Posts Tagged ‘Depression’

Treatment Resistant Depression is Apparently a Thing

Monday, February 6th, 2023

Psychiatrists like to fund research studies for so-called “Treatment Resistant Depression” (TRD). They say that if someone has been given antidepressant drugs but their symptoms haven’t improved, they may have treatment-resistant depression.

Of course, the treatments of choice for TRD are more psychiatric drugs, such as ketamine and esketamine (dissociative anesthetics), olanzapine (an atypical anti-psychotic drug) and fluoxetine (Prozac). Some claim that Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) or electroconvulsive therapy (ECT or shock treatment) “work” for this. Of course, all these “treatments” just knock your brain for a loop, so you don’t feel depressed, or much of anything anymore. None of these actually address the root causes for these symptoms, which psychiatrists conveniently forget to tell you.

One study suggests that between 29% and 46% of patients are still depressed after taking antidepressant drugs. Another study claims 20%-60% do not respond to psychiatric drugs. Well, we’ve known for years that not only is there no such “mental illness” as depression, but also that these mind-altering drugs don’t help.

People can, of course, experience symptoms commonly labeled as depression. In fact, there are hundreds of genuine medical conditions which can produce such mental symptoms — each of which has clinical tests and recognized medical treatments which do not involve psychiatric drugs.

While the fraudulent psychiatric “brain chemical imbalance” theory has been debunked for many years, it has been held firmly in place by the psycho-pharma public relations machine in order to sell more harmful and addictive psychiatric drugs. These drugs make patients for life since the drugs do not cure anything and have devastating side effects.

Psychiatrists have known since the beginning of psychopharmacology that their drugs do not cure any disease, and that antidepressants do not have any legitimate medical value. These are just public relations theories to support the marketing and sale of drugs. This is why the words “depressed” or “depressive” occur 77 times in various fraudulent diagnoses in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), in a vain attempt to legitimize this so-called “disease.”

Troubled patients being misled about what causes their problems and being told that they need to take a psychotropic drug to “correct” this is a form of coercion. Giving patients such misinformation prevents their making an informed decision and has already resulted in many millions of people taking antidepressants or other psychotropic drugs with harmful side effects, erroneously believing these would “correct” something that simply never existed.

These drugs mask the real cause of problems in life and debilitate the individual, so denying him or her the opportunity for real recovery and hope for the future. This is the real reason why psychiatry is a violation of human rights. Psychiatric treatment is not just a failure — it is routinely destructive to the individual and one’s mental health.

If you know someone who has bought into these lies, suggest they investigate non-psychiatric, non-drug alternatives. Contact your local, state and federal representatives and demand that they stop government funding of these drugs.

The Hoax of Antidepressants

Monday, July 4th, 2022

Over time, using antidepressants is not associated with significantly better health-related quality of life (HRQoL), compared to people with depression who do not take the drugs.

These are the findings of a study published April 20, 2022 in the journal PLOS ONE.

The study included all noninstitutionalized U.S. adults (?18 years) who had depression documented in their medical condition files during the first year of the two-year follow-up. Over the duration of the study (2005–2016), on average there were 17.47 million adult patients diagnosed with depression disorder every year with two-year follow up. About 57.6% of these patients received treatment with antidepressant drugs.

The researchers recommend that “Physicians, mainly primary care providers who are caring for most of these patients, may need to reconsider referring patients with depression to receive some kind of non-pharmacological therapy.”

The research study concludes with this quote:
“The ultimate goal of using antidepressant medications or psychotherapy is to improve patients’ important outcomes, such as HRQoL. The real-world effect of using antidepressant medications does not continue to improve patients’ HRQoL over time, as the change in HRQoL was comparable to patients who did not use any antidepressant medications.”

This is not even to mention the potentially horrific side effects of antidepressant use. The U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) has this to say about antidepressant side effects: “Antidepressants increase the risk of suicidal thinking and behavior (suicidality) in children and adolescents with MDD [major depressive disorder] and other psychiatric disorders.”

Recognize that the real problem is that psychiatrists fraudulently diagnose life’s problems as an “illness”, and stigmatize unwanted behavior as “diseases.” Psychiatry’s stigmatizing labels, programs and treatments are harmful junk science; their diagnoses of “mental disorders” are a hoax — unscientific, fraudulent and harmful. All psychiatric treatments, not just psychiatric drugs, are dangerous.

