The answer is NO . Try reading the works of Peter Breggin ( on stack) and watch the four corners episode S 2023 ep 31. All eye opening. Then I found out on one stack the drugs come with a black box warning ‼️ n the US and 70% of school shooters are on SSRI ‘s and or SNRI’s. Also a lot of meds for anxiety like Xanax and the benzodiazepines are highly addictive- if you don’t keep increasing the dose the panic attacks escalate. I found that out through personal experience. With Xanax at the time (80) I couldn’t get doctors to believe me. I ended up shaving the pills down with a razor, and it was as bad as withdrawing from heroin. Cramping gut parts n sweats nausea vomiting the whole deal. The other thing, if you gain weight while taking this stuff it stores in fat, and every couple of kilos you loose the withdrawals come back ( also personal experience)
I wonder what might have happened if a doctor had prescribed Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) for you in the first place, rather than put you on medication?
You say “neither of the two doctors who prescribed me these drugs warned me about how difficult they can be to withdraw from. I wasn’t properly informed about potential side effects either”.
This is the big problem, these ‘doctors’ often have no idea what they’re doing, prescribing medicines and vaccines like sweets, they’re often not authentically qualified to obtain informed consent.
General practitioners…what are these people doing prescribing anti-depressants?! How much damage are they causing in the community?
And now they want to flog antidepressants over the counter, with not even any pretence about people being informed about these products.
The entire situation is INSANE!
Aren’t other people seeing yet that the medical industrial complex has gone batshit crazy, with no curbs on the pHarmaceutical industry, with so-called ‘regulation’ (the TGA) actually funded by industry, aka the foxes in charge of the chicken coop.
The diabolical Covid scam should be bringing this into high relief now, with the community deliberately terrorised about a disease it was known from the beginning wasn’t a serious threat to most people.
We have to rise up against this travesty, pursue the actual people accountable for the gross over-medicalisation of society with never-ending testing, medicines and vaccines, coupled with the impact of misinformation, pressure, coercion and manipulation.
The public health terrorism being played out in our society is the very antithesis of health.
What a nightmare you’ve been put through! I made 4 attempts before I came off steroids. With the medical profession I finally adopted the approach “you don’t live in my body, I do, so how can you know what’s right for me? “ I started to experiment with dosages…one 10mg tablet daily, or would 5mg do it, or a 5mg every 2 days? The worst experience was when my rheumatoid specialist changed the steroids to a new drug I later learned was a malarial drug. I told the 2 tablet prescribed dose and immediately my eyesight went. I stopped immediately but it took 10 days for the drug to clear my system. I later looked up the drug in a medical lexicon, and lo and behold one of the potential side effects was blindness! When I told him months later he blithely said “you should have stopped taking item”. Yeah right. It’s not his body so let’s experiment. I no longer trust doctors with anything. You have to monitor your own body. Doctors on the whole are simply taking a shot in the dark.
Hi Rahima, I learned through this experience and some others that GPs are often making educated guesses, often with less education than we realise, and with time constraints (you can't cover much ground in a 15 min appointment). I had a similar thought process to you. Once I realised how much guess work was involved, and that I was the one experiencing the results, I started tuning in much more closely to my body and tinkering. I now think of my (functional medicine) doctor as a resource and trusted guide, but I have taken back responsibility for the final decisions myself. It helps that my current doctor offers much longer appointment times and way more thorough testing, although I pay for it.
I was on prednisone and then Fosomax Plus for a side effect of the steroid. After about 9 months I just weaned off and stopped. Never again will I trust a doctor.
What about Sabril - an anticonvulsant that can result in loss of visual field in a high percentage of patients (very nasty as most people are unaware of visual field defects until it approaches central fixation point)
If there was an honest Doctor in the world they would book everyone straight into a CBT course, send them on a nutritional medicine course, provide a personal trainer and gym membership. Instead they get a nice backhander to ply everyone with dangerous and ineffective pills. Revolting.
Adding physios - completely non-invasive - getting the body basically straight does wonders for general health - I think the electrical signalling/ bloodflow/everything goes a lot better.
My 40 year journey through medicine has involved 15 years in general practice before retraining in sports and exercise medicine, an area in which I have practiced for the last 18 years.
Part of my reason for changing disciplines is the growing adherence of mainstream medicine to pharmaceutical/ surgical paths for virtually all conditions (obesity, mental health, diabetes, heart disease, etc).
Sports and exercise medicine involves lifestyle assessment first with very few prescriptions, and even minimally invasive procedures often involve non-pharmaceutical regimes, such as autologous blood products.
I now also take between 30 and 60 minutes for each consultation, which enables a full social, diet and activity/ exercise assessment, and treatment emphasizes lifestyle improvements.
I find this kind of practice to be much more fulfilling and beneficial to both patients and myself.
Accordingly, I do not feel antidepressants should be available OTC.
I gradually tapered off SSRIs for 18/12 and stopped at Xmas 2023. Even though I had reduced the dose right down, the effects of withdrawal was not fun. Certainly nothing like your experiences though but still feelings of dissociation and of being very unstable mentally. I rode it out and now seem to be ok. Certainly scary stuff and there is no way it should be over the counter.
Yes I found out about the fat issue from a Dutch production late 80’s broadcast on SBS I think. I also found out that the receptors in the brain for anti depressants also share receptors for narcotics and synthetic narcotics. I discovered that one by accident when I was prescribed a synthetic narcotic when still on a maintenance dose of antidepressants. Violent reaction - crushing headache, projectile vomiting. I should disclose I’m an ex nurse, was married to a psychiatrist, and I’m under no illusions about big pharma employing “ inflluncers” I’ve seen that first hand. That 4 corners episode has psychiatrists exposing it . They are from a highly respected psych institution called Maudsley in the UK.
Re the receptor thing, I believe this is why Naltrexone can help people get off SSRIs and other potent anti-depressants, in the same manner that it does for narcotics.
Re the fat thing, fat stores are a kind of safe warehousing area. When there is anything circulating in the body that is in excess of what the body can use or process, it gets shuffled into fat stores (to be safely stored with lipid and water). This includes toxic byproducts of things we consume, but also excess hormones like cortisol, noradrenaline, estrogen etc...
