Over-Medicated, Under-Treated: The Reality of Antipsychotic Pharmaceuticals

Having only entered the external blog realm within the past week, I wasn’t sure what to expect when I began the search for authoritative, informative blogs on the subject of mental disorders. I began my exploration of the mental-health blogosphere with an emphasis on medication and schizophrenia and was taken aback by the severe lack of current informative news relative to the field. Fishing through the overwhelming number of Britney Spears related posts, I was eventually forced to negate her from the search entirely only to be overwhelmed with news articles on schizophrenic-related crimes dealing with individuals who apparently refused to take their medication. There were only two actual crimes in question, but tens of blogs found it necessary to cover them and all seemed focused on the mental disorder as the prime suspect. What I find so alarming about the initial results of my search isn’t Britney’s apparent downfall or the number of crimes accounted for, but the domination of this negative, nonconstructive and harmful media in the field of schizophrenic mental health.
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One of the first, truly informative blog posts I came across was “Injectable Longer Lasting Zyprexa May Be Approved”, an article on a new, injectable form of Zyprexa – an antipsychotic drug which is currently being considered by the FDA for child and adolescent as well as adult treatment. It’s an unforgiving drug with enough unpleasant side effects to keep anyone with a decent amount of sense away from it. Unfortunately, as an injection, it will probably see most of its use in forced medication, for people who will not take the Zyprexa pills willingly. After reading this article through a couple times, I came to an appalling revelation. Who would forcibly medicate a child with Zyprexa? Almost any concerned and uneducated parent. Considering the maelstrom of misinformation and negative media I encountered within my first few hours of blog-searching, it’s difficult to believe that anyone with average exposure to the media wouldn’t immediately draw connections between schizophrenia, crime, and the need to medicate - a connection which is completely false. Yes, the disorder needs to be addressed, but there are several alternative methods of treatment which have proven effective in several cases and should be exhausted before medication is even considered.

As Dr. Peter Breggin illustrates in his post “Brain Disabling Treatments in Psychiatry: Drugs, Electroshock and the Psychopharmaceutical Complex”, there is no “wonder” in anti-psychotic drugs. Medication for mental disorders do not “cure”, but merely hinder cognitive ability to “suppress” symptoms. They are misleading both in their initial effects and in their withdrawal symptoms. While on the drug, the patient will inevitably be perceived as doing better, when in fact, not only are the side-effects destroying the victim’s body, but the brain is doing worse. When off the drugs, the withdrawal symptoms can cause misleading psychotic episodes which could lead parents to believe their child is actually worse than before and seek more, possibly stronger medication. Instead of passing anti-psychotic drugs to force on unwilling patients in an effort to suppress symptoms, we should be researching alternative, healthy methods of helping victims of this disorder cope with their illness without destroying their minds, their bodies and inevitably their lives. However, before this can ever become a reality, the proliferation of nonconstructive, misleading information in the media about the disease and its treatments needs to be addressed.

I have offered my comments on the injectable Zyprexa drug as well as Dr. Breggin’s views on medication for mental disorder below:

“Injectable Longer Lasting Zyprexa May Be Approved”
Through the tone of your post, I can at once gather a sense of apprehension concerning the release of this new, injectable form of the Zyprexa and I am appreciative that you are revealing medications such as this for what they are rather than allowing them to remain naively considered “wonder drugs”. Your article is truly informative, and reveals several things about the Zyprexa drug that I was not aware of upon entering the post. I knew that Zyprexa could have devastating side effects, such as heavy weight gain, diabetes and sedation, but I was unaware that Zyprexa had actually made an effort to restrain information about these side effects to patients prescribed this medication. I find this to be revealing of Eli Lilly’s intentions in the pharmaceutical industry and something which patients or their guardians should be aware of before considering the drug. I also find it amazing that doctors prescribe this drug off-the label for anxiety and depression considering its side-effects. I suppose they never take into consideration that considerable weight gain and diabetes can cause even greater anxiety and depression than the disorder itself, not to mention that drugs such as these often fail to address feelings of hopelessness despite their effectiveness at ridding other symptoms. What I find most alarming about your post is that this drug is being considered for use on children and adolescents. Unlike adult patients, who can often at least have some control over their forms of treatment, children are completely dependent on their parents’ decisions; and I believe that many parents would decide to have a “fat, stable child” as opposed to an “unwell, skinny one” without ever consulting the child. And unfortunately, Zyprexa’s misleading marketing campaigns coupled with the vast amounts of negative media related to schizophrenics in general will have parents deciding on it before exhausting alternative forms of treatment that could potentially lead to a completely healthy, stable child. The 250% increase of antipsychotics in Florida children alone, not to mention its use off-the-label, reveals that this is already happening. I believe that posts such as yours are a step in the right direction. The first stride towards healthier treatment for schizophrenics is awareness about the reality of antipsychotics such as Zyprexa.

“Brain Disabling Treatments in Psychiatry: Drugs, Electroshock and the Psychopharmaceutical Complex”
In the sea of misinformation about the nature of mental disorders and their treatments, I found your blog post to be a breath of fresh air. Given the rise in popularity of antipsychotic drugs such as Zyprexa both on and off the label, a truly informative post such as yours, which reveals the true nature of antipsychotic drugs, is long overdue. The brain disabling function of antipsychotic medications as a means to suppress symptoms is certainly something that a patient or guardian should be aware of before accepting these drugs over alternative forms of treatment. I also somehow doubt that the withdrawal symptoms of these medications are being addressed, and that most patients are even aware of them. Considering the emulation of psychotic episodes that these withdrawal symptoms have, I don’t find it hard to believe that patients would be perceived as worse when off the medication when their condition might actually be improving. Bearing in mind that many mental disorders often improve over time, this could definitely have severe consequences for the unwitting patient. Although I understand that this is a mere summation of points expounded upon in greater detail in your book, I think it would be beneficial both to your post and to the community, to elaborate on some of the alternative methods of treatment that patients with mental disorders could consider besides medication. Currently it seems that pharmaceutical treatment has complete domination as the end-all be-all legitimate form of treatment for patients with mental disorder, and this absolutely should not be the case. But until other effective forms of treatment start to take a foothold both on the information highway and in the media, awareness levels will remain too low for medication to ever be challenged.