Venus Rising: Women and Antidepressants

May, 17, 2021 | 12 Comments
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Serotonin may be our most primitive neurotransmitter and so on theoretical grounds alone there was reason to think that the Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibiting drugs (SSRIs) – sold as absolutely and completely safe, the only danger lying in not having them when you needed them – might have significant effects, not all of which would be good.

In 1993, I chaired a symposium for Pfizer marking the launch of sertraline (Zoloft) in the UK.  I made this point about how Primitive Serotonin is and suggested that because of this we all should keep a close eye on the effects of these new SSRI drugs.

Around 15% of the populations of most Western countries are now keeping a close eye on these effects – primarily because they can’t get off the drugs and are forced to live with the consequences.

Women are more affected than men – because more women are on them than men, and women, particularly older women put on them for hot flashes – no nervous problems at all – can find them close to impossible to get off, and because while both men and women can become suicidal, homicidal and dependent on treatment, women have additional effects that are even more devastating.

Having Children  

There are very few drugs besides the sex hormones that interfere with reproductive function as much as the SSRIs do.

They increase miscarriages – see Kulin et al reference in Healy et al 2010

They increase voluntary terminations – likely for a range of reasons, including birth defects but also a certain amount of disinhibition and impulsiveness  – Kulin et al in Healy et al 2010.

They increase rates of serious birth defects such as cardiac malformations and neural tube defects – Healy et al 2010.

They increase rates of behavioural abnormalities (Autistic Spectrum Disorder) in the children of women who have been on them through pregnancy – Healy et al 2016

They increase problematic alcohol use – Kelly et al 2013, Brookwell et al 2014.

They increase Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Disorder in women taking an SSRI while pregnant – See Malm et al in Healy et al 2016

They decrease fertility because of lowered sperm counts in men – as well as in adult rats (One, Two , Three), rodents in utero (One, Two) which is all supposedly being investigated by the European Medicines Agency..

As a result of all this and the effects of SSRIs on libido and sexual function (see below) we now have Falling Birth Rates – US birth rates are now below Replacement Rates and other countries are likely in the same position.

Making Love

The single most common thing that SSRIs and most antidepressants do is to interfere with our ability to make love.  Within 30 minutes of a first pill, capsule or tablet, there will be some genital numbing or irritability, a muting of orgasm and delay in ejaculation and over time this leads to a loss of libido.

Post SSRI sexual dysfunction (PSSD) was described in 2006 but it was clear that even then there were people who were affected for over a decade.  Persistent Genital Arousal Disorder (PGAD) had been described even before this.

It is also now clear that Enduring Sexual Dysfunction on SSRIs had been reported to regulators as early as 1987.  Before these drugs came on the market, companies knew these risks existed.

For a history of this story which starts in 1961 – Healy 2020.

For Genital Numbing – Healy et al 2018

For Muted Orgasm and Delayed Ejaculation – Healy et al 2018

For Loss of Libido – Healy et al 2018.

For features of PGAD, its history and links to withdrawal of treatment –  Goldstein et al 2021  This horrific condition leads women to have the nerves to their pelvis cut or even have a clitoridectomy.

For fuller access to a great deal of the literature on these issues, go to the RxISK PSSD page and RxISK PSSD Literature pages.

If you want to keep up to date on possible breakthroughs in treatment in this area – filing a RxISK Report will get you into our system and onto a list to be informed about developments.

Alienation of Affection 

Serotonin reuptake inhibiting antidepressants – most antidepressants – can cause a change of personality and an emotional numbing that leads to marriage break-ups.  The partner left behind is pretty confident that but for the drug this would not have happened but as things stand at the moment if a doctor is treating your husband or a teenager and you know things are going wrong it is impossible to get a hearing.

Women are believed when something is wrong with a young child – the books all stress that a mother should be believed even if the tests don’t support what she is saying.  But soon afterwards, she is transformed into someone who can’t be believed. Privacy laws now mean that there is no input from someone who knew the person before they began treatment – before they had an alienation of affection.

One of the consequences of this is Marriage Breakup. A husband on treatment walks out, or  a wife walks out and one or other of them regrets it when the treatment stops and they come back to their senses – Appendix 7 and the Who Cares in Sweden and related posts.

Until relatively recently it was possible to take a legal action against someone – a marriage counsellor, a mistress, a clergyman – for Alienation of Affection.  It is for certain that pharmaceutical companies knew that their drugs could produce the kind of personality changes that might lead some people to walk out on a family and a marriage.  Abby on the Chicago Sun-Times has recently picked this up from the perspective of having to live with someone who as a result of treatment is now an empty shell of the person they once were.