This is part of the reason very overweight people can struggle to get the weight off — they feel really grim, emotionally unbalanced, stressed / depressed etc when they diet (especially when they fast), and if they don't understand what's happening they may not have the motivation to push through. What's happening is that they're creating an energy deficit, and as a consequence the fat stores are opened up and all the hormones and stored crap gets dumped into the system, bringing on headaches, nausea, jitters, mood imbalances — all kinds of symptoms of the uptick in circulating toxins and hormonal overload. This is something that the public could be a lot better educated on, for sure.
When I was studying for a B.Ed. in 1968, a pharmacy lecturer came to talk about how to recognise when students were on drugs. One item I always remember is that the active ingredient in marijuana gets stored in the fat cells of the body; and if the user discontinues, flash-backs can still occur.
In the early 80’s I was prescribed Xanax - was told it was not addictive. I used to have panic attacks. Worked for some time, however not long n reason ng the dose I started to have panic attacks again. I tried to get help, but the drug promos and the influences meant I couldn’t get help. I did my own withdrawal- worse than coming home ff heroin. Cold sweats nausea cramps nausea etc. I also went for n a fitness and weight management regime. Every 2-3 kilos I lost went through withdrawals again. That s when I came across the Dutch research regarding benzodiazepines being stored in fat. After what I went through it made sense.
All makes sense. I’ve read a number of studies relating to serotonin and dopamine where people without depression were compared to people on the antidepressants for said deficits- turns out non depressed people had similar or lower readings on both substances. The other issue is psychiatrists appear to forget about physical illness that can present as mental health issues. I’ve come across two people treated for psychosis who had thyroid tumors. Problem eventually discovered and treated, but not before significant harm. And another who had a congenital brain malformation who was turned into a dribbling mess with psych meds. Treated she became a whole different woman.
Australia is the second highest user of antidepressants per capita (around one in 10 adults) among Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries excluding the USA.2 In the year to June 2020, for the first time an antidepressant (sertraline) was in the top 10 Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme/Repatriation Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme medications by defined daily dose/1000 population/day.3 Evidence suggests long-term use (>12 months), rather than new diagnoses, is driving the increase.4–6 GPs prescribe most antidepressants in Australia (86.3%).7
Often, antidepressant prescribing is not consistent with clinical guidance. According to the most recent Bettering the Evaluation and Care of Health (BEACH) survey data, 12.4% of general practice encounters are mental health–related, and most of these encounters are managed with medication (61.6%).7 Clinical guidelines recommend psychological therapies for mild depression and anxiety, and 6–12 months of antidepressant therapy for a single episode of moderate-to-severe depression.8,9 Yet in Australia the average duration of therapy is now approximately four years,4 and half of users are long-term users.5 There is also concerning variation in antidepressant prescribing, with rates higher for people in lower socioeconomic or inner regional areas and nearly double in older (≥65 years) when compared with younger people.10 Nearly one in three older Australians admitted to residential care in 2008–15 was taking antidepressants on admission, and this only increased after admission.11
There remains ongoing debate about what constitutes appropriate prescribing, but every GP knows that antidepressants cannot treat common social issues such as grief, loneliness, unemployment or poverty. There is general agreement that antidepressants are no more effective than medication placebo in less severe depressive disorders,12 and there remain questions regarding whether antidepressants have any useful effects against more severe depression over and above the placebo effect.13 It has never been substantiated that antidepressants reverse an underlying chemical (serotonin) deficiency or other brain abnormality, yet they modify the brain in ways that are not fully understood, with potentially harmful consequences.14–16
So what is motivating GPs to prescribe anti-depressants I wonder?
Are anti-depressant manufacturers ‘educating’ GPs in this area?
Something to look into, after the startling revelation that the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners is in bed with the vaccine industry-funded Immunisation Coalition, accrediting that organisation to provide ‘continuing professional development’ (CPD), aka promoting vaccine products to doctors, the frontline sales/police force for vaccine products in the community. See: The vaccine industry sponsors vaccination education for doctors... https://elizabethhart.substack.com/p/the-vaccine-industry-sponsors-vaccination
We have a huge issue with the under-training bordering on blind ignorance of doctors. I have recently had a high blood pressure crisis to go with everything else I am dealing with, and my normal herbal recourse simply did not work. I am happy if I am in the 140's over something under 100 but my doctor had written me a script for high blood pressure medication to treat that, that I had refused to fill or take. But then it exploded to between 180-200 over around 100, which is getting pretty serious. So he wrote me another script for a different medication which i filled and conceded that I had to take - at least short term while we investigate the cause. I proceeded to have the reaction that I have to almost all drugs and cheaper nutraceuticals, I got serious pain and neuropathy in my legs that stopped me from sleeping. Which of course, is just going to make my blood pressure worse. The doctor simply told me that pain in the legs was not a side effect of the drug I was on and refused to even address the leg pain issue.
Realising that I needed to keep taking it while we investigate WHY it had skyrocketed, I wondered if it might be the fillers that I was reacting to, so I rang a dispensing chemist to see if they could make them up with no neurotoxins in the fillers. I gave the names of both medications that the doctor had prescribed at different times. The chemist came back to me with an impossible price, but also with information on both medications. One has side effects of leg cramps, the other has side effects of leg pain and neuropathy, which means it might be the drug itself and not the fillers I am reacting to. That has left me with no solution, and no way to talk to the doctor in question because HE EITHER DOESN'T KNOW OR HE HAS LIED to me, and neither is a good look.
While doctors are little more than drug pushers with no real understanding of the drugs they are pushing, and while they do not even bother to read the inserts for themselves, let alone address the issues posed by just how dangerous even the most commonly used drugs are, we have little choice but to do our own research and self-medicate where we can.
During my crisis, the chemist who dispensed the nitro-glycerine that the same doctor ordered for me to use in a crisis, asked me how I was using it and I told him the doctors instructions. He looked very concerned and told me "that is not the way you use this drug". But he had not choice but to dispense it, frowning all the way. Then on my doctors instructions, when my blood pressure went over 190/100 at home, I called the ambulance. The paramedic also saw the nitro and said "you haven't taken that have you?". To which i answered yes, on doctors instructions, and he explained that the nitro will take the BP down into a safer zone but only very briefly after which the body will rebound to a higher BP than it was administered at. Oh goody. Fortunately he was willing to hang around for long enough to watch it go well over 200 in the rebound, and stayed with me until it had dropped again to 180 over something. HE also recommended I did not go to hospital because the beds were all full so i would be left sitting in casualty for hour, which would also cause my BP, and may be my brain, to explode. His recommendation, lie down and watch TV. It turns out there is nothing much we can do when we have a BP crisis like the one I was (and maybe still am) having.
