You are here: Home » Personal Accounts
Female cialis online without prescription, By Jim Mosher
Kenora News EnterpriseMarch 21, 1999
Wayne Lax is feeling pretty good about himself these days. And that may come as a bit of a surprise. Buy female cialis online cheap, Lax, 58, spent 25 years of his life, buy female cialis online, from 1967 to 1992, Cheap female cialis pill, in and out of psychiatric hospitals in Winnipeg, Kenora, Thunder Bay and Toronto, purchase female cialis. In all, Find female cialis without prescription, he figures he logged 108 visits. But lately he's enjoyed a lot of time in the limelight, as he's taken on the mantle of psychiatric survivor, female cialis no rx.
His story centres on what he believes to be the inappropriate use of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) or shock treatment, female cialis online without prescription. ECT is a recognized psychiatric tool, Female cialis in us, but it has come under increasing scrutiny as survivor after survivor has come forward to relate personal stories about its often profoundly damaging effect.
We profiled Lax in a series of stories almost two years ago (See Kenora Enterprise, Sun., female cialis buy online, July 20, Order no rx female cialis, 1997). Since those stories were published, Lax has been drawn into the world of anti-psychiatry, female cialis tablets. He's been interviewed twice by Dan Weitz, Purchase female cialis online, host of ShrinkWrap, a Toronto radio show that makes no bones about its contempt for psychiatry. Female cialis online without prescription, Lax is now firmly ensconced in this world of criticism. Some of the critics are sweeping in their claims, where to order female cialis, and urge a dismantling of the whole edifice of modern psychiatry. Buy no rx female cialis, But psychiatric associations in Canada and the United States continue to support controversial therapies such as ECT, which is considered a valuable therapy for people suffering from extreme forms of depression, particularly people who are clinically suicidal, female cialis tablet.
Psychiatrists say removing ECT as a therapeutic tool throws the baby out with the bath water. Buy cheap female cialis internet, They say it is just one of many tools - and, like most treatments, must be used Judiciously and only when its use meets defined criteria, buy female cialis internet.
The professionals also generally acknowledge there were abuses; that shock treatment was often prescribed inappropriately and administered carelessly in the past, female cialis online without prescription.
A quiet-spoken, Drug female cialis, rotund man, Lax struggles with a loss of memory he directly attributes to the 80 shock treatments he received. He cites medical files from Lakehead Psychiatric Hospital, cheap female cialis from canada. The files contain contradictory clinical diagnoses that appear to support Lax's contention that his depression was deeply misunderstood. Female cialis cheapest price, Lax's tragic story begins in 1966. Female cialis online without prescription, There'd been a severe winter storm. A Kenora cab driver at the time, Lax was kept hopping during a hectic evening, cheap generic female cialis. He'd spoken with his brother early in the day. Best price for female cialis, But there wasn't time to chat too long. There were stranded customers waiting for service.
Lax would later find his brother's car under drifts of snow near the Lax family home in Kenora, female cialis online without prescription. His brother was inside the car - dead, find female cialis on internet. He'd been asphyxiated by carbon monoxide fumes, Female cialis online cheap, a coroner's Inquest would later conclude.
It was too much for the 25-year-old Lax. Depressed, purchase female cialis no rx, he turned to alcohol. Female cialis online without prescription, A doctor would later suggest medication to deal with crippling depression and alcoholism. Buying female cialis online, Then there was the fateful trip to a Winnipeg hospital, where he received his first shock treatment. He would later be prescribed a virtual pharmacy of psychotropic medications, find cheap female cialis online, many of them addictive and mind-altering. Female cialis uk, The electroshock treatments would continue.
It wasn't until 1992 that Lax, then 48, female cialis buy drug, would make a decision that changed his life. After a motor vehicle accident and a charge of impaired driving, he put the brakes on his personal madness, female cialis online without prescription. Order discount female cialis, He decided to go cold turkey and stop using the drugs that had detached him from his world. No more electroshocks. No more 'medicine.' It wasn't pretty, female cialis drug, he recalls now. Female cialis cheap drug, He says it took more than a year to cleanse his body of years of chemical assault. Female cialis online without prescription, He refused medications - even turned down the shock therapy he'd been convinced was his final hope.
The journey to recovery continues for Lax. What galls and pains him is that the electroshock treatment he received on 80 occasions, best price female cialis, robbed him of much of his memory. Fda approved female cialis, He lost the critical years with his family. He lost that sublime sense of connection that can only come with the bonds that love and a history create.
Lax's long and emotionally-charged story has made him something of an international celebrity, female cialis online without prescription. His story of alleged psychiatric abuses was included in a rivetting series in the Toronto Star last fall, find female cialis online. Award-winning broadcast journalist Scott Simmie penned the multi-part series. Buy female cialis online australia, Simmie won the tenth annual Atkinson Fellowship, which gave him a year to study the dark underside of mental health in Ontario and across the country.
Lax notes that Simmie has corresponded with him, order female cialis. Female cialis online without prescription, He provided an Enterprise reporter with a copy of Simmie's Out of Mind - An Investigation into Mental Health. Simmie's conclusions come as little surprise to people like Lax, Buy female cialis us, who knows firsthand the inadequacies of the mental health system.
"I'm not knocking every psychiatrist," says Lax, female cialis pharmacy online. "But I can't see shocking people who have addictions. Buy generic female cialis, The main thing is that I'm moving on. Some people have to share their experiences."
Lax hasn't hit the lecture circuit, but his story is making the rounds in North America and Europe, female cialis online without prescription.
Some former mental patients or psychiatric survivors, as many like to be called, buy female cialis on internet, are making use of modern technology to get their message out. There are dozens of web sites on the Internet devoted to psychiatric criticism.
Not unlike others who have lifted the veil, Lax has become caught up in the rhetoric. But he's less strident in his criticisms than some in the anti-psychiatry movement. Female cialis online without prescription, He favours arguing for improvements to how psychiatry is practised, rather than its wholesale destruction.
Lax's journey along the road to recovery has meant - as it does for many - bringing close attention to his personal experience. This approach is favoured, in part, because it is therapeutic.
One might call Lax a reluctant spokesperson. He says others have survived modern psychiatry but they do not have a voice. He's taken his recent time in the limelight with a deep humility, female cialis online without prescription.
But, while this unassuming man is bitter about what he lost, he is balanced in his criticisms of modern psychiatry. He acknowledges that psychiatry is a valued profession; that there are many who benefit from the ministrations of psychiatrists. That said, Lax is adamant that the "barbaric" use of electroshock must stop.
He's now a member of a handful of psychiatric survivors groups. Members share a common negative experience with electroshock. They exchange their stories, but also lobby governments and psychiatric associations around the world to discontinue a practice they say damages people.
Similar posts: Buy flucort cream without prescription. Buy fluticasone ointment without prescription. Buy fml without prescription. Buy folic acid (vitamin b9) without prescription. Buy furazolidone without prescription. Buy fusidic acid without prescription. Buy gasex without prescription. Buy gentamicin without prescription. Buy gentamicin eye drops without prescription. Buy geodon without prescription.
Trackbacks from: Female cialis online without prescription. Minocycline without prescription. Buy zoloft without prescription. Buy zantac without prescription. Otikfree ear drops online without prescription. Cialis professional online without prescription. Buy diovan without prescription. Mr. long online without prescription. Buy viagra super force without prescription. Lotrel without prescription.
Added: July 17, 2006 |
No Comments
Kamagra online without prescription, By Christian Toto
February 19, 2002
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
The image isn't easily eradicated from memory -- malcontent Randall McMurphy (Jack Nicholson) writhing in agony while undergoing shock treatment in 1975's "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest." Yet shock treatment -- or electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), as its practitioners dub it -- isn't barbaric, as that classic movie moment might have us believe.
The procedure, which involves sending electric currents through a patient's brain to alleviate severe depression, is conducted with considerable safety precautions, kamagra free sample. Patients are anesthetized and given muscle relaxants to prevent their bodies from thrashing about. Experts say it is an effective way to treat seriously depressed patients and those in acute manic states. Kamagra pharmacy, Yet some former ECT patients say the treatments are, in a way, just as horrific as they are portrayed in the Oscar-winning "Cuckoo's Nest." They point to significant memory loss as the price they paid for enduring the therapy.
Even those who favor ECT are left scratching their heads over precisely why it works, kamagra online without prescription.
"It's been talked about since it came into being in 1938, buy kamagra no prescription required," says Dr. Frank Moscarillo, Kamagra for sale, a Chevy Chase physician who administers ECT. "It's only a stimulus to a grand mal seizure. Why in the world that should help depression, we don't know."
Doctors first incorrectly believed that instigating seizures in a schizophrenic patient would negate that condition, kamagra buy drug. Kamagra online without prescription, Modern ECT involves a series of six to 12 treatments that pass electric currents through the brain via two electrodes placed along the skull.
"It's the single most effective treatment for delusional depression," says Dr. Cheapest kamagra prices, Moscarillo, who also serves as executive director of the Association for Convulsive Therapy, an international group with just under 400 members worldwide that, in part, best price for kamagra, gives credentials to psychiatrists to use ECT.
Successful ECT sessions yield a break in a patient's depression, Order kamagra in canada, a lifting of the dark veil that can induce suicidal thoughts. Side effects can include temporary confusion and short-term memory loss of events around the time of the treatment.
ECT, even at its most effective, only tackles the current depression, kamagra online without prescription. It does not necessarily preclude future depressive episodes. Some patients undergo maintenance treatments once every six weeks or so to sustain their depression-free state, kamagra tablets.
ECT can be conducted through unilateral or bilateral application of electrodes. The former places the electrodes on the right temple and right vertex of the skull and is less likely to affect memory. Kamagra online without prescription, Bilateral application affixes electrodes on both sides of the skull. Price of kamagra, A newer process, what Dr. Moscarillo calls bifrontal, places the electrodes farther down the face, find discount kamagra online, away from the brain. This seems to spare the temporal lobe and is less damaging to short-term memory. Cheap kamagra tablets, Convincing patients that electroconvulsive therapy can help them isn't always easy, Dr. Moscarillo says, kamagra online without prescription. "There is a stigma, no question about it, buy cheapest kamagra," he says. "They're fearful of it though they don't know about it."
"Sam, Order cheap kamagra online, " a 59-year-old Arlington resident who asked that his name not be revealed, turned to ECT in 1999 when an approaching retirement intensified his lifelong battle with depression.
"My wife had some fear I might commit suicide," says Sam, discount kamagra without prescription, who eventually came under Dr. Moscarillo's care. Kamagra online without prescription, "I remembered my aunt had [ECT] in the early '50s, and the way it sounded was terrible," he says, "but I was in no state to object."
With his wife's consent, Sam underwent about 20 treatments, the last in July 2000. Buy kamagra lowest price, "Maybe it doesn't work for some people, but these new pills don't work for everybody, either," says Sam, canadian kamagra, who battled memory problems before the treatments. "Looking back, Kamagra sales, I'm certain I did the right thing."
Some contend depressed patients have every right to fear ECT.
Dr. Peter Breggin, author of "The Anti-Depressant Fact Book: What Your Doctor Won't Tell You About Prozac, no rx kamagra, Zoloft, Paxil, Cheap kamagra from usa, Celexa, and Luvox," says the therapy works by "damaging the brain ... rendering the patient unable to feel depressed" or experience "any other subtle human emotion."
The seizures induced are more profound than typical epileptic seizures, Dr, kamagra online without prescription. Breggin says, order kamagra from canada. Without the muscle relaxants, a patient could snap his or her bones during the body's thrashing. Generic kamagra online, "If a woman got an electric shock from her refrigerator, they'd whisk her off to the [Intensive Care Unit]," says the Bethesda doctor, who isn't sure why ECT seizures should require a different response, order discount kamagra online.
Some patients may not speak out against the procedure because they can't, he says. Kamagra online without prescription, "Closed-head injuries produce an inability to evaluate one's condition. Purchase kamagra without prescription, "It's indicative of the abusive history of my profession," he says, adding that early in the 20th century, "they might give the whole [mental] ward shock treatments, buy kamagra. It tends to make people more docile."
Elderly patients often are convinced ECT can be of help, he says. Get kamagra, "It's a moneymaker; it keeps the wards going," he says. "Insurance companies don't question it."
Dr. Lenore Teter, medical director of George Washington Hospital's psychiatric unit, disputes the "cash cow" charge, kamagra online without prescription.
"I think that's the most absurd statement, kamagra in bangkok. If this person only knew ... how grateful people are when they get better, Free kamagra, " Dr. Teter says. Kamagra online without prescription, "It's a very inexpensive treatment, as far as treatments go," she adds, estimating a session's price tag to be about $1,500, including ECT, anesthesia and hospital fees.
Dr. Teter denies that the treatments cause brain damage but says that in some isolated cases, kamagra overnight shipping, patients have memory loss beyond the days surrounding the treatment. The process is safe even for patients in their 90s, Order generic kamagra, she adds.
Retired Lt. Col, kamagra online without prescription. Elizabeth McGillicuddy of Locust Grove, Va., kamagra price, would disagree.
Ms. Kamagra cheapest price, McGillicuddy underwent ECT in 1994 to combat severe depression. The treatments had little beneficial effect, but they did profoundly affect her memory. Kamagra online without prescription, "It took me a long time to realize how much I lost," the 53-year-old says.
The 20-year Marine Corps veteran says she "couldn't remember anything, find kamagra without prescription, my duty stations, the people, Kamagra no prescription, anything."
"It's like you're climbing up a mountain, and you look down, and the mountain is not there. It's gone, order kamagra without prescription," she says. "There's no way to describe how horrifying that is. Kamagra bangkok, Those people killed the person I was.
"The danger is so great," she continues, kamagra online without prescription. "The risk that any person is taking for the small possibility of benefit... you run the risk of losing everything."
Dr. Moscarillo doesn't discount the fact that some patients have such adverse reactions, canadian pharmacy kamagra, particularly to their memory, but he says he has never had that happen to a patient under his care. Generic kamagra, He insists such incidents are very rare. Kamagra online without prescription, He does not make lofty promises about ECT, however.
"I tell patients, 'This may not work,' " he says, kamagra cheap.
Many others are quick to say it won't work. Forty-year-old Juli Lawrence, Find kamagra online, who runs www.ect.org, wants potential ECT candidates to know all the facts -- and risks -- before submitting to the procedure.
Ms. Lawrence, who runs her Web site from her Belleville, Ill., home, struggled with depression for years, kamagra online without prescription. In 1994, her psychiatrist suggested she undergo ECT.
"I resisted at first," Ms. Lawrence says. She particularly recalls broaching the topic with a physician friend who performed ECT on his patients. Kamagra online without prescription, The normally warm, convivial man "would go cold and refused to talk about it," she says.
Her own psychiatrist insisted on the treatment, though, and she eventually agreed.
"I did weird things. I woke up and refused to speak English. I only spoke Russian. It was just defiance," says Ms, kamagra online without prescription. Lawrence, who studied Russian in college. She says she used to speak Russian when angered or dealing with authority figures.
She says the treatments did little for her condition and left her a changed person.
"I felt extremely betrayed by my psychiatrist, by the industry," says Ms. Kamagra online without prescription, Lawrence, whose depression lifted on its own several years after the treatments. "I lost a couple of years' worth of memory."
Her Web site, listed by the search engine Google under "anti-psychiatry organizations," receives 150 to 200 e-mails a week, many expressing dissatisfaction with the senders' own ECT experiences.
Dr. Moscarillo suggests that no matter how well-informed the public may be about ECT, some sense of caution always will remain.
"We're told to be afraid of electricity... it may be a primitive kind of instinct," he says.
Similar posts: Buy triamterene without prescription. Buy tricor without prescription. Buy ortho tri-cyclen without prescription. Buy truvada without prescription. Buy uroxatral without prescription. Buy vantin without prescription. Buy vasaka without prescription. Buy vasotec without prescription. Buy vastarel without prescription. Buy vega h cream without prescription.
Trackbacks from: Kamagra online without prescription. Buy imodium without prescription. Valtrex without prescription. Buy januvia without prescription. Shuddha guggulu without prescription. Flomax without prescription. Buy anexil without prescription. Propecia without prescription. Yagara (herbal viagra) online without prescription. Buy vigrx without prescription.
Added: July 17, 2006 |
No Comments
Potassium citrate online without prescription, Sunday Star Times (New Zealand)
ALEXANDER Miriyana
08-20-2000
Vivid images of electrodes attached to human heads and the resulting seizures are what we remember from barbaric electric shock therapy decades ago. But 50 years on, the therapy is still commonly used in New Zealand hospitals, potassium citrate without a prescription. Miriyana Alexander reports. Order discount potassium citrate, "It's a hell of a good treatment. If I ever needed to, I'd have it, discount potassium citrate no rx. I'd give it to my wife and parents too."
IT MADE author Janet Frame confused, terrified and disturbed, potassium citrate online without prescription. It gave her nightmares and once caused her to smash a window with her fist. Generic potassium citrate cheap, That was 52 years ago, when electric shock therapy was used without anaesthesia or muscle relaxants and patients were restrained to prevent injury from violent fits.
Many would be surprised to learn that ECT (electroconvulsive therapy) is still commonly used in New Zealand, online pharmacy potassium citrate. But now, Find potassium citrate online, according to psychiatrists, it is used more discriminately and humanely. Potassium citrate online without prescription, Frame suffered through 200 applications of the treatment, which sees an electric current passed through the brain for several seconds, at Christchurch's Sunnyside Hospital and Dunedin's Seacliff Hospital. In the just-published biography Wrestling with the Angel, buy cheap potassium citrate online, she talked of the trauma of the procedure, Low price potassium citrate, the memory loss and nightmares it triggered.
"I dreamed waking and sleeping dreams more terrible than any I dreamed before . , cost potassium citrate. . (if) only I had been able to talk about some of the terror, I know I would not have so readily translated my feelings into action, potassium citrate online without prescription. Buying potassium citrate online, It sounds silly, but my clothes haunted me . , potassium citrate approved. . Order no rx potassium citrate, Everything tortures (me) and is on fire and is coloured."
ECT is also known for its controversial use at Cherry Farm, Carrington and Oakley mental hospitals. Potassium citrate online without prescription, It was used to punish children at Lake Alice Hospital in the 1970s for trivial offences like not making a bed or not eating dinner, and compensation is now being sought.
In 1982, buy cheapest potassium citrate online, Michael Watene died after receiving ECT at Oakley. Order potassium citrate in canada, In a subsequent inquiry, ECT procedures at the hospital were labelled "alarmingly deficient" at the time of his death. Watene received the ECT on a mattress on the floor of a small strongroom, potassium citrate cost. After the death, Fda approved potassium citrate, the inquiry ordered changes to the way ECT was administered, and said an anaesthetist should remain in the treatment room until a patient recovered fully.
According to psychiatrists, we've come a long way since then, potassium citrate online without prescription. ECT is now administered in operating theatres with patient consent, buy potassium citrate, patients are anaesthetised and given muscle relaxants. Order potassium citrate in us, They say it is not used indiscriminately: patients suffering from serious and life-threatening depression and some manias where other treatments have failed, are given the therapy.
Hospitals nationwide confirmed they used ECT, buy potassium citrate cheap, and a top psychiatrist believed its use would increase to counter growing rates of depression. Buy discount potassium citrate, Health Minister Annette King has no plans to review its use. Potassium citrate online without prescription, Controversy has raged about the treatment for decades. Psychiatrists spoken to by the Sunday Star-Times were big fans of ECT, saying it was a legitimate and effective treatment for severe depression, approved potassium citrate pharmacy.
Many said it had saved lives, Buying generic potassium citrate, and they would have the treatment themselves if necessary.
Opponents label it inhumane and a Waikato patient advocacy group has presented a petition to parliament asking for ECT to be outlawed.
ECT works by replenishing neurotransmitters in the brain, potassium citrate no rx. The chemicals the nerves use to communicate with the brain, they are depleted in depressed people, potassium citrate online without prescription. The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists guidelines for ECT said its effectiveness had been " established beyond doubt". Potassium citrate medication, It said the therapy was among the least risky of medical procedures carried out under general anaesthesia, and was substantially less risky than childbirth.
Deputy director of mental health at the Health Ministry, where to order potassium citrate, Dr Anthony Duncan, Potassium citrate non prescription, also a psychiatrist, acknowledged public concern about memory loss associated with ECT.
"People definitely often have gaps in their memories around the time of the treatment, potassium citrate in us. Potassium citrate online without prescription, "This is because ECT induces seizures, which impair the laying down of memory tracks."
Duncan said research showed it was not thought ECT caused long-term memory loss, but that possibility had to be balanced against the desperate state people were in when ECT was considered.
"People are often at risk of suicide or dying from dehydration or starvation because they are so severely depressed they have stopped eating and drinking."
Last year, Order potassium citrate from us, 53 patients were treated with ECT at North Shore Hospital, getting an average of 10 or 11 each.
About four patients a week are treated with ECT at Auckland Hospital, potassium citrate free delivery. They usually have two treatments a week for about four weeks. Cheap potassium citrate without prescription, Director of mental health Dr Nick Argyle said while ECT "was an odd thing to do to people" it flipped them out of their depressive state.
Duncan said psychiatric medication such as Prozac simply suppressed the symptoms of depression, while a treatment of ECT meant a patient would no longer be depressed, potassium citrate online without prescription.
"There is no significant harm from ECT. It has saved the lives of some of my patients, potassium citrate canada, and in many cases I wish I'd used it earlier. Get potassium citrate, I sometimes have patients begging for it because they know it's the only thing that works for them.
"I think it's a hell of a good treatment. Potassium citrate online without prescription, If I ever needed to, I'd have it and I'd give it to my wife and parents too."
Waikato Hospital delivers 35 ECT treatments a month for an average of five patients. At Timaru Hospital, buy cheapest potassium citrate, 30 patients have been given the electric shock therapy since January, Cheap potassium citrate pharmacy, while Taranaki Hospital treats just two or three patients a year with ECT. Wellington Hospital treats eight patients a week with ECT. Two ECT treatments were provided at Palmerston North hospital in the last six months, buy potassium citrate once daily, and 45 patients at any one time are being given the treatment in Christchurch. Find potassium citrate without prescription, Dunedin health officials confirmed they used ECT, but could not provide figures.
Capital Coast Health's director of mental health Peter McGeorge, a psychiatrist, said the public was probably not aware it was still being used, potassium citrate online without prescription. "But used properly it has its place, tablet potassium citrate. When Janet Frame was in hospital it was used quite indiscriminately, Buy potassium citrate online cheap, but that's not the case now. And the fits used to be violent, causing fractures and tears, buy potassium citrate online australia, but a muscle relaxant is given now, Cheap potassium citrate in usa, meaning the reaction is not so severe.
"Its use is likely to increase because by 2020, depression will be the most common illness in the world. Potassium citrate online without prescription, So if rates of depression increase, so will ECT use."
A woman who was given ECT 42 times 40 years ago at Porirua Hospital when she was 18 told the Sunday Star-Times she feared the treatment would kill her.
The woman, who did not want to be named, said ECT made her "wake up feeling half dead. Everything was swimming in front of me and I could hardly stand up or walk. It was like being hit by a sledgehammer."
Lying in her bed waiting for the treatment was the worst part, she said. "It was like waiting to be executed. Nurses held you down by the knee and shoulder and we had a gag put into our mouths, potassium citrate online without prescription. Then the big bang came and I was unconscious."
The woman suffered short term memory loss after the treatments. "My brain was all scrambled and it took a long time to remember things. It's affected my whole life. My memory is very bad, I have nightmares and every now and then I get lost, even though I've lived here for years. Potassium citrate online without prescription, "It was my worst nightmare. The staff had no regard for our feelings, they were like custodians of concentration camps. ECT is a criminal assault and it should be outlawed."
Waikato Patients Rights Advocacy spokeswoman Anna de Jonge said ECT caused brain damage and should be abolished.
"It is torture. They do it to cattle in the slaughterhouse before they cut their throats, and they shouldn't do it to people. The brain is the most important part of the body, why are we doing this to it?"
She said ECT was not acceptable just because psychiatrists said that was all they had to treat severely depressed people. "If you had a headache I wouldn't be able to hit you on the head with a hockey stick and say sorry, that's all I've got to treat you. It's unacceptable."
Overseas opinion is also divided. Some psychiatrists want ECT banned, while others have said the procedure is as safe as extracting teeth.
Similar posts: Avodart online without prescription. Cephalexin online without prescription. Famvir online without prescription. Levaquin online without prescription. Neurontin online without prescription. Nolvadex online without prescription. Phenergan online without prescription. Provera online without prescription. Zanaflex online without prescription. Arimidex online without prescription.
Trackbacks from: Potassium citrate online without prescription. Buy spirulina capsules without prescription. Combigan without prescription. Prandin online without prescription. Skelaxin without a prescription. Buy prinivil online without prescription. Hytrin online without prescription. Buy eflora cream online without prescription. Serevent without prescription. Penis growth oil online without prescription.
Added: July 17, 2006 |
No Comments
Nexium online without prescription, Wednesday, December 22, 1999
SOLDIER SUES OVER MEDICAL TREATMENT: TOO MANY DRUGS, ELECTRIC SHOCK THERAPY HURT HIS CAREER
By RACHEL BOOMER -- The Daily News
A Dartmouth soldier says he was wrongly prescribed electroshock treatments for anxiety and given "a vast amount" of drugs by two military doctors. Nexium in us, James Thurrott is suing the federal attorney general and the two doctors, saying he may lose his job because of the treatment, purchase nexium online. Buy nexium without prescription, "Two years of sitting home like a zombie, being overdrugged .., nexium purchase. Nexium buy online, (I felt) pretty crappy," Thurrott, cheap nexium from uk, Drug nexium, 37, said in an interview from his Dartmouth home yesterday, cost nexium. Nexium in australia, "They had me as depressed, I suppose, buy generic nexium. Being drugged that much, I didn't know that much different."
In 1996, the army ventilation technician said he was feeling stressed, anxious and confused, nexium online without prescription. Buy nexium from india, While Thurrott was under the care of Dr. Garth Watt from 1996 to '98, buy cheap nexium, Nexium no rx, his lawsuit claims, Watt prescribed inapproprate drugs and electroconvulsive therapy, order nexium on internet. Nexium prescription, In electroconvulsive therapy, a treatment for depression and other psychiatric disorders, online pharmacy nexium, Buy nexium from canada, a psychiatrist gives a patient electric shocks to the brain, usually under general anaesthetic, nexium discount. Nexium internet, Lawyer David Bright writes in the statement of claim: "No proper assessment was made by Dr. Nexium online without prescription, Watt of the plaintiff's condition and no proper records were kept."
Thurrott's suit names a second doctor, Dr. Serdar Dursun, lowest price nexium, Nexium australia, who reviewed Thurrott's case in January 1998, and recommended changing Thurrott's medication, nexium for order. Cheapest nexium price, The suit claims Dursun isn't a qualified psychiatrist. "Watt and Dursun misdiagnosed (Thurrott's) condition and prescribed medication which was not appropriate .., order nexium. Discount nexium no rx, and further gave dosages of certain medication far in excess of their recommended daily amount," the documents say, nexium rx.
The suit claims an unspecified amount of damages for pain and suffering, loss of enjoyment of life, future lost income and future care, nexium online without prescription. Nexium india, Bright writes Thurrott's two years of "improper and inadequate diagnosis and treatment" may even cost him his job in the army's regular force. Thurrott said yesterday the army has questioned whether he's medically able to be deployed on UN missions away from home, overnight nexium. Purchase nexium no rx, In November 1998, Thurrott said, sale nexium, Nexium malaysia, he went to the Nova Scotia Hospital, where staff there took him off all medication except for a thyroid medication, order nexium cheap online. Find nexium, Symptoms of a hyperactive thyroid, as listed in a medical dictionary, approved nexium pharmacy, Cost of nexium, include nervousness, heart palpitations, cheap nexium online, Canada nexium, restlessness and insomnia. Thurrott, nexium alternative, Order nexium no prescription required, a father of three, says he's feeling better now, buy nexium once daily, but is worried about his job. No defence has been filed.
Similar posts: Buy shigru without prescription. Buy shuddha guggulu without prescription. Buy silagra without prescription. Buy malegra dxt (sildenafil + duloxetine) without prescription. Buy sinemet without prescription. Buy sleep tea without prescription. Buy sleepwell without prescription. Buy slimex (obetrim) without prescription. Buy speman without prescription. Buy spermamax without prescription.
Trackbacks from: Nexium online without prescription. Buy depakote without prescription. Buy cipro without prescription. Zoloft online without prescription. Buy anexil without prescription. Buy prednisolone without prescription. Lidocaine without prescription. Buy kapikachhu without prescription. Buy bactrim without prescription. Avalide without prescription.
Added: July 17, 2006 |
No Comments
Wellbutrin sr online without prescription, 6/26/1996
Houston Chronicle
By JOHN MAKEIG
Melissa Holliday sang at a Chrysler convention, landed a job as an extra on the Baywatch television series, appeared as a Playboy foldout model in January 1995 and, at times, was making $5,000 a day.
Now she lives at her father's apartment in Seabrook, Wellbutrin sr medicine, gets $525 a month from Social Security, has not worked in a year and, instead of singing This is My Country for Lee Iacocca, wellbutrin sr uk, is poised to become an entirely different sort of performer. Buy wellbutrin sr online australia, Her new topic is electroshock therapy. Her message is, it has ruined her life, wellbutrin sr online pharmacy.
"I was making $2, Find wellbutrin sr no prescription required, 500 to $5,000 a day," she recalled Wednesday, wellbutrin sr cost. "I had opportunities other people only dream about, wellbutrin sr online without prescription. I would've become a star and made a lot of money. Drug wellbutrin sr online purchase, I'd have a life.
"Now, everyday is like the Olympics for me, wellbutrin sr in malaysia. I don't want another person to go through what I've been through. Wellbutrin sr online without prescription, Electroshock is not a form of therapy. Wellbutrin sr in uk, Doctors are getting rich off doing brain damage to people."
Holliday on Wednesday filed a civil lawsuit accusing a Santa Monica, Calif., hospital and three physicians of assault and battery and personal injury over what she said was done to her from June 26-July 12, buy wellbutrin sr on internet, 1995. Cheap wellbutrin sr from canada, Holliday, 26, said she had worked hard at singing, wellbutrin sr non prescription, dancing and acting for years, Buy wellbutrin sr in canada, and finally was achieving success. She was modeling and doing voice-overs for TV commercials. She had meetings with people from Warner Bros, wellbutrin sr information. and Columbia Pictures, wellbutrin sr online without prescription.
But through it all, Buying wellbutrin sr, she said, she was in constant pain from a uterine problem. It left her depressed, fda approved wellbutrin sr, and at 24, Cheapest wellbutrin sr, she was told, her only medical solution was a full, unwanted hysterectomy, cheap wellbutrin sr in uk.
Her depression worsened. Cheap wellbutrin sr no rx, Finally, she was referred to a female doctor in Santa Monica. Wellbutrin sr online without prescription, Before long, Holliday said, she was checked into St. John's Hospital and Health Center in Santa Monica and placed on a lengthy regimen of drugs, cheap price wellbutrin sr. Her father, Buy wellbutrin sr pills, Randy Halberson, said his daughter was given uppers, downers and every shade in between, wellbutrin sr buy.
Although she wasn't informed of it at the onset, Wellbutrin sr without a prescription, Holliday said, she soon learned she was due for electroshock therapy.
"They'd given me so many drugs, online wellbutrin sr, I didn't know if I was coming or going, Buy wellbutrin sr on line, " she said, "A week after I got there, the doctor mentioned shock, wellbutrin sr cheap drug. She didn't ask me if I wanted it, wellbutrin sr online without prescription. She said if I didn't want it, Buy wellbutrin sr online cheap, I'd go to the fourth floor, a lock-up ward. Then nobody could see me and I couldn't go outside."
Nine times she was shocked, cheap wellbutrin sr pill, Holliday said. Cheapest generic wellbutrin sr online, "I've been through a rape, and electroshock therapy is worse," she said, buy generic wellbutrin sr online. "If you haven't gone through it, Find cheap wellbutrin sr, I can't explain it."
When it ended, she said, her show-business career was over, wellbutrin sr us. Wellbutrin sr online without prescription, "I couldn't leave my house for six months," she said. "I couldn't drive my car for eight months."
Holliday's relatives tell of nine suicide attempts, Buy cheap wellbutrin sr internet, a total loss of self-confidence, continual anxiety and depression worse than when she went to the Santa Monica hospital.
Holliday's situation has caught the attention of Jerry Boswell of Austin, order cheap wellbutrin sr, director of the Citizens Commission on Human Rights of Texas, Wellbutrin sr prices, a group that champions the rights of medical patients. Boswell is leading the charge to abolish electroshock therapy in Texas.
About 1, order wellbutrin sr in us,800 people underwent electroshock therapy in Texas last year, Find discount wellbutrin sr, Boswell said, and 70 percent were women.
"Now," he said, "the main target is elderly people, wellbutrin sr online without prescription. There is a 36 percent increase in shock treatment between age 64 and age 65, wellbutrin sr no online prescription. When you turn 65, Certified wellbutrin sr, you become eligible for Medicare, and Medicare pays for electroshock. For a few seconds of electricity, wellbutrin sr overnight delivery, the hospital gets $300."
State Rep. Senfronia Thompson, D-Houston, tried last year to push legislation aimed at banning electroshock therapy. Wellbutrin sr online without prescription, Now she is preparing for another try.
"My bill died in committee, but the chairman was kind enough to give me a hearing," Thompson said. "It lasted until the wee hours and we heard from 150 people."
Half the witnesses raved about the good things electroshock treatment had done for them, Thompson said, and the other half related horror stories, how it caused memory loss and even seizures that continued long afterward.
A Houston psychiatrist, Charles S. DeJohn, said electroshock therapy nowadays is unlike that in decades past when it was a more common medical tool for treating depressed people who could not otherwise be helped.
Now it is done with more careful monitoring of "seizure duration and oxygenization levels," DeJohn said, wellbutrin sr online without prescription. Anesthesiologists typically are present during sessions. Care is taken to prevent patients from breaking their own bones during electrically induced seizures.
"There is no significant deficit,"DeJohn said. "It's reserved for people who haven't responded to treatment and whose condition is such that you can't wait for a response (from drug therapy). It is perceived as a legitimate form of treatment."
DeJohn said he has referred educated patients -- attorneys, professors and others -- for shock treatments and "all responded well.".
Similar posts: Buy spiriva without prescription. Buy sporanox without prescription. Buy stromectol without prescription. Buy sumenta without prescription. Buy super active ed pack without prescription. Buy super zhewitra without prescription. Buy suprax without prescription. Buy suregasm without prescription. Buy symbicort without prescription. Buy temovate cream without prescription.
Trackbacks from: Wellbutrin sr online without prescription. Crestor without prescription. Buy prilosec without prescription. Crestor online without prescription. Buy hiv test without prescription. Buy clonidine without prescription. Buy tizanidine without prescription. Buy premarin without prescription. Buy zofran without prescription. Jungle burn without a prescription.
Added: July 17, 2006 |
No Comments
Amoxicillin online without prescription, Shock Treatment.
A Survivor Battles to Stop Controversial Therapy
By JOY HICKSON Lethbridge Herald
Seven years ago, buying generic amoxicillin, Where to buy amoxicillin, Wendy Funk-Robitaille was a different person.
At 32, order amoxicillin no rx, Cheap amoxicillin internet, she was living in Medicine Hat, happily married with two children, amoxicillin order, Cheap generic amoxicillin, had a job as a social worker, was working on her master's degree and planning to go to law school, amoxicillin online without prescription. Buy no rx amoxicillin, But after being diagnosed and treated, including electric shock, find cheap amoxicillin online, Cheap amoxicillin pharmacy, for depression, Funk-Robitaille was left a shell of her former self, cheap amoxicillin, Amoxicillin pharmacy online, unable to read, drive or even remember how to find her bathroom, amoxicillin without rx. Cheap amoxicillin on internet, She had lost almost a lifetime of memories, including knowing her husband and sons, buy cheap amoxicillin online.
In the years since, she has been able to recover to a degree, thanks largely to the support of her husband, Dan Robitaille, amoxicillin online without prescription. Generic amoxicillin cheap, But she has discovered she is not the only one who feels scarred by psychiatric treatment and he's started a support group called Crusaders Against Psychiatry.
"I would like to see ECT (electroconvulsive therapy or shock treatment) banned and some kind of tighter control on psychiatrists, buy amoxicillin internet, Amoxicillin online sales, " she says. "I want other people to realize this could happen to you."
Members of her group, amoxicillin tablet, Compare amoxicillin prices, CAP, believe psychiatry "is a brainwashing technique which damages the brain and destroys memory, amoxicillin online review, Buy amoxicillin overnight delivery, " she says.
"I think mental health care is a scam, buy amoxicillin us. Amoxicillin online without prescription, Professionals are in it to make money."
Robitaille's treatment began after a visit to a doctor whom she'd never seen before to treat a sore throat. No prescription amoxicillin, She had been under considerable stress because she had recently been raped at work. That, buy amoxicillin online, Best price amoxicillin, a heavy workload and the pain of a sore throat caused her to burst into tears in the doctor's office. The doctor determined she might be suffering from depression and prescribed Prozac, find no rx amoxicillin. Amoxicillin drug, Side effects of the antidepressant drug, affecting her sleep and eating patterns, amoxicillin overnight, Amoxicillin medication, made her feel worse and Funk-Robitaille's treatment snowballed to include more medication and eventually ECT.
After 43 shock treatments in a 14 month period and dozens of pills, she knew she needed a change, amoxicillin online without prescription.
"I decided this was not the way to live, cheap amoxicillin in usa, Amoxicillin vendors, " Funk-Robitaille says. "I flushed the pills down the toilet."
Then she went to a psychiatrist in Calgary who determined she no longer needed treatment, order amoxicillin no prescription, Order discount amoxicillin, but said her amnesia was probably permanent.
Now living in Lethbridge, buy discount amoxicillin, Amoxicillin cheap price, Funk-Robitaille has re-learned most life skills and had another baby three years ago.
But life is still a struggle, buy amoxicillin low price, Amoxicillin online stores, she says
Many memories have been lost and some of her abilities, such as with math, cheapest amoxicillin online, Amoxicillin no rx required, are impaired. Amoxicillin online without prescription, "I can't remember my older sons' (ages 15 and 17) births or our wedding," she says. "I have a record in my picture albums and diaries, but it' not the same."
She thought her experience was an isolated incident until she saw a television talk show about the same thing happening to other people.
"I couldn't believe it," she says thought I was the only one. Then I knew there had to be other people this area who'd had bad experience and want to survive."
She has gone on local talk show herself, and is planning to publish, book on her experience.
"(Psychiatric treatment) took away my career, my past is gone and my future is shaky," she says.
"I just want to raise my family a give them the best life possible. And I want to tell others to be careful of people who they think can help the cope with life. Find alternatives to taking chemicals."
And she wants people who have had damaging treatment to know "there is hope for survival after psychiatry." For more information about CAP people may call Funk Robitaille at 381-6582.
Similar posts: Buy tentex royal without prescription. Buy theophylline without prescription. Buy tindamax without prescription. Buy tizanidine without prescription. Buy t-ject 60 without prescription. Buy tofranil without prescription. Buy toprol xl without prescription. Buy toradol without prescription. Buy torsemide without prescription. Buy trental without prescription.
Trackbacks from: Amoxicillin online without prescription. Buy clindamycin gel without prescription. Black cialis without a prescription. Penis growth pills online without prescription. Viagra oral jelly without a prescription. Buy nolvadex without prescription. Acomplia online without prescription. Buy epivir without prescription. Nolvadex online without prescription. Buy flucort cream without prescription.
Added: July 17, 2006 |
2 Comments
Melatonin online without prescription, by Joannie Schrof Fischer
US News
At age 63, the native New Yorker knows she has a wonderful life. Melatonin overnight, After all, she has a sweetheart of a husband, find discount melatonin online, Melatonin free sample, gorgeous grandkids, and a pack o fun-loving friends, find discount melatonin. Melatonin online stores, That's why, after months of medication failed to stop her suicidal thoughts, order cheap melatonin, Buy melatonin online australia, she asked her husband to drive her to Hillside Hospital on Long Island. There, where to order melatonin, Cheap melatonin without prescription, last Thursday at 10 a.m. she was put to sleep and given a dose a electroconvulsive therapy, buy melatonin no prescription required, Melatonin australia, or ECT. Five minutes later, she woke up from the anesthesia and from her persistent comalike depression, melatonin online without prescription. "Thirty years ago, melatonin generic, Buy melatonin generic, I was afraid to get ECT," she recalls, melatonin no rx. Melatonin online without prescription, "This time, I begged for it."
The procedure she feared a generation ago and the one she's eager for today are hardly the same treatment, buy melatonin online without prescription. Order melatonin from us, More than 100,000 patients receive ECT each year and according to this month's American Journal of Psychiatry, find no rx melatonin, Cheapest melatonin price, the latest refinements of ECT are producing consistent and dramatic results. Yet despite her appreciation, cheap melatonin tablet, Cheap melatonin internet, despite the surgeon general's recent endorsement of the therapy, and despite the fact that no other depression treatment has ever beaten ECT's 70 percent to 90 percent success rate, order melatonin on internet, Melatonin online sale, this patient will not give her name. Melatonin online without prescription, 'You should see the look in people's eyes when I tell them," she says. "They think I'm a freak, cheapest melatonin prices, Melatonin medicine, like Frankenstein, so I've learned to keep it a secret."
In some ways, melatonin for sale, Drug melatonin, Jack Nicholson is to blame. His 1975 portrayal of a patient subjected to a 1940s form of ECT in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest created an enduring image that is graphic, buy melatonin once daily, Cost melatonin, compelling -- and misleading. For instance, melatonin professional, Find cheap melatonin online, Nicholson's character, Randle McMurphy, melatonin drug, Buy melatonin internet, was awake; today's patients receive a short-acting sedative and sleep. McMurphy was held down by a half-dozen men in white coats while he convulsed violently; now, find melatonin no prescription required, Melatonin cheap drug, patients take a muscle relaxant and lie mostly still. Large white mitts sent jolts of electricity coursing through MeMurphy's body; today, quarter-size patches deliver a current of between 0.5 and 0.9 amps, far less than, say, the 20 amps in a typical living room socket, melatonin online without prescription. The average patient today receives between six and 12 sessions of ECT, melatonin cheapest price. Cheap melatonin in usa, But even though modem ECT is a far cry from the barbarism of a half century ago, the controversy lives on, cheap melatonin no rx. Lowest price melatonin, Although a recent Mayo Clinic study found that 91 percent of ECT patients say they are glad to have received it, a small but vocal group of patients claim that ECT has robbed them of their memories, no rx melatonin. Because of such bad publicity over the years, many medical centers have dropped ECT entirely. Melatonin online without prescription, Today, few public or rural hospitals offer the treatment, and many doctors-in-training never even learn how to perform the procedure.
Memory loss. That is not to say that all concerns are unfounded. Like many treatments, says Columbia University's Harold Sackeim, ECT can have untoward side effects-especially memory loss, which is usually temporary, but not always. To this day Larry Wilson, a 54-year-old retired banker, has no recollection of the birthday bash his wife threw for him two years ago. But he says he doesn't mind: "The side effects of Prozac, like sexual dysfunction and nausea, seem worse to me than forgetting a few things." Sackeim and others are searching for ways to eliminate such side effects altogether, melatonin online without prescription. Until that happens, ECT will remain a treatment only to be used after psychotherapy and drugs have failed to alleviate a life-threatening depression.
Even though it's commonly called shock therapy, it's not the electricity that is therapeutic in ECT but the seizure-a rapid firing of neurons in the brain. If scientists can find a safer way to trigger those seizures, they can do away with the electricity. Some are trying to develop extremely powerful magnets that could be focused like a laser beam on particular groups of brain cells. Others are experimenting with a new technique called Vagus Nerve Stimulation, in which a tiny pacemakerlike device stimulates a nerve running through the neck to the brain. Texan Joanne Tesoriero is trying VNS now, even though a recent course of ECT successfully rid her of suicidal impulses. "I have no doubt that ECT saved my life, but I quit because I couldn't quite stomach the idea of it," she concedes. "I know it's silly, but I'm haunted by the sense that it's this primitive, inhuman thing.".
Similar posts: Buy zestoretic without prescription. Buy zetia without prescription. Buy zometa without prescription. Buy zyvox without prescription. Female pink viagra online without prescription. Viagra online without prescription. Gold viagra online without prescription. Viagra super force online without prescription. Viagra oral jelly online without prescription. Viagra plus online without prescription.
Trackbacks from: Melatonin online without prescription. Eflora cream without prescription. Buy lithium without prescription. Misoprostol without prescription. Buy norvasc without prescription. Buy diovan without prescription. Slimex (obetrim) online without prescription. Vasotec online without prescription. Lasix online without prescription. Buy omnicef without prescription.
Added: July 17, 2006 |
No Comments
Paxil online without prescription, Report from Mark Roberts
In the first of a series of monthly debates put on at the Institute of Psychiatry 400 people packet into the Wolfson Lecture theatre to hear the motion: This House believes Electro-Convulsive therapy is barbaric and ineffective. Cheap paxil from canada, This took place on January 26th 2000.
Prior to the Debate, discount paxil without prescription, Cheap paxil in uk, about 20 user/survivors held a candlelit vigil outside the Institute. They held up a rather fetching blue and silver banner which read STOP SHOCKING OUR BRAINS, paxil no rx required. Paxil, People entering were leafleted with an explanation why members of ECT-Anon had boycotted the debate. Pat Butterfield had written to the Debate Chair Raj Persaud saying "There is already enough literature and proof that ECT is harmful to an unacceptable number of people and therefore we believe it is time to stop debating and work towards ensuring that this "treatment" is at the very least strictly controlled, if not banned, as is the case in Italy and Norway."
Raj Persaud introduced a video of an ECT session to show how much less dramatic "modern" ECT is for an observer - rather than the enormous and dangerous seizures that used to be induced before muscle relaxants were introduced in the 1960's, paxil online without prescription. We were told that the Department of Health have recently started collecting figures of treatments - after a 10 year gap - and between January and March 1999, paxil without rx, Compare paxil prices, 2800 patients were given ECT, of which 1900 were women, cheapest paxil. Buy cheap paxil internet, Judi Clements of MIND proposed the motion. She said that there is no place for such a controversial treatment in modern psychiatry, buy paxil low price. Discount paxil online, And it should go the way of other inhumane treatments like camphor-induced shock and cold baths. Paxil online without prescription, Experts were quoted as saying that doctors have no idea how it works and that it is now recognised that it causes lasting brain damage. Andy Bithell of ECT-Anon was quoted "ECT is horrible, paxil buy drug, Buy paxil from india, like walking through a long, dark tunnel with only a new torch to guide you."
Judi gave a balanced picture of what users say about the treatment - a UKAN survey revealed 53% saying it was damaging or not helpful, cheap paxil on internet, Paxil pharmacy online, while 30% said it helped. A MIND survey put this the other way round 37% saying it was unhelpful while 43% saying it was helpful, paxil online review. Order paxil without prescription, She concluded by saying ECT was so risky that it should be consigned, like insulin coma, paxil buy, Paxil pharmacy, to the historical dustbin of past medical practice.
Psychiatrist Dr Mark Salter spoke against the motion, order paxil no rx, Paxil cheap price, saying that ECT was a treatment of last resort to be used in cases of extremely severe psychotic depression and that it saved lives. He thought it was very important that doctors retain their absolute scientific objectivity and do not bow to emotion or passion or - it seemed public opinion, paxil online without prescription. He spoke scathingly of the public - saying "the public do not give a damn (about mental illness)", order no rx paxil. Canadian pharmacy paxil, Although he admitted the treatment was crude - it was not as crude as it used to be, yet "brain damage was severe for a small group." Formerly the treatment, cheap paxil pill, Paxil from india, unmodified, was brutal, compare paxil prices online, Buy no rx paxil, but it is essential to retain this treatment as a life-saver, and "not to throw the therapeutic baby out with the bathwater", buy paxil us. Paxil no prescription, Psychologist Lucy Johnstone spoke about her work in marshalling the evidence that ECT is effective. She offered to supply us with a reading list, cheap generic paxil, Paxil canada, and said that some research does not get published unless it fits the prevailing orthodoxy. Paxil online without prescription, She concluded that there is no hard evidence that it does work in curing depression. And it causes a massive amount of damage, paxil buy online. Find cheap paxil, Is this worth it to help a small minority. she asked, order paxil from canada. Buy paxil on line, Dr Tom Stuttaford, former MP and GP and Times Health Correspondent, paxil prices, Drug paxil online purchase, said that although ECT was not "first choice in the armoury" he had seen the treatment "save lives and save sanity". And a third of his patient list had been in a psychiatric hospital, paxil online without prescription.
-From the floor, cheap paxil no prescription, Cost of paxil, I asked whether it was significant that the pro-ECT lobby were both men, when women receive a disproportionate amount of ECT, free paxil, and there are gender issues here which had not been mentioned. And how come more men than women kill themselves. Dr Stuttaford put this down to the effect of ECT saving lives among women and the fact that women are more likely to come forward than are men. So while he seemed to be suggesting that men should receive more ECT, that does not explain why women make more suicide attempts than men. Paxil online without prescription, Nor does it explain why when there are now more men than women on acute wards, men are not getting this apparently effective treatment. Perhaps there is something else going on - like a male-dominated psychiatry more willing to "punish" women on the wards, than they are to men.
A former social worker and mental welfare officer made some powerful comments that ECT is not the only barbaric treatment in psychiatry. He said "We are not televisions to be bashed when we go wrong, but we are human beings." And he suggested that treatments should not be the doctor's choice but the patient's choice. And he also quote former Health Secretary Frank Dobson who had apparently said "mental patients are often a nuisance. Sometimes they are a bloody nuisance."
Communicate's Denise McKenna said that her experience of ECT had left her traumatised, paxil online without prescription. It also gave her a manic episode. And it had destroyed her memory.
Another person from the floor said of ECT "Women are crying out that they do not want it any more."
Statistician Margaret Jessup MBE (chair of Lewisham Users Forum) said that she would not have consented to ECT if she had been given the full information, especially the dangers about Memory Loss.
The Result
The Voting was as follows:
Before The Debate % After The Debate % For the motion (anti ECT) 69 17.25 94 23.50 Against the motion (pro ECT) 135 33.75 138 34.50 Abstentions 53 13.25 38 9.50 Presumed did not vote (estimate) 143 35.75 130 32.50 Total 400 100 400 100
Conclusion
Motion not carried
We would not have expected a debate on ECT at the Institute of Psychiatry - a bastion of orthodox psychiatry in the UK, to have come out against it. Paxil online without prescription, Although there were a considerable number of user/survivors in the audience, the overall result was not really surprising. However the non-voters and people who abstained at the beginning and then added to the anti-ECT lobby - which showed a significant rise at the end was surprising. Perhaps floaters were persuaded by the arguments of Judi Clements and Lucy Johnstone which were better presented. Perhaps they were persuaded too by the testimony of survivors which rarely seems to filter through to psychiatrists.
However user/survivors afterwards observed that this was not a motion that it was easy to vote for because it was not framed accurately enough. There are many people who consider that ECT is harmful, crude and even barbaric, paxil online without prescription. But there are very few who consider it totally ineffective.
Afterwards users speculated that a better Motion would have been: This house believes that ECT is a crude treatment which is too risky to continue because its effectiveness for some, is outweighed by the permanent harm that it does to many. And tantalisingly, would such a Motion have been passed at the Institute. More excitingly though, user/survivors are rubbing their eyes in disbelief as some see a powerful wind of change blowing through psychiatry. Fuelled by Government pressures, constant survivor nagging, and fired internally by the new wave of Critical Psychiatry, this could be something big - only time will tell. But Professor Robin Murray, incoming Chair of the Institute was observed to vote for the Motion that ECT is barbaric and ineffective.
Mark Roberts - Common Agenda Project Worker - GLAD.
Similar posts: Female cialis online without prescription. Tramadol online without prescription. Levitra online without prescription. Levitra jelly online without prescription. Soma online without prescription. Propecia online without prescription. Xenical online without prescription. Prozac online without prescription. Ultram online without prescription. Clomid online without prescription.
Trackbacks from: Paxil online without prescription. Buy atripla without prescription. Crestor without a prescription. Protonix without a prescription. Buy serpina without prescription. Buy emla without prescription. Buy atarax without prescription. Buy asendin without prescription. Buy mysoline without prescription. Asendin online without prescription.
Added: July 17, 2006 |
No Comments
Zithromax online without prescription, Dear Sirs,
Mental Health Bill: For the Consultation Process
I have been unable to access the area of the official website which contains the Draft Bill law, but my understanding is, the following is set to apply re.
'Electro-convulsive therapy (ECT) (Draft Bill clauses 118-120)'
"The Bill would allow ECT to be given without consent if it were expressly authorised by the Tribunal, or where it constituted urgent treatment. The Tribunal would be able to authorise ECT irrespective of whether the person had capacity to consent.
"The procedure for urgent treatment does not require prior approval and it allows two applications of the treatment. The treatment must be immediately necessary to save the patient's life, prevent a serious deterioration in his or her condition, Buy cheapest zithromax, alleviate serious suffering, or prevent violent behaviour or danger to self or others." (From: http://www.mind.org.uk/take_action/Campaigns/Brief_Draft_Mental_Health_Act.asp)
I write in order that it cannot be claimed the government is unaware of material implications of the proposals to give ECT to "prevent violent behaviour or danger to self or others." What clauses 118-120 actually indicate is the calculated intent to diminish with ECT a person's mental capacity to perform acts that the person would want to perform otherwise.
Consideration must be given to how ECT subdues the violent or restrains the dangerous, zithromax online without prescription. ECT is not direct physical restraint; it acts on the brain. Logically the only way a procedure that works on the brain could control and restrain is by its impact on mental capacity. In truth, no matter the ostensible reason for the prescription of ECT, an inherent capability to subdue exists in a procedure which constricts thinking as when it diminishes the ability of recipients to entertain wishes or thoughts of death. (Prudic and Sackeim, zithromax online without a prescription, 1999) Decreased thinking from ECT is what prevents violence to self. Zithromax online without prescription, Although the professionals say they lack knowledge of the mechanisms by which seizures alter mental functions, two prominent psychiatrists have categorically stated that ECT 'saves lives' (sic) by so contracting the ability to think suicidal recipients "are extremely unlikely, at least in the short term, to manifest suicidal ideation or intent." ('Electroconvulsive Therapy and Suicide Risk,' Prudic and Sackeim, J. Clin. Psychiatry 1999:60 (Suppl 2))
According to Professor Appleby, "The main aim of the proposed legislation is to improve safety for people who are at risk, particularly for patients themselves. Sometimes there are people who feel very suicidal but who in a legal sense still have capacity. Zithromax sale, We have to make sure that they receive the treatment they need." (http://societytalk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?128@188.ajWeayy2ra0.0@.3ba73fb4) In consequence of the "wish to make sure that they receive the treatment they need" patients are to be subjected to a procedure which retards the mind. ECT's 'mind control' mode of action is decidedly questionable even as therapy, and in implying that people "need" mind control the government takes a less than reputable stance, zithromax online without prescription. High-flown rhetoric such as "improve safety...for patients themselves" fails to disguise the fact that a population who will be denied the rights and the effective means to defend themselves are to be cynically exploited.
As for danger to others, restrictions on freedom of expression (Article 10 of the ECHR) are permitted in the interests of public safety, but to slide into law a restriction that is effected through brain regulation is stretching things in relation to the Human Rights Act 1998. ECT contracts all thinking and as action cannot occur if thought has been nullified so ECT also contracts the behavioural repertoire, to include aggressive acts. ECT given to subjugate an individual's mind in order that others might benefit is particularly questionable, zithromax without prescription. Zithromax online without prescription, There can be no recourse to the argument that this is therapy for the person thus treated, as is possible where safeguarding health by limiting someone's freedom of expression in suicide is concerned.
Psychiatrists are very aware of the importance of assuring the public that ECT is a soundly based treatment. The official (RCP) position on ECT for violent behaviour is that:
"There is no case for prescribing ECT to alleviate violent or offending behaviour per se. For a few patients who are suffering from a psychotic illness which has not quickly responded to antipsychotic medication, and where antisocial acts arise directly from psychosis, ECT may limit the acts by alleviating this." ('The ECT Handbook, 1995, Where to buy zithromax, p. 30)
Of particular note is the absence of evidence for ECT to "limit the acts" even in psychotic illness, as:
"Only one study seems to have made explicit a possible specific advantage for ECT for those with violent propensities. Smith et al (1967) noted that among people with schizophrenia the problems that responded most significantly and favourably to an ECT / chlorpromazine combination...were hostility (not violence) and ideas of persecution." (p, zithromax online without prescription. 30; emphasis added)
Of the Home Office / Department of Health conditions that will govern any decision to apply compulsion, concerning the 'appropriate treatment is available' condition, no basis for claiming patients would be protected from inappropriate treatment exists in circumstances lacking evidence of appropriateness (or even evidence the procedure is 'medical' in the accepted sense). (Para. 2.9) Clearly, zithromax no online prescription, anecdotal accounts referring to ECT which subdues, quieten, restrains, etc., drive ill-considered intent.
When it comes to the universally unpopular government diagnosis of DSPD, Buy generic zithromax online, absence of clinical justification for ECT is glaringly apparent. Zithromax online without prescription, Although DSPD isn't mentioned in the Draft Bill, violence and danger to others are, along with the proposals for ECT as a preventive measure irrespective of either capacity to consent or 'illness.'
One consequence of the future intentions where ECT is concerned is to throw into doubt the accuracy of the RCP statement that ECT limits antisocial acts due to its effectiveness in treating diseases that are characterised by aggression or violence as symptoms of mental illness. The mode of action of ECT that is going to count by far the greatest is its impact on mental capacity and not its impact on psychosis (or whichever illnesses allegedly have aggression, violence and dangerousness as symptoms). Under the single definition of mental disorder, people with personality disorders will assuredly end up being treated exactly the same as those with any and every conceivable mental, neurological or social disorder, meaning diagnosis becomes flagrantly the means to effect a 'mind control' objective.
According to Louis Appleby, low cost zithromax, "As now, powers of compulsion will only be used for those who present a serious risk to themselves or others." (http://society.guardian.co.uk/societyguardian) But is it entirely correct to describe the proposals as in no way more draconian than the 1983 act. It seems one test of the appetite in Whitehall for more draconian powers resides in what is being said about ECT to "limit the acts," compared with present usage. In the light of denial by psychiatrists that they currently use ECT for purposes other than to treat illness, any use of ECT for non-medical purposes would be more draconian, zithromax online without prescription.
The youth of this country are understandably wary of what the new laws could mean for them. According to the findings, Find zithromax online, revealed on 13.9.02, from a relevant MIND survey of 1,000 people, "concerns about the measures were even higher amongst the young, where 52% said they would not seek medical help for a mental health problem." (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/2253358.stm) Plainly, in relation to danger to self or others, it is widely believed that there exists the potential for increased use of compulsory treatments in the under 20 age group. I must therefore point out that:
a) The WHO draft legislative manual opposes ECT for young people even as treatment and the law in at least two US states restricts use of ECