#SELF CARE : 4 years ago while on “anti-depressants” and Xanax (for Panic Attacks), I developed symptoms of Bipolar disorder which has seriously affected the last 4 years of my life. But it is not the “disorder” that has been the main problem. It is the way I was treated by our ‘health system’. To cut a long story short I was put on several different medications (at various times) but never told that “anti-depressants” could have been the trigger of this problem in the first place! I was put on Lithium, Zyprexa, Seroquel, sleeping pills, Lamictal, Rivotril and the list goes on. I was basically turned into a prescription drug addict until one day I became “enlightened” and I decided I have had enough of this. The drugs made me sleep half the day for starters. So I start listening to my guy instinct, doing my research and following the work of various doctors, including Professor David Healy (see below) and Dr Peter Breggin. I also went to see Professor Ivor Browne, who has nearly 60 years experience as a doctor. From my research I discovered there are big lawsuits against the makers of Zyprexa and Seroquel. These drugs can cause rapid weight gain, diabetes etc So I find it quite worrying that now they might be thinking of handing drugs out without prescription.

Never stop or change medication without consulting a good doctor due to withdrawal. I now do other things: Exercise, watch diet, watch alcohol, Buddhist Mindfulness Meditation and learning as much as I can about Bipolar disorder, which appears to have been triggered by medication, in my case. For more information about what is really going on read the article extract below from Camden New Journal.

“It is not surprising that the pharmaceutical industry has been a leading global industry for profit. But that profit is at the cost to us all that drug-induced injuries are now the fourth leading cause of death in hospital settings.

In this very important book, Pharmageddon, you will read that the influence of the industry has now become more subtle, more insidious and much more worrying. Only last week two eminent French specialists concluded that half of all drugs prescribed in France are either useless or actually dangerous.

In his introduction Healy sets out the history of how the pharma­ceutical industry has inexorably and profoundly influenced the very practice of medicine over the past 60 years. He shows that the industry has shifted from selling cures to selling diseases.

In the following chapters he eruditely and in detail explains (with 28 pages of references and fully indexed) how the industry has managed to do this whilst taking the medical profession with them, unaware of what has been happening. In the final chapter he reiterates the danger and suggests some palliative actions.

The book shows how the very way your own doctor responds to the problem that you take to her has been changed beyond my recognition of how I was taught to be a doctor and how I taught many students and young doctors over the past 40 years. The independent and personal care that we expect from our doctors has been insidiously replaced by the contracts under which doctors are partly, but significantly paid.

The adherence to prescribed “clinical guidelines”, “clinical pathways”, “evidence-based medicine” and the treating of questionable findings from screening tests are all programmed into the computer in the consulting room directing the doctor how to respond to the patient’s problem. Computerised outcome data then even contribute to how the GP’s practice is paid.

The development of all these concepts has been strongly, often surreptitiously and sometimes downright deceitfully influenced by academic research papers very often funded and written by doctors in the pay of the pharma­ceutical industry.

To support this development the industry has moved from finding drugs to cure diseases to finding or inventing diseases for the drugs they produce to be prescribed for.

The disease has become more important than the person who is ill. Medical care has been replaced by adherence to the treatment of compu­terised physiological measurements.

Charles Medawar, that champion of patients, in his warning to us has called all this “Pharmageddon”.

David Healy, professor of psychiatry at Cardiff and lifelong campaigner to protect us all from “drug-induced injury”, has detailed the facts, the history and background to how medical care and practice has reached Pharmageddon.
It is a terrifying read.

• Robert MacGibbon is a retired Camden GP (article author)
• Pharmageddon. By David Healy”

~ section in quotes From Camden New Journal (Sept 20th)

Aine are u trying to tell me that the consultants in st John of gods in Dublin are wrong when they told us that our sister had a chemical imbalance called bipolar and that I should listen to you instead?

Little bit of proof reading required here.

@jennifer is there a link or any more on the household charge story?

What a load of rubbish

I didn’t say you have to listen to me, even though I have 4 years experience with this “disorder”. If I go to an Amnesty conference I am seen as an “expert by experience”. I am “an expert” on my own mental health and read up on mental health issues on an almost daily basis. I am also in Critical Voices Network: criticalvoicesnetwork.com where I connect to other people who wantt to see changes in how mental health is managed. But the opinions I express are my own ie not representing any particular group.

If you watch the Stephen Fry documentary “The Secret Life of a Manic Depressive”, you will see him go for tests but there are no physical tests/scans that will show up anything. And there are no proven “imbalances”. On the following webpage: topdocumentaryfilms.com/stephen-fry-the-secret-life-of-the-manic-depressive/ (2 hours long and in 2 parts). I do believe that my own mood is very much influenced by my thought processes. I try to keep a daily journal. I sometimes go for Psychotherapy.

As regards believing “consultants”, and I am not referring to any particular hospital, I simply do not believe them because a lot of them are too closely linked to the pharmaceutical industry, financially and in other ways. According to Psychiatrist Dr Michael Corry (Rest in Peace 2010) less than 10% of Consultant Psychiatrists are trained in Psychotherapy. So when I was speaking to the last one for over 2.5 years, in the end I realised he simply wasn’t listening. He was too busy judging me and labeling me and I have a copy of “my notes” to prove it. Something he wrote in there left me traumatized!

There are a number of Psychiatrists/doctors who I do believe and whose work I follow. They include Professor Ivor Browne (who is trained in Psychotherapy!), Professor David Healy (Wales), Dr Peter Breggin (New York), Dr Pat Bracken (West Cork) and Dr Terry Lynch (Limerick, who is a GP/Psychotherapist/author).

Yesterday I got a printout of any medication I have got in the past year and it is just a handful of items. Before I got a printout for the first 3 years after hospitalization and it ran into 9 foolscap pages! Of toxic poisons because of the amount that I was on. So as I say I was a prescription drug addict. But that was because I followed the advice of “Consultant Psychiatrists”.

Coming off drugs is a difficult process and I could have done with support. But the bottom line is “I did it” and I have no regrets. Always consult with a doctor who is supportive and knows what he is doing. There are very specific withdrawal methods eg for coming off “anti-depressants” Dr David Healy suggests taking a liquid form of the medication.

It is not simply a case of coming off medication. The person needs to work on a daily basis on their mental health. Mary Ellen Copeland helped to develop a very good programme to help with mental health recovery. It is called WRAP. mentalhealthrecovery.com Daily meditation also helps. I am still a work in progress but at least I am away from the drug pushers. Best of luck. Sometimes a person may need a small amount of medication but the current system over prescribes psychoactive medication $