Yes, I was on neurontin for “pain”, but it didnt work. Nothing does.

But, really, neurontin, is, primarily, for seizures, or nerve disorders. If a woman is having rising levels of lithium, she should be checked out. Like someone else said on here, the levels of lithium that are therapeutic, are very close to levels that are lethal. I am very serious!! Please!

That’s why giving it to kids , is to ,me, a crime…

We are just on too many meds! From all I’ve known, it is primarily for Rx co. profit, and, secondarily, when a doctor doesnt want to (or cant afford to—as in a community clinic) spend too much time on a person. Not always. But, doctors are marketed these drugs, directly! (You are not allowed to do this, in any other civilized countries—at least not a couple years ago—neither are you allowed to advertise them directly to the public!)In this age of “no insurance”, people simply cannot afford psychotherapy…if it would even work. They cannot afford to see a neurologist (you cannot “measure” any of these “illnessses” neurologically, anyway). So, they end up at their primary doctor’s who, shouldnt really be doing that kind of prescribing, anyway, and they give them anti-depressants, like Prozac, for almost eveything! (“Before Prozac” is a good book on that—also “Talking Back to Proxac”—remember “Listening to Prozac”? That was an Anti-Psychiatry’s answer! A member of Psychiatric Survivor’s wrote it. Also, “Dr. Caligari’s Psychiatric Drugs”—I have alot of stuff on this subject)

The tri-cyclic anti-depressents cause the same Parkinson;s symptoms as the Thorazines. They also do not work unless you have a neurologically based “depression” , in my opinion,

For most clients, I prefer the old term—melancholia. Or, “justifiably” sad…but,—it has no diagnotistic code, and, most insuracne wont accept it.

That doesnt mean that isnt what it is.

Also, “This Brain Has a Mouth”..lol. Sorry. Havent read those in awhile…

Ham-Archy:

Actually, many estimates I’ve seen say that, in the U.S., one of every four adults 18 or older is on one form of medication or another - and I don’t mean Advil…  Need I suggest how scary that is?

Peace.

KDelphi;
Considering the Neurontin wasn’t working at all, I’d say the doctor was clueless. It was an interim med used when off lithium.
When I read stories about a disaster where someone forgot their child in a car, I can’t help but think they must have been medicated right out of their head. When it’s a teacher or someone like that I figure it’s probably prescription meds. I’ve met people on ‘sripts that are way gone. You don’t hear about those details though. I think that sometimes there could be devastated people sitting in prison when it just might be the incompetance of some physician that is the real fault. So many of them really are nothing but drug pushers.

KDelphi:

Neurontin IS primarily an anti-convulsant and anti-epileptic medication.  However, it is also indicated for some pain management issues, and as an adjunct in some other conditions.

Peace.

Liberchist—Szasz! My old hero!http://www.szasz.com/

“Although we may not know it, we have, in our day,
witnessed the birth of the Therapeutic State. This is perhaps the major
implication of psychiatry as an institution of social control.
  —Thomas S. Szasz, Law, Liberty, and Psychiatry:
An Inquiry Into the Social Uses of Mental Health Practices,” 

  “If you talk to God, you are praying;
  If God talks to you, you have schizophrenia.”

  —Thomas S. Szasz, The Second Sin,
 
The New York Times reports today that the “number of American children and adolescents treated for bipolar disorder increased 40-fold from 1994 to 2003.”  This is a gold rush for the pharmaceutical companies.  About half of the children diagnosed with bipolar disorders are dosed with Risperdal - a drug whose side effects can blow the roof off of a garage.

R.D. Laing

“But as Laing was, moreover, a critic of psychiatric diagnosis, he argued that diagnosis of a mental disorder contradicted accepted medical procedure: diagnosis was made on the basis of behavior or conduct, and examination and ancillary tests that traditionally precede diagnosis of viable pathologies like broken bones or pneumonia occurred after (if at all) the diagnosis of mental disorder. Hence, according to Laing, psychiatry was founded on a false epistemology: illness diagnosed by conduct but treated biologically”

Jay Haley is another good author, “The Power Tactics of Jesus Christ” and “Problem Solving Therapy” (brief systemic therapy, or paradigm shift). Salvano Arieti’s “Interpretation of Schizophrenia” is along the same lines, also.

All agree on the abuses of the psychiatric state, particularly in the US, as a weapon against all “things that do not profit the corporate-owned govt”.

Ham-Archy—Neurontin is an anti-convulsent—are you sure your girlfriend’s “doctor” knows what he is doing?