So here we have a paramedic AND and two different chemists, giving advice contrary to the advice given by my doctor. So maybe we would be better buying our drugs over the counter, from a qualified chemist, or a paramedic, rather than trusting a doctor.
Unfortunately the highly conflicted TGA, which is funded by industry, can’t be trusted to review adverse event reports objectively.
We really have no idea of what adverse events the massive range of medications might be causing, because only lip service is paid to post-marketing surveillance.
This is another serious problem in the medical industrial complex that must be addressed.
No - even though we are all guinea pigs when it comes to drugs - the doctors still need to be in charge of that prescription for anti-depressants & let them know of any adverse events. I tried about 6-7 different classes of SSRI's SNRI's and I experienced intolerable side effects with all of them (over a period of 20 years) The last one was prescribed by my oncologist (Effexor) for menopausal symptoms/night sweats/sleepdisorder etc. This drug was a diaster in every way - my therapist mentioned this drug should be withdrawn. I am now off ALL drugs and have found Vitamin D & exercise to be a a successful solution. It has calmed me down and allowed me to function as normally as possible.
A friend of mine going through a divorce part of the Court order was to take her child (6 years) to a psychiatrist. He prescribed anti-depressants fortunately Mum had the foresight to buy some lollies that looked similar to the medication and gave him one every night telling him it was his ‘antidepressant’ to make him better. This happened for 3 months until the psychiatrist brought my friend into the room saying ‘look how much better he is’. ‘I was right to put him on medication’!!!! They should be banned. My partner got off them with mindfulness and exercise. Although knowing what we do now I would have used homeopathy. It is very successful in mental cases and was the main medical system used in early 1900’s. There is a great book ‘Sane Asylum….the success of homeopathy before psychiatry lost its mind’. Very safe as well.
WOW! This post couldn't be any more timely. I just saw a PCP last week about tapering off the antidepressant I've been on for about ten years. He seemed so nonchalant about it. I asked him if he knew of any pharmacies that offered titration of medications so I could come off of it really slowly, since I'd had horrible withdrawals from other antidepressants I've taken over the decades (yes, decades!) He dismissed me by saying tapering the doses with what was available should be fine. So, I've been trying to find a pharmacy on my own that might be able to provide that service. If anyone knows of such a thing in California, I would love hearing back from you as that is where I live. Thank you and much luck to others who find themselves in this horrendous pharmaceutical-built boat.
This resonated with me in so many ways. Thank you for sharing your story. And no way should they be over the counter. I personally don’t believe they work besides the potential placebo effect.
I posted this comment in response to your note, but will re-post. I know of a 20-year old who recently suicided after trying to come off SSRIs.
To any parents out there with teenagers who think SSRIs are 'cool' due to social media and school promotion, please go to survivingantidepressants dot org and read them the horror stories.
Firstly, thank you very much for sharing your story. I can relate to it.
I was in a public bus on a motorway when my first panic attack hit me. I did not even know what it was, had no name for it. I just knew one thing: I immediatly needed to get off that bus and into some woods I saw in the distance.
I yelled at the driver to stop the bus and got off and stumbled towards the woods, only to be stopped by a deep river. That's when this horrible terrifying fear of going totally mad engulfed me - and suddenly death felt like a much better option. I was about to jump in to drown myself when suddenly this vivid image of my three-year-old son appeared, him calmly saying (like a Buddha): "Don't. I still need you. And it won't solve your problem. You just start all over again in your next life."
This is the time when most people call an ambulance or get put into a mental hopsital and are put on various pills to shut them down - often for many years or even life.
They never ever work thorugh the spirtual emergency and resolve it.
Fortunately, I was familiar with Stanilove Grof's remarkable and ground-breaking work around "spiritual emergency (as opposed to "mental illness") and had ingested a lot of Osho books and followed their guidance instead.
I mustered the energy to meditate and calm my mind - reminding myself that norhing of what I experienced was actually real. I was standing on a beautiful river in NZ and everything was calm and peaceful around me. No one threatened me. There was no danger for my life or health at all in reality. It was all in my mind.
This calmed me enought to seek further spiritual help from a spiritual healer. She gave me certain things to do - all of them I didn't like very much but I was desperate enough to trust and obeyed - and after anther day I was stable enough to board a plane back home and start the longer term spiritual work needed.
It took a few months to be stable again, and a few years to totally heal it. No panick attacks or other "mental health" issues since then, except when I deliberatly explored them deeper through intentional psychedelic therapy sessions.
Certain substances can help, of course. I am looking after my mind and I am self-medicating fo many years and never felt better. This was iniated by reading reports of how the last remaining indigious tribes in the Amazon deal with plant medicines.
In short, they take a lot - every day, for all sorts of occassions - for hunting, baby sitting, love making, food gathering, cermonies and so on - most take five or more substances a day. They, of course, have a wise shaman guiding and advicing them. A culture we have lost but the knowledge is still out there if desired.
After reading this I thought: "How stupid are we letting the corrupt powers dictate what we should take or not take. How can we farm out what is most valuable to us - our health and life - to corrupt useful idiots like them?"
The rest is humble and careful try and error. These plant-medicines are basically super-medicines, very potent and yes - can be extremly humbling if abused - but can be extremly healing and mind-opening if used correctly and humbly while being anchored in awareness.
But this also includes many so-called legal remedies, like valerian, hops, St. Johns Wort, Ashwangadata and many more. It is easy, quick and cheap to make our own herb tinctures - the most potent way to take herbs.
A few herbal teas here and there won't do much. But in concentrated forms, herbs are very powerful medicines.
