good for you Philip for posting this, and good for you for using a lot of my old news room lately in your blog.

I was given Risperdal when I was 14 back around January 2002 or so, when I was in eighth grade for generalized anxiety disorder. That psychiatrist claimed that I needed the drug and pushed it onto me. I was in eighth grade, in middle school and was put on this awful antipsychotic for off label use. This makes me so mad. I'm more mad at the psychiatrist who aggressively pushed it onto a 14 year old with anxiety. These psychiatrists give out antipsychoitcs to teenagers, pre-teens and adolescents for way off label uses. They suck.

I was put on Risperdal for "bipolar maintenance" the year it came out...

what's more it caused akithisia and my doc kept saying the akathisia was my underlying disorder so he kept on increasing the Risperdal dose to treat the condition it was causing!! And I reached a high of 11 mg! Not until I got off of it did it become clear he was giving it to me to treat it's own side effect....sickening.

Jesus, if I had known what I know now...how things might have been different...

also Risperdal in combination with depakote caused me to gain approx 100lbs...40 lbs of that are gone now...unfortunately it's because I'm generally to sick to eat...from the withdrawal process...

glad to be off all that shit now but I've got a ways to go for my body to heal.

Risperdal has been implicated in causing more violence among psychiatric inpatients.

The following article has a list at the end which shows the number of patients receiving atypical antipsychotics at Western State Hospital in Washington.

Risperdal was given three times as often as other antipsychotics, both atypical & typical.

Also, the SSRI Zoloft was one of the top drugs but, still, Risperdal was given over three times as often as Zoloft.

Here is the article [partial] from SSRIstories.com
To read the full article go to:
http://www.ssristories.com/show.php?item=1803

Paragraph 1 reads: "Violence has been a growing problem at Western State Hospital for years."

Paragraphs 3 through 5 read: "For years, hospital administrators have blamed the violence on familiar causes: not enough staff members, not enough money and increased societal violence that leads to the admission of more-violent patients. But they don’t have the data to back up those assertions."

"A News Tribune analysis of drug-prescribing trends at Western since 1999 finds another possible factor: Western is giving more patients psychiatric drugs with side effects that can include extreme agitation and aggression."

"The drugs include newer antidepressants and newer anti-psychotics dubbed atypical anti-psychotics."

http://www.thenewstribune.com/news/local/story/72700.html

Drugs might breed violence

Attacks on staff rise at Western State Hospital

M. ALEXANDER OTTO; The News Tribune
Published: May 28th, 2007 01:00 AM

Violence has been a growing problem at Western State Hospital for years.

If present trends continue, one in four of the Lakewood mental hospital’s more than 1,700 workers can expect to be assaulted by a patient in 2007, according to the state Department of Labor and Industries.

For years, hospital administrators have blamed the violence on familiar causes: not enough staff members, not enough money and increased societal violence that leads to the admission of more-violent patients. But they don’t have the data to back up those assertions.

A News Tribune analysis of drug-prescribing trends at Western since 1999 finds another possible factor: Western is giving more patients psychiatric drugs with side effects that can include extreme agitation and aggression.

The drugs include newer antidepressants and newer anti-psychotics dubbed atypical anti-psychotics.

The newer drugs, which are expensive compared with older, generic alternatives, have been heavily promoted at the hospital by the pharmaceutical companies that make them. Sales representatives for those companies have logged about 1,200 visits to Western since late 2003, when administrators began tracking their activity.

Concerned about their influence on prescribing patterns, the hospital in March banned all drug company representatives from visiting the campus to meet with doctors.

Randy Burkholder, an associate vice president for Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the Washington, D.C.-based drug industry lobby group, acknowledged The News Tribune analysis, saying it’s a “great idea” to discover more about the impact of pharmaceuticals through original investigation.

So we have two more atypicals to go? And no Medguide or black box warning except for seniors with dementia?

As I've said before, I am eternally grateful for the SSRI black box except for the consequences - like a thundering herd, the docs have moved everyone over to the atypicals - for anything, anytime. Better living through chemistry.