Feeling depressed?

Feeling depressed? Don't reach for that anti-depressant pill. It may cost you your life.

Here's the story of Kaili and Breena. 

And here's the dirty story of how a company fabricated data to sell their anti-depressant. They were fined a billion or so but still made money.

Instead of pill, why not go for meditation and exercise.

Here's the story of another company and its bad, bad medicine.

The evil called olanzapine AKA zyprexa, olandus, etc.

My son has been on zyprexa since he was 17. He is now 27. In between, for a very short time, he was also on abilify and another anti-psychotic but we returned to zyprexa for a very interesting reason which will be a subject of another post.

OK, truth to tell, he is not anymore on zyprexa, which costs a fortune, but on olandus which costs one third a fortune through the years. But from the same evil mold: olanzapine.

We have tapered down to less than 5mg. And he is entering another withdrawal phase, I believe. He now spouts expletives and unintelligible words interspersed with "fuck" and "shit". But most of the time he seems to lack life. Gone is his interest in reading (he used to ask me to bring copies of The Economist  from our office library) and in watching Fareed Zakaria and even Bill Maher. He does not even watch videos anymore. He still logs in to FB but his friend from school have since been "unfriended" or perhaps have "unfriended" him.

But we are determined to get him off this psychiatric hellhole.

I think he now  has a slight tardive dyskinesia or whatever. He jogs his head to one side in an awkward manner.

If you are about to take zyprexa for any reason (mostly from prescription by psychiatrists who does not know any better), please read first this story of Sally and the comments of many suffering from the side effects of the drug.

And this also: Carole's story.

Happy new year 2016!

I've been busy in my other blog hence very sparse posting here.

These were duds:


But Happy New Year anyway!!

Update on my [son]:  Making slow progress here and there. He goes out unaccompanied and now spends most of his mall hours at the SM Seaside. Taxi fare is P150 one way. It is about P200 from SM Cebu so we saved a little.

We've learned to let go but still stressed out when it is already dark and he is still not home. We have to rely on the kindness of strangers.

For the past couple of months [he] most often communicates only with hand gestures.

One time he came home on a habal-habal, a motorcycle that serves as taxi, and the driver said he picked him up at SM Seaside after noticing that other habal-habal drivers seemed to ignore him. [My son] was dressed up only in shirt, shorts and slippers. (When he wears his better clothing and shoes we find that he does not have any problem flagging a taxi.) According to the kind driver, [my son] only blurted Talisay when asked where he was going. The driver happened to be from Talisay also so he gave [my son] a ride home (for P150). Along the way [my son] was only making hand gestures to guide the driver. This he does also to taxi drivers according to a couple that I interviewed when I chanced on meeting them while waiting for [my son] to reach home.

Update on medication. Robert Whitaker has another article on madinamerica.com confirming the uselessness of anti-psychotic drugs such as [my son] is taking.

We are down to less than 1/2 of his olanzapine.

Note: As of September 25, 2016 I have edited out the name of my son to protect his privacy.