There is a wonderful website www.herbpathy.com that infroms me of almost every known herb on this planet and how to use it, according to different healing systems like Chinese medicine, Ayuveda, Homopathie and modern Western medicine. Type in your symptoms or diagnosis and it gives you the best herbs. Chose one. Buy it. Make a tincture. Take it and see what happens. Most of the time it heals after a few weeks/months. Without any side-effects. It isn't rocket science to look after and heal yourself. Most humans have done if for millenia. It was part of life.
If it doesn't work after a few weeks, which is rare, I chose another herb until I healed myself.
If you know a good alternative healer it is much quicker, of course. But good ones are really rare. The good ones have gone through stuff, tried a lot of stuff themselves, and did their personal work.
You don't become a good healer by going to university or do a few courses or a diploma. It is a personal calling and you know the difference after a while. There are the intellectual ones - well meaning but all talk and ideology - and the real ones. The real ones are rare and if you find one, hang on to them.
One of the most powerful remedies you can take - with zero side effects - for your physical, mental and spiritual health is microdosing LSD or Psylocibin. Refer to Dr. James Fadiman - the leading person and researcher in the world on that topic. Don't be scared of the big bad words of "psychedelics". All progaganda and politics. It is also the best known remedy to cure endiometriosis - very common, very painful for so many women. To my big surprise, I saw it disappear with my own eyes in a woman after mircrodosing LSD. It wasn't intended and I had no idea. After I looked it up and the same was confirmed by hundreds of women in Fadiman's surveys.
Microdosing LSD is not a one-trick-pony. It works on so many levels. Together with Chlorine Dioxide (MMS Drops), microdosing psychedelics are the most poweful and healing substances known to us. There are more, of course.
It is no coinicidence that LSD has been made illegal and MMS drops have been smeared and lied about by the pharma protecting regulators for decades (I wrote an extensice Substack on that)
But I also need you to look up the Gell-Mann-Amnesia effect, Rebecca. Why on earth can you see through the whole vaccine and Covid manipulations but still think you can get any healing help from a doctor? Your own report just cries it out loudly: "They have no clue and they don't care."
They don't heal people. They sell and administer pharmaceutical products for profit. They are official legal drug dealers. And they use mostly bad addictive drugs you can't come off very easily because that's how they were designed, that's where the money is.
I haven't seen a doctor - exept for blood tests which I evaluate myself - for over a decade. I fully focus on prevention by doing many daily preventive meassures - mostly detoxing meassures. And I am in the best physical and mental health of my life - at 62.
I was born healthy, like most babies but made immediatly sick by being fed cows milk and formula instead of breast milk. Apparently my nails fell out as a baby. My parents and the doctor went through the trouble to analyze the fat content of all the twelve cows of our neighbor from whom we got our milk, and the lowest fat (or was it the highest? - I can't remember) did the least damage.
So it wasn't that my parents or the doctor didin't care. They cared immensly. But they were just so brainwashed by the baby formula industry (supported by biased lying science, of course) and totally disregarded the most common sense thing to do: Give a human baby human milk.
That was in 1962. This is just to show that the medical brainwashing and industrial-scientific partnerships didn't start with Covid. In the late 50ties and early sixties a massive scientific propaganda effort was undertaken to discourage breastfeeding because of one reason only: To make money with formula.
There are thousands of stories like that in all areas of so called "medicine". It is complelty corrupted now. Any competition from alternative natural healers and powerful natural remedies have been complelty pushed out of the market by the same corrupt forces. The so-called health shops pushing pills and vitamines for ridicilous prices are also a very limited alternative.
I think it is back to the drawing board. If your health really matters to you, the vast majority of people have to become their own doctors. Some lucky ones will find great alternative healers that are still out there. But they are rare, almost extinct because true healing often involves risk taking and cartharsis and sometimes more pain initially. True healers are in constant danger of being dobbed in by one patient that doesn't get it, or gets scared, or want immediate results.
Of course, doctors have a place when it comes to accidents, broken bones and emergency life-saving procedures. They can be great plumbers to fix a sudden leak. But they DO NOT HEAL anybody from anything chronic or repetetive. They earn on us staying sick. The whole model is corrupt - you know that more than most people.
Healing yourself is not only possible but a joyful wonderful spiritual experience. And the first step is exactly what you are doing - sharing your story and reaching out. And the community will respond and help you in mulitply diverse ways. All you have to do is tune in, connect with your true self that dwells in calm awareness and sees everything unfolding without reacting. It is this Self that will sponateneously know what do do next. Trust this.
At the root of this problem is that most people still trust these corrupt, mostly useless doctors more than themselves. We have been brainwashed from day one into believing we need an expert for everything concerning us. No-one knows ourselves better than we do. And discovering our true self is the most fascinating and rewarding journey anyone can embark on.
Apologies for the spelling errors - my spell-check not working in the comments.
'Spiritual emergency', I like that. In my recovery group, we call it 'spiritual malady' which I suppose is the more chronic form. 'Gell-Mann Amnesia effect' - learnt a new term, thanks! I'm sorry to hear you don't have any genuinely good doctors in your network. I do now, thankfully. I also wrote this essay wiht the fact that many people go to GPs in mind. ie: whether or not I would go to a GP down the road for advice on treating depression (I wouldn't), I am cognisant that many do.
The answer is NO . Try reading the works of Peter Breggin ( on stack) and watch the four corners episode S 2023 ep 31. All eye opening. Then I found out on one stack the drugs come with a black box warning ‼️ n the US and 70% of school shooters are on SSRI ‘s and or SNRI’s. Also a lot of meds for anxiety like Xanax and the benzodiazepines are highly addictive- if you don’t keep increasing the dose the panic attacks escalate. I found that out through personal experience. With Xanax at the time (80) I couldn’t get doctors to believe me. I ended up shaving the pills down with a razor, and it was as bad as withdrawing from heroin. Cramping gut parts n sweats nausea vomiting the whole deal. The other thing, if you gain weight while taking this stuff it stores in fat, and every couple of kilos you loose the withdrawals come back ( also personal experience)
Fascinating about the fat storage and withdrawals with weight loss, never heard of that before.
Crikey Rebekah, what an awful experience.
I wonder what might have happened if a doctor had prescribed Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) for you in the first place, rather than put you on medication?
You say “neither of the two doctors who prescribed me these drugs warned me about how difficult they can be to withdraw from. I wasn’t properly informed about potential side effects either”.