I never said that no one should take psychiatric medicines. Its really up to you. But, with lithium, I said that it could be measured in the blood. If it is uaccumulating to high levels—-you had better see another doctor! But, many can do without it. There cannot be so many new cases of bipolar.(as % of the popualatoin—with a ‘genetic componenet”” it just doesnt make sense)Schizophrenia exists, in that, it IS—but WHAT it is, no one is really sure. That is why you had better be gd careful about diagnosing it, and, especially, about prescribing drugs. How do you know you would rather take them than hear voices? maybe its “god”...!!

C Quil
If so many people supposedly have a particular condition, doesn’t that make it normal - whatever that is - and therefore not an illness?

______________________________________

Perhaps,  I read a good book about this, by Thomas Szasz.

Thomas Szasz
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Szasz

Szasz is a critic of the influence of modern medicine on society, which he considers to be the secularisation of religion’s hold on humankind. Criticizing scientism, he targets in particular psychiatry, underscoring its campaigns against masturbation at the end of the 19th century or the use of lobotomy to treat schizophrenia.

To sum up his conception of medicine, he declared:

Since theocracy is the rule of God or its priests, and democracy the rule of the people or of the majority, pharmacracy is therefore the rule of medicine or of doctors.[1]

Cyrena Writes:

“I don’t believe that the drugs used to treat genetically chemical imbalances are a ‘cheap substitute’ for psychotherapy, any more than I believe that antibiotics are a cheap substitute for just sweating out whatever fatal bacteria one may have happened to encounter. If ya live, then you probably won’t have another severe episode of the same. If ya don’t…oh well..no repeats there either. “

Your analogy falls short I think.  The difference is that it has not been proven that the etiology of mental disorders is genetic chemical imbalances.  We can see that antibiotics kill bacteria.  The bacteria die and the infection recedes and the antibiotics are no longer needed.  Psychopharmaceuticals don’t cure any defective chemistry, but alter chemistry in such a way that symptoms are temporarily absent.  Often those symptoms correlate with certain differences in brain chemistry, but its has not been proven that brain chemistry is the cause of the symptoms.  The current paradigm is that brain chemistry is the cause of most mental disorders.  That paradigm has helped create a huge area of drug sales which need to continue indefinitely.  Genetic defects in brain chemistry need continual chemical adjustment to stay “normal” which means people keep buying drugs.  Yet other treatments which don’t adjust brain chemistry but thoughts and behavior are often more effective.  For example, exercise is more effective for treating depression than drugs.  Meditation is often more effective for anxiety than drugs.

That being said, bipolar disorder has very strong evidence of a genetic component, can be very debilitating, and doesn’t respond well to psychotherapy alone.  Schizophrenia doesn’t respond to much besides drugs, and you can bet if I had it I would take the drugs rather than hear voices.  Although the one person I know with schizophrenia still hears voices they are just quieter with drugs than without.  I am still not convinced that even with these severe mental disorders that altered brain chemistry is not another symptom rather than the cause.  I feel strongly that drugs should be a last rather than first resort and should be reserved for severe problems which seriously hinder functioning.

I think the myriad of new disorders are just ways to sell more medication.  The disorders are often brought into the lexicon after some kind of “bad” behavior shows response to drugs usually tangentially.  Someone takes a certain antidepressant and finds their overeating ceases, so they start using the drug for overeating and it becomes a mental disorder.  The disorder makes it to the popular culture, often through drug advertising, and people start asking their doctors about it and more drugs are sold.  The ballooning number of mental disorders, almost all of which have a drug to take as treatment, is clearly influenced by the pharmaceutical industry.  I think its all symptomatic of a greed sickened culture more than defective brain chemistry.

The “authorities” won’t rest until the entire population is either in prison or in the nuthouse. Just think of the boon to Big Pharma, the makers of mind-altering drugs - of the “legal” kind.

If so many people supposedly have a particular condition, doesn’t that make it normal - whatever that is - and therefore not an illness?

Oh gosh! I was not diagnosing. That was just blithering nonsense! (me a sikeratist 2)
Everyone is DIFFERENT. No two people in all of time have ever been the SAME. That leads to a lot of possibilities, with the fringes being well ‘out there’. (my middle name)
Society draws the line. AND what is proper behaviour in one, is wacked to the core in another.
NOTE: You can’t take Lithium for long. It accumulates in the body chemistry and becomes toxic so you have to go on and off. The alternate is Neurontin (sp?). I had a girlfriend who is bipolar. Sometimes she thought she could design societies and fix everything in the world. Other times she would hide under a table and sob hysterically. And this is with 500mg of Nuerontin in her system. Poor soul.
Me? I have a Genuine Harley Davidson Lobotomy. They are easy to come by, but hard to hold onto. 99% mortality rate. Don’t ask me if I was wearing a helmet.

