SEROXAT SUFFERERS: ANNIE'S STORY

Over the course of the next few months I am going to be working hard with my book editor. Editing work that has been read a thousand times over is a laborious procedure but one that has to be done. It means that I will be spending less time on here and more time editing and preparing my manuscript for print [should be November time]

I would like to keep this blog active so decided to give you, the reader, a chance to tell your story.

Here is the first of those stories sent in by Annie

Send your articles to me at fiddaman64@blueyonder.co.uk

More info HERE

ANNIE'S STORY

Hi Bob

This is a very good idea.

Here is my story. I am just going to write it. Feel free to edit, I don't know how many words it will add up to, and I will give you the bare bones.

My partner, an airline pilot, was convicted of drink driving in 1999. He commuted to Glasgow Airport daily to fly the air ambulance and fly people out to the outer hebrides. We lived in a small village approximated an hour and a half from the airport.

I was very worried about how we would cope in our lovely lochside house on Loch Fyne.

I visited my gp, an Indian elderly chap, in the village surgery. He said he couldn't deal with women's emotional issues and suggested I saw a psychiatrist.

A psychiatrist was organised who came to my house. He spent two hours talking me through my problems - the problem being my partner had to rent an apartment near the airport leaving me with an eight year old daughter, a large labrador, the house, garden and very little money.

The psychiatrist, a young South African, from a nearby mental hospital explained to me there was a new drug on the market called Seroxat which would help me feel better. I knew nothing about pills such as these and readily agreed.

I took Seroxat for two years, our life settled down, and I went to see the new lady doctor at the surgery and explained that I would like to stop taking the pills.

This doctor told me to take one every other day then stop. I did this and after a few days my head felt funny. It felt like it was filled with helium, then I started to get electric shock like zaps in my head, then I started to hyperventilate; I was very scared and told my gp what was going on. I was repeatedly told it was my personal life causing me so many problems.

I was put on Valium, beta blockers, Diazapam - nothing would halt the increasing panic, hyperventilation, brain zaps, chronic fatigue, nightmares, sweating, dizziness, confusion, and I became bed-bound. I could not function at all. Even in bed, I was going through hell on earth. I did not understand what was going on.

My gp constantly told me to pull myself together and I did not know how to.

My state of mind built up and up to a massive panic attack on a Sunday morning at 6.00 am when I got out of my bed with the idea that I had to kill myself.

I tried to gas myself with the oven, I tried to gas myself with the car exhaust, I tried to hang myself, I got the kitchen knife and cut into my wrists. I was still alive, I grabbed by beta-blockers and swallowed 28.

I then woke up and got myself to hospital. Without my Seroxat.

I tried to smother myself with a pillow, I found a plastic bag in the hospital toilet and tried to suffocate myself.

Eventually I got my Seroxat. Calm again.

Life somehow went on.

The following year I wanted to come off Seroxat again. This time we did it with liquid Seroxat, when I got down to the final 10ml. it all started again. I was in bed for three months unable to cope. Chronic fatigue, hyperventilation, brain zaps, all over again.

I had by now seen the Panoramme on Seroxat withdrawal, now I knew what I was dealing with. I joined the group action against GSK and followed all the internet sites.

Unfortunately for me, my lady gp, got wise to all this and fabricated my medical records. She had been advised to give me Fluoxetine (Prozac) when doing a withdrawal programme from Seroxat (Paroxetine) by the psychiatrist, but had not done so.

When I told her about Panorama and my group action she actually had the gall to make up a story when giving a written referral that said that I was given Prozac, that these two drugs had made no difference to me and that she noticed in a recent article that anti-depressants are no more efficacious in anxiety than benzodiapines! I have all my medical records and could not believe that she could do this.

I was then seriously nowhere.

I stopped all drugs in September 2003. I felt so terrible that I thought I cannot feel worse without anything. It was a terrible ride, but I got out of it all.

My problem now is that my gp should be sued, but because of all the contention about Seroxat I am not sure that it is possible.

I have spent years in a sort of place that I am not sure of; I don't know who I am anymore.

If I had only said 'no thanks' no pills. But I didn't and I feel that I have been in cyberspace.

The years pass. I have done my best to bring up my daughter, but she suffered as acutely as I did.

You know what, no one gives a shit. My doctor lied to save her reputation, a suicide in a small village is not a good thing. My poor little reputation was not given a second thought by anyone. I have had no help whatsoever with all this.

I feel I was left for dead by my psychiatrist, my gp; there was nowhere to go.

We may or may not win this court case. I don't give a damn about the money, I just feel totally let down by all these so called medical professionals.

If you can use this, do so by all means.

Annie

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Fid

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