MEDICAL SPELLBINDING - A MOST DAMAGING SIDE EFFECT OF PSYCHIATRIC DRUGS
The damaging side effects of psychiatric drugs are well-documented - nausea, fatigue, weight gain, sexual dysfunction, emotional blunting, death. But did you know there is a side effect of psychiatric drugs that is far more insidious because the patient is not even aware it is happening? It’s what keeps patients taking the pills and is the cornerstone which props up the whole psychiatric industry. To find out what it is and how to protect yourself and your loved ones, please read on …
A Typical Story
Johnny was a normal fun-loving nine year old with a bright future ahead of him. At the age of nine and a half, he got a strep throat infection which took him out of school for a week. He seemed to recover but a few weeks later suddenly became anxious, had difficulty sleeping, could no longer concentrate on school work and stopped eating many of his favourite foods. He began to lose weight and developed time-consuming and challenging OCD behaviours. Instead of checking him for actual physical conditions such as chronic strep infection or autoimmune activity affecting his brain, his GP sent Johnny down the psychiatric route where Johnny was “diagnosed” with the label ADHD and put on the psychiatric drug Fluoxetine which made him want to sleep all the time. He was then placed on the stimulant Elvanse which made him so restless he couldn’t sleep. He then became more tired so a further stimulant was prescribed. Johnny then left school as he could no longer keep up with the work required of him. He couldn’t get up before midday and spent all his time playing video games and demanding junk foods. His psychiatrist wanted to try out more drugs but fortunately his parents came into contact with a practitioner who questioned the ‘ADHD diagnosis’ and ran a series of lab tests that showed Johnny was still suffering from the strep infection that had triggered his immune system into attacking an area of his brain known as the basal ganglia. The label of ADHD (for which there are no lab tests) was the wrong diagnosis for Johnny and he suffered because of it. When weaned off psychiatric drugs under medication supervision, Johnny could then fight his infection more effectively and the spark of life finally returned to his eyes.
Enter Dr Beggin
There was a happy ending for Johnny, but sadly, there isn’t for millions of children and adults placed on the dwindling spiral of psychiatric poly-pharmacy. Many are never fortunate enough to be investigated for the real underlying physical causes of the symptoms for which they were prescribed psychiatric drugs in the first place. This seems to be because of medical ignorance, vested interests and an alarming lack of specialist tests and adequate training for stealth infections by an NHS not yet geared up to deal with the chronic conditions of the 21st century.
Since 2000, there has been a 300% plus increase in antidepressant prescriptions alone in the UK. We have an epidemic of psychiatric drug prescriptions with absolutely no blood tests to back them up.
The information in the bullet points below is based on the content of psychiatrist Dr Peter Breggin’s book Psychiatric Drug Withdrawal: A Guide for Prescribers, Therapists, patients and Their Families published in 2013. Dr Breggin’s campaigns over many decades to reform psychiatry are well documented. He served as the single scientific expert in more than one hundred Prozac suits against drugs giant Eli Lilly, where the internal documents on suppressed suicide ideation data first emerged. His 1983 book Psychiatric Drugs: Hazards to the Brain led to the FDA’s warning on tardive dyskenisia in 1985 and Black Box warning on antidepressant suicidality in 2004. He has been called “The Conscience of Psychiatry.”
*Toxic effects on the brain - Every psychiatric drug rolled out so far has been shown to be toxic to brain cells or severely disruptive of normal brain function.
Antipsychotic drugs produce atrophy (shrinkage) of the brain that has been seen on imaging studies. This shrinkage correlates with dose and exposure to the drugs. Long-term suppression of dopamine receptors triggers the brain to grow more of them and increase their sensitivity. When the drug is reduced or stopped, these supersensitive receptors now fire excessively, producing psychotic symptoms that can be more damaging than the original symptoms before the drug was given. The medical name for this is ‘pharmacodynamic adaptation’ - the brain’s response to an unrelenting chemical pressure. There are other types of damage including various movement disorders that signal motor control damage in the brain created by psychiatric drugs.
