Prozac = Suicide??

wind00ze

Hi was just wondering if any out there had any thoughts of the adverse side effects caused by certain anti-depressants, i.e Prozac

Ag marbh

During the early stages of taking them they can cause adverse effects which may cause an already suicidal person temporarily worse. I do recommend staying away from seroxat at all costs though.

wind00ze

thanks for the reply, I think this is a really important issue especially in Ireland as suicide is extremely high. I dont believe patients are been told about the dangers of some of these drugs, mainly because GP's dont even know themselves!

snorlax

moved to Medicine

Ag marbh

Patients generally are told what to expect at the start of treatment and I would find it hard to believe that doctor's are not aware of the effects. All of these medicines come packaged with a leaflet that tells the patient about possible temporary suicidal feellings.
I believe doctors are too quick to prescribe SSRI's and anti-anxiety medication these days instead of urging people to be active or something, although I don't dismiss that some people do need them right away. Patients should also remember that SSRI's don't make you happy, they only give you the ability to be happy so self imrpovement is needed either way.

John

Below is an extract from an essay I did a few months ago. I had re-written the whole thing out in a more readable fashion TWICE before boards logged me out once and I accidently closed the tab after. So I'm too annoyed to do it a second time. You'll find references at the bottom.

My essay wrote:

The most disturbing aspect associated with fluoxetine is its apparent relation to suicide. To confound the matter, there appears to be much disagreement in the literature. As stated earlier, it has been shown that during the first ten days of fluoxetine treatment, the incidences of suicidal behaviour increase significantly [Jick et al, 2005]. However, Vaswani et al (2003) claim that fluoxetine has a lower suicide rate associated with it than a placebo or TCA’s. This claim goes against recent findings that suggest that there is a twofold increase in suicidal behaviour with SSRI’s compared to placebo and other therapeutic treatments (excluding TCA’s) [Fergusson et al, 2005]. Fergusson et al note in their analysis that the number of suicides for patients being treated for major depression show a decrease but for other forms of depression and the other disorders treated with SSRI’s there was an increase of up to eight times the normal rate for suicidal behaviour. Fergusson et al admit their analysis is limited due to the way the clinical trials they studied were reported but they believe that the estimates they have made are too low, that suicidal behaviour is under-reported.

On the other side of the coin, Lapierre (2003) has reported that Sweden has seen a decrease in suicide rates from 1976 to 1996 and that Finland has seen a decrease in successful suicides. These claims are ambiguous to say the least, he never states whether the figures for Sweden are due to SSRI’s or antidepressants in general. As for Finland, he only reports a decrease in suicide mortality, not suicide attempts. He does raise a good point that if a patient is believed to be at risk of suicidal behaviour that SSRI’s are recommended as it is much harder to overdose on them compared to TCA’s, however this would only account for suicide mortalities and not suicide attempts.

Whittington et al’s (2004) comparison of published data against unpublished data on childhood depression noted that no suicidal behaviour was reported in any of the published data but was reported in the unpublished data albeit ambiguously. They found that there seemed to be no increase in suicidal behaviour in the 10-19 year old age bracket but tagged a caveat to their paper that this is a group that is already at a high risk of suicide and that all data should be made available. Whittington et al seem to have reason to believe that research sponsors with an economical interest as opposed to a medical interest in the drugs may be suppressing information. Fergusson et al presented data that showed that clinical trials funded by the pharmaceutical industry showed much lower rates of suicidal behaviour compared to those not funded by the pharmaceutical industry, 0.22% suicide rate for pharmaceutical industry funding compared to 0.87% for non-pharmaceutical industry funding...

...Perhaps most importantly at this stage is to have some sort of standardisation in the literature that will result in suicidal behaviour in clinical trials being reported clearly.

Fergusson, D., Doucette, S., Cranley Glass, K., Shapiro, S., Healy, D., Herbert, P., Hutton, B. (2005) Association between suicide attempts and selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors: systematic review of randomised controlled trials. B.M.J. 330:396-402.

Jick, H., Kaye, J.A., Jick, S.S. (2004) Antidepressants and the risk of suicidal behaviors. JAMA. 292(3):338-43.

Lapierre, Y.D. (2003) Suicidality with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors: Valid claim? Rev Psychiatr. Neurosci. 28(5):340-347.

Vaswani, M., Linda, F.K., Ramesh, S. (2003) Role of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors in psychiatric disorders: a comprehensive review. Progress in Neuro-Psychopharmacology & Biological Psychiatry 27:85-102.