If you are taking any of these drugs, do not stop taking them based on what you read here. You could suffer serious withdrawal symptoms. Click here for more information about harmful and addictive psychiatric drugs.

Psychiatrists euphemistically call withdrawal side effects “discontinuation symptoms” to disguise the addictive nature of these drugs.

You should seek the advice and help of a competent non-psychiatric medical doctor or practitioner before trying to come off any psychiatric drug.

Contact your local, state and federal officials and let them know your viewpoints about harmful psychiatric treatments.

The Suicide Risk Assessment Fraud

Monday, February 28th, 2022

“A disappointing, and perhaps the most telling, finding was that there has been no improvement in the accuracy of suicide risk assessment over the last 40 years.”

Suicide Risk Assessment doesn’t work. In fact, research suggests it not only doesn’t help, but also it may hurt.

One study looked at the last 40 years of suicide risk assessment research. They found no statistical method to identify patients at a high-risk of suicide in a way that would improve treatment.

Another study of people who had already harmed themselves found that there was no evidence to support the use of risk assessment scales.

Combined with ineffective suicide risk assessment, patients labeled with depression or suicidal ideation often receive prescriptions for dangerous psychotropic drugs laden, and even labeled, with side effects that encourage the exact symptoms they are marketed to treat.

Suicide prevention is a social issue, rather than a medical one. A psychiatrist prescribing an antidepressant is thus not really providing a valid treatment, and the widespread use of suicide risk assessment diverts social and health care practitioners from engaging with patients to find out and handle whatever is really the problem.

Risk assessments, screenings, school mental health programs and more funding are often presented as solutions to suicide, and since the onset of the Covid pandemic calls for more screenings and funding are louder than ever. Yet these so-called solutions are actually contributing to the problem by masking truly effective solutions and proliferating the use of psychotropic drugs whose side effects include suicide and violence.

No one denies that people can have difficult problems in their lives, that at times they can be mentally unstable. Mental health care is therefore both valid and necessary. However, the emphasis must be on workable mental healing methods that improve and strengthen individuals and thereby society by restoring people to personal strength, ability, competence, confidence, stability, responsibility and spiritual well-being. Psychiatry is not workable.

Tianeptine – An Alternative Worse Than Opioids

Monday, March 15th, 2021

Just when one might have thought that the U.S. was getting a handle on opioid addiction, another harmful and highly addictive opioid-like drug has appeared in widespread use.

The March 2021 issue of Consumer Reports has a comprehensive article about Tianeptine, an illegal drug linked to reports of harm, abuse and deaths.

Tianeptine acts in the brain as an opioid. The FDA says it is illegal and unsafe in the U.S., although it is approved as a prescription antidepressant in some European, Asian, and Latin American countries.

Reports indicate that tianeptine is even more addictive, with more severe withdrawal adverse reactions, than opioids and heroin.

Yet some proponents, possibly motivated by greed if not by malign intentions, are trying to get the FDA to approve it as a prescription drug for depression in the U.S.

Are You Depressed?

Psychiatry is heavily pushing false data about depression.

The fact is, the American Psychiatric Association, the American Medical Association and the National Institute of Mental Health admit that there are no medical tests to confirm mental disorders as a disease but do nothing to counter the false idea that these are biological/medical conditions when in fact, diagnosis is simply done by a checklist of behaviors.

People do experience symptoms of depression. But there are non-harmful, medical alternatives; addictive and harmful psychiatric drugs are not the solution.

Deja Poo - The feeling that you've heard this crap before.
deja poo

Magnetic Seizure Therapy – How Unattractive!

Monday, December 14th, 2020

In 1993 a team of researchers from the United States and Switzerland triggered seizures in patients with a magnetic field. They thought this was wonderful, and could lead to a revolution in treatment of various ailments.

Yet competent medical experts warn that seizures are linked to developmental disabilities, learning and behavioral disorders, and many other negative long-term outcomes. The Mayo Clinic advises people to seek immediate medical help if one has a seizure.

Psychiatrists, however, are banking on making a ton of money by forcing vulnerable people to have seizures for depression.

Magnetic Seizure Therapy (MST) is a brain stimulation therapy in which magnetic pulses deliberately induce seizures, similar to electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), in patients under general anesthesia.

Like Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (rTMS), MST uses magnetic pulses instead of electricity to restimulate a precise target in the brain. However, unlike rTMS, MST aims to induce a seizure like ECT does, in the forlorn hope that this would not have all the horrific side effects of ECT.