The idea of an Alienation of Affection legal action is worth revisiting.  It would open up extraordinary perspectives if the pharmaceutical company trying to deflect responsibility attempted to put the blame on the doctor as the learned intermediary and the doctor countered by saying s/he was bound by privacy laws not to take into account what a partner was saying.

The horror is that companies advertised their drugs as keeping families together – preventing depression pulling them apart, as this advert for paroxetine shows.

Disinhibition

The same emotional numbing and change of personality leads female schoolteachers to abuse underage male pupils.  The most famous portrayal of this was in Zoe Heller’s Notes on a Scandal.  Around the time of writing, Heller had been taking an SSRI.

There are many legal cases involving schoolteachers who have sex with underage boys with the schoolteacher typically having been on an antidepressant at the time –  Appendix 8.  In some case it seems the women are driven to completely out of character behaviour in order to feel – they are otherwise emotionally so heavily numbed.

One of the most striking instances of emotional numbing lies in a detail mentioned above. Antidepressants cause alcoholism and, even when pregnant, women find they can neither stop the antidepressant nor the alcohol with the result that women taking an SSRI are 10 times more likely to have a baby with fetal alcohol syndrome than women who are not on them.

The most horrific of emotional numbings appears likely to underpin the homicide of children by their mothers –  Appendix 9.

Antidepressants and Evidence

There have been 30 RCTs of antidepressants in adolescents – all negative.  Despite this, Antidepressants are the second most commonly taken drugs by teenage girls. In part this is down to the fact that almost all articles on these drugs are ghostwritten and there is no access to the data from clinical trials so companies can have articles claiming that in this trial their drug worked well and was safe when regulators have decided the trial didn’t show the drug worked and there was good evidence it wasn’t safe.

One of the consequences of young women being put on these drugs which don’t work for them is that they develop Treatment Resistant Depression, a condition that didn’t exist before antidepressants and they go on to seek Medical Assistance in Dying.

Another consequence of antidepressants is an obsessive focus on mental health – particularly among younger people, where a culture has developed that any negative emotions are a sign of mental health issues – to be fixed with a pill.  The boredom and confusion and anxieties that once drove people to find a purpose in life are now treated as thought they are a glitch as Joe Davis has described in Chemically Imbalanced.

It’s as though in the final episode, the Vampires vanquish Buffy.

Antidepressants are Forever

These dependence producing meds are particularly difficult for women over 50 to stop – See the RxISK Withdrawal Posts.  As a result they put us on track for polypharmacy  when other medicines we may need get added in and bring us to a point when we are on over three drugs (bad) and maybe over five drugs (very bad) – partly because we are on a drug or drugs (see below) that are doing nothing for us but which we cannot stop.

Or they may lead to prescribing cascades when other drugs are given for what might appear to be unrelated reasons such as treating the enduring broken or poor sleep antidepressants cause, or the bowel and bladder problems, or the vision problems they cause.  Antidepressants even accumulate in hair and can cause grey hair, rotting teeth, poor vision and early dementia.

Antidepressants have become a gateway drug to being on five or or more psychotropic drugs in addition to being on many other drugs.

A hint of disinhibition leads to mood stabilizers, typically two not just one – an antipsychotic and an anticonvulsant.  The antipsychotic leads to a loss of focus – this is what they do – but the loss of focus is read as ADHD and leads to the prescription of stimulants, often more than one and increasingly with a dopamine agonist thrown in.  All of these extra drugs can cause depression so extra antidepressants are added in.

We know that five or more drugs reduce life expectancy, increase hospitalizations and impair quality of life.  And for the last decade, before Covid, US life expectancies had stalled and in some groups had fallen – US Life Expectancy .  In addition if you catch Covid, it looks like this polypharmacy can reduce your chances of surviving – Dennis the Menace gets Covid.

The Quiet Life

Antidepressants do something useful for Joe Biden, Donald Trump and the Pope especially if they don’t consume one.  Far more than the benzodiazepines ever did, they make us quiet and subservient and put us at the mercy of experts, who based on a Fake ghost-written literature gaslight us. We focus on ‘treating’ our glitches rather than changing the world.

This isn’t a bad dream from which we will wake up.  But it is time to wake.

“Frozen Venus” © created by Billiam James is adapted from Sandro Botticelli’s “The Birth of Venus” and “The Outcast”.