This is the big problem, these ‘doctors’ often have no idea what they’re doing, prescribing medicines and vaccines like sweets, they’re often not authentically qualified to obtain informed consent.
General practitioners…what are these people doing prescribing anti-depressants?! How much damage are they causing in the community?
And now they want to flog antidepressants over the counter, with not even any pretence about people being informed about these products.
The entire situation is INSANE!
Aren’t other people seeing yet that the medical industrial complex has gone batshit crazy, with no curbs on the pHarmaceutical industry, with so-called ‘regulation’ (the TGA) actually funded by industry, aka the foxes in charge of the chicken coop.
The diabolical Covid scam should be bringing this into high relief now, with the community deliberately terrorised about a disease it was known from the beginning wasn’t a serious threat to most people.
We have to rise up against this travesty, pursue the actual people accountable for the gross over-medicalisation of society with never-ending testing, medicines and vaccines, coupled with the impact of misinformation, pressure, coercion and manipulation.
The public health terrorism being played out in our society is the very antithesis of health.
What a nightmare you’ve been put through! I made 4 attempts before I came off steroids. With the medical profession I finally adopted the approach “you don’t live in my body, I do, so how can you know what’s right for me? “ I started to experiment with dosages…one 10mg tablet daily, or would 5mg do it, or a 5mg every 2 days? The worst experience was when my rheumatoid specialist changed the steroids to a new drug I later learned was a malarial drug. I told the 2 tablet prescribed dose and immediately my eyesight went. I stopped immediately but it took 10 days for the drug to clear my system. I later looked up the drug in a medical lexicon, and lo and behold one of the potential side effects was blindness! When I told him months later he blithely said “you should have stopped taking item”. Yeah right. It’s not his body so let’s experiment. I no longer trust doctors with anything. You have to monitor your own body. Doctors on the whole are simply taking a shot in the dark.
Hi Rahima, I learned through this experience and some others that GPs are often making educated guesses, often with less education than we realise, and with time constraints (you can't cover much ground in a 15 min appointment). I had a similar thought process to you. Once I realised how much guess work was involved, and that I was the one experiencing the results, I started tuning in much more closely to my body and tinkering. I now think of my (functional medicine) doctor as a resource and trusted guide, but I have taken back responsibility for the final decisions myself. It helps that my current doctor offers much longer appointment times and way more thorough testing, although I pay for it.
I was on prednisone and then Fosomax Plus for a side effect of the steroid. After about 9 months I just weaned off and stopped. Never again will I trust a doctor.
Rahima, did your doctor or you report your experience of an adverse event with your eyesight after medication to the TGA?
Also see my response to Christine for more info.
It’s highly alarming that there is not effective post-marketing surveillance of all medications and drugs.
If adverse events aren’t reported we aren’t going to have accurate data on the effectiveness and safety of these products.
I agree. But this was some years back and reporting and the TGA’s profile was not in the public mindset the way it is today.
Gives one to think then…about all the adverse events that haven’t been reported…
What about Sabril - an anticonvulsant that can result in loss of visual field in a high percentage of patients (very nasty as most people are unaware of visual field defects until it approaches central fixation point)
If there was an honest Doctor in the world they would book everyone straight into a CBT course, send them on a nutritional medicine course, provide a personal trainer and gym membership. Instead they get a nice backhander to ply everyone with dangerous and ineffective pills. Revolting.
Adding physios - completely non-invasive - getting the body basically straight does wonders for general health - I think the electrical signalling/ bloodflow/everything goes a lot better.
My 40 year journey through medicine has involved 15 years in general practice before retraining in sports and exercise medicine, an area in which I have practiced for the last 18 years.
Part of my reason for changing disciplines is the growing adherence of mainstream medicine to pharmaceutical/ surgical paths for virtually all conditions (obesity, mental health, diabetes, heart disease, etc).
Sports and exercise medicine involves lifestyle assessment first with very few prescriptions, and even minimally invasive procedures often involve non-pharmaceutical regimes, such as autologous blood products.
I now also take between 30 and 60 minutes for each consultation, which enables a full social, diet and activity/ exercise assessment, and treatment emphasizes lifestyle improvements.
I find this kind of practice to be much more fulfilling and beneficial to both patients and myself.
Accordingly, I do not feel antidepressants should be available OTC.
Love this!
I gradually tapered off SSRIs for 18/12 and stopped at Xmas 2023. Even though I had reduced the dose right down, the effects of withdrawal was not fun. Certainly nothing like your experiences though but still feelings of dissociation and of being very unstable mentally. I rode it out and now seem to be ok. Certainly scary stuff and there is no way it should be over the counter.
Yes I found out about the fat issue from a Dutch production late 80’s broadcast on SBS I think. I also found out that the receptors in the brain for anti depressants also share receptors for narcotics and synthetic narcotics. I discovered that one by accident when I was prescribed a synthetic narcotic when still on a maintenance dose of antidepressants. Violent reaction - crushing headache, projectile vomiting. I should disclose I’m an ex nurse, was married to a psychiatrist, and I’m under no illusions about big pharma employing “ inflluncers” I’ve seen that first hand. That 4 corners episode has psychiatrists exposing it . They are from a highly respected psych institution called Maudsley in the UK.
Re the receptor thing, I believe this is why Naltrexone can help people get off SSRIs and other potent anti-depressants, in the same manner that it does for narcotics.
Re the fat thing, fat stores are a kind of safe warehousing area. When there is anything circulating in the body that is in excess of what the body can use or process, it gets shuffled into fat stores (to be safely stored with lipid and water). This includes toxic byproducts of things we consume, but also excess hormones like cortisol, noradrenaline, estrogen etc...
This is part of the reason very overweight people can struggle to get the weight off — they feel really grim, emotionally unbalanced, stressed / depressed etc when they diet (especially when they fast), and if they don't understand what's happening they may not have the motivation to push through. What's happening is that they're creating an energy deficit, and as a consequence the fat stores are opened up and all the hormones and stored crap gets dumped into the system, bringing on headaches, nausea, jitters, mood imbalances — all kinds of symptoms of the uptick in circulating toxins and hormonal overload. This is something that the public could be a lot better educated on, for sure.