To be is to do;
To do is to be;
Dobedobedobedobe…..........

I would add the sheeple syndrome.

A group of people brainwashed by a social/political inner group—seeking a brain dead population…. so that the powers that be can rule by manipulating the emotions of fear and greed, to inflame, and to distort Reality.

Kdelphi writes:

•  “…I dont believe that bipolar disorder exists in children. Neither does schizophrenia…”

Based on my understanding of both of these disorders, (often confused, as they are sibling disorders) bipolar ‘symptoms ‘just don’t begin to manifest until early adulthood, but that doesn’t mean the genetic foundation isn’t already present at birth. And even when these symptoms DO manifest, there is no genetic or other physical exam or diagnostic procedure (like a blood test or other ‘biopsy’ ) that can confirm it absolutely, even though there is a genetic component.

So I don’t really think we can say that these pathologies don’t ‘exist’ in children, because bipolar and other disorders aren’t acquired along the way like some venereal disease or something. That’s not to dismiss the life experiences that are present in the environment of any individual, since those things too will determine how any person’s mentality will evolve.

That’s also not to say that many medications are over prescribed, and specifically for children. If lithium has been over prescribed, it can also be said that it’s been under-prescribed, since there are still millions of people walking around (sort’ve) who remain undiagnosed (or wrongly diagnosed) and therefore untreated. For many decades, lithium was the only thing that helped many of these people lead somewhat functional lives. In that view, (which I have experience from within my own family) the lithium can be seen as a lifesaver. (my mother is bipolar, and underwent electroshock therapy 40 years ago. In her/our case, the treatment –including the lithium- saved live(s) including hers.)
Meantime, the forensic scientists of psychiatry still have much to uncover about how these diseases of the thought process actually develop.  On that, it seems that they are still behind even cancer research. BUT, we can still know a whole lot more than we did a Century ago,  or even 50 years ago. For that, I’m very grateful.

I don’t believe that the drugs used to treat genetically chemical imbalances are a ‘cheap substitute’ for psychotherapy, any more than I believe that antibiotics are a cheap substitute for just sweating out whatever fatal bacteria one may have happened to encounter. If ya live, then you probably won’t have another severe episode of the same. If ya don’t…oh well..no repeats there either.

It’s true about the lithium being a life-time medication though, and it is one of the most difficult things for people with these disorders to accept. People with diabetes understand (even when they hate it) that they will have to take insulin or some other form of medication for the rest of their lives. People suffering from disorders of the thought process can’t make those same logical connections.

So, they start to feel ‘better’ and think that they don’t need the meds anymore. Six, maybe eight weeks on, they’ve relapsed, or experienced another crash or psychotic event. Others say they *don’t* like the way the medicine makes them ‘feel’, so that becomes the ‘reason’ for not taking it, which is the cruelest of the ironies.

Meantime, that’s not to acknowledge that such medications do take their toll over a lifetime. The lithium is particularly toxic on the kidneys and probably the liver as well. That’s why dosages must be so carefully monitored, with routine blood checks.

Still, for many…it’s been the only option.

samosamo—Yes! The Shock Doctrine!!

Unfortunately it is not always parents. Some are working 80 hours a week, or the teacher, or “doctor” tells them to give them this or that, and they just dont know any better.

THEN, they admit the kid (when they leave high school and are still physically addicted)to a “magical 28 day” program to “leartn that they have a disease and are permanently “helpless over drugs and alcohol”..What crap!!

You know how it got to be 28 days?! “Psychiatric study”? “Extensive experience”? No! Blue Cross/Blue Shield. Yep! When they were providing care for so many people through Generous Motors, they decided that they would cover 28-30 days. No more, no less.

Dont like it? Youre “in denial”! Have a “relationship”? Youre “co-dependent”! Dont think youre an addict? In denial again! Dont use after you leave? Youre on a “dry drunk”!! DO use? “Relapse”!LOL!

Deny that you have a “mental disorder”? “Thats the nature of the illness”!

samosamo:

“I just can not help but think that there is little or nothing to a child’s rambunctious behavior other than a natural part of growing up.”