 

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  1. She Stands in a Giant Scallop Shell …

    Ref – Style

    Venus’ body is anatomically improbable, with elongated neck and torso. Her pose is impossible: although she stands in a classical contrapposto stance, her weight is shifted too far over the left leg for the pose to be held. The proportions and poses of the winds to the left do not quite make sense, and none of the figures cast shadows.[16] The painting depicts the world of the imagination rather than being very concerned with realistic depiction.[17]

    “The Outcast”

    The Blue Rinse Brigade want ‘realistic depiction’ but won’t find it here.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPTDaYW-oqE&t=1s

    The ‘Winds’ to the ‘Left’ want the pose to be held – kick-starting – Women and Antidepressants …

    Reply

  2. Pychiatrists-UK https://themedicalcannabisclinics has been licenced to provide treatment with cannabis. The medical proffession has constantly scared off the public but they don’t tell the honest truth. Medical cannabis may have some side effects for some which should be monitored – but not of the magnitude of ‘street ‘cannabis and not as harmful as
    SSRIs and drugs prescribed for ADHD. The cost is prohibitive but this business/practice is in part funded in a complicated way by the NHS – (The web site is very comprehensive)

    Medical cannabis can provide long-term relief from most psychiatric conditions and symptoms, including depression, anxiety and PTSD.
    ..
    (I would think that most of us if we are not manipulated to think we are needing treatment could rely on the fact that they are common conditions Which surely means that most of us deal with them by going through the bad patch and gaining strength from knowing we can transfer the strategies to other parts of life. The messages given out every day by the media just ramp up fear even before covid.
    Common conditions
    Anxiety
    Depression
    Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
    Appetite Disorders
    Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
    Stress Disorders
    Agoraphobia
    Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)
    Autistic Spectrum Disorder
    Insomnia
    Tourette’s Syndrome
    typical-symptoms
    Typical symptoms
    Depending on the condition, you may suffer from:

    Stress
    Low mood
    Intrusive thoughts
    Changes in sleep, appetite and energy levels
    Traumatic flashbacks
    treatments
    Treatment
    Psychiatric conditions, including anxiety and depression disorders, have been shown to benefit from medical cannabis treatments. Studies have shown that cannabinoids can provide relief from the symptoms of psychiatric disorders by working with the body’s endocannabinoid system, which plays an integral part in processing emotions such as fear, anxiety and stress.

    Research has also shown that both THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) and CBD have proven to significantly reduce symptoms in those suffering from generalised anxiety disorders, social anxiety stress disorders and OCD. Cannabidiol not only increases feelings of calmness and wellbeing; it also changes the way your brain responds to anxiety. Meanwhile, activation of the cannabis receptors CB1 and CB2 can help promote happiness, pleasure, and memory.

    The Medical Cannabis Clinics offer treatment plans and care for psychiatric patients through online video link consultations with our expert specialist doctors, who can guide you through treatment options. Appointments start from only £150.

    (There are concerns – they are contracted to the NHS to provide treatment for ADHA and claim to be having 150 referrals a day. (https://themedicalcannabisclinics.com/conditions/psychiatric-treatment/?gclid=CjwKCAjwhYOFBhBkEiwASF3KGdpiRaK_Xu6w000ABDHD-NRAPSkhUgjYN42-BrErtvrLBNiwgjIqhxoCt70QAvD_BwE on their website) Not sure if these are new referrals The clinicians work privately and n the NHS\ and have relationships with GPs who do the referrals. Too cosy? A reliable income stream.
    Another concern is that one of the female psychs describe in her profile that there are vaious levels of depression and treatments – ending with that the most severe meaning a life time on ADs and – wait for it- think of it as like diabetes. Would they tell a diabetes ‘sufferer’ to think of it as being on Anti depressant for life..

    On a positive note they are open minded and willing to go against the grain . They claim to treat addiction and restless legs – would that be worth looking into?

    https://www.amazon.co.uk/Enlargement-Enhancer-Tablet-Uplift-Bigger/dp/B0761PYPZX

    Another vile trap for mainly young women but some older too playing on the anxiety of growing older – is the message that bums must now be enhanced by pills to make the body shape more attractive. Severe side effects are being reported but they are still available . June Raine who probably isn’t concerned about the size of her bum ,at the MHRA says they are being investigated. Does a young woman need to commit suicide before action is taken.