When I was studying for a B.Ed. in 1968, a pharmacy lecturer came to talk about how to recognise when students were on drugs. One item I always remember is that the active ingredient in marijuana gets stored in the fat cells of the body; and if the user discontinues, flash-backs can still occur.
That's really interesting.
In the early 80’s I was prescribed Xanax - was told it was not addictive. I used to have panic attacks. Worked for some time, however not long n reason ng the dose I started to have panic attacks again. I tried to get help, but the drug promos and the influences meant I couldn’t get help. I did my own withdrawal- worse than coming home ff heroin. Cold sweats nausea cramps nausea etc. I also went for n a fitness and weight management regime. Every 2-3 kilos I lost went through withdrawals again. That s when I came across the Dutch research regarding benzodiazepines being stored in fat. After what I went through it made sense.
All makes sense. I’ve read a number of studies relating to serotonin and dopamine where people without depression were compared to people on the antidepressants for said deficits- turns out non depressed people had similar or lower readings on both substances. The other issue is psychiatrists appear to forget about physical illness that can present as mental health issues. I’ve come across two people treated for psychosis who had thyroid tumors. Problem eventually discovered and treated, but not before significant harm. And another who had a congenital brain malformation who was turned into a dribbling mess with psych meds. Treated she became a whole different woman.
I've been aware of that. Four days into eating less food I'd start to get headaches - was sure I was releasing toxins, etc.
Crikey it’s shocking how much damage these drugs are causing!
As I’ve noted in previous responses to others, there’s little in the way of post-marketing surveillance re effectiveness and safety.
Nobody wants to know it seems…least of all Big pHarma, the ‘regulator’, or the prescribing doctor…
QUOTE
Australia is the second highest user of antidepressants per capita (around one in 10 adults) among Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries excluding the USA.2 In the year to June 2020, for the first time an antidepressant (sertraline) was in the top 10 Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme/Repatriation Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme medications by defined daily dose/1000 population/day.3 Evidence suggests long-term use (>12 months), rather than new diagnoses, is driving the increase.4–6 GPs prescribe most antidepressants in Australia (86.3%).7
Often, antidepressant prescribing is not consistent with clinical guidance. According to the most recent Bettering the Evaluation and Care of Health (BEACH) survey data, 12.4% of general practice encounters are mental health–related, and most of these encounters are managed with medication (61.6%).7 Clinical guidelines recommend psychological therapies for mild depression and anxiety, and 6–12 months of antidepressant therapy for a single episode of moderate-to-severe depression.8,9 Yet in Australia the average duration of therapy is now approximately four years,4 and half of users are long-term users.5 There is also concerning variation in antidepressant prescribing, with rates higher for people in lower socioeconomic or inner regional areas and nearly double in older (≥65 years) when compared with younger people.10 Nearly one in three older Australians admitted to residential care in 2008–15 was taking antidepressants on admission, and this only increased after admission.11
There remains ongoing debate about what constitutes appropriate prescribing, but every GP knows that antidepressants cannot treat common social issues such as grief, loneliness, unemployment or poverty. There is general agreement that antidepressants are no more effective than medication placebo in less severe depressive disorders,12 and there remain questions regarding whether antidepressants have any useful effects against more severe depression over and above the placebo effect.13 It has never been substantiated that antidepressants reverse an underlying chemical (serotonin) deficiency or other brain abnormality, yet they modify the brain in ways that are not fully understood, with potentially harmful consequences.14–16
END OF QUOTE
Recommend reading the entire article, see: RACGP - Antidepressant prescribing in general practice: https://www1.racgp.org.au/ajgp/2021/december/antidepressant-prescribing-in-general-practice
Goodness, a lot of antidepressant use for such a lucky country.
So what is motivating GPs to prescribe anti-depressants I wonder?
Are anti-depressant manufacturers ‘educating’ GPs in this area?
Something to look into, after the startling revelation that the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners is in bed with the vaccine industry-funded Immunisation Coalition, accrediting that organisation to provide ‘continuing professional development’ (CPD), aka promoting vaccine products to doctors, the frontline sales/police force for vaccine products in the community. See: The vaccine industry sponsors vaccination education for doctors... https://elizabethhart.substack.com/p/the-vaccine-industry-sponsors-vaccination
No way over the counter! I think GPs shouldn’t be able to prescribe either.
We have a huge issue with the under-training bordering on blind ignorance of doctors. I have recently had a high blood pressure crisis to go with everything else I am dealing with, and my normal herbal recourse simply did not work. I am happy if I am in the 140's over something under 100 but my doctor had written me a script for high blood pressure medication to treat that, that I had refused to fill or take. But then it exploded to between 180-200 over around 100, which is getting pretty serious. So he wrote me another script for a different medication which i filled and conceded that I had to take - at least short term while we investigate the cause. I proceeded to have the reaction that I have to almost all drugs and cheaper nutraceuticals, I got serious pain and neuropathy in my legs that stopped me from sleeping. Which of course, is just going to make my blood pressure worse. The doctor simply told me that pain in the legs was not a side effect of the drug I was on and refused to even address the leg pain issue.
Realising that I needed to keep taking it while we investigate WHY it had skyrocketed, I wondered if it might be the fillers that I was reacting to, so I rang a dispensing chemist to see if they could make them up with no neurotoxins in the fillers. I gave the names of both medications that the doctor had prescribed at different times. The chemist came back to me with an impossible price, but also with information on both medications. One has side effects of leg cramps, the other has side effects of leg pain and neuropathy, which means it might be the drug itself and not the fillers I am reacting to. That has left me with no solution, and no way to talk to the doctor in question because HE EITHER DOESN'T KNOW OR HE HAS LIED to me, and neither is a good look.
While doctors are little more than drug pushers with no real understanding of the drugs they are pushing, and while they do not even bother to read the inserts for themselves, let alone address the issues posed by just how dangerous even the most commonly used drugs are, we have little choice but to do our own research and self-medicate where we can.
