This Teen Was Prescribed 10 Psychiatric Drugs. She’s Not Alone.

[SackMan518]

Disgusting, yet the medical establishment continues to pump everyone full of Band-Aid type drugs that never fix the root issues just for the profit. What we have is 21st Century snake oil salesmen.

 

This Teen Was Prescribed 10 Psychiatric Drugs. She’s Not Alone.

 

One morning in the fall of 2017, Renae Smith, a high school freshman on Long Island, N.Y., could not get out of bed, overwhelmed at the prospect of going to school. In the following days, her anxiety mounted into despair.

 

“I should have been happy,” she later wrote. “But I cried, screamed and begged the universe or whatever godly power to take away the pain of a thousand men that was trapped inside my head.”

 

Intervention for her depression and anxiety came not from the divine but from the pharmaceutical industry. The following spring, a psychiatrist prescribed Prozac. The medication offered a reprieve from her suffering, but the effect dissipated, so she was prescribed an additional antidepressant, Effexor.

 

A medication cascade had begun. During 2021, the year she graduated, she was prescribed seven drugs. These included one for seizures and migraines — she experienced neither, but the drug can be also used to stabilize mood — and another to dull the side effects of the other medications, although it is used mainly for schizophrenia. She felt better some days but deeply sad on others.

 

Her senior yearbook photo shows her smiling broadly, “but I felt terrible that day,” said Ms. Smith, who is now 19 and attends a local community college. “I’ve gotten good at wearing a mask.”

 

She had come to exemplify a medical practice common among her generation: the simultaneous use of multiple heavy-duty psychiatric drugs.

 

Psychiatrists and other clinicians emphasize that psychiatric drugs, properly prescribed, can be vital in stabilizing adolescents and saving the lives of suicidal teens. But, these experts caution, such medications are too readily doled out, often as an easy alternative to therapy that families cannot afford or find, or aren’t interested in.

 

These drugs, generally intended for short-term use, are sometimes prescribed for years, even though they can have severe side effects — including psychotic episodes, suicidal behavior, weight gain and interference with reproductive development, according to a recent study published in Frontiers in Psychiatry.

 

Moreover, many psychiatric drugs commonly prescribed to adolescents are not approved for people under 18. And they are being prescribed in combinations that have not been studied for safety or for their long-term impact on the developing brain.

 

“You can very cogently argue that we don’t have evidence about what it means to be on multiple psychotropic medications,” said Lisa Cosgrove, a clinical psychologist at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. “This is a generation of guinea pigs.”

 

MORE AT THE LINK

[devnull]

 

 

[Spartacus]

7 hours ago, SackMan518 said:

Disgusting, yet the medical establishment continues to pump everyone full of Band-Aid type drugs that never fix the root issues just for the profit. What we have is 21st Century snake oil salesmen.

 

This Teen Was Prescribed 10 Psychiatric Drugs. She’s Not Alone.

 

One morning in the fall of 2017, Renae Smith, a high school freshman on Long Island, N.Y., could not get out of bed, overwhelmed at the prospect of going to school. In the following days, her anxiety mounted into despair.

 

“I should have been happy,” she later wrote. “But I cried, screamed and begged the universe or whatever godly power to take away the pain of a thousand men that was trapped inside my head.”

 

Intervention for her depression and anxiety came not from the divine but from the pharmaceutical industry. The following spring, a psychiatrist prescribed Prozac. The medication offered a reprieve from her suffering, but the effect dissipated, so she was prescribed an additional antidepressant, Effexor.

 

A medication cascade had begun. During 2021, the year she graduated, she was prescribed seven drugs. These included one for seizures and migraines — she experienced neither, but the drug can be also used to stabilize mood — and another to dull the side effects of the other medications, although it is used mainly for schizophrenia. She felt better some days but deeply sad on others.

 

Her senior yearbook photo shows her smiling broadly, “but I felt terrible that day,” said Ms. Smith, who is now 19 and attends a local community college. “I’ve gotten good at wearing a mask.”

 

She had come to exemplify a medical practice common among her generation: the simultaneous use of multiple heavy-duty psychiatric drugs.

 

Psychiatrists and other clinicians emphasize that psychiatric drugs, properly prescribed, can be vital in stabilizing adolescents and saving the lives of suicidal teens. But, these experts caution, such medications are too readily doled out, often as an easy alternative to therapy that families cannot afford or find, or aren’t interested in.

 

These drugs, generally intended for short-term use, are sometimes prescribed for years, even though they can have severe side effects — including psychotic episodes, suicidal behavior, weight gain and interference with reproductive development, according to a recent study published in Frontiers in Psychiatry.

 

Moreover, many psychiatric drugs commonly prescribed to adolescents are not approved for people under 18. And they are being prescribed in combinations that have not been studied for safety or for their long-term impact on the developing brain.

 

“You can very cogently argue that we don’t have evidence about what it means to be on multiple psychotropic medications,” said Lisa Cosgrove, a clinical psychologist at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. “This is a generation of guinea pigs.”

 

MORE AT THE LINK

also good to know that many of these prescriptions are written by school guidance counselors preying on these kids to fill the drug quotas for their Psychiatric/Psychiatry practices.

[SackMan518]

9 hours ago, devnull said:

 

 

Love it. I'm a huge SP fan!

[Koko]

A few years back, there was a person who had a few felony charges, and continued to spiral out of control after landing in jail. The local MH people just kept prescribing more and more drugs.

 

They were eventually sent to the Central New York Psychiatric Center in Marcy, who promptly took them off of all of their medication except for one SSRI. It took a few months for their system to clear all of the other medications out, but they were just fine afterwards.

[Crap Throwing Clavin]

2 hours ago, Koko said:

A few years back, there was a person who had a few felony charges, and continued to spiral out of control after landing in jail. The local MH people just kept prescribing more and more drugs.

 

They were eventually sent to the Central New York Psychiatric Center in Marcy, who promptly took them off of all of their medication except for one SSRI. It took a few months for their system to clear all of the other medications out, but they were just fine afterwards.

 

Yep...it's not the drugs themselves that are the problem, it's the over-prescribing of them.  

 

I'm only on three right now, each critically necessary, none interacting badly.  I'm fortunately smart and educated enough to both know that, and to resist being prescribed any more.

[Koko]

3 minutes ago, Crap Throwing Clavin said:

 

Yep...it's not the drugs themselves that are the problem, it's the over-prescribing of them.  

 

I'm only on three right now, each critically necessary, none interacting badly.  I'm fortunately smart and educated enough to both know that, and to resist being prescribed any more.

 

Unfortunately, that local MH provider seems to believe that if you're not willing to willingly be a medicated zombie, you're not worth the trouble. They used to have MH inpatients prosecuted for minor crap just to try to force them into the jail.

[Jabba The Hutt]

On 8/29/2022 at 12:00 PM, Crap Throwing Clavin said:

 

Yep...it's not the drugs themselves that are the problem, it's the over-prescribing of them.  

 

I'm only on three right now, each critically necessary, none interacting badly.  I'm fortunately smart and educated enough to both know that, and to resist being prescribed any more.

No, it's also the drugs themselves...

[Crap Throwing Clavin]

3 hours ago, Jabba The Hutt said:

No, it's also the drugs themselves...

 

"How so?  Be specific."

[Jabba The Hutt]

9 minutes ago, Crap Throwing Clavin said:

 

"How so?  Be specific."

Where would you like me to start? Pharmaceuticals in general or specifically Psychiatric medicine?