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Following on from the previous personal story sent in to me by a reader.
Today sees another horrific story of a patient's struggle regarding her withdrawal from Seroxat.
Angela has her own thoughts on who is to blame, these come at the end of her story.
Angela's Story - 2mg away from safety
MY story begins 1994, where I lost 2 babies who were damaged during the delivery, consequently one daughter died at 8 days and the other one lived for 6 months, 3 months later my mum was diagnosed with stomach cancer, she died 6 months later, and my brother 2 months later got killed in a work related accident.
I was struggling to cope with the flood of emotions caused by all these deaths in my family, and visited my GP.
He suggested I take the "wonder drug from America" no side effects, if you decide you don't like it, or you feel better you can just stop taking it.
So on 15th January 1997, my Seroxat journey began. I started the pill and noticed nothing.No blunting of emotions, no dead feeling inside, no crying.
My doctor continued to write prescriptions out for this "wonder drug" for the next 8 years, oblivious of the damage it was creating, the excessive weight gain, the "Zombie like state" factor, every day just moulded into another.
Until... September 2005.
I was coming back from my sister in laws, she lived across the road, as I was walking back I experienced dizziness, unlike anything I have ever experienced in my life before, this continued until the one day I was sat in my living room and wanted to go and make a cup of tea, but for some reason I was petrified to go into my kitchen. The anxiety (or what I know now to be anxiety) set in, the helpless crying jags, the panic which would have me in bed for days feeling like I was dying, with no explanation as to why.
It was in November 2005 when I visited my doctor again and explained my symptoms through helpless bouts of crying. As I was scared as to what was happening to me, he suggested "we take you off Seroxat. Miss one tablet this week, another next week and within 6 weeks you will be off."
So I religiously followed his plan to be off and well again. Only the symptoms I had were getting a whole lot worse and seemed to be persisting throughout most of the day.
What a shock lay in store for me.
Once off, the constant anxiety, panic and brain fog set in, with no let up at all, the horrendous crying jags, low mood, low motivation, the feeling of being dead, not being able to feel anything only sadness and pain, the akathesia, the black hole type depression, the agoraphobia, sensitivity to noise and light, the constant worry of what was happening to me, inability to cope with answering the door, answering the phone, just the complete inability to cope full stop with anything at all.
Christmas arrived, with all the symptoms still there, akathesia had now been dumped on me too, along with brain fog and black hole depression.
For those who don't know what akathesia is, it's the constant feeling of having to move, you feel no peace, no restful times, just constantly moving, even sitting to use the toilet would have been welcome at that point. The sensitivity also extended to light and noise.Christmas day arrived, I stayed in bed ill until 2pm. Opening no presents, too ill to cook lunch for my family. My children arrived later that day, the grandchildren were hyped up, and I'm sat nursing pillows either side of my head to deaden the noise.
At no time ever did my doctor suggest this was down to Seroxat!
I wait it out until the doctors surgery opens again the day after boxing day, whereby my ignorant and ill informed doctor prescribes proprannelol, a beta blocker, Prozac, another antidepressant and Diazepam are prescribed.
I had no idea what any of these drugs were at that time and diligently did what I was told by my doctor and ingest even more crap, with symptoms still coursing through, no relief being found at all.
I continue for some weeks, it's now March 2006 still feeling all of the above and now feeling more ill than at any other time in my entire life. So, I make yet another appointment to visit my doctor, who instructs me to stop the 3 drugs immediately that he prescribed me some weeks ago.
So on the 4th March 2006 I did exactly that.
On the 6th March I awake not feeling well at all, I struggle to cope with chores I have to do around the home but battle my way through the best way I know how. Around 2.15 I sat down in the chair, and I will never know for sure what exactly happened, but it appears that I may have had a seizure, as I woke a few minutes later to find I was covered in blood, where I had bitten the inside of my mouth.
It takes some weeks, April to be exact, to feel anywhere near well enough to visit my doctor, who he tells me I need to go back on just 20mg of Seroxat and knowing no better I do just that, again with very minimal improvement in symptoms.
I then begin to realise that it could be Seroxat causing me these problems. I begin to question doctors, who tell me in no uncertain terms that Seroxat is not responsible, and its a return of my original illness?
My original diagnosis was grief!
I never before had felt any of these horrendous symptoms, and never felt so unwell in all my life, I was so frightened and scared.
I then invest in a computer as I'm sick to the teeth of being stuck in this weird time warp and living in a twilight zone with horrific symptoms which were not under control.
I start Googling 'Seroxat withdrawal', which led to my long relationship with a website entitled www.paxil progress.org, whereby I learned I was not the only one that was affected by this drug. I made friends with hundreds of other sufferers and educated myself on the horrors of withdrawing from this poison.
I learned how those lowlife's, GlaxoSmithKline, had hidden the real evidence of what this drug was capable of. I, like thousands of others, were paying a huge price to make them richer than they are already.
Nobody in my situation can ever go to a doctor and get the understanding, validation and support necessary to cope because they have no idea of just how bad it is, through the lies spun from GSK's company reps who promote these drugs to doctors surgeries.
How awful it feels to be in that hell and have to live that way, doctors watched me walk away from there surgeries crying and upset - frustrated that no one would listen to what I knew was the truth.
After researching this drug and checking out information and having it confirmed by medical experts such as Pro. David Healy, I knew what I had to do.
In November 2007 at 20mg, I tapered down to 18mg, miraculously the brain fog left after that first reduced dose, only to be replaced by a new ,more stronger anxiety and panic, which I have endured to varying degrees to date.
2010
I am now at 2mg after nearly 3 years of slow tapering, it's not been easy, but very comparable to the days of my cold turkey withdrawal as sanctioned by my doctor.
I hasten to add here that I had no symptoms of any description when being put on Seroxat. I had no idea what anxiety/panic or any of this awful stuff was until after 8 yrs of Seroxat. Since withdrawal it has escalated at different times to levels that have been out of control if I'm honest, the mood swings, the rages, the zaps that nearly throw you from the chair, the balance problems I have experienced at one time or another every conceivable symptom possible from this evil poison.
I have been through some very traumatic times in my life, as you will see from above. It has NOT been a life, just a very mere existence.
People deserve and expect so much more, not lies from GSK, nor the deceit from their company reps, many of whom have openly admitted on the Internet what this drug does to people. Sadly this omission only happens when they leave the giant companies who are responsible for all the sadness, hurt and damage created by their "wonder drugs."
IF there is a God, and I'm very sure that there is, then one day GSK will be answerable for all the misery and lives that they have taken away from people who trusted their doctors to know how to care for our health.
Our right to a normal life and our right to choose what we ingest in the way of medicines has been cruelly taken away from us all.
GSK = GLOBAL SERIAL KILLERS.
May they suffer in the same way as they have made innocent people suffer. They totally deserve everything coming their way.
Even their disclosure in the patient information leaflet was lies back in 1997. That leaflet has since been changed, not because they had the decency to change it, to inform, NO, their hand was forced.
Angela.
Fid
ORDER THE PAPERBACK
'THE EVIDENCE, HOWEVER, IS CLEAR...THE SEROXAT SCANDAL' By Bob Fiddaman
SIGNED COPIES HERE OR UNSIGNED FROM CHIPMUNKA PUBLISHING
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