    Reply

  4. Something happened to the planet Venus millions of years ago to make it toxic – it’s taking a millions of a fraction of time to create a toxic environment for women (and everyone) on earth .
    Hot flashes ladies – get with it – there’s an unproven way of delaying the menopause at the Profam clinic for £7000-£11000 operating in Canada and UK – and we all know the underlying message is not medical for everyone – in an ageist society it offers us the chance of .looking young for longer. Always ‘interesting ‘to see how many men want to ‘help’ women look artificially ‘young’
    HOMEHOW IT WORKS /
    How it works
    Following a comprehensive consultation you will attend our hospital clinic for the surgical removal of a fraction of the ovarian tissue by laparoscopy. The operation will normally last about half an hour and you will need to stay in the hospital only for a few hours after the operation.

    The tissue will be sent to our specialist laboratory and will be carefully and professionally prepared by our trained experts, with the aim of producing precise slices of ovarian tissue. These slices will then be frozen at very low temperatures where the tissue and the eggs will be preserved.

    They can remain healthy in this frozen state for many years.

    If you wish to consider using your tissue for conception, or for delaying the menopause at some stage in the future, the tissue will be thawed and transferred (grafted) back in to your body. Most women gain full hormone production within 4-6 months (further details are provided under FAQs).

    Why delay the menopause?
    For some women the menopause causes limited problems. They may suffer with little or no menopausal symptoms.

    However, for very many women the menopause can cause a series of problems, resulting in most countries having menopause clinics to help woman with a range of menopause-related issues. These include increased risk of cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, vasomotor symptoms, decreased libido, depression, urinary incontinence, sexual dysfunction and diminished cognitive function.

    The main option for such women is to use the Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT), but unfortunately this does not agree with all women. Furthermore, many do not wish to take pharmaceutical hormones, and the delivery of these hormones does not follow the natural rhythms of the body’s own hormones.

    Young women today are destined to live in the menopausal stage for 30-40 years (or more), but throughout history most women did not live much beyond their fertile period. Although modern lifestyle and medicine are ensuring we live much longer, the intrinsic nature of the ovaries has not changed, and unless we use modern technology to preserve them, the ovaries will cease to function at around 45-50 years of age, leaving a woman with 4 or 5 decades of menopausal issues. Delaying menopause with ovarian tissue cryopreservation and transplantation later in life can extend the period a woman live in pre-menopausal stage. Years of meticulous research has now allowed women to delay their biological clock.

    Would removal of ovarian tissue affect my future fertility and onset of menopause?
    The removal of a precise amount of tissue should have little or no bearing on your future fertility or when you will naturally begin the menopause. However, it is possible that menopause could commence a little earlier, but this is likely to be greatly outweighed by delaying the menopause for a decade or longer with the transplantation of stored ovarian tissue.

    Reply

  5. David,
    Are you following the D. Morley case in Ireland at the moment?
    Is it possible this tragedy was medication induced?
    I presume any mention of such will be completely ignored by the courts…
    B

    Reply

  6. Oprah Winfrey has been described as ‘The most powerful woman on Earth. She is reputable worth 2.9 Billion dollars. Undoubtedly she has drawn attention to many issues including racism, domestic violence and child abuse. Is she brave enough to ever use her considerable platform to address even a tenth of what Is being said in the above article. Her Apple plus TV series on Mental Health with Harry (Windsor) starts tomorrow. Apparently its going to feature A list Celebrities including Lady Gaga.. Will any of them mention the dangers of prescribed ‘Meds’ The problems of withdrawal, the life threatening issues that are Akathsia, and PSSD? Oprah has 43 Million Twitter followers.. What would it take to get her to listen to someone like Professor Healy?

    Reply

  7. Alan Cassels
    @AKECassels

    And of course, his calling card includes Study 329 called “one of the biggest medical scandals of recent times…”

    Paul D. Thacker
    @thackerpd

    Nothing against, you Dr. Black. But I see one of your co-authors is the infamous Stan Kutcher, one of the more corrupt psychiatrists in Canada.
    Author of Ghostwritten Study Runs for Parliament in Canada

    https://pogoblog.typepad.com/pogo/2011/05/author-of-ghostwritten-study-runs-for-parliament-in-canada.html

    Trudo Lemmens
    @TrudoLemmens

    Replying to @thackerpd@tylerblack32and 4 others

    And when it comes to suicide, S Kutcher also wrongly claimed in a ‘question’ to an expert witness that suicide rates have gone down in Belgium & Netherlands due to legalized euthanasia for MH. Yet Senate then selects him to be on committee that will recommend this in Canada

    Bit of an opera…

    Reply

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