Reply With QuoteThanks
I'm glad it came out OK
Shame the Dutch "Tapering Strip" system wasn't mentioned, I was keen to give it a plug.
But otherwise I was happy with the edit
Extremely interesting and you are naturally engaging. I only intended to listen to a couple of minutes but the topic and the conversation was such that I heard the whole segment.
Thanks
I'm glad it came out OK
Shame the Dutch "Tapering Strip" system wasn't mentioned, I was keen to give it a plug.
But otherwise I was happy with the edit
I was a little worried at first when I heard the name Sarah Vine but it all came out very well.
In the Sotadic Zone, apparently.
I just listened to the piece and I thought it was really very good. You got the point about tapering across and handled a difficult personal question very well if I may say.
I heard the broadcast and thought you came across extremely well.
I did try to picture you in that Vanson but the image did not crystalize!
One little chat on the BBC and now Sky News want to interview me and my inbox is full of people who have contacted me and all of a sudden I'm the expert. I'm not. I'm not a doctor, I'm not a pharmacist, I'm not even very scientifically-minded. I'm just a patient: a long-term user of antidepressants who has learned (sometimes the hard way) about half-lives and tapering schemes, titrations and tinctures, milligrams and micrograms, symptoms and side-effects. If any of that can help anyone else then I'm happy to share and support as widely and as well as I can. Others know more and better but I'm glad to play my part in this bringing this issue to wider attention.
Many medications are available in liquid form which makes tiny reductions (<10%) in daily dose much easier. It's also worth mentioning that Dr Peter Groot at the University of Maastricht has devised brilliant "Tapering Strips" for a slow, smooth and steady withdrawal. Both of these are well worth checking out.
I was surprised to be asked to be on Radio 4 and even more surprised by the response. I hope it's helpful and leads to better understanding and positive action by doctors, drug companies and patients. Xx
Well done Rev. Sounds like you have gone down a storm. Its good to talk!
I know a guy who is an agent, do
you want his number?
Only kidding. You’ve got a platform so why not use it? Or, tell them thanks but no thanks, you will drop off the lists soon enough.
Seriously, you came across very well and as someone with my own personal experience, it was reassuring and enlightening to hear you talking about it in the way you did.
Richard Coles had better watch out!Originally Posted by alfat33
I reckon it would be a change for the better.
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
I just listened to the interview Oliver, and thought you came across as a very well balanced, credible, and experienced person.
A number of challenges were made, and I felt you addressed them head on, and without trepidation, so my hat goes off to you for that.
I understand that there have been other approaches to speak out, and no doubt only you can/ will decide how to progress them.
Without question, this is a very real issue, of which I have no personal experience, so I can only admire people such as you who can, so eloquently, share your story.
Well done.
I thought that was a very engaging and thoughtful interview. Very well done, and all the best if / when you decide to reduce and ultimately cease the medication.
Update: the Sky news interview went OK. I was really tempted to take three or four watches along and change them between takes to see if anyone noticed ("continuity blunders are a major gaff" etc.) But I didn't. (If I had it would have been a Smiths 6B on a AF0210, Rolex on a #6635 rivet /19mm expandable and a G-Shock. Just to mix it up a bit!)
They asked me for a comment for their website / social media / etc so I sent them this:
Reverend Oliver Harrison from Tamworth has been a long-term user of antidepressants. This is his account of what happened when he attempted to stop.
“I started on antidepressants around 20 years ago. I’d been having a difficult time at work but I think I’ve always been prone to a low mood and anxiety. My doctor prescribed antidepressants and they made an enormous difference fairly quickly. It’s worth saying at the start that SSRI drugs are a fantastic class of medication: cheap, efficacious and relatively safe. In an overstretched NHS it’s easy to see why they are the first line of treatment. But like anything that’s too good to be true there’s a down side – a dark side – and that comes at the other end of process, when it’s time to reduce or come off the medication
Ten years ago I stopped taking them but I did it was completely the wrong way: haphazard, chaotic – and extremely unpleasant. I was in a new job and life was good. I’d been missing doses of the medication and I felt like I needed the tablets less and less. I went away to a conference for week and forgot to pack my medication. I didn’t miss it and I didn’t start taking it again when I got home. It was unplanned and certainly not thought-through. A few days later the symptoms I started getting were horrendous.
I’ve never been so ill in my life, both physically and mentally. It was just appalling. Something felt badly wrong with me. I went to A&E on two occasions. I had nausea, vertigo, insomnia, muscle cramps, mood swings, panic attacks and I couldn’t stop crying. At first I didn’t know what was wrong with me; I didn’t connect it with stopping the medication. I now know this is called “SSRI Discontinuation Syndrome”.
I should think I had the best part of three months of absolute hell, it was unbelievably bad. It was only when I restarted the medication again (a different one this time) that all of those symptoms began to clear up within a few days.
For some people, coming off antidepressants isn’t a problem. But there are three reasons why it can be. The first is the length of time someone has been on the medication. The longer the course of treatment, the harder it can be to come off. It seems that the brain and central nervous system adjust around the drug. More and more people are taking these drugs and many are staying on them for years. So this is an issue that is only going to get bigger. The second problem is that the modern medications have a much shorter “half-life” (the time it takes to metabolise half the amount taken). In layman’s terms this means it doesn’t stay in your system for very long. This makes it hard to miss a dose and not feel it very quickly. It also makes tapering harder: the antidepressants don’t hang around long enough in your system to smooth over each step down in dose. The third factor is the dose itself: the higher it is, the further you’ve got further to come down. All three factors applied to me.
Nowadays there’s much greater understanding that in order to come off you can’t just do it by reducing your dose to half, then a quarter and then simply stop. It needs to be a very slow taper, reducing the amount by tiny increments over months not weeks. That’s very difficult with tablets. For example my own medication comes in 20mg, 10mg and 5mg pills. The one thing I think that would help people in my position is if pharmaceutical companies would make tablets available in much smaller increments. Having tablets in 1 mg and 0.25mg would allow people to readily tailor-make their own dose, so it’d be easier to create a slow, steady, smooth withdrawal.
There are two current options available for people wanting to fine-tune their tapering regimes: first, many of these drugs are available in liquid form which can then be further diluted. But this is messy and complication and quite imprecise. Secondly, and better, the University of Maastricht offers a brilliant scheme called “Tapering Strips” which produces daily doses of tablets in pre-packaged weekly strips, each one at a very (very) slightly lower dose. This is tailor-made and patient-led, so individual users can slow or stop the rate of reduction as they want or need to. I would like that to be more widely accessed.
My experience has made me scared to try reducing my dose again. I would like to work towards coming off of the drugs or at least seeing if I could get by with less. It’s only one pill once a day – it’s not like I’m injecting insulin or having kidney dialysis – it’s only small thing but it’s not something I’m free from. The NICE guidelines on withdrawing from antidepressants is being reviewed and now seems a good time to speak out, collect data, report problems and lobby the government.
For anyone thinking of reducing or stopping the best advice seems to be a very slow, smooth steady slowly taper. Find a good sympathetic GP and an enlightened pharmacist who will explore the options prescribing either the liquid form or, better still, the Dutch tapering strip system. It would be a help as well if pharmaceutical companies would make tablets available in much smaller increments (1mg and 0.25mg) and get them licenced use.
Stopping SSRIs is hard but not impossible and it could be made much easier if these simple options were known about and made available."
—
I’ve also had some interest from the medical column in Private Eye . . . .
Cheers!
Have you considered using a pill cutter?
https://www.boots.com/safe-and-sound...usher-10150191
https://www.medisave.co.uk/sure-heal...yABEgJyJfD_BwE
… also, grapefruit juice can increase the efficacy of a drug - thus in theory taking a smaller dose of medication with grapefruit juice could have a similar result to taking the normal dose. However, grapefruit juice can also increase a drug's efficacy to dangerous levels - thus requires careful consideration and administration - and at a person's own risk.
https://www.fda.gov/ForConsumers/Con.../ucm292276.htm
Chocolate is a well known mood lifter and antidepressant and might offer another avenue to reduce medication. But rather than consume e.g. bars of chocolate, it's better and cheaper to sprinkle Cacao powder on breakfast cereal … or add it to porridge. Cacao powder is sold by most supermarkets and the least expensive is stocked by Aldi in the breakfast cereal section … but not to be confused with cocoa
https://livingfreshdaily.com/5-cacao-health-benefits/
dunk
Last edited by sundial; 8th April 2019 at 15:19.
"Well they would say that ... wouldn't they!"
I wouldn’t mess with grapefruit juice TBH because as you suggest the results can be unpredictable. Slows the metabolism of many drugs so although a smaller dose of antidepressant might be taken the amount in the body might be unchanged you’re not really ‘coming off’ them.
Here's the Sky tv clip in case you want to see my gorgeous face and features.
https://we.tl/b-uZINRpWDmF
Cheers!
Was this really the best you could do?
In the Sotadic Zone, apparently.
Sorry. Smiths De Luxe, prototype circa 1953/4
I’d say that’s a Smiths De Luxe…. Maybe a prototype? circa 1953…. Could be 54 having said that…?Was this really the best you could do?
Anyway WIS should’ve spotted that surely?
I was hoping for a proper wrist shot and phrases like “carried to the top” and “superlative blister packs” to be inserted randomly into the interview.
In the Sotadic Zone, apparently.
Looks like someone has been listening and maybe more people will benefit from tapering etc.
‘Psychiatrists call for warnings over antidepressant withdrawal’ https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-48457980
The clue is in the abbreviation!! :0)
Bored tonight?
That took you over 4 years.
God knows what rabbit hole you’re on, but need to work on the speed of your wit. It was brilliant as a response, but 1,600 odd days too late!
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Mmm, feeling argumentative tonight are we??
I read this post for the first time tonight as it was referred to in a post of a few days ago regarding medication tapering which I had just read...
So, who's fallen down "the rabbit hole" now...! :0)
How in the hell was my post even close to being argumentative? I commented on your witty comment, but it lacked a comedy timing.
Hardly a rabbit hole when it’s at the top of page 1 due to your resurrection!
Don’t fall for it
I tried!
Ah, the internet: where people will argue about whether they are arguing or not.
Speaking of rabbit holes this reminds me of the rabbi who was asked to settle a dispute. The two parties presented their cases and rabbi turned to the first one and said "You're right." The he turned to the other one and said "You're right." His wife overheard this and said "They can't both be right?!" He replied "And you're right, too."
Which is why I always carry a lucky rabbi's foot everywhere I go.
ZOE podcast of possible interest as discusses diet and depression:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oHnaLZA9ME
"Well they would say that ... wouldn't they!"
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