Interesting (and maybe slightly sad) to see you and Spikol played off against each other in this article. The fact they concluded with your remarks seems to indicate which way the author was leaning. It continues to boggle me just how explosive the sales for these drugs are when the side effects are so awful and the benefits dubious at best. People are desperate and ready to believe anything it seems.

I take Seroquel. Just because the psychiatrist wanted to try another drug. 7 was not enough.
He has put me on 600 mg.
I only could withdraw 400 mg. If I loose one pill I start feeling as if I'm going crazy.
I'm not fine and doing lots of exams.
I thank the Lord my family has not a single case of diabetes.
Tardive dyskenisia, Philip?
Good!
More funny stuff:
When I was with this psychiatrist Topamax was launched.
Of course! He has put me on Topamax. Stupid man. I was on so many drugs that it was impossible to know which drug did what.
Perhaps he just wanted to earn the money.
It was hell to withdraw. I felt like crying but it did not came from the heart.
It's a kind of chemical crying. You cry without emotion.
I saw Lilli Marlene with drops of water falling down from my eyes.
Not tear drops.
When I took Topomax it disappeared.
It seems that Topamax was not very well market.
I don't see too much talking on this.
Shareholders are not happy!

Now keep on asking myself: how could I not see this man was drugging me?
Why?
He has put me on Paxil. I withdrew successfully because I was on 8 drugs.
Unfortunately the other psychiatrist could not figure out that I did not need antidepressant and has put me on Effexor.
If she had taken everything and had waited to see how I really was my life would be completely different.
Thanks American Politicians!
You have drug my sister back on the seventies with LSD and other stuff.
Than it was my turn to be drugged with legal drugs.
I'm saying American Politicians because it was where the whole SSRIs story started.
I love Americans!
But I will never understand your politics.
You hurt your own citizens! In many ways.
You don't care about your children, teenagers, your mommies,
I'm remembering that someone said that America learns geography by invading the countries.
With your own citizens!
I"m sorry! It's in my mind for many times.
I had to say it.
I believe it's because it's not sunny in Rio de Janeiro.
We also hate rain, Philip! We only like sun!
Frasier has left the building!

Now I'll make scramble eggs.
Coca-cola! There you are!
It's the good thing America has created!

I hear the next thing they may be looking to approve this drug for is "Not gettin any syndrome" It seems to be popular for date rape uses.
*you know I'm kidding* (about the approval, not the rape...yeah, I'm gettin to the post, I'm just lazy, hey...it's over 100 degrees here!)

FYI: I may be a fairly well-known bipolar, but I don't think my entire point of view was represented. To wit:
http://trouble.philadelphiaweekly.com/archives/2008/08/once_again_i_ap.html

I have enjoyed reading this blog and seeing the medical/pharmaceutical establishment from your perspective. The influence of Big Pharma is very pervasive and scary and I appreciate your honest reporting.
Respectfully, I have to say, though, I am surprised to see you refer to someone as "a fairly well known bipolar". In my work as a clinician and a trainer in public mental health (believe me, an area much in need of improvement) I have been spending a lot of time talking with people about recovery from mental illness and the importance of seeing and referring to people as more than a diagnostic label. Some people think it is about being politically correct, but I think it is about fighting stigma. I believe language matters and I've found it also matters to the people I serve.

manda, liz spikol is a fairly well known bipolar--she was profiled in the ny times in may.

Voices make a difference: the best way to do that is with different stories, and views with one goal in place: something better!.

and

Spikol.

I'm surprised to see a paper like the News Journal cover a topic like this. However, considering that AZ is in their backyard, it would make sense but I thought the NJ would never have the guts to do it.

Will the Inquirer tackle Wyeth and GSK next?

tead this, it might clarify. we are all treasured gifts.

Manda,

I also believe in using language to fight stigma, but I think that you got it the wrong way around. I believe that by using diagnostic labels -- ie "that person is a bipolar" -- then it's there, it's out in the open, it's not taboo, it's not scary, it's not insane... it's just reality. But by covering up diagnoses and by making them such a horrible thing, and by never mentioning them and making them seem like such terrible monstrosities -- then that's where the true stigma comes in. In my opinion, the only way to ease the discomfort is to be relaxed, and matter-of-fact, and straightforward. Then there won't be any stigma.

Hi Marissa,

As a Jersey girl who is currently looking for part time work in a NJ based newsroom, I can tell you personally a lot of the newspapers around here are laying off people like crazy and going with wire service written stories instead. I can tell you the newsroom I worked in is begging to be bought by Murdoch or some other person with tons of money.

I will also tell you that NJ lately doesn't have the balls to report anything that might take away precious jobs from the state. In fact, the only good thing I can say about my state is I don't pay extra to pump gas! Gosh forbid they upset big pharma and loose their advertising revenue!

Bur you are right. You think living in Soprano land would give the press the balls to go after AZ, Bristol Myers, Merck, J and J and the million other drug companies I see headquartered on Route 1, or the Parkway, or Turnpike. If only Tony Soprano was a journalist......

It figures that the only psych med that has ever worked for me is addictive. I keep telling people that there is a reason addictive drugs are addictive drugs, cause they actually work to change your state of mind into something you'd rather have than your natural unmedicated state of mind, and they work FAST. Not that all drugs that work for psych conditions are addictive, just that for me, with my addictive personality, it makes sense that the only antipsychotic that works is the one that people are now snorting and such "for fun".

Really I don't think I would have been able to stick to any medication this long, and put up with the side effects for as many years as I have if it were not addictive. People tell me I am doing sooooo much better since getting on the Seroquel, I personaly think I am just drugged/doped up to the point I am no longer constantly seeking out activities and substances to use to feed, and to calm, my hyperactive hypomanic mind... but whatever the cause, if the drug is actually treating my Bipolar Disorder or if it is just another DRUG that has a strong conciousness altering effect, I definately am doing better...I haven't tried to off myself since starting it and I don't have constant thoughts of how much I either suck or how much of a genius I am. Yeah I am fat now, and yeah I had to put up with two years of being completely numbed out, unmotivated and fog-brained... but now after two years and some odd months the numbing side effect, wieght gain, and all those side effects are "wearing off", or I am at least getting used to them and getting used to being the new doped up me.

One thing about seroquel is that it has replaced most of my other addictions: booze, pot, random drugs at parties, it also stopped me from abusing benzos, so now I just use them as they are presribed... and it's also gotten rid of my addiction to partying itself and my hyperactive sex drive as well which has helped me stay more stable in and of itself. But it hasn't replaced opiates for some reason and I still struggle with that addiction... and with the addiction to smoking cigs.
I guess the point I wanted to make is that even though Seroquel is addictive, and it is for me because I simply can not get myself to quit it in order to try and find a better med that doesn't have so many side effects, ... well even though it is addictive I am glad that it at least has a sort of "replacement" effect and makes it so that I don't feel the need to drink anymore or smoke pot and such because I am already pretty "melowed out" most of the time.
Hopefuly as the numbness and apathy and all those really shitty side effects wear off I'll be able to want to quit the opiates more than I have in the past. See with seroquel I have been sooooooo numb for such a long time, up until about three months ago, that I relapsed into using opiates just so I could feel some sort of happyness, even if it was an artificial semi-euphoria caused by opiates. But I think that if I can continue on with these increasing abilities to feel interested and motivated, and to feel actuall happyness again over happy life events, that I can quit the opiates and not feel so numbed out that I start becoming depressed simply because I am so numbed out I can't feel anything.

I guess befor the Seroquel I used to feel too much, then after starting it and for the last two years I didn't feel much of anything at all... I mean really I was so numb that I couldn't even enjoy having a conversation with a friend about things hat used to interest me. Even going to a theme park and riding ride and seeing sea creatures, I was numb then as well. I just couldn't enjoy anything except for sugary food. Yeah my head wasn't full up with racing thoughts and all the strangeness that is Bipolar Disorder, but it also wasn't really functioning properly. Antipsychotics really do cause some serious problems with APATHY. It was so bad for those two years that I wanted to quit the med so many times, and I tried a few times as well, tried adding new meds and such, But I never could get off the stuff. I definately had to admit to myself that I am addicted to this medication, at least though I am not prone to raising the dose higher and higher cause I was already too numb for comfort to even think about doing that.
In anycase, the unrelenting numbness drove me back to using opiates just so that I could have enough of an artificial chemical push towards enjoying life that I could actually stand doing anything and being somewhat emotionaly involed in doing things other than sitting on the couch watching tv and eating sugary junk food. I couldn't even enjoy playing with my nieces without popping a few vicodin befor hand. Without it I was always having to fake smiles and laughs and it just got old and started getting to me. It's hard to not get depressed about your situation in life when you can't really feel any happyness at all... so even though the Seroquel helped me in a few ways, even helping to keep those mixed episodes and aggravated depressions at bay, it caused this total numbness to life that in and of itself started to make me depressed.

All of that is starting to wear of now though and so I hopefuly can stop using opiates to keep my hedonic tone from dipping too low.

For me, the only thing Seroquel is good for sleeping. 400 mg or more in one hit and I'm stoned. My "treatment team" has me on extended release but I have immediate release Seroquel as well. I'm welcome to it and they want me to take it. I'm just not allowed to crave it. So I have to act agitated to get it. I feel like the little rat in the cage punching the drug dispenser's lever.