*Damage to motor controls of the brain - Tardive dyskinesia is a movement disorder caused by antipsychotic drugs. It can damage any muscle function in the body under voluntary control - face, eyes, tongue, neck, back, limbs, abdomen, swallowing and voice. At its most severe, patients can’t sit straight or stop their head from moving. Tardive dystonia produces painful muscle spasms, often in the neck. Tardive akathisia produces an inner agitation and compulsion to keep moving. Tardive psychosis is a rebound psychotic state produced when chronic blockage of dopamine from psychiatric drugs creates supersensitivity to dopamine. Tardive dementia is a term for the cognitive deterioration that accompanies long-term antipsychotic use. Signs of the above should act as a red flag warning that the patient needs to be withdrawn from psychiatric medications as quickly as possible without causing unbearable withdrawal symptoms.
*Long-term side effects of psychiatric drugs - For antipsychotics, these include: weight gain, type 2 diabetes, lipid abnormalities, and cardiovascular disease. Newer “atypical” antipsychotics like Olanzapine can produce even more dramatic weight gain and metabolic disruption. In the elderly, antipsychotics double the risk of stroke and increase risk of overall death. There are reports of these types of drugs being widely prescribed off-label as chemical restraints in nursing homes. Such drugs don’t treat dementia, but sedate the patient into a manageable state while accelerating the underlying cognitive decline and increasing the risk of stroke. When prescribed to children, the same drugs suppress growth, damage metabolism, and can produce permanent movement disorders. Children are particularly vulnerable to antidepressant prescriptions. In clinical trials, rates of suicidal ideation and mania have increased. A child who was sad or worried before the prescription becomes becomes a child who cannot sit still, get a good nights sleep, or has episodes of anger and aggression that are then diagnosed as bipolar to be treated with a further cocktail of drugs, rather than recognising that the patient’s worsening symptoms were caused by the drug!
*The biochemical imbalance has never been scientifically proven - It is often claimed by prescribers that psychiatric drugs address a chemical imbalance in the brain. These drugs don’t correct any biochemical imbalances. In a previous blog entitled The Dangers of Psychiatric Drugs, I outlined that there is no scientific evidence that depression, anxiety, schizophrenia or any other mental illness is caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain or sluggish serotonin. However, all psychiatric drugs create multiple chemical imbalances in brains which didn’t have any chemical imbalances before taking the drugs. This ‘chemical imbalance’ theory was invented by Big Pharma giant Eli Lilley to sell the drug Prozac. It was a very successful marketing strategy. The deterioration seen long-term in patients taking psychiatric drugs is not due to the patients’ disease, but is the predictable consequence of continuous exposure to brain toxic compounds combined with suppression of the body’s own signalling mechanisms. The label “treatment resistant” is in most cases injury to the brain caused by the very medication supposed to be helping it. This is known as iatrogenic damage.
*Chronic Brain Impairment (CBI) is the name given to the long-term injury of the brain caused by extended exposure to psychiatric drugs. Nearly every patient who remains on these drugs for years develops some degree of it. Its four hallmarks are: Cognitive dysfunction (impaired memory, attention, abstract thinking), Emotional Instability (mood ups and downs often mismanaged as bipolar disorder), Apathy and Indifference (loss of motivation, reduced engagement with life), Anosognosia (the inability to recognise these very side effects in oneself).
*Anosognosia is the insidious effect that I referred to in the introduction to this blog and is the mechanism that keeps patients on drugs that are damaging them. The drugs affects the brain to such as degree that the patient doesn’t notice the deterioration. Family members may be the first to notice that something is different - the personality seems flatter, the patient doesn’t engage as much with life, work performance deteriorates. The patient may insist they are feeling fine and that they need the drug.
*Medical spellbinding is a specific form of intoxication anosognosia - the drug-induced state of not being able to recognise one’s own impaired mental condition or behaviour. The patient feels “fine”, that the drugs are “helping” but family members and friends see deterioration - blunted emotions, less ability to do tasks they used to, poor decisions, sometimes with catastrophic effects. This is not a psychological effect, it is a neurological deterioration produced by the drug. Medical spellbinding explains why patients defend psychiatric medications that are harming them and resist the suggestion of withdrawal. A person on an antidepressant or stimulant may experience all kinds of manic ups and downs while still insisting that they are thinking clearly.
On page 112, Dr Breggin cites a murder case involving a 16 year old boy called Jack without previous criminal activity who abruptly killed his friend with a single stab to the chest with a kitchen knife. He had no explanation for why he committed this crime and denied wanting to kill his friend. When weaned off Fluoxetine, Jack reverted to his normal personality.
This case illustrates the extreme of medical spellbinding. When patients are withdrawn from psychiatric drugs and the effects of medical spellbinding begin to wane, it often feels as if a cloud has been lifted. They begin to realise they have been impaired in their emotional life and cognitive ability. For the first time, they can avail themselves of counselling therapies that enable them to confront their underlying problems and regain control of their lives.
*Medical disempowerment is a term that describes the self-invalidative belief that recovery requires submission to an authoritarian medical expert - the “doctor knows best” syndrome. Patients prescribed psychiatric drugs are seldom told that the serious nature of their side effects or that there are alternatives to drugs - lab testing to rule out physical causes, counselling, assessing nutritional deficiencies. Instead, they are told that the drug is necessary, the diagnosis is permanent and their side effects are the manifestation of the illness. As time goes on, they lose trust in their own opinions of the drug side effects and feel compelled to continue the drug because the doctor says they must. Dr Breggin advocates that the remedy is not another authority figure, rather it is the patient learning to take control of their own health, supported by clinicians willing to share information honestly and realise that it is the patent whose quality of life is being affected and this must come first.
The Way Forward
1.Insist on the principle of Informed Consent before agreeing to take a drug prescription that you are unsure of. Psychiatric drugs are also prescribed off-label for conditions like insomnia, OCD, PTSD, anxiety, chronic pain, fibromyalgia, IBS, menopause, migraine and more. If you were warned about the side effects listed in this article, would you sign up to that drug?
2.Insist on a thorough medical investigation of your symptoms to find the underlying physical causes before being shunted down the psychiatric route. This includes a full thyroid check, looking for immune dysregulation, including autoimmunity and stealth infections. You may have to pay for private tests to get this information but this may ultimately save you from being misdiagnosed and wrongly medicated.
3.If you are depressed or suffering from emotional distress due to bereavement, past trauma or other distressing life events, seek a talking therapy to help you through. In past blogs I have mentioned the type of therapy I have seen to be effective. Reducing your cognitive ability to deal with these life stressors may seem like a good solution at the time, but in the long-run it can only impair your ability to overcome these challenges and cope successfully in life.
4.If you are already taking psychiatric drugs, never ever discontinue them on your own because of the potentially severe nature of withdrawal symptoms! If you wish to wean off them, the only safe path is to work with an educated medical doctor who has trained in psychiatric drug withdrawal. Many doctors who haven’t done such training, are unaware of the dangers of too fast a taper down, and their patients get into trouble. I am fortunate to have links to a medical doctor in my local area who has successfully helped some of my patients to wean safely off their psychiatric drugs. I also advise patients and their families to read Dr Breggin’s manual Psychiatric Drug Withdrawal mentioned above.
5.There needs to be a complete rethink in the way we approach mental health in the UK. It is certainly a hot topic, but people are ignoring the damage done by psychiatric drugs that have no proven scientific value, and which can mask the real underlying problems and make a person less able and shorten his lifespan. This is complete madness and needs to change if we are to have a healthier, more productive United Kingdom.
If you would like help on any of the above issues, please get in touch with the Good Health Clinic on goodhealthclinic@outlook.com to request a free 30 minute Enquiry Call or book an appointment. Please note that an Enquiry call is not a consultation but an exploratory call to see if this is a clinical approach you wish to pursue.To your very good health,
Suzanne Jeffery (Nutritional Medicine Consultant)
M.A.(Oxon), BSc.(NMed), PGCE, GNC, BSEM, MNNA, CNHC
The Good Health Clinic at The Business Centre, 2, Cattedown Road, Plymouth PL4 0EG
Tel no: 07836 552936/ Answer phone: 01752 774755
Disclaimer:
All advice given out by Suzanne Jeffery and the Good Health Clinic is for general guidance and informational purposes only. All advice relating to other health professionals’ advice is for general guidance and information purposes only. Readers are encouraged to confirm the information provided with other sources. Patients and consumers should review the information carefully with their professional health care provider. The information is not intended to replace medical advice offered by other practitioners and physicians. Suzanne Jeffery and the Good Health Clinic will not be liable for any direct, indirect, consequential, special, exemplary or other damages arising therefrom.