The following is from an article entitled “The Wholesale Sedation of America’s Youth” in the Nov/Dec 2008 issue of Skeptical Inquirer, one of the best “science and reason” magazines out there:

“What if children are the same as they always were? After all, virtually every symptom now thought of as diagnostic was once an aspect of temperament or character.  We may not have liked it when a child was sluggish, hyperactive, moody, fragile, or pestering, but we didn’t ask his parents to medicate him with powerful chemicals either…What if it is only our perception of childhood that has changed?”

This is exactly what I have been saying for over 20 years!  What happened to just letting children be children?  Yes, a FEW children have conditions for which pharmaceuticals may be helpful.  But most of them are JUST BEING CHILDREN!  Sadly, parents are both too impatient to allow them to be themselves, and are also lulled by whatever the psychiatric community (shilling for Big Pharma) tells them.

It is a tragedy of truly dangerous proportions.

Peace.

Definitely not good news, no matter how much the ‘speciallist’ gussie up conditions, symptoms and behavior which is basically setting the criteria or rules that people live by and could turn into laws real quick. And as the best conditioning feature proven to work, ‘start em as young as you can’. By the time any anomalous creation reaches school age or the teens or on to an adult, the end product is reliant on others to know what and who he/she is. Same sort of criminal shenanigans that Dr. Ewew Cameron used except he took regular people and tried to ‘blank the brain’ then rebuild it. Practices that should have earned the good doctor serious jail time or even the death penalty. Only some of his ‘research’ got to the ears of our cia and thus new methods of torture were invented or re-invented.
I just can not help but think that there is little or nothing to a child’s rambunctious behavior other than a natural part of growing up with new discovers of ability and learning that even adults still experience but maybe with a little more control, after all, getting out of control certainly can draw attention and unwanted attention for anybody. I also think that the crowded conditions that kids are raised in do more to unnerve a parent that would rather have something else to do and when the kid(s) get too out of hand or active, it would not take much for a parent to consider the ‘what’s wrong with little johnny’ and then take him to the doctor. And with big pharma doing strictly bottom line R&D;, they have and will come up with a new chemical to put the brakes on the kid(s), when really it is maybe mother that needs another little helper as maani remembered.
So that can end up with the daily double for pharma if mom and the kids get hooked. But I would say, take the kids out everyday for some strenuous play time, it is much more natural than becoming a pill popper before a kid is out of diapers. Then when they become adult they can drink if they want or smoke pot; from the recent find in a 2700 year old Egyptian tomb of one pound of still fresh appearing and potent cultivated pot, the ancients knew how to get laid back, too bad people now don’t see it that way. They have been led down the thought pass that only quacks looking for enrichment by pronouncing fancy words and having close connections with the charlatans that brew the new pills know how to ‘control’ people, kids and adults.

skulz—Yes, they would have mental disorders.. Sado-masiochistic disorder, I would imagine. But some, like Lindy England (ever see her interview on HBO??) is just on the “lower end of normal”, on intelligence, (in my opinion), and, I suspect, was “follwing orders”.

nrobi—I dont know if you read the NYT article, but, for example, the “drs” that want to extend the label of bipolar disorder (which is sometimes justified, but, way overused, as is lithium), to children, work for pharmacuetical industries. I dont believe that bipolar disorder exists in children. Neither does schizophrenia.

Dissasociative disorder, so popular in the movies, is very rare , if it indeed exists at all. (Multiple personality—co-called)

As for Ritalian and its cousins, arent they putting that in school drinking water now?? Part of “No Child’s Behind Left?”

Ham-Archy—Although I may refer to “possible diagnoses” in general, to a group or to a public person, it is best not to diagnose one’s fellow bloggers online, whom you only know through a glorified word-processor, for risk of being diagnosed oneself.

I am not ceratin what you are “kidding” about—why do you keep talking about lobotomy? They only do electroshock now…what nrobi was probably talking about was the sociological/FINANCIAL need to “diagnose” and control everything—we simply cannot. But, if paid enough, almost anyone will try.

Were you kidding about the psychochemistry, too? Have you ever seen a person, 25-30 years after the use of phenothizazines for (sometimes) schizophrenia? If they were not “sick” to begin with, they will be then—they will have Parkinson’s Disease.

There are much safer drugs people can use to alleviate anxiety, melancholia, etc., but most are illegal or unheard of these days.

