If you’ve read my blog before, you’ve probably noticed that I’m pretty pro-medication when it comes to mental illness. I thought it would be worthwhile, though, to give a little bit more nuanced perspective. My take on meds comes from my professional training as a pharmacist and then nurse, years of experience, and many hours of …
The world likes to get judgy when it comes to medications, particularly those that are viewed as addictive or otherwise “bad” in some way. The judginess grows exponentially when it comes to medication use in pregnancy. Obviously, it’s a problem if a medication has a negative effect on a developing fetus. However, in the real …
Do antidepressants increase the risk of suicide? There are certainly people out there who are very vocal in insisting that they do. However, as is so often the case, the loudmouths don’t tend to be especially well informed. The FDA black box warning Since 2004, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has required a …
Antidepressants, Suicide Risk, and the FDA Black Box Warning Read More »
Sometimes you’ll hear people argue that doctors don’t know how psych meds work, and therefore they shouldn’t be used. However, there’s a lack of clarity to these statements that, at least in my opinion, casts psychotropic meds in an unfair light. What is the mechanism of action? If we’re going to about how medications work, …
Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a hard-to-treat condition that can cause significant distress for those living with it. While the gold standard for treatment is psychotherapy, specifically dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT), medications may also play a supporting role, and that’s what this post will focus on. Antidepressants Antidepressants, particularly SSRIs, are some of the most …
The Role of Medications for Borderline Personality Disorder Read More »
This is a follow-up to a recent post on why I think direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription drugs is wrong. This post is going to look specifically at marketing by drug companies aimed at health care professionals. Primarily this relationship between Big Pharma and psychiatry involves targeting physicians, as they’re doing the majority of the prescribing. …
Big Pharma & Psychiatry: Cozier Than They Should Be? Read More »
In many countries, direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription drugs is either prohibited or tightly restricted. The United States is a notable exception, along with New Zealand. What harms is this likely to cause? For tv ads, the standard pattern is to talk about the illness, talk about the amazing benefits of the drug, and then provide …
Direct-to-Consumer Advertising of Psychiatric Prescription Drugs Read More »
I recently watched the documentary Letters From Generation Rx, which looked at instances of people experiencing significant side effects while on psychiatric medication, including people who took the lives of either themselves or others while on psychiatric meds. One man featured in the film was a Canadian Member of Parliament (MP) whose teenage daughter had …
Letters from Generation Rx—Weighing Medication Risks & Benefits Read More »
I have never had a problem with medications in general, and in my work as a nurse, I’ve seen how much good they can do. Despite that, I’ve gone off the meds I take for depression a few times, and that’s what this post is about. My first episode of depression was in 2007. I …
My Experiences of (Temporarily) Going Off Psychiatric Medications Read More »
Ketamine is a relatively new option for managing treatment-resistant depression that has a different mechanism of action from other antidepressant medications. Ketamine itself isn’t new, though; it’s a dissociative anaesthetic that’s also known by its club drug name Special K. Over the last 10-15 years, multiple research trials have shown that it has an antidepressant …