The claim is that this assault on the brain reduces symptoms from major depression or bipolar disorder in 30-40% of individuals so treated. Well, of course it might temporarily reduce symptoms, since it basically shuts down normal activity of the brain for a period.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t cure anything and never will, while also carrying the significant risks of anesthesia exposure and induction of seizures.

Even the psychiatric billing bible, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), carries a category for seizures [“Conversion disorder (functional neurological symptom disorder), With attacks or seizures”], for which psychiatrists can prescribe one or more psychotropic drugs. [A Conversion Disorder is a mental condition in which a person has some neurologic symptoms unrelated to a specific disease.]

All competent medical personnel know about the grave consequences of untreated seizures, yet psychiatrists actually promote this as a “treatment.” How do they get away with this?

Seizures are also one of the possible adverse side effects of various psychiatric drugs such as psychostimulants, antidepressants, antipsychotics, anti-anxiety drugs, and lithium. What’s one more so-called “treatment” that causes seizures?

The psychiatric industry has a history of deliberately reducing their patient’s intelligence as a “treatment.” Evidence that electroshock lowers IQ is certainly available. Documented side effects of ECT include lowered intellectual function, with a 20- to 40-point drop in IQ.

Are you beginning to see the pattern here? Since psychiatry cannot cure any mental disorder, they turn to “treatments” which just knock you out so you don’t feel bad any more. Of course, you don’t feel good, either.

Sure, fry your brain with magnetic seizure therapy! Who knows, it may enhance your natural animal magnetism (Not!).

Traumatic Brain Injury

How psychiatry Usurps Climate Change Planning

Monday, August 17th, 2020

Reference:
United Nations Promoting Sustainable Development
Resolution adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 25 September 2015 “Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development

Sustainable: Of, relating to, or being a method or lifestyle for using resources so that the resources can be maintained and continued, and are not depleted or permanently damaged.

[from Old French sustenir (French: soutenir), from Latin sustineo, sustinere, from sub– (under) + teneo (hold, uphold, possess, guard, maintain)]

The U.N. Sustainable Development Goals

The 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) and their 169 associated targets adopted in 2015 and accepted by all Member States seek to realize the human rights of all and balance economic, social and environmental factors towards peace and prosperity for all.

To this end we examine some of the existing factors which block or inhibit the realization of these goals, and which must be eliminated so that the goals can be achieved in practice.

SDG 13Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts.
Target 13.2: Integrate climate change measures into national policies, strategies and planning.

How Psychiatry Obstructs Target 13.2
The psycho-pharmaceutical industry has jumped full-time onto the climate change bandwagon. Scholarly articles are being published claiming that climate change affects mental health, along with the typical cries to fund more research, prescribe more antidepressants, and prepare for the worst.

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) does not lack for possible disorders that can be tied to some climate change disaster for which antidepressants can be prescribed.

It used to be called “Seasonal Affective Disorder” (SAD). Although this is no longer classified as a unique disorder, it can still be diagnosed as a “mood disorder with a seasonal pattern.” SAD is considered a subtype of major depression or bipolar disorder. An example of a SAD diagnosis might be “Major Depressive Disorder, Recurrent Episode, Moderate, With Seasonal Pattern”.

Here we have the “dangerous environment” in full bloom. Wherever psychiatry intervenes, the environment becomes more dangerous, more unsettled, more disturbed. A dangerous environment only persists if we fail to spread a safe environment across the world. What makes a dangerous environment? Confusion, conflict and upset.

The psychiatrists who promote a dangerous environment make it seem as threatening as possible so that they can profit from it. How do you counter this? You stop spreading the chaos and spread the truth instead. Behind the truth comes the calm. You may still need technology to handle climate change, but you don’t need antidepressant drugs to do so.

The issue is not “is there or is there not climate change?” The issue is, get rid of the psychiatrists who are promoting and profiting from the confusion.

Psychiatric fraud and abuse must be eradicated so that SDG 13 can occur.

Climate Change

Scientists Gave Ketamine to Sheep and were Baaaffled by the Result

Sunday, July 5th, 2020

“While studying the effects of ketamine on sheep, researchers say they found something truly strange: high doses of the drug appeared to turn the sheep’s brains off…”

First, why were they abusing sheep?

Second, we already know that ketamine is abusive to people.

And finally, we already know that ketamine, a powerful psychedelic anesthetic, is being relentlessly touted as a “new antidepressant” when in fact it just knocks you out so you don’t feel much of anything, a surefire clue that the brain has been turned off.