If you stick a person on a derivative of thorazine—you are doing it for life. You had better be pretty gd sure that they need it to keep from severely hurting themselves or others. These drugs are often fatal.

Lithium can be also. Most anti-depressants, are, in my opinion, a cheap substitute for Psychotherqapy.Check the NYT article—they talk alot about insurance and diagnostic “codes”

Lithium is another story—I have seen people who cannot do well without it. I used to think it was horseshit , too. Then, I had a couple clients on it, who went OFF of it!! (You can actually measure lithium in the blood) I am not certtain that they had a “lithium deficiency”, but they sure acted like it. Ride with a bipolar person, manic phase,in a Ford Escort, for 3 days..when they are trying to “do wihout their lithium” for a few days—-aaauuughhh!!

Then again, bipolar seem to be the “flavor of the month”—guess I need to check what “new” lithium they are makging these days. Check the pharmaceutical manufacturers, then, compare them with the doctors promoting a certain “disease”—voila’!

nrobi;
From your statement we now know that your behavior is not normal. You have revealed, by your understanding of the need to replace ACTIONS that induce denial, with DRUGS that induce denial, that you are subconsciously admitting that you realize that psychiatrists have already determined that you are in denial. This is a classic symptom of paranoid personality disorder. Of course, you will deny that you ever said that normal people will find philosophical debate ARCANE. Why would you engage in such debate if you were not in fact making a veiled reference to your own discomfort with certain behaviours? This is a classic symptom of denial. You have shown your need to alleviate your fear of the science of psychochemistry by initiating a debate over it’s virtues. You may find it interesting that I have learned all this since my lobotomy. It is now considered a poor alternative to psycho active drugs. Just kidding. lol

nrobi:

Yes, you are right.  But it is worse than you think.

Big Pharma and a large portion of the psychistric community are in cahoots.  They no longer create a drug to mediate a condition; they create a drug and then “create” a “condition” so that they can prescribe the drug.  This is SOP in many cases.

This is why, as you note, lots of “normal behavior” is now classified as “syndromes.”  It starts with the (mis)diagnosis of young children (even toddlers) with hyperactivity, ADD, etc.  Then there is the (mis)diagnosis of pre-teens and teens with “Mood swings,” depression, etc.  And then, of course, we get to “mother’s little helper” (as the Stones so presciently sang about).

I’m not suggesting that there are not cases in which children, teens and adults are not accurately being diagnosed, and are (or can be) helped by various pharmaceuticals.  But it has gotten to the point at which these diagnoses are rampant, and often totally unsupported.  Yet prescriptions get written, and, like Huxley’s “Brave New World,” we are medicated from (almost) infancy to old age.

The following links are instructive.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/22/health/22radio.html?hp=&pagewanted=print

http://warner.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/20/tough-choices-for-tough-children/?ref=opinion

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/25/health/25psych.html?ref=health&pagewanted=print

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/25/health/25well.html?ref=health&pagewanted=print

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/opinion/30sun2.html?ref=opinion&pagewanted=print

Peace.

So many disease so little time.  How in the world can something that is normal behaviour be classified as a disease?  Only psychiatrists could do something so inept and disordered.
We, have yet to tap the resources of the mind, no one knows for sure what is and is not disease, yet the psychs, for lack of a better term, do this without knowledge and without the scientific backing that is truly required to label some action or behaviour a disease.
G-d help us, the psychiatrists are at it again, they want to classify more and more behaviours as disease so that they can be reimbursed at higher and higher rates from the insurance companies.
While all this is going on, we are stuck trying to understand why something that was not classified as a
disease before is now.
The debates that will rage around certain behaviours,
will mostly consist of, philosophical and legal debates that to the normal person will be arcane and
quite incomprehensible.
Most of what will be included in the new DSM, will be
for the most part, behaviours that are now being discussed as actions to relieve pain or produce pleasure or denial, but in the future will be classified as diseases by the new DSM.

Marquis de Sade had no mental disorder, but they LOCKED HIM UP! All he wanted to do was have some fun, and they said he was INSANE.

Would torture be a “mental disorder?” You know, not the ‘being tortured’. The “act” of torture. Wouldn’t anyone applying torture be severely off-kilter? Weren’t the Army psychs sanctioning torture at Bagram Airbase and Guantanamo? God knows where else our loony ‘docs-in-service’ were sanctioning torture.
Wow, these guys sort of leave Dr. Mengele seeming mostly normal.
Would silence in the face of war crimes be insane? Hmmm, our Gory Old Republic might just be in some serious trouble.