Withdrawal proof ... back in 2001

Sorry if I'm overloading the site, but this is all the stuff I've been discovering and it is truly horrific.

Here's an excerpt from an article in the Guardian in 2001 - it's Dr David Healy again (thank God for the man and his mission, he's finally getting somewhere this year).

By the way, I think the most frightening part of the following is when he says "some people have been on these drugs for as long as five years because each time they stop, they feel worse."

How bad is that? "As long as five years"!!! Well, a lot of us have been/were on them longer than that, but of course, this was written 3 years ago.

Anyway, excerpt following:



"Dr Healy believes all the drugs of the SSRI (selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitor) class can cause physical dependency in some people to some degree. "All the major SSRIs cause withdrawal problems although paroxetine (Seroxat - now outselling Prozac in the UK - or Paxil in the United States) may be worse than the others," he said.

"In the case of some this isn't an infrequent occurrence. More than 50% of people may have significant withdrawal problems that they should be warned about. This is way beyond what was happening with the older drugs."

One of the main selling points of the SSRIs when they arrived in the early 1990s was that people did not become physically dependent on them as they had on older antidepressants - the benzodiazepines such as Valium and Librium.

But a World Health Organisation league table of the drugs that doctors think cause people most problems when they are trying to quit puts paroxetine (Seroxat) in the number one slot with twice as many reports as the next highest, another SSRI called venlafaxine (Efexor). Sertraline (Lustral) is fourth and fluoxetine (Prozac) is seventh in the table compiled by the Uppsala monitoring centre. The benzodiazepines Ativan (lorazipam) and Valium (diazepam) come 11th and 13th.

"The SSRIs are drugs for which withdrawal symptoms are most reported worldwide," said Charles Medawar of the group Social Audit, which has battled to get the authorities to recognise there is a problem.

The firms maintain that people who feel worse after stopping the drugs are suffering a recurrence of depression. They are advised to go back on the drugs.

But Dr Healy says any immediate return of symptoms is probably withdrawal and that if it were another bout of depression, it would be unlikely to show up for months or even a year. Some people, he says, have been on the SSRIs for as long as five years because each time they stop, they feel worse. "



2001, people. Feeling ripped off yet?

Juno