Product Description

With the FDA's warning that antidepressants may cause agitation, anxiety, hostility, and even violent or suicidal tendencies, these medications are at the forefront of national legal news. Harvard physician Joseph Glenmullen has led the charge to warn the public that antidepressants are overprescribed, underregulated, and, especially, misunderstood in their side and withdrawal effects. Now he offers a solution!

More than twenty million Americans -- including over one million teens and children -- take one of today's popular antidepressants, such as Paxil, Zoloft, or Effexor. Dr. Glenmullen recognizes the many benefits of antidepressants and prescribes them to his patients, but he is also committed to warning the public of the dangers associated with overprescription. Dr. Glenmullen's last book, Prozac Backlash, sounded the alarm about possible dangers. The Antidepressant Solution provides the remedy. It is the first book to call attention to the drugs' catch-22: Although many people are ready to go off these drugs, they continue to take them because either the patient or the doctor mistakes antidepressant withdrawal for depressive relapse. The Antidepressant Solution offers an easy, step-by-step guide for patients and their doctors.

Written by the premier authority in the field, The Antidepressant Solution is an invaluable book for all those concerned with going through the process -- from friends and family members to doctors and patients themselves.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #615494 in Books
• Published on: 2006-01-09
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 272 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780743269735
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Publishers Weekly
The author of Prozac Backlash returns with important and sound advice for patients who are taking antidepressant medications, particularly selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) like Prozac and Paxil. "Stopping antidepressants abruptly can cause severe withdrawal reactions," Glenmullen writes, among them aggression, dizziness, vomiting, headaches and suicidal tendencies. The withdrawal symptoms can even, ironically, mimic the symptoms of depression, and this can confuse both the doctor and the patient, leading the patient to stay on the medication (and suffer its side effects) longer than necessary. So how can people safely decide when and how to stop taking the meds? Glenmullen, a clinical instructor in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, offers a complete five-step program. He explains and describes possible withdrawal symptoms, identifies the signs that a patient is ready to go off his or her meds and gives guidelines for tapering off to avoid unpleasant and dangerous aftereffects. Offering cases from his own practice and drawing from the medical literature, Glenmulllen clarifies how to manage this necessary and often poorly understood process in an important book for anyone taking, or prescribing, antidepressants today.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review
Janet Maslin, The New York TimesAn important, deeply troubling examination of the means by which these drugs have become so widely disseminated and the possible long-term toll they may take.

About the Author
Joseph Glenmullen,M.D., a clinical instructor in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, is on the staff of Harvard University Health Services and is in private practice in Harvard Square. He is the author of SEXUAL MYSTERIES. A graduate of Brown University and Harvard Medical School, Dr. Glenmullen lives with his wife and three children in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and can be found on the web at: www.glenmullen.com

Customer Reviews

This Book Could Save Your Life
Review by Rosie Meysenburg

This is a well-written book that concentrates on how to discontinue the new antidepressants {SSRIs} safely. The book also includes guidelines for discontinuing the older antidepressants. There is a step by step guide for the correct method of discontinuing these drugs. Dr. Glenmullen also has Charts which explain the difference between "withdrawal" symptoms and the actual return of depression/anxiety, etc.

This is a must read for everyone who has wished they could get off their antidepressant but has been stymied in their attempt.

Courageous and Important Work
Did you know that antidepressant dose reduction and discontinuation can cause severe and debilitating withdrawal reactions? While 10% of the US population are taking antidepressants, most people, including most doctors, have never heard of antidepressant addiction and withdrawal. Glenmullen does a fine job getting the word out about this urgent health crisis. In 2004 Congress had to force the FDA and drug manufacturers to acknowledge the well-established link between antidepressant use and increased risk of suicidal thoughts and behaviors. Glenmullen shows how severe withdrawal symptoms, which can occur within hours of a missed dose, can actually drive a person to suicide. Many face a horrible dilemma when their withdrawal symptoms are misdiagnosed as relapse. Glenmullen must be applauded for taking on his own colleagues, some of whom have accepted huge fees from the drug companies to suppress and misrepressent the severity of antidepressant "discontinuation syndrome." Numerous misdeeds are revealed in Glenmullen's astute analysis, but the book's primary purpose is not critical. He presents a detailed 5 step method for helping those who want or need to stop taking these drugs. The good news, according to Glenmullen, is that patients are "almost always" able to wean off these drugs if the dose is reduced gradually (according to each individual's tolerance) with the vigilant care of a knowledgable doctor who is willing to put in the many weeks, sometimes many months, required. To his credit, Glenmullen explores the limits to his method in the story of Andy, a 16 year old boy, who after a month on Effexor, decided he wanted off, but had to spend a whole year of his young life in hell caught between the side effects and severe withdrawal, despite a painfully slow dose reduction. Glenmullen would like to believe such reactions are rare, but what if they're not? Just because some people can reduce gradually with few problems, does not prove all people can. I am one like Andy. I too took Effexor. I spent 4 months reducing gradually and became so sick and debilitated, I had to quit my job. It's now been 10 weeks since I took my last dose and I am still too sick to function. I'm worried I may have been permanently damaged by this drug. I'm not depressed, but I have considered suicide. I'm a 53 year old woman with no husband or family to support me financially. If I had known when I started this drug 10 years ago that I could become this sick when I gradually reduced and discontinued it, I never would have taken it--but I couldn't have known 10 years ago because back then, the drug companies denied the existence of antidepressant withdrawal and deliberated suppressed and misrepresented the truth. They can't deny it any longer. Babies are being born addicted to Effexor. Their mothers may have known of the dangers, they may have tried to stop, but they couldn't because the withdrawal was too much to bear. These mothers were addicted by prescription with FDA approval. This is a major health crisis, much worse than crack babies. Glenmullen's book doesn't address addicted newborns, but you can read the horrible truth in Wyeth's most recent drug label for Effexor (June 2006, p24). In the debate over the risks and benefits of antidepressants, Glenmullen identifies himself as a moderate. He is, after all, a psychiatrist whose job is to dispense these meds. He deserves credit for trying to help the thousands of desperate victims, but his "solution" may offer only false hope, masking the problem and prolonging the suffering. Eventually the people will come to know the truth about these drugs and they will be banned or boycotted. Then those who have been profitting from the people's suffering will have to undergo their own painful withdrawal--from all that money.

An extremely important book!
Dr. Glenmullen's book is a critically important and useful guide for those taking antidepressant drugs. The FDA has finally accknowledged the dangers associated with SSRI drugs and issued a "Black Box Warning" -- their strongest warning for a drug short of banning it. Antidepressant manufacturers have oversold the benefits of these drugs and downplayed the risks. Individuals that suddenly stop taking SSRI drugs are at extreme risk. These drugs must be tapered gradually. Dr. Glenmullen's book is extremely well written and is an important resource to people taking SSRI drugs.