Whittington, C.J., Kendall, T., Fonagy, P., Cottrell, D., Cotgrove, A., Boddington, E. (2004) Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors in childhood depression: systematic review of published versus unpublished data. The Lancet. 363:1341-1345.

wind00ze

Thats a really interesting essay, thanks. I believe Eli Lilly have a responsibility in doing more research into their medicine. I honestly believe people have turned to sucicide as a result of imcomplete research of anti-depressants. More awareness needs to be made.

DrIndy

wind00ze wrote:

Thats a really interesting essay, thanks. I believe Eli Lilly have a responsibility in doing more research into their medicine. I honestly believe people have turned to sucicide as a result of imcomplete research of anti-depressants. More awareness needs to be made.

In fairness, pharmaceutical companies are in it for the money - but it costs much more to be sued than to make a profit and so they by and large do show their own evidence - unless some eejit employed tries to cover it up.

Part of the theory regarding suicide is when someone is very depressed, they have so little motivation and although harbour suicidal thoughts - they cannot find the energy to follow them through. When the treatment starts to take effect and their mood lifts is the danger time when they still remain depressed but have more motivation.

There is a greater association than has been 100% accounted for by that hypothesis, but anti-depressants are anti-depressants and not suicide pills. Only a small amount of people respond like this.

Unlike TCA's however, it is not possible to kill oneself by overdosing on SSRI's, something with a weeks supply you can do with TCA's.

Antidepressants, particularily SSRI's have received a lot of bad press, but there are few drugs in the antidepressant arsenal which are so well tolerated, safe and few side effects as they are.

Siogfinsceal

never touch seroxat its awful stuff I used to be on it and trying to get off it is torture. Its been linked to suicide several times

ronbyrne2005

anyone read "toxic psychiatry"? its a book by some psychiatrist,he claims ssri's cause serotonin receptors to die back as when serotonin is increased in synaptic cleft less receptors are needed and therefore many die back and he claims this is permanent in many cases.i was on seroxat lustral lexapro prozac effexor 2 tca's one snri and lithium at differnet times over last 6 years and have decided they dont help me much and make me worse in many cases so im on no medication for last 2 months and doing ok but still not well enough to start working.

Siogfinsceal

i also am better off without medication i am now even well enough to work. The problem with seroxat in particular is the amount o ftime it takes to leave your system. It takes 6 weeks for the drug to fully get into yur system. If you stop taking it it all drops out of your system within 24 hours thi si sa severe shock to your nervous system and sends it into shock causing sweating , dizzynesss, stomach cramps and breathign difficulty. Its been described as similar to the effects of going cold turkey from heroin as the shock to your system is similar. The tablets form a physical addiction.
I was on seroxat for a few years as when I stopped taking it I became too ill to drive or work. Eventually I cut it down to half a tablet a day for a few weeks, then a quarter, then a quarter every second day and weaned myself off it. Now im well off it and it turns out that a lot of my problems were actually not psychosmatic for example my stomach problems were originally diagnosed as nerves/depression - it turns out I actually have irritable bowel syndrom and im fine if I stay away from certain foods. Always get everything else checked out befofre even thinking of going on any of these drugs and never ever take seroxat. Its called Paxil in the US the name was changed over here as Paxil has been linked with several suicides in the US. Drugs like valium and xanax are safe enough as they enter and leave your system gradually - people can become addicted though

snorlax

if you get bad side effects the doctor can always change what your taking. some medications don't react well with all people so don't be afraid to ask them to put you on something else and explain to them the symptoms, failing that and if they don't listen get a new doctor.

Victor

Siogfinsceal wrote:

If you stop taking it it all drops out of your system within 24 hours thi si sa severe shock to your nervous system and sends it into shock causing sweating , dizzynesss, stomach cramps and breathign difficulty. Its been described as similar to the effects of going cold turkey from heroin as the shock to your system is similar. The tablets form a physical addiction.

I was on Seroxat for a few months and found none of that.

What I did find was that while it took away the depression, it left the anxiety (even though it is also used to treat anxiety). A combination of events led me to lashing out violently, which I put in part down to the Seroxat. I asked to come off the Seroxat and a week after the last tablet I again had an episode where I had a huge desire to smash things, so I restricted it to smashing jam-jars in the kitchen. I can only describe the feeling as extremely stressed / anxious and "had to" react.

John

There are several different kinds of SSRI on the market, all react differently with whoever takes them. Unfortunately in rare cases there are severe side effects. Millions of people take SSRIs everyday without severe side effects. If you have problems with a drug (ANY drug, not just antidepressants) talk to your doctor and see about an alternative.