The same applies to Spravato (Esketamine), a nasal spray version of the anesthetic drug.

Ketamine is also known to be an illicit party drug, used by rapists to quell their victim’s movements. It’s hard to imagine how this “Club Drug” could be hailed by some psychiatrists as a potential solution for suicidal patients.

The use of ketamine to treat so-called depression is unethical and actually harmful, since it precludes the patient from finding out what is actually wrong and getting that treated. Psychiatrists pushing ketamine or esketamine are shameful drug pushers who are making a buck off people’s misfortune.

Click here for the truth they don’t want you to know about ketamine.

Ketamine for everything

Psychiatrists Anxious to Treat All Child-bearing Women for Post-Partum Depression

Saturday, June 15th, 2019

The FDA approved the first drug treatment for post-partum depression (PPD) on March 19, 2019. Psychiatrists call this “peripartum depression”, which means depressive symptoms during pregnancy or after childbirth. While there is no  actual diagnostic test for this, the current revision of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V) labels this with various alternative wordings of “depressive disorder” or “bipolar disorder” or “anxiety disorder” or “stress disorder,” sometimes with the specifier “with peripartum onset“, depending on the circumstances.

The diagnosis is totally subjective, and is a justification for making money for prescribing an antidepressant. Psychiatrists do not typically perform any clinical tests to find out if there is a real medical reason for the symptoms, such as thyroid problems or vitamin deficiencies. Research suggests that rapid changes in hormones and thyroid levels during and after delivery have a strong effect on moods, yet this is mostly ignored by the psychiatric industry since it is easier and more profitable to prescribe a psychotropic drug.

The drug is Zulresso (generic brexanolone), an intravenous infusion administered continuously over 60 hours (2.5 days) and requiring constant monitoring. There is a risk of serious harm due to a sudden loss of consciousness during the treatment, the appearance of suicidal thoughts and behaviors, or hypoxia (loss of oxygen in the blood). The drug passes into breast milk, but there is no data on the safety of brexanolone while breastfeeding. The cost has currently been set at $34,000 per course of treatment.

Sage Therapeutics says that this neurosteroid, a derivative of allopregnanolone, affects GABAA (Type-A gamma-Aminobutyric acid) neurotransmitter receptors in the brain, although the actual mechanism of action of this drug with respect to PPD (or any other condition) is unknown.

Many people think that post-partum depression is a mental illness. However, this is very misleading for a mother who has experienced the trauma of just giving birth. To have them think the emotional roller coaster they may be experiencing is the result of a “chemical imbalance in the brain,” requiring mind-altering medication, is false and potentially very harmful.

This does not mean that serious emotional difficulties do not exist. But it does mean that psychiatrists and psychologists have used such difficulties to their advantage, promoting powerful drugs as a “solution” for vulnerable individuals. This has been for the sake of profit, often at the expense of people’s lives.

Quite apart from such drugs causing harm, they are also unnecessary. Any competent medical doctor who takes the time to conduct a thorough physical examination of someone exhibiting signs of what psychiatrists say are “mental disorders,” including post-partum depression, can find undiagnosed, untreated physical conditions.

Instead, psychiatrists prefer to tell young mothers that their condition is an “illness,” requiring “medication,” potentially endangering the life of the mother and her child.

Women may experience drastic drops in hormone levels after the birth of a child that can deliver a major shock to the woman’s body. Nutritional and mineral depletion or deficiencies as well as a lack of sleep while caring for a baby can also cause the symptoms psychiatrists say are a “mental disorder.” It can be treated nutritionally.

For more information, download and read the CCHR bookletThe Drugging of ‘Post Partum Depression’ – Clearing up Misconceptions About ‘Chemical Imbalances,’ Antidepressant Drugs and Non-Drug Solutions“.

Set It and Forget It Birth Control

Tuesday, May 21st, 2019

We’ve recently been seeing frequent TV ads for Kyleena and Mirena, intrauterine devices (IUDs) that slowly release a progestin hormone called levonorgestrel into the uterus to prevent pregnancy, sometimes referred to as “Set it and forget it birth control.”

Interestingly enough, the manufacturer of levonorgestrel tablet contraceptives (Plan B) says “This medication is an emergency contraceptive and should not be used as a regular form of birth control.”

