Prozac / SSRI withdrawls and violence

I didn't know 66 of the school shootings actually were related to SSRI's.
Many of the military suicides appear to be linked too.

http://www.ssristories.com/

http://www.lifementalhealth.com/prozac-withdrawal-heroin-withdrawal/

scary stuff

and it appears most of the conditions that call for these drugs have been found to be linked.

http://www.united-academics.org/magazine/health-medicine/linking-depression-adhd-and-schizophrenia/

or maybe it is aligned with a toxoplasmosis infection.

same signs and symptoms, could be coupled

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/03/how-your-cat-is-making-you-crazy/308873/

Anatomy of an Epidemic explains the crash situation we are on with regard to psych drugs. Getting off them safely is tricky, but more and more people are figuring out how. I recommend the Hearing Voices networks and other peer-run groups such as Empowerment Initiatives, which has an office and library in Portland. The Process Center hosts Hearing Voices groups and other services, as does Empowerment Initiatives. Unstuck is a book by an author whose last name is Gordon. Unstuck is a resource that counsels strategies for dealing with emotional challenge in ways other than taking pharmaceuticals. Dr. Gordon studied at Harvard, but so did another M.D. whose conflicts of interest with the pharmaceutical companies were not disclosed properly to Harvard or to the I.R.S. When a child died whose physician had been influenced to prescribe heavy-duty meds to young children by Joseph Biederman, M.D., of Harvard, Sen. Grassley began going after docs with conflicts. Biederman got caught in the net, but so did at least one other prominent psychiatrist. Some serious legal issues are coming down the pike regarding this sort of thing.

I moved this thread from toxin-ectomy.
OP and links do not involve permaculture.

I'm not convinced that everyone with mental illness can function without pharmaceuticals, just as not everyone with diabetes can function without pharmaceuticals. I think it would be great if everyone could find non-medical "strategies for dealing with emotional challenge." "Emotional challenge" is putting it mildly. That would be great if it were only "emotional challenge."

Skirting around the Too-Bigs seems on-topic to me, but I have serious challenges within my circle of family and friends who have been affected by the current way of doing things.

Abrupt withdrawal is particularly a coming topic.

Government budgets which subsidize the use of these drugs can be cut.

In Oregon, a man died a few years ago because he seized to death when one of the drug programs was cut precipitously.

Permaculture has to do with resilience to me, and I see connections. It isn't just budgets that can affect this. Corruption of process and of substrate materials (mostly from the oil industry) can also affect availability.

Weather and disruption of supply lines can affect this as well.

I can understand how people unaffected by this class of health issue would not think it applicable to their interpretation of permaculture priorities.

Yet sourcing locally and resiliently stacking functions, in the face of change, seems relevant to me, even if it is a very uncomfortable and controversial topic. There are many plant-based analogues to current prescriptions that affect symptoms. Sometimes symptoms do have to be addressed before causes can be dealt with.

I don't think these are pyche problems.

All these symptoms recurring from linked diseases speaks to a common environmental factor. In the cat story, they show that schizo has increased linked to cat owning population.

If our small precursors are truly modifying our actions to increase infection rates, we gotta figure out how to break the cycle, and get taxo out of circulation.

The Taxo problem could quite easily be being modified by a xeno estrogen (bpa family), and affecting rna or gene expression, not just the dna blueprint.

Bottom line, we need to find a fix for spore lifetimes in the body.

We have been working on this for 100's of years in the case of malaria, we need to figure out a way to do this with a low tech strategy.

I think it's going to have to be with ROS, or a low dose toxicant. They still use some serious poisons to treat blood worms and flukes.
Would be nice if someone found absinthe,or hellbore would work.

Might be interesting to see if any of the "herbal" stuff used for malaria would work on taxo or other spore forming wildlife.

maybe this is the answer. I don't know enough to research on pubMed

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folinic_acid

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APOL1

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/?term=blood+parasites+folinic+acid


Can't tell if the folates help or hurt progression of disease.
http://www.custommedicine.com.au/health-articles/folinic-acid/





The problems
http://tolweb.org/Hematozoa_-_Aconoidasida/68058

http://mbio-serv4.mbioekol.lu.se/avianmalaria/index.html

Mary Saunders wrote:
There are many plant-based analogues to current prescriptions that affect symptoms.

I would like to see more discussion of this. What are they? Which plants? Which prescriptions? Is there a list of plant-analogues to current prescriptions?

