Posted by simon levane on February 18, 2006, at 16:37:57
In reply to Re: Suicide on Effexor » simon levane, posted by lifetime on February 18, 2006, at 2:01:39
Thanks for your response Herb...
While I do agree with you that there are many cases in which a person who intends suicide finally succeeds, and there are also cases in which someone completes suicide without warning -- there are also so many cases in which our loved ones could have been saved if only we had known or had better education about suicide risk. I don't recall anyone suggesting that a particular anti-depressant drug be removed from the market. Even the recognized activist researchers in this this area who have been warning about these drugs for years, such as David Healy and Joseph Glenmullen, have never said that the drugs should be banned. I don't think it is a question of whether these drugs are useful for many patients in a carefully supervised plan of care. Glenmullen wrote a recent book called "The Anti-depressant Solution" in which he describes the risks that are so often not told to patients. Healey had an appointment to the University of Toronto in Canada to head a department for psychiatric research, but as he spoke up about Prozac, and one of the key funders of research at the University was one of the major drug manufacturers, his appointment was cancelled. He sued and won a substantial settlement (though part of the settlement was that the details were kept private - not unusual in such cases). It is generally known that this had to do with anti-depressants and it seems that the university did not want to lose the funding.
I know of a friend's spouse who is on a low dose of Effexor that helps her a lot, but she is not an adolescent, young adult, and in her case, her family was kept well appraised of the drug in terms of benefit and risk.
I cannot help but feel guilty and regretful that I did not research my daughter's illness, that I did not ask more questions about her medications. As I wrote, this omission on my part has cost me a price beyond imagination in sorrow and pain.
I can only forgive myself in the context of how difficult it was coping.. and being in the centre of things with my child, I could not see the risk. It is very easy to be upset with a young adult child who is acting out in a variety of ways. I was in the typical "sandwich" generation between an elderly parent and a troubled young adult child. All roads led to me. I also cannot excuse myself for my own flaws.. and we all have flaws, but thank goodness most people do not experience such an outcome.
I think that the main point that both DM and I are making is that the medical system failed our children and failed us, and it is clear, has failed a lot of people in the area of psychiatric drugs.
That is the point we are making here. So many mistakes... Devastated Mom lost her beloved son because her family doctor seemed to prescribe Effexor in a truly lackadaisical manner.. imagine the doctor saying, "Oh,, you feel down... here, take this.. make you feel better. No harm" and in the case of my daughter so many many mistakes of care... too many to write here.
When I learned that the warnings about Effexor have been on the label in some manner since 1999, it made me want to scream. And at end, all of these doctors basically just shrug it off by the classical justification "Depressed people kill themselves" and that excuses the possible risk of the anti-depressant.
Both DM's son and my daughter are classical cases of impulse acts caused by anti-depressants, because both of them were kids who had a lot to live for. Neither of us can prove that it was the Effexor, but if there was a risk for DM's son, then his family should have been told and could have been told with his permission. In my daughter's case, the multiplicity of errors are so many that I don't know what to say. The only way this can be prevented in the future is through proper education of doctors, of family, of all the caregivers. I just lived in this illusion that my beloved child could not do this to herself or to me. I may have been upset at her often, but I was there .... and I needed help to cope with her, and if there was anything that I needed most of all, it was an understanding of the risk, and that the medical caregivers themselves had properly shared her medical history to help us help her. Instead, everyone just minimized and gave her little attention, and I could not believe that she would do this. Someone recently asked me how I was doing and I told him that I lived in agony. He said... "well life must go on".. and I said to him.. "could you imagine one of your children taking their own life?"... When I said that, I could see his face scrunch up and it told me that even the thought of that was so horrible that he wanted to block it out.
I cannot write of this as well as those many concerned professionals in health care and social work. Some doctors just prescribe these drugs without much consideration of risk. Ritalin is another case that is hugely overprescribed to "manage" kids... Most of the kids on this drug probably do not need it.
My daughter's case could read in a text book about all the wrong things that should NOT be done to look after an adolsecent with Borderline Personality Disorder. Her death was the outcome of risk factors that were simply not explained to me or her mother. The Effexor was just the tipping point that allowed the total risk factors to kill my child. But the case of DM's son and the anecdotal testaments of those who have used this drug speak so loudly about doctors stopping and thinking before they prescribe these drugs. I heard a psychiatrist justify his prescribing the drug by stating he gave it to hundreds of people without any harmful effects. Sounds so easy unless one becomes the exception case - and loses a 20 year old daughter to suicide.
Her life plays over in my head and I struggle to somehow live, because I have the loss and the pain and torment of my own stupidity and how I duped myself into thinking she was not at risk.
I could have researched her illness and kept better track myself, but I simply was fooled by the lack of concern of doctors,a statement by the specialist that with the Effexor she would be OK and my own angst about her behaviours. You see, for me in my day to day interaction with her, she was not really mentally ill, she just was my kid who was troubled and who always played me to get what she wanted, and used to laugh about how she could persuade me to get what she wanted. What I didn't realize is that she had become an addict, and the medical caregivers didn't see it either when they should have known if they had been properly educated in the drugs they were prescribing. The risk therefore was multiplied, and all who knew her truly believe that her suicide was an impulse act facilitated by the Effexor and her drug abuse. Yes, doctors are human of course, and they are prone to errors as well, but there must be a basic standard of care that seems to be missing. Proper advice to patients and family caregivers within the context of risk factors, and proper medical history disclosure to enable correct diagnosis. In the other medical specialties this seems to happen as so many of the procedures are based on solid scientific diagnostic evidence, but in the case of psychiatry, this is far from being the case. There needs to be more effort to develop diagnostics that are more than "guesswork" by one or other psychiatrist. And the knowledge of psychiatrists about treatment is also very suspect. This is all the more reason that psychiatric drugs should not be prescribed without a proper assessement and disclosure, and clear warnings about risks. This should not be left to chance. It is truly back to that essential medical principal "DO NO HARM".
Simon
poster:simon levane
thread:601406
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20060212/msgs/610941.html