Possible adverse side effects from these IUD devices include ovarian cysts, abdominal/pelvic pain, headache or migraine, acne, breast tenderness or pain, heavier bleeding, depression, changes in hair growth, and hair loss.

The potential for depression as a side effect caught our attention.

Then the May 2019 Scientific American was published with several articles about birth control, indicating that the occurrence of bad side effects from IUDs are much higher than one might suspect.

One article brought it even closer to our home, saying that “Much of the recent enthusiasm over IUDs can be traced back to a single study called the Contraceptive CHOICE research project [2007-2011]. Funded in part by a then anonymous donor now known to be the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation and facilitated by Washington University in St. Louis, the project had the explicit goal of increasing the use of LARC [Long-Acting Reversible Contraception] among women at high risk of unintended pregnancy.”

Obviously we are not advocating for or against anything related to birth control; our sole interest is in how the psychiatric industry may be involved. And with depression as a side effect of these devices, we have a clue.

We’ve all heard the term Premenstrual Syndrome (PMS), which includes symptoms such as mood swings, irritability and depression. Current thinking is that over 90% of women get some PMS adverse side effects.

Naturally, if psychiatrists can prescribe a drug for it, they will include it in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V) so that insurance will pay for diagnosing it and prescribing a drug.

So what does the DSM have to say about it? Here are some possible related diagnoses:

— Premenstrual dysphoric disorder [dysphoric means “a state of unease or dissatisfaction”]
— Problems related to unwanted pregnancy
— Depressive disorder due to another medical condition
— Unspecified depressive disorder
plus another 75 disorders related to depression of one kind or another.

All of these fraudulent diagnoses can be used to prescribe an antidepressant or some other harmful and addictive psychiatric drug, none of which actually address the root cause of the condition.

Need we actually say that premenstrual dysphoric disorder, or PMS, is not a “mental illness” requiring an antidepressant? Need we actually say that a depressive side effect of an IUD is not a “mental illness” requiring an antidepressant?

Well, we’ve said it anyway. Protect yourself from psychiatric fraud and abuse by insisting on Full Informed Consent with your doctor.

Knock Yourself Out with Spravato (Esketamine)

Monday, March 18th, 2019

A nasal spray version of the anesthetic drug ketamine was approved by the FDA on March 5, 2019 for treatment-resistant depression.

Janssen Pharmaceuticals says that the cost for a one-month course of treatment for Spravato (generic esketamine) will be between $4,720 and $6,785.

Esketamine is the S-enantiomer of ketamine, which means that it is one of the two mirror images of the chemical structure of ketamine, S (for the Latin sinister) being the left image. It enhances glutamine release in the brain. Glutamine is an amino acid used in the synthesis of proteins, among other things. In the brain, glutamine is used in the production of neurotransmitters. It is believed that glutamine plays a role in raising or lowering aggression levels.

Treatment requires that doses be taken, in conjunction with an oral antidepressant, in a doctor’s office or clinic, with patients monitored for at least two hours, and their experience entered in a registry.

Because of the risk of serious adverse outcomes and the potential for abuse and misuse of the drug, it is only available through a restricted distribution system. At least you can’t take it home with you.

The Spravato labeling contains a Boxed Warning that cautions that patients are at risk for sedation and difficulty with attention, judgment and thinking (dissociation), abuse and misuse, and suicidal thoughts and behaviors after administration of the drug.

Basically, it knocks you out so you don’t feel so depressed anymore. You don’t feel much of anything, actually, since you’ve just taken an anesthetic in the snout.

There were four phase 3 clinical trials; two of them failed to show any statistical improvement, but the drug was approved anyway because it was on the Fast Track and Breakthrough Therapy paths.

A 9/5/2018 update from Consumer Reports said, “All these drugs [Ketamine, Phenylbutazone, Chloramphenicol] are prohibited in beef, poultry, and pork consumed in the U.S. Yet government data obtained by Consumer Reports suggest that trace amounts of these and other banned or severely restricted drugs may appear in the U.S. meat supply more often than was previously known.”

Note that “depression” is not an actual medical illness; it is simply a symptom of some undiagnosed and untreated condition. A diagnosis of depression is a prime example of psychiatric fraud.

Any form of ketamine used to treat so-called depression is unethical and harmful, since it precludes the patient from finding out what is actually wrong and getting that treated. Psychiatrists pushing ketamine or esketamine are shameful drug pushers who are making a buck off people’s misfortune.

Go here for more information about alternatives to drugs.