James A. Duke is one of the most-quoted sources on plant analogues. If you have a particular issue, you can find his data base. Here is his wikipedia bio, which isn't very good. His own descriptions of himself in his books are much better. He often has used himself as a subject, as he had some serious chronic illnesses his family did not fare so well with. His book sites might have been better as links, but I wasn't sure I would be able to post those.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_A._Duke

His Green Pharmacy is a classic and probably would be easy to find at a used bookstore.

Most people know that aspirin originally came from plants, and many know that yew was over-harvested to make tamoxifen. In general U.S. culture though, few other plant medicines are well known, although that may vary by geography.

I have the Green Pharmacy, thank you. I think to suggest it lists "analogues to current prescriptions" is not accurate. I was leaping to the conclusion you were referring to psychoactive pharmaceuticals, not to aspirin. I would be interested to know the plant analogues to current psychoactive pharmaceuticals.

Here is a link from the Duke data base, when I search with the key term psychoactive. I did not look into the specific actions of the chemicals because I did not have a particular issue I wanted to examine.

I have used turmeric for pain and inflammation though. I cannot tolerate the side effects of NSAID's, and I have used Traditional Chinese Medicine herbs on the advice of a practitioner that Toby Hemenway gave me a referral for. I am 13 years out from Stage II cancer. For some individuals, dealing with inflammation can be helpful for challenges often characterized as mental or emotional, in addition to their helpfulness regarding other conditions.

http://www.ars-grin.gov/cgi-bin/duke/activity.pl

Thank you.

For anyone interested in the uses, economics, etc., of plant chemicals, this source is heavily cited. I was surprised when it came up so high on a search for plant bio-chemicals active in animals, because it is from 1985. I had been under the impression that a lot of this is newer than that. The article laments the loss of forest in the global south. So many of those plants are not even well described yet, in published sources. We are losing humans who know about the plants as well. It is still a relevant issue, as huge dam plans, such as the Belo Monte in Brazil, are threatening ancient forest.

http://www.ciesin.columbia.edu/docs/002-266/002-266.html

There are receptors in plants and animals that are similar. Candace Pert's book about the brain receptors for opiates made a big splash, as did the movie, Molecules of Emotion. I watched that movie many times, as did many in the Portland area, where the movie was partly made.

The discovery of inhibitor-production in plants was big in a different segment of the population. The pesticide implications in agricultural applications were of great interest in some university ag departments, and then scientists began to consider the potential of inhibitors for weight-reduction in humans.

Messing with the different bio-chemicals is a tricky game because of feedback mechanisms. This is one of the reasons for cautions on pharmaceutical bottles that the substance may provoke the symptoms that are being targeted.

When I developed a murderous headache from a strong selective-seratonin re-uptake inhibitor (SSRI - Prozac family), as a result of an attempt to stop side effects of chemotherapy, they got pretty agitated about it and told me to stop right away, for an example of the unpredictability of response. I have played around with St. John's Wort for its reputed anti-inflammatory effects, and I got the headache as well. St. John's Wort has been used in Germany for depression symptoms. I can use St. John's Wort topically, and it feels good on my skin. I have no adverse reaction that way. I just can't ingest it without consequences.

There is a sedative frequently used in emergency rooms, but some people have a violent counter-reaction, and I have heard it said that anyone who has seen that is far less likely to use that medication from then on out. I can't remember the name of it.

It is possible to generate one's own bio-chemicals, in response to vigorous exercise or starvation, for example. This is one reason it is so difficult to treat anorexia with conventional medicine.

People who lived through the seventies may remember a particular appetite-stimulant plant substance, but research on appetite stimulants is far behind research on appetite suppressors in general above-ground scientific research.

The Knight Cancer Research Center at Oregon Health Sciences University has some projects to help tease out how individuals respond to particular substances and how to tailor treatment to individuals. This kind of medicine is often called personal or personalized, but I prefer Functional myself, as I am an exercise instructor interested in seeing people reach goals above baseline.

OHSU's nursing school is doing clinical trials on tai chi and fall-prevention in cancer survivors, and I am a participant. I also participated in the stretching control group for a trial of resistance training, but my own response, and that of others who have testified to this, is that the value of connecting with others with similar challenges was of great value in that group-exercise experience, separate from the effects on bone, which was the prime research outcome they wanted to test.

I got hissed at a National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI) meeting for announcing a talk of the book Anatomy of an Epidemic. I am aware I can draw hostility by wanting to talk about individual responses in detail. Nonetheless, the complexity of the subject is not going to go away by hissing people for talking about it. Re-Thinking Psychiatry events now draw a wide circle of interested people, including some from NAMI. I long ago paid $1,000 for a life-time membership in NAMI. There are times I have regretted that, but I am mellowing about it.

Maybe climate won't change much, and we will just chug along without changing trajectories from how we do things now, but I doubt it, so I find it relevant to be curious about this stuff and to watch the research.

it appears you don't need to flood your brain with all the serotonins, just this one pathway.

may be you could bypass the ill effects by just picking the correct flavor of signaling pathways.

http://phys.org/news194505580.html


"Rather than activating all serotonin receptors as SSRIs do, one could increase signaling through the one critical serotonin receptor that our research shows is important for anti-depressant behavior"

The prime issue for me is immune system function--enough inflammation for repair, but not so much that my brain feels foggy.

Most pharmaceutical companies do not dispute the value of exercise in regulating mood. Some promote exercise.

One can get addicted to exercise, and when there are injuries, many coaches now know to warn athletes that depression is a risk if rest is required. Many psychoactive chemicals are made in the body in response to vigorous exercise in particular: endogenous growth hormone (to build muscle), testosterone (also to build), brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), opiates (in case the tiger catches you and you need pain relief), etc.

There are different ways to deal with withdrawal from the endogenous chemicals if there is an injury that requires a break in activity. I am partial to Traditional Chinese Medicine, where a practitioner says his participants can have good effects from visualizing healing, a modality used in other practices as well. Visualization does not work for everybody, in all times, but it helps me.

Belleruth Naparstek helps people who want to try visualization techniques for different issues. I first heard of her on NPR. Some of programs have been designed for and by returning veterans, to help in trauma recovery.

I was not prescribed an SSRI for depression issues, but to stop throwing up and maybe to not have to go in for intravenous hydration. It didn't work, and I had to go in. I know people who got through without this, but I wasn't one of them. Some people cannot handle SSRI's for other reasons than my head-pain side effect.

It all depends, as some permies are fond of saying.

Anti-depressants are prescribed for ADHD , OCD , anorexia , depression , anxiety. Originally it was enforced that they be coupled with talk therapy , behavior modification techniques , etc. In my field of work I have administered these medications to thousands of people and overseen the plans of care that go along with them. Never have I recieved an order or recommendation from a physician , psychiatrist , pharmacist for talk therapy or behavior modification . Unless the person was in an acute psychiatric setting and then usually just group therapy for their short 3-90 day stay then no more. Why ? It's not reimbursable. No money for it . One on one with a counseler , psychologist cost way more than a few bucks a day for SSRIs. The pharmaceutical companies are not raisng any flags and saying those taking their meds need therapy. Maybe in the fine print. The federal regulatory agencies that govern institutional settings have always mandated that trial reductions be attempted every three months with all psychiatric drugs [ at least twice anyways ] . However , they are now giving the industry a firm deadline to do away with these drugs as used for other than depression . Antidepressants will no longer be approved for appetite stimulation ,
antipsychotics for agitated elders with dementia , etc. The MDs and institutions say "We have nothing else." We are being told "Yes , you do - culture change ." I am all for this . We are being told that our institutional settings are producing much of the need for the use of these drugs and we are going to have to change. Check out the Eden Alternative for a nursing home culture change example. So , in short , I ask a question of the permie world. I see ideas for eco-villages , local agricultural models , alternative economics . Are we considering the needs of our debilitated elders , those young folks with schizophrenia ? Chemicals - synthetic or botanical - can only do so much. I remember reading that The Farm in Tennessee [ Gaskins group ] took in some elders and helped them live out their days. How would you like to spend your last days - sitting in a slinged bottom wheelchair in a tiled hallway waiting for Bingo at 2:30 - or surrounded by young enviromentalist whackos playing guitars and sipping dandelion wine ? Maybe we won't need SSRIs if we set it up right.

A friend of mine has a blog about her experiences of overcoming a severe psychotic illness without drugs and with the help of some amazing people.

Here's the link - The Smiling Scientist

cutting the chatter - or the arguments - in the brain causes symptoms.

I wonder if this is the same as the timing circuit that seems to be disrupted in folks with brain clouds too....

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/349061/description/Disrupted_brain_chatter_produces_schizophrenia-like_symptoms_in_mice

electroconvulsive therapy making a comeback....

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/04/130415124916.htm

supposedly you can get results with a LOT lower voltage with TDCS , home transdermal cranial stimulation. basically a nine volt battery and some wire and sponges....

supposed to be a good book on predilection to violence, haven't read it, and doesn't seem to check for background infections that could be causal, but appears to be the definitive work.

http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/culturelab/2013/04/anatomy-violence-raine.html?cmpid=RSS|NSNS|2012-GLOBAL|online-news