Re: Carol S. - Neurontin

[Guest guest]

Carol,

Are you saying that Cheney now believes Neurontin is beneficial in the long

run? When I saw him last year he was negative on Neurontin but felt that my

relatively low 600 mg./day dose would not be particularly harmful. Steve B.

Cheney: antidepressants & stimulants can fry

your brain: eye twitching

> During our conversation on Klonopin (don't worry - I'm all done with

that), Cheney raised an issue of great concern. (Someone already mentioned

this, but it's worth reiterating.)

>

> He pulled a book off the shelf by ph Glenmullen, MD (psychiatrist at

Harvard Medical School) called " Prozac Backlash " . It's subtitled " Overcoming

the Dangers of Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil and Other Antidepressants with Safe and

Effective Alternatives. " It is endorsed by several other Ivy League

psychiatrists. Cheney called its implications " staggering " .

>

> The basic premise is that SSRIs (Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors)

and stimulants work by increasing the firing of neurons. Many Parkinson

drugs do this too. While this often has great benefits in the short term,

many doctors are now realizing that long tern use fries brain cells. As

Cheney explained in the Klonopin discussion, any neuron that fires

excessively over time is viewed by the body as dangerous/damaged, and it is

destroyed. These drugs, over a period of 10 years or so, will lead to what

Cheney called " neuro degenerative disorders. "

>

> What happened is that doctors have begun seeing a sudden rash of patients

with neurological symptoms - and they're all patients who have been on

Prozac, or something similar, for about 10 years. The excerpt from the first

chapter that I found on 's shopping/book section happened to

mention a woman who came in with eye twitching. Cheney says he's also seeing

these neurological symptoms in his patients who've been on SSRIs or

stimulants for 10 years or so.

>

> The truly horrific thing is that the drug companies knew this all along.

And they hid it. They hid the data from the FDA.

>

> Cheney opened the book to a before and after picture of a monkey's brain.

Before being given Redux (?), a more powerful form of Prozac, the photo was

filled with fine while lines and blobs on a dark background. Cheney said the

white lines and blobs were neurons - brain cells. Four days after being

given the drug, the photo of the monkey's brain was mostly all dark - very

few white lines or blobs. Brain cells just fried.

>

> Cheney had a copy of the May 22 issue of Newsweek with J. Fox on

the cover. It has a great article about Parkinson's, a disease that involves

a loss of neurons in the area associated with motor control. The popular

Parkinson's drugs stimulate the remaining neurons to " perform heroically " ,

firing off excessively. But it notes that while benefits are seen for 3 to 5

years, at that point the neurological symptoms get much worse - wild

involuntary movements, etc. The drug actually speeds up the degenerative

process.

>

> Cheney went into a complex explanation of SSRIs, and I lost part of it

turning the tape over, but the heart of it seems to be that to address

depression, which is a lack of serotonin, they give you a drug that blocks

serotonin from being vacuumed up by the reuptake channel of the neuron. This

increases the serotonin floating around the intersynaptic cleft (area

between neurons). (Serotonin is a neurotransmitter - a chemical messenger.

It's released by one neuron into the cleft and taken up by the adjacent

neuron. Message sent!) The drug increases the amount of serotonin available

to reach the receptors of the adjacent neuron, but it's often too much - and

the excess has to be cleared away for the next " message " - the next burst of

serotonin to be released. The body clears away the excess serotonin by

oxidizing it, but this turns it into a toxic compound that over time kills

both the sending and receiving neurons. " So what starts out as an attempt to

increase serotonin and reduce symptoms, ends up with the destruction of the

serotonegeric (sp?) system itself. It takes about a decade - more in some,

less in others. Now when the serotonegeric nerves are dead, you start

getting these motor neuron problems, which is what we're seeing. "

>

> " You know what a lot of doctors (who don't understand CFIDS and assume

Klonopin will interfere with sleep or be addictive) are doing? They're

saying 'Well, let's just give them an antidepressant. And they are frying

their (patients') brains and they don't even know it. In fact a CFIDS

patient on one of these drugs fries their brain even faster than a non-CFIDS

person. " With the shift toward seizure, our brains are already firing

excessively and inappropriately, then the SSRI just makes it more so.

>

> " The other way some people with CFIDS are going is stimulating the brain,

stimulants like Ritalin, Provigil, etc. They do the same thing - they fry

the brain. They cause the neurons to fire at lower stimulus by lowering the

firing threshold. All stimulants are dangerous, especially over the

long-haul. "

>

> " I'm not saying that you might not find them useful in a short term

situation. But over the long term the physiology demands that neurons that

fire excessively be killed. The brain will kill off excess firing neurons. "

>

> Cheney strongly urges anyone taking antidepressants or stimulants to read

this book. It has safe alternatives in it.

>

> Take care. Carol

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