Today, I read an article from a newspaper about the anxiety treatment as advised by a Hong Kong psychiatrist, (Nov 7, 2008, online version at http://www.takemehome.com.hk/epaper.php ; with a picture clip posted above) with a new drug," Lyrica". It reminded me similar articles published by other newspapers recently in Hong Kong especially after the financial tsunami.
It has been an increasing concern that people may not be able to deal with the sudden change of loss or threatened loss that caused a higher or unusual degree of anxiety, stress and fear, especially like the recent sharp change of our global economic environment. If the adult cannot handle their emotion properly, it could affect the younger children at home. It was sad to know the increasing figure of kids under fourteen years old from 14,348 cases in 2001 to be 22,480 cases in 2007 asking help from our public mental institution in Hong Kong.
However, do we know all the risks associated with psychiatric treatment on the symptoms of anxiety, stress or fear?
First, we need to look what have caused people to have anxiety or stress. One of the standard answers from many psychiatrists is "chemical imbalance." But what is chemical imbalance? What chemicals in our brain that can contribute imbalance? How much imbalance can be dangerous to cause us the anxiety that we cannot handle our normal routine in life?
If you ask any psychiatrist, you will be surprised that they cannot give you any specific answers. If they really know, the drug companies will not continue to invent new drugs in order to find out what the chemicals they would like to inject into the bodies to achieve the optimal chemical balance without any side effects.
Even on the recent paper submitted for the discussion by the Hong Kong Legislative Council Panel on Health Services on 22, November, 2007 ( LC Paper No. CB(2)373/7-08(01), it stated that,"Mental illness is a complex health problem. The causes of mental and behavioral problems are still not much understood."
Workable solution cannot be obtained if we do not know exactly how the mind works, what the definition of mental illness is, what the chemical imbalance is, what the optimal chemical balance is, what the exact formula to achieve the optimal balance is, and what actually the optimal state of mind that they would like to help their patients to achieve with the goals that people can be helped to get better.
Please go to this site to watch this video about chemical imbalance at http://www.cchr.org/#/museum/introfor more information.
Second, you will always hear from many psychiatrists that psychiatric drugs are needed for treatment if you have unusual anxiety or stress or fear or any other behavioral symptoms; though they still have many unknown in the field of mind. Unfortunately, the main stream of our media in Hong Kong in a way endorsed this method by interviewing psychiatrists for advice especially at the times of crisis; without any report on the abuse or sides effects of such treatment.
On the same government paper as mentioned in the above, it also suggested that "psychiatric treatment and drugs are needed" or "must be treated by psychiatrists" but without any full evaluation of the psychiatric methods and treatment with its associated risks to be used or any recommendation of any other alternative treatment to the public.
Though many patients suffer from many sides effects of psychiatric drugs, the common defense is that they should use newer drugs which however are more expensive that normal people cannot afford especially they have to be psychiatric drugs for a very long period of time, and in most cases, they are basically life long treatment.
I was curious about this new drug: Lyrica and so I went to the web site of FDA to do some research at https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/medwatch. I typed "Lyrica" on the search box, and found an article on patient information in which it mentioned:
LYRICA is a prescription medicine used in adults, 18 years and older, to treat:
• pain from damaged nerves (neuropathic pain) that happens with diabetes
• pain from damaged nerves (neuropathic pain) that follows healing of
shingles (a painful rash that comes after a herpes zoster infection)
• partial seizures when taken together with other seizure medicines
• fibromyalgia
You can read the entire article, and you may come to the same conclusion how it is possible for the recommendation of this drug to treat anxiety, stress or fear.
To know more about psychiatric drugs (as there are so many), please go to this site to watch this video at http://www.cchr.org/#/videos
So next time before you or your friend or your children is committed to any psychiatric drug treatment, get the name of the drug and do your own research to know all the risks.
Rather simply taking and believing any advice from so called "experts", it is time for us to consult our own observation, evaluation and make our conclusion as only then we can be responsible for what we know; as "belief" is simply a mechanism used to assign responsibility to "others". By getting our own knowledge, we can be held responsible for our own personal integrity.
With all the possible risks like "poisoned milk", "poisoned egg", "poisoned investment instruments", etc in our environment, it is time that we owe our own responsibility to really "look" rather than "listen" in many issues that can affect us and our next generation, especially on the issue of "psychiatric drug treatment" that the damage cannot be recovered easily.
To help us recover from any damages brought by financial tsunami to our economy and our life in Hong Kong, we need more able people with awareness to confront our problems and find better solutions. It will not help our people but only reduce our awareness level if we let a lot of us especially our executives and our children to handle their anxieties or stress by psychiatric drugs.
P.S. There is a free E-book on How To Get Off Psychiatric Drugs Safely at http://www.theroadback.org/workbook.htm from the Road back international with the hope and solution to handle the adverse effect of having taken psychiatric drugs. Hopefully soon we will have our own physician offering the same solution in Hong Kong!
It has been an increasing concern that people may not be able to deal with the sudden change of loss or threatened loss that caused a higher or unusual degree of anxiety, stress and fear, especially like the recent sharp change of our global economic environment. If the adult cannot handle their emotion properly, it could affect the younger children at home. It was sad to know the increasing figure of kids under fourteen years old from 14,348 cases in 2001 to be 22,480 cases in 2007 asking help from our public mental institution in Hong Kong.
However, do we know all the risks associated with psychiatric treatment on the symptoms of anxiety, stress or fear?
First, we need to look what have caused people to have anxiety or stress. One of the standard answers from many psychiatrists is "chemical imbalance." But what is chemical imbalance? What chemicals in our brain that can contribute imbalance? How much imbalance can be dangerous to cause us the anxiety that we cannot handle our normal routine in life?
If you ask any psychiatrist, you will be surprised that they cannot give you any specific answers. If they really know, the drug companies will not continue to invent new drugs in order to find out what the chemicals they would like to inject into the bodies to achieve the optimal chemical balance without any side effects.
Even on the recent paper submitted for the discussion by the Hong Kong Legislative Council Panel on Health Services on 22, November, 2007 ( LC Paper No. CB(2)373/7-08(01), it stated that,"Mental illness is a complex health problem. The causes of mental and behavioral problems are still not much understood."
Workable solution cannot be obtained if we do not know exactly how the mind works, what the definition of mental illness is, what the chemical imbalance is, what the optimal chemical balance is, what the exact formula to achieve the optimal balance is, and what actually the optimal state of mind that they would like to help their patients to achieve with the goals that people can be helped to get better.
Please go to this site to watch this video about chemical imbalance at http://www.cchr.org/#/museum/introfor more information.
Second, you will always hear from many psychiatrists that psychiatric drugs are needed for treatment if you have unusual anxiety or stress or fear or any other behavioral symptoms; though they still have many unknown in the field of mind. Unfortunately, the main stream of our media in Hong Kong in a way endorsed this method by interviewing psychiatrists for advice especially at the times of crisis; without any report on the abuse or sides effects of such treatment.
On the same government paper as mentioned in the above, it also suggested that "psychiatric treatment and drugs are needed" or "must be treated by psychiatrists" but without any full evaluation of the psychiatric methods and treatment with its associated risks to be used or any recommendation of any other alternative treatment to the public.
Though many patients suffer from many sides effects of psychiatric drugs, the common defense is that they should use newer drugs which however are more expensive that normal people cannot afford especially they have to be psychiatric drugs for a very long period of time, and in most cases, they are basically life long treatment.
I was curious about this new drug: Lyrica and so I went to the web site of FDA to do some research at https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/medwatch. I typed "Lyrica" on the search box, and found an article on patient information in which it mentioned:
LYRICA is a prescription medicine used in adults, 18 years and older, to treat:
• pain from damaged nerves (neuropathic pain) that happens with diabetes
• pain from damaged nerves (neuropathic pain) that follows healing of
shingles (a painful rash that comes after a herpes zoster infection)
• partial seizures when taken together with other seizure medicines
• fibromyalgia
You can read the entire article, and you may come to the same conclusion how it is possible for the recommendation of this drug to treat anxiety, stress or fear.
To know more about psychiatric drugs (as there are so many), please go to this site to watch this video at http://www.cchr.org/#/videos
So next time before you or your friend or your children is committed to any psychiatric drug treatment, get the name of the drug and do your own research to know all the risks.
Rather simply taking and believing any advice from so called "experts", it is time for us to consult our own observation, evaluation and make our conclusion as only then we can be responsible for what we know; as "belief" is simply a mechanism used to assign responsibility to "others". By getting our own knowledge, we can be held responsible for our own personal integrity.
With all the possible risks like "poisoned milk", "poisoned egg", "poisoned investment instruments", etc in our environment, it is time that we owe our own responsibility to really "look" rather than "listen" in many issues that can affect us and our next generation, especially on the issue of "psychiatric drug treatment" that the damage cannot be recovered easily.
To help us recover from any damages brought by financial tsunami to our economy and our life in Hong Kong, we need more able people with awareness to confront our problems and find better solutions. It will not help our people but only reduce our awareness level if we let a lot of us especially our executives and our children to handle their anxieties or stress by psychiatric drugs.
P.S. There is a free E-book on How To Get Off Psychiatric Drugs Safely at http://www.theroadback.org/workbook.htm from the Road back international with the hope and solution to handle the adverse effect of having taken psychiatric drugs. Hopefully soon we will have our own physician offering the same solution in Hong Kong!
