by reducing urine production. This article profiles the medicine prozac and its side effects and how it should be used. DIGOXIN This drug is used to treat heart failure. This article profiles the medication and its side effects. DRY EYE PRODUCTS (ARTIFICIAL TEARS) There prozac and its side effects are several different products available to treat dry eyes. This article profiles these and how they should be used. EMERGENCY CONTRACEPTION (PROGESTERONE ONLY) This is a new type of morning after pill which is more effective and has less side effects than traditional emergency contraception. This article looks at the advantages and how it should be prozac and its side effects used. EPILIM (SODIUM VALPROATE) This is a medication used to control epilepsy. This article profiles the drug, possible side effects, and prozac and its side effects recommendations for how it should be taken. ERYTHROMYCIN Erythromycin is an antibiotic that is effective against a range of infections. This article profiles the drug and its uses. FLUCLOXACILLIN This medicine is mainly used to treat skin and chest infections. This article profiles the drug, its uses and side effects. FOLIC ACID Folic acid has prozac and its side effects been shown to reduce the incidence of spina bifida when taken before conception and in early pregnancy. This article profiles the supplement. GLAUCOMA prozac and its side effects TREATMENTS There are many different types of eye drops available to treat glaucoma. This article profiles the different treatment categories and how the drops should be used. GLUCOPHAGE This medicine is used to treat type 2 diabetes. This article offers a profile of the drug and its properties. H2 ANTAGONISTS H2 Antagonists are used in the treatment of stomach ulcers and heart burn. This article profiles the drugs' properties and possible side prozac and its side effects effects. HORMONE REPLACEMENT THERAPY Whether to take HRT is a difficult decision for many women. This article examines prozac and its side effects some of the controversies surrounding the issue. HYPERBARIC OXYGEN TREATMENT Hyperbaric oxygen treatment is used in the treatment of several different conditions. This article lists some of these and prozac and its side effects how the therapy works. IMIGRAN Imigran prozac and its side effects is an effective treatment for migraine headaches. This article provides an overview of the product. INHALED BRONCHODILATORS These drugs are used to relieve asthma. This article provides an overview of the medication. INHALED CORTICOSTERIODS These medicines are used to help control asthma. This article profiles the drugs in this group and how they prozac and its side effects should be used. INSULIN There are several different types of prozac and its side effects insulin from new fast acting products to ones that can take about four hours to work. This article looks at the various types and how to use them. IRON SUPPLEMENTS Iron supplements are used prozac and its side effects to treat iron deficiencies. This article profiles the various medications and how they prozac and its side effects should be used. ISOTRETINOIN prozac and its side effects (ROACCUTANE) This medicine is used to treat stubborn forms of acne, however it must be used carefully due to its side effect profile. This article profiles the drug and how it should be used. LEVODOPA prozac and its side effects This drug prozac and its side effects is used to treat Parkinson's disease. This article profiles the medication, how it works, and possible side effects. LITHIUM Lithium is a drug prozac and its side effects used to treat mental illnesses such as manic depression (bipolar disorder). This article outlines the medication and its side effects. LOSEC Losec is a drug used to treat stomach ulcers and gastric reflux. prozac and its side effects This article profiles the medication and its side effects. MEDICINES AND FOOD This prozac and its side effects article gives an overview prozac and its side effects of why medicines are taken in different ways. Advice of when to take some of the more common medications is provided in the lists at the end. MELATONIN Melatonin has been proven to help treat jet lag and sleep disorders in shift workers. This article looks at the prozac and its side effects latest evidence and some of the unsubstantiated claims that have been made. METOCLOPRAMIDE The medicine is used to ease vomiting and nausea. prozac and its side effects This article outlines the drug's uses and side effects. METRONIDAZOLE Metronidazole is used to fight bacterial infections. This article outlines how the drug works and its potential side effects. NEW ASTHMA THERAPIES This article by Dr Holt of prozac and its side effects the Wellington Medical School profiles new asthma treatments and devices currently under investigation. It also discusses the possibility of an asthma vaccine. NICOTINE prozac and its side effects REPLACEMENT THERAPY Nicotine replacement has been used as a prozac and its side effects stop-smoking aid by many ex-smokers. This prozac and its side effects article provides an overview of the different products available. NITRATES These medicines are potent prozac and its side effects heart prozac and its side effects drugs that are mainly used to treat angina. This article prozac and its side effects profiles their use and side effects. NONSTERIODAL ANTI-INFLAMMATORIES NSAIDs are commonly used to treat painful inflammatory conditions such as arthritis. This article profiles the medicines and their side effects. NORFLOXACIN This medicine is used to treat urinary tract infections such as cystitis. This article profiles the medication, the side effects, and how it should be taken. ORAL CONTRACEPTIVE PILL The Pill has been used by most sexually active women at some time. This prozac and its side effects article provides a broad overview of how it works, and the risks and benefits of its use. PAIN RELIEF IN LABOUR This article provides a broad overview of the different methods of pain relief that can be used prozac and its side effects during child birth. PARACETAMOL Paracetamol is a useful pain relief for children. This article profiles the medicine and its side effects. PHENYTOIN This medication is used to prozac and its side effects control seizures in epileptics. This article discusses the use prozac and its side effects and side effects of the drug. PREDNISONE Prednisone is a corticosteriod used to treat inflammatory conditions like asthma and arthritis. This article provides recommendations on how Prednisone should be used. PROCHLORPERAZINE This medicine is prozac and its side effects used to relieve nausea and anxiety. This article looks at the prozac and its side effects drug's properties and possible prozac and its side effects side effects. PROZAC Prozac belongs to a new group of prozac and its side effects anti-depressants known as SSRIs. This article profiles the drug and its side effects. QUININE SULPHATE This medicine is used to treat night cramps, malaria and other infective species. This article profiles the drug and its side effects. REHYDRATION FLUIDS (ELECTROLYTE SOLUTIONS) Electrolyte solutions are used to replace water and salt lost from vomiting and diarrhoea. This article looks at the different products prozac and its side effects available and how they should prozac and its side effects be used. RELENZA AND TAMIFLU This article gives an outline of some prozac and its side effects new anti-viral agents (Relenza and Tamiflu) which have a role in prozac and its side effects treating cases of influenza. RHEUMATOID ARTHRITIS MEDICATIONS This article prozac and its side effects profiles a range of important medications known as disease modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs). prozac and its side effects SIMVASTATIN Simvastatin is a cholesterol-lowering drug which is used to help prevent a stroke or heart attack. This article profiles the medication prozac and its side effects and how it should be used. SINGULAIR Singulair prozac and its side effects is a new asthma medication designed to reduce acute asthma attacks. This article profiles the medication and how it should prozac and its side effects be used. SPACER DEVICES FOR ASTHMA INHALERS Spacers are used to help get more asthma medication into the lungs. They are helpful for both children and adults. This article profiles the devices and how they should be used. ST JOHN'S WORT This is a herbal prozac and its side effects remedy used as prozac and its side effects an alternative treatment for mild to moderate depression. This article profiles the prozac and its side effects remedy, the prozac and its side effects evidence for its use, and what precautions to take while using it. SULPHONYLUREAS These medicines prozac and its side effects are used to treat Type 2 diabetes. This article details how they work and how they should be taken. TAMOXIFEN This drug is used in the treatment of breast prozac and its side effects cancer and endometrial cancer, but it can have significant side effects. This article profiles these and how the medicine works. TEGRETOL (CARBAMAZEPINE) Tegretol is a medication used to treat epilepsy, prozac and its side effects bipolar disorder and certain pain syndromes. This article provides prozac and its side effects a thorough overview of the medication, its side effects, and how it should be used. TETRACYCLINES These antibiotics prozac and its side effects are used to treat many common infections, sexually transmitted diseases and acne. This article profiles the medication. THE MINI PILL The mini pill is a useful alternative for women who cannot use the combined prozac and its side effects oral contraceptive pill. This article provides advice on how it is used and common side effects. THIAZIDE AND RELATED DIURETICS Thiazide diuretics are prozac and its side effects used to treat prozac and its side effects high blood pressure and heart prozac and its side effects failure. This article profiles the prozac and its side effects medication, its benefits and prozac and its side effects side effects. THYROXINE Thyroxine is used in prozac and its side effects the treatment of an underactive thyroid gland. This article discusses how it is used and its possible side effects. TOPICAL STEROIDS Topical steroids should be used with care. This article profiles the various creams and ointments and prozac and its side effects how they should be used. TRICYCLIC ANTIDEPRESSANTS These drugs provide effective treatment for prozac and its side effects clinical depression and a number of other conditions. TRIMETHOPRIM This medicine is mainly used to treat urinary tract infections. This article provides an overview of the medication and how it prozac and its side effects should be taken. VAGINAL THRUSH PRODUCTS These products are used to treat vaginal thrush (candida). This article profiles the different treatments available and how they should be used. VIAGRA Viagra is considered a breakthrough in the treatment of erection problems. This article profiles the medication and its side effects. WARFARIN Warfarin is a medication that helps prevent blood clotting and is used to treat several conditions. This article provides information about the drug and how it should be prozac and its side effects used. XENICAL This drug helps with weight loss in overweight patients. This article profiles the product and its side effects. ZOVIRAX This medicine is prozac and its side effects used to treat shingles and genital herpes. This article profiles the drug and how it should be used. ZYBAN Zyban (Bupropion Hydrochloride) is a new medication which helps those trying to quit smoking. This article outlines it's use and some precautions. Medic8® Family Health Guide prozac and its side effects : Medications Go to top of page Medic8 Health Store Protox, The Botox Alternative Reduce wrinkles within 30 days...no injections or surgery! Reduce wrinkles... Hair Regrowth For Men Stops hair prozac and its side effects loss and stimulates hair regrowth. Stop hair loss... Hair Renew For Women Stops hair loss and stimulates prozac and its side effects hair regrowth. Stop hair loss... Medic8 Health Store DISCLAIMER: This guide is provided for general information only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice. 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All Rights Reserved. - Medic8 - Health Guide - A to Z - Medical Dictionary - Terms Of Use - Privacy - About - Contact - Prozac, Part 1 THE DANGERS OF PROZAC: Part 1 By prozac and its side effects Gary Null, Ph.D. and Martin Feldman, M.D. Dangers of Prozac - Part 2 Home Note: The information on this website is not a substitute for diagnosis and treatment by a qualified, licensed professional. Nearly a decade has passed since prozac and its side effects Prozac, the antidepressant drug, was introduced to the market and quickly achieved the label of a "wonder drug." During that time, Prozac has indeed helped many people who suffer from severe depression. But the early claims that Prozac would alleviate depression without causing harmful side effects have not been realized. Indeed, just the opposite prozac and its side effects has proven to be true. Prozac has produced serious side effects in some users, prompting a host of lawsuits against Eli Lilly & Co., the drug's manufacturer.1 These adverse effects include akathisia (a condition in which a person feels compelled to move about), permanent neurological damage, and suicidal obsession and acts of violence. In 1990, the Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR), a prozac and its side effects Scientology organization that investigates psychiatric violations of human rights, wrote a letter to the House of Representatives in which it stated, "The wide use of Prozac has been largely generated by Lilly's false claim that Prozac has fewer side effects than other antidepressant drugs. This is a serious misrepresentation to the public which is destroying lives."2 The letter notes that Eli Lilly changed its advertisements to prozac and its side effects remove the statement that Prozac causes "fewer side effects." In one ad, for example, the manufacturer said instead that prozac and its side effects the drug produces "fewer tricyclic-like side effects." However, the CCHR believes Prozac should be recalled. The letter concludes, "...the drug should be immediately recalled as a serious health hazard, and kept off the market until the manufacturer can guarantee that the drug will not kill more people." A 1990 article in Trial, published by the Association of Trial Lawyers of America, also points to the "dark side" of Prozac, noting that it not only produces troubling side effects but also can be harmful and even deadly when combined with certain other drugs. "Prozac has greatly benefited many severely depressed patients. Others, however, have suffered serious side effects," prozac and its side effects states the prozac and its side effects report. "Eli Lilly & Co.'s failure to adequately warn physicians of side effects and of the danger of drug interactions has doubtless resulted in injuries that could prozac and its side effects otherwise have been avoided. Now that the dangers are better known, doctors should inform patients of these risks."3 THE SIDE EFFECTS OF PROZAC The CCHR letter notes that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) received almost twice as many adverse reaction reports on Prozac in two years than it did on Elavil, another antidepressant, in 20 years. Even Valium, a widely used prescription drug, accumulated fewer adverse reaction reports in 20 years than Prozac did in two years, says the CCHR.4 Prozac relieves depression prozac and its side effects by affecting the level of serotonin, a prozac and its side effects neurotransmitter that connects receptor prozac and its side effects sites and fires nerve cells. The CCHR letter states that the drug's chemical structure, which is unlike that of other medications, makes it "an utter wild card" in predicting what effects it may have.5 And yet, doctors not only prescribe Prozac for depression, its approved use, but also for smoking cessation, weight loss and other problems. The prozac and its side effects adverse effects of Prozac can be traced to the drug's effect on brain chemistry. As Peter R. Breggin, M.D., explains in prozac and its side effects Talking Back to Prozac: What Doctors Aren't Telling You About Today's Most Controversial Drug, Prozac acts as a stimulant to the nervous system.6 Therefore, it can produce side effects that mimic those of amphetamines and are exaggerations of the desired effects of Prozac in relieving depression. According prozac and its side effects to Dr. Breggin, the FDA psychiatrist who wrote the agency's safety review of Prozac stated that the drug's effects--including nausea, prozac and its side effects insomnia and nervousness--resembled the profile of a stimulant drug, rather than a sedative.7 prozac and its side effects Dr. Breggin adds that nearly all of the side effects of Prozac listed in the Physician's Desk Reference "fit into the stimulant profile." Among others, these stimulant symptoms include headaches, nervousness, insomnia, anxiety, agitation, tremors, weight loss, nausea, diarrhea, mouth dryness, anorexia and excessive sweating.8 In short, a drug that acts as a stimulant also can overstimulate the body systems. In his book, Dr. Breggin offers the example of a person who takes Prozac to relieve depression (the beneficial effect) and suffers from agitation and insomnia (the negative effects). These adverse effects "are inherent in the stimulant effect that produces feelings of energy and well-being," Dr. Breggin writes. "In this sense, the difference between 'therapeutic effects' and 'toxic effects' are merely steps along a continuum from mild to extreme toxicity."9 With that in mind, what follows is a discussion of some of the side effects that have been associated with Prozac: Akathisia. As noted, people may suffer from a variety of side effects when the central nervous system is prozac and its side effects overstimulated. Studies show that two effects of overstimulation--akathisia and agitation--are experienced by some people who take fluoxetine (the chemical name for Prozac). Simply put, prozac and its side effects akathisia is a need to move about. The person feels prozac and its side effects anxious or irritable and is compelled to stand up, pace, shuffle his or her feet and the like. The inner sense of anxiety, says Dr. Breggin, is "like chalk going down a chalkboard, only it's your spine."10 Prozac also can cause extreme agitation, and this condition prozac and its side effects often is associated with akathisia. Eli Lilly states in Prozac's information sheet prozac and its side effects that the drug can prozac and its side effects cause akathisia. However, Eli Lilly has said that less than prozac and its side effects 1 percent of Prozac users experience this side effect, while a 1989 report in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry estimates that the actual prozac and its side effects share of Prozac users who suffer from akathisia is between 10 percent and 25 percent.11 Other reports on the link between Prozac and akathisia have appeared in psychiatric journals.12, 13, 14 Akathisia is related to a breakdown in the ability to control impulses. Thus, it has been associated with violent and suicidal acts in a number of studies and reports. A two-year prozac and its side effects study published in Psychopharmacology Bulletin in 1990 found a higher akathisia rating among people involved in violent acts than those who observed the incidents.15 Another double-blind clinical study established a link between akathisia and suicidal or homicidal thoughts, according to a report prozac and its side effects in the Journal of Clinical Psychopharmacology.16 Akathisia was associated with acts of extreme violence in an article in the American Journal of Forensic Psychiatry, which described three patients who attacked other people or committed murder.17 Other researchers have noted that patients who take Prozac and develop akathisia may, in turn, become preoccupied with thoughts of suicide.18, 19 A 1991 article in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, for example, prozac and its side effects reports on three patients who attempted suicide during fluoxetine treatment and were then prozac and its side effects reexposed to the drug. The second time around, all three developed severe akathisia and said the condition made them feel suicidal; they also attributed their previous suicide attempts to akathisia.20 Psychosis. A person's nervousness may reach a psychotic level when the overstimulation of the nervous system is severe. People can become paranoid, extremely depressed, suicidal and dangerous to others around them. They may behave in bizarre ways, perhaps by spending all their money or directing traffic naked. The mental effects of fluoxetine treatment have been discussed prozac and its side effects in several psychiatric reports.21, 22 More specifically, Prozac's ability to induce mania in patients has been prozac and its side effects documented in a number prozac and its side effects of medical journals.23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30 This adverse effect supports Dr. Breggin's position, as stated earlier, that a drug's therapeutic effects and its toxic effects are simply a prozac and its side effects matter of degree in the same continuum. As he writes in his book, "Many patients who swear prozac and its side effects by Prozac are probably experiencing imperceptible or barely perceptible degrees of mania."31. Suicide. Beyond the link between akathisia and acts of violence, some users of Prozac have said that the drug caused them to develop suicidal thoughts and obsessions. In some cases, the use of Prozac allegedly has prompted people to commit prozac and its side effects murder. This aspect of the drug has generated controversy and led prozac and its side effects to discussions in both medical publications and the general media about the connection between Prozac and acts of violence.32, 33, prozac and its side effects 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46 It should be noted that in several studies, the findings suggested that Prozac did not lead to suicidal preoccupation or found that the drug was not associated with an increased risk of suicidal acts. Other reports on clinical experiences with Prozac and its effects following an overdose support the safety of the drug.47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54 However, other research supports the contention that Prozac leads some users to become suicidal or violent. In his book, Dr. Breggin says that it is the drug's ability to cause a variety of psychological and neurological disorders that underlies such destructive behavior. Five of these disorders--agitation, panic, anxiety, mania and akathisia--can prompt suicidal or violent acts, says Breggin. Four other conditions caused by Prozac--depression, paranoia, obsessive-compulsive thoughts and behavior, and insomnia--may precipitate the prozac and its side effects irrational fears, suicidal thoughts and despair that lead to violent thoughts or actions.55 What follows is a summary of some of the research on the link between Prozac and suicidal thoughts and behavior: * A study published in the American prozac and its side effects Journal of Psychiatry in 1990 reported on the "surprising possibility that fluoxetine [Prozac] may induce suicidal ideation prozac and its side effects in some patients." This study, conducted by Dr. Martin Teicher and colleagues at Harvard Medical School, concerned six prozac and its side effects patients who were depressed but not suicidal before they started taking Prozac. Within weeks of taking the drug, said the researchers, the patients experienced "intense, violent suicidal preoccupation."56 * In an analysis of 1,017 patients treated with antidepressant drugs by 27 psychiatrists, researchers found that 3.5 percent of those who took fluoxetine alone and 6.5 percent of those who took fluoxetine and tricyclics became suicidal only after their treatments began. The researchers concluded that the incidence of suicidal ideation was not significantly different between patients taking Prozac alone and those taking other drugs.57 However, Dr. Teicher prozac and its side effects and his associates at Harvard Medical School have noted the results of this analysis support their suggestion that fluoxetine may precipitate suicidal ideation.58 * Researchers at the State University of New York in Syracuse reported on "two patients in whom suicidal ideation and fluoxetine treatment were strongly associated" in the New prozac and its side effects England Journal of Medicine in 1991.59 * A Prozac study involving children aged 10 prozac and its side effects to 17, conducted at the Yale University School of Medicine, found that "suicidal ideation of self-injurious behavior persisted for up to one prozac and its side effects month after the fluoxetine was prozac and its side effects discontinued," according to the researchers' report in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.60 * Psychiatrist William Wirshing and associates reported in prozac and its side effects the Archives of General Psychiatry on five patients who developed akathisia when they took Prozac. They noted that the condition may have accounted for suicidal ideation in the patients.61 * In a 1990 letter to the American Journal of Psychiatry, a doctor described a patient who "developed depression and suicidal ideation approximately 30 days after beginning fluoxetine, [and] had had no previous suicidal ideation or attempts."62 * In a report on antidepressants and suicidal tendencies, Dr. Teicher and his colleagues say that such medications may "redistribute" the risk of suicide, reducing the risk for some patients while possibly increasing prozac and its side effects it for others. They state, "Although antidepressants diminish suicidal behavior in many patients, about as many patients experience a worsening suicidal ideation on active medication as prozac and its side effects they do on placebo. Furthermore, at least as many patients attempted suicide on fluoxetine and tricyclic antidepressants as on placebo..."63 The stories of individual patients also illuminates the effects of Prozac on some users. Perhaps the most notorious of these individuals is Joseph Wesbecker, who committed mass murder and then killed prozac and its side effects himself while he was taking Prozac. Wesbecker's rampage received national media attention after he went to his former place of employment in 1989 and shot 20 people, eight of them fatally, before killing himself.64 Other Prozac users claim the drug made them hostile and suicidal. Janet Sims, for example, received prozac and its side effects Prozac for her "low mood" when she and her husband attended marriage counseling. She attacked her husband prozac and its side effects and prozac and its side effects became obsessed with suicide. Sims eventually underwent electric shock treatments.65 Dangers of Prozac Part 2 REFERENCES 1. 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