Campaigning persuades Royal College of Psychiatrists to change its position on antidepressant withdrawal

[Saz94]

From the Council for Evidence-based Psychiatry.

Following campaigning by CEP, the All Party Parliamentary Group for Prescribed Drug Dependence and numerous members of the #prescribedharm community, the Royal College of Psychiatrists has today changed its position on antidepressant withdrawal. It has issued a revised policy statement updating its guidance to doctors, and calls upon NICE to update its guidelines as well. This follows many months of work by CEP and its members, including the publication of research which indicates that antidepressant withdrawal is more widespread, more severe and more long-lasting than suggested by current guidelines.

More details in the article.

http://cepuk.org/2019/05/30/royal-college-psychiatrists-call-update-nice-antidepressant-guidelines-following-cep-campaign/

 

[Saz94]

This is good news in my opinion.

 

[rvallee]

The insistence that withdrawal effects are minor despite literally being the most talked-about consequence by nearly everyone who has ever taken them is a really massive red flag about medicine's ability to take into account patient testimony.

Some things you just can't measure. Pretending it means you can ignore them is simply not taking the duty of care seriously. Patient. Engagement. Now! It's not enough to make it a fluffy feel-good promise for some possible eventual future effort into thinking about involving patients in the process of medicine. Now. Supply-side medicine is a disaster all-around.

Damn brain zaps. Just horrible.

 

[hixxy]

Anti-depressant withdrawal was what turned my diagnosed mild non-disabling MCAS into a full blown nightmare. Although I had already started developing ME at that time (I had a multi stage onset) it was also one of the things that made me a lot worse. It's pretty obvious in hindsight that the withdrawal jammed my autonomic nervous system into SNS overdrive and screwed with the histaminergic system

 

[JES]

The insistence that withdrawal effects are minor despite literally being the most talked-about consequence by nearly everyone who has ever taken them is a really massive red flag about medicine's ability to take into account patient testimony.

Yep, it's pretty amazing it took this long for what has been commonly reported by patients for decades, draws some parallels to the exercise supposedly not making ME/CFS worse thing. How difficult can it be to at least have the doctors tell the patients to reduce the dosage of such drugs slowly? Perhaps it gets too complicated for the medical system when pills have to be cut. Next I wonder how long it will take for them to get the information about sexual side effects up to date. The western countries are facing a massive birthrate crisis and a tenth of the population is taking pills, which affect the sexual function of at least 50% of those taking them. I understand medication is sometimes necessary, but patients should be better guided.

 

[rvallee]

Next I wonder how long it will take for them to get the information about sexual side effects up to date.

Probably never as it would dramatically harm sales. Or not until there is an entirely better class of drugs developed that makes antidepressants obsolete anyway. Then it will probably be "of course everyone knew about it but it was worth it and anyway it's patients' fault because otherwise it would be ours and we can't accept that".