Well, let's hold on.
Yes, a patient who sees a commercial on television about a medication, and asks her doctor about it, does not have enough information to know whether she needs it or should take it. But the doctor does. That's why we train doctors, that's why we license them, and that's why we require prescriptions for these medications.
Pharmaceuticals advertise in this context of regulation.
Regarding the efficacy and safety of FDA approved anti-depressants versus illicit drugs... I completely disagree with the poster who said that they come with as much risk and harm as illicit drugs used as mood enhancers. Since he sounds like a MS, I'm sure he already knows why.
I also disagree with the implication of the statement that they are "hit or miss," which to me implies a nearly equal chance of them working or not working, based completely on luck. They don't get approved unless they work significantly better than a placebo.
I'm beginning to sound very disagreeable. So, I also think it's great that we're all talking about this, and I'm enjoying the discussion.
Respiridone
Side effects
Common side effects include akathisia, anxiety, dysphoria, insomnia, low blood pressure, muscle stiffness, muscle pain, sedation, sexual dysfunction, tremors, increased salivation, and stuffy nose. Risperidone has been associated with minimal to moderate weight gain, with one study finding that 26 to 38 percent of participants on the drug experienced weight gain.[8][9]
Occasionally breast tenderness and eventually lactation in both genders may occur. Many antipsychotics are known to increase prolactin because they inhibit dopamine. However, risperidone is known to increase prolactin to a greater extent than most other antipsychotics, such as quetiapine. Over 40 pituitary neoplasm cases have been reported worldwide. It is thought that once risperidone raises prolactin, it may cause prolactinoma, a benign tumor of the pituitary gland. Tumors, in general, aren't considered reversible. Medical therapy (dopamine agonists) may help reduce tumor size and restore normal reproduction and pituitary function, but if unsuccessful, surgery or radiation treatment may be required. This condition may recur if the patient is switched to a different antipsychotic. Risperdone has been known to cause increased thoughts of suicide.[10]
Risperidone can potentially cause tardive dyskinesia (TD),[11] extrapyramidal symptoms (EPS),[11] and neuroleptic malignant syndrome (NMS).[11] Risperidone may also trigger diabetes and more serious conditions of glucose metabolism, including ketoacidosis and hyperosmolar coma.[12]
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This antipsycotic medication comes with an enormous amount of side affects and contraindications. They have been pushing this drug on just about everyone, and they ignore their complains, insisting in giving them more and more medications, each one to counteract each side effect. The person ends up taking a large number of counteracting meds, that in the end, they end up with huge problems, one in specific with heart attacks. Only to be eliminated when he stopped taking it himself. The reason they gave him? There was no other drug available that could do the job, adequately at the moment, so they kept him on it, regardless the consequences. The irony of it is, that the person had no schizophrenia what so ever-as he was misdiagnosed.
This medicine was-mass used- on a huge number of people regardless their problem. Is it not perhaps that the pharmaceutical companies push these, as a way of continuous research, but indiscriminately?