During my crisis, the chemist who dispensed the nitro-glycerine that the same doctor ordered for me to use in a crisis, asked me how I was using it and I told him the doctors instructions. He looked very concerned and told me "that is not the way you use this drug". But he had not choice but to dispense it, frowning all the way. Then on my doctors instructions, when my blood pressure went over 190/100 at home, I called the ambulance. The paramedic also saw the nitro and said "you haven't taken that have you?". To which i answered yes, on doctors instructions, and he explained that the nitro will take the BP down into a safer zone but only very briefly after which the body will rebound to a higher BP than it was administered at. Oh goody. Fortunately he was willing to hang around for long enough to watch it go well over 200 in the rebound, and stayed with me until it had dropped again to 180 over something. HE also recommended I did not go to hospital because the beds were all full so i would be left sitting in casualty for hour, which would also cause my BP, and may be my brain, to explode. His recommendation, lie down and watch TV. It turns out there is nothing much we can do when we have a BP crisis like the one I was (and maybe still am) having.
So here we have a paramedic AND and two different chemists, giving advice contrary to the advice given by my doctor. So maybe we would be better buying our drugs over the counter, from a qualified chemist, or a paramedic, rather than trusting a doctor.
Re: “The doctor simply told me that pain in the legs was not a side effect of the drug I was on and refused to even address the leg pain issue.”
If you’ve had an adverse event after a medication this should be reported to the TGA.
I suspect this very seldom happens…because it’s more work for the doctor, and implicates him/her if he prescribed it for you.
People can also make their own report, but not a lot of people know this… See: https://aems.tga.gov.au
See also this web page on the TGA website, which I suggest is window dressing… https://www.tga.gov.au/resources/resource/guidance/reporting-adverse-events#gpsoftware
Unfortunately the highly conflicted TGA, which is funded by industry, can’t be trusted to review adverse event reports objectively.
We really have no idea of what adverse events the massive range of medications might be causing, because only lip service is paid to post-marketing surveillance.
This is another serious problem in the medical industrial complex that must be addressed.
No - even though we are all guinea pigs when it comes to drugs - the doctors still need to be in charge of that prescription for anti-depressants & let them know of any adverse events. I tried about 6-7 different classes of SSRI's SNRI's and I experienced intolerable side effects with all of them (over a period of 20 years) The last one was prescribed by my oncologist (Effexor) for menopausal symptoms/night sweats/sleepdisorder etc. This drug was a diaster in every way - my therapist mentioned this drug should be withdrawn. I am now off ALL drugs and have found Vitamin D & exercise to be a a successful solution. It has calmed me down and allowed me to function as normally as possible.
A friend of mine going through a divorce part of the Court order was to take her child (6 years) to a psychiatrist. He prescribed anti-depressants fortunately Mum had the foresight to buy some lollies that looked similar to the medication and gave him one every night telling him it was his ‘antidepressant’ to make him better. This happened for 3 months until the psychiatrist brought my friend into the room saying ‘look how much better he is’. ‘I was right to put him on medication’!!!! They should be banned. My partner got off them with mindfulness and exercise. Although knowing what we do now I would have used homeopathy. It is very successful in mental cases and was the main medical system used in early 1900’s. There is a great book ‘Sane Asylum….the success of homeopathy before psychiatry lost its mind’. Very safe as well.
WOW! This post couldn't be any more timely. I just saw a PCP last week about tapering off the antidepressant I've been on for about ten years. He seemed so nonchalant about it. I asked him if he knew of any pharmacies that offered titration of medications so I could come off of it really slowly, since I'd had horrible withdrawals from other antidepressants I've taken over the decades (yes, decades!) He dismissed me by saying tapering the doses with what was available should be fine. So, I've been trying to find a pharmacy on my own that might be able to provide that service. If anyone knows of such a thing in California, I would love hearing back from you as that is where I live. Thank you and much luck to others who find themselves in this horrendous pharmaceutical-built boat.
Go to survivingantidepressants dot org for tapering protocols and information.
Thank you so much! 💕
Of course, legal disclaimer - your health is your responsibility, I cannot be blamed etc.
Good luck.
Absolutely! If anyone half way aware over the past four years doesn't understand this, they are hopeless.
This resonated with me in so many ways. Thank you for sharing your story. And no way should they be over the counter. I personally don’t believe they work besides the potential placebo effect.
Thanks Rebekah.
I posted this comment in response to your note, but will re-post. I know of a 20-year old who recently suicided after trying to come off SSRIs.
To any parents out there with teenagers who think SSRIs are 'cool' due to social media and school promotion, please go to survivingantidepressants dot org and read them the horror stories.
Where do we start here?
Firstly, thank you very much for sharing your story. I can relate to it.
I was in a public bus on a motorway when my first panic attack hit me. I did not even know what it was, had no name for it. I just knew one thing: I immediatly needed to get off that bus and into some woods I saw in the distance.
I yelled at the driver to stop the bus and got off and stumbled towards the woods, only to be stopped by a deep river. That's when this horrible terrifying fear of going totally mad engulfed me - and suddenly death felt like a much better option. I was about to jump in to drown myself when suddenly this vivid image of my three-year-old son appeared, him calmly saying (like a Buddha): "Don't. I still need you. And it won't solve your problem. You just start all over again in your next life."
This is the time when most people call an ambulance or get put into a mental hopsital and are put on various pills to shut them down - often for many years or even life.
They never ever work thorugh the spirtual emergency and resolve it.
Fortunately, I was familiar with Stanilove Grof's remarkable and ground-breaking work around "spiritual emergency (as opposed to "mental illness") and had ingested a lot of Osho books and followed their guidance instead.
I mustered the energy to meditate and calm my mind - reminding myself that norhing of what I experienced was actually real. I was standing on a beautiful river in NZ and everything was calm and peaceful around me. No one threatened me. There was no danger for my life or health at all in reality. It was all in my mind.
This calmed me enought to seek further spiritual help from a spiritual healer. She gave me certain things to do - all of them I didn't like very much but I was desperate enough to trust and obeyed - and after anther day I was stable enough to board a plane back home and start the longer term spiritual work needed.
It took a few months to be stable again, and a few years to totally heal it. No panick attacks or other "mental health" issues since then, except when I deliberatly explored them deeper through intentional psychedelic therapy sessions.
Certain substances can help, of course. I am looking after my mind and I am self-medicating fo many years and never felt better. This was iniated by reading reports of how the last remaining indigious tribes in the Amazon deal with plant medicines.
In short, they take a lot - every day, for all sorts of occassions - for hunting, baby sitting, love making, food gathering, cermonies and so on - most take five or more substances a day. They, of course, have a wise shaman guiding and advicing them. A culture we have lost but the knowledge is still out there if desired.
After reading this I thought: "How stupid are we letting the corrupt powers dictate what we should take or not take. How can we farm out what is most valuable to us - our health and life - to corrupt useful idiots like them?"
The rest is humble and careful try and error. These plant-medicines are basically super-medicines, very potent and yes - can be extremly humbling if abused - but can be extremly healing and mind-opening if used correctly and humbly while being anchored in awareness.
But this also includes many so-called legal remedies, like valerian, hops, St. Johns Wort, Ashwangadata and many more. It is easy, quick and cheap to make our own herb tinctures - the most potent way to take herbs.
A few herbal teas here and there won't do much. But in concentrated forms, herbs are very powerful medicines.
There is a wonderful website www.herbpathy.com that infroms me of almost every known herb on this planet and how to use it, according to different healing systems like Chinese medicine, Ayuveda, Homopathie and modern Western medicine. Type in your symptoms or diagnosis and it gives you the best herbs. Chose one. Buy it. Make a tincture. Take it and see what happens. Most of the time it heals after a few weeks/months. Without any side-effects. It isn't rocket science to look after and heal yourself. Most humans have done if for millenia. It was part of life.
If it doesn't work after a few weeks, which is rare, I chose another herb until I healed myself.
If you know a good alternative healer it is much quicker, of course. But good ones are really rare. The good ones have gone through stuff, tried a lot of stuff themselves, and did their personal work.
You don't become a good healer by going to university or do a few courses or a diploma. It is a personal calling and you know the difference after a while. There are the intellectual ones - well meaning but all talk and ideology - and the real ones. The real ones are rare and if you find one, hang on to them.
One of the most powerful remedies you can take - with zero side effects - for your physical, mental and spiritual health is microdosing LSD or Psylocibin. Refer to Dr. James Fadiman - the leading person and researcher in the world on that topic. Don't be scared of the big bad words of "psychedelics". All progaganda and politics. It is also the best known remedy to cure endiometriosis - very common, very painful for so many women. To my big surprise, I saw it disappear with my own eyes in a woman after mircrodosing LSD. It wasn't intended and I had no idea. After I looked it up and the same was confirmed by hundreds of women in Fadiman's surveys.
Microdosing LSD is not a one-trick-pony. It works on so many levels. Together with Chlorine Dioxide (MMS Drops), microdosing psychedelics are the most poweful and healing substances known to us. There are more, of course.
It is no coinicidence that LSD has been made illegal and MMS drops have been smeared and lied about by the pharma protecting regulators for decades (I wrote an extensice Substack on that)
But I also need you to look up the Gell-Mann-Amnesia effect, Rebecca. Why on earth can you see through the whole vaccine and Covid manipulations but still think you can get any healing help from a doctor? Your own report just cries it out loudly: "They have no clue and they don't care."
They don't heal people. They sell and administer pharmaceutical products for profit. They are official legal drug dealers. And they use mostly bad addictive drugs you can't come off very easily because that's how they were designed, that's where the money is.
I haven't seen a doctor - exept for blood tests which I evaluate myself - for over a decade. I fully focus on prevention by doing many daily preventive meassures - mostly detoxing meassures. And I am in the best physical and mental health of my life - at 62.
I was born healthy, like most babies but made immediatly sick by being fed cows milk and formula instead of breast milk. Apparently my nails fell out as a baby. My parents and the doctor went through the trouble to analyze the fat content of all the twelve cows of our neighbor from whom we got our milk, and the lowest fat (or was it the highest? - I can't remember) did the least damage.
So it wasn't that my parents or the doctor didin't care. They cared immensly. But they were just so brainwashed by the baby formula industry (supported by biased lying science, of course) and totally disregarded the most common sense thing to do: Give a human baby human milk.
That was in 1962. This is just to show that the medical brainwashing and industrial-scientific partnerships didn't start with Covid. In the late 50ties and early sixties a massive scientific propaganda effort was undertaken to discourage breastfeeding because of one reason only: To make money with formula.
There are thousands of stories like that in all areas of so called "medicine". It is complelty corrupted now. Any competition from alternative natural healers and powerful natural remedies have been complelty pushed out of the market by the same corrupt forces. The so-called health shops pushing pills and vitamines for ridicilous prices are also a very limited alternative.
I think it is back to the drawing board. If your health really matters to you, the vast majority of people have to become their own doctors. Some lucky ones will find great alternative healers that are still out there. But they are rare, almost extinct because true healing often involves risk taking and cartharsis and sometimes more pain initially. True healers are in constant danger of being dobbed in by one patient that doesn't get it, or gets scared, or want immediate results.
Of course, doctors have a place when it comes to accidents, broken bones and emergency life-saving procedures. They can be great plumbers to fix a sudden leak. But they DO NOT HEAL anybody from anything chronic or repetetive. They earn on us staying sick. The whole model is corrupt - you know that more than most people.
Healing yourself is not only possible but a joyful wonderful spiritual experience. And the first step is exactly what you are doing - sharing your story and reaching out. And the community will respond and help you in mulitply diverse ways. All you have to do is tune in, connect with your true self that dwells in calm awareness and sees everything unfolding without reacting. It is this Self that will sponateneously know what do do next. Trust this.
At the root of this problem is that most people still trust these corrupt, mostly useless doctors more than themselves. We have been brainwashed from day one into believing we need an expert for everything concerning us. No-one knows ourselves better than we do. And discovering our true self is the most fascinating and rewarding journey anyone can embark on.
Apologies for the spelling errors - my spell-check not working in the comments.
'Spiritual emergency', I like that. In my recovery group, we call it 'spiritual malady' which I suppose is the more chronic form. 'Gell-Mann Amnesia effect' - learnt a new term, thanks! I'm sorry to hear you don't have any genuinely good doctors in your network. I do now, thankfully. I also wrote this essay wiht the fact that many people go to GPs in mind. ie: whether or not I would go to a GP down the road for advice on treating depression (I wouldn't), I am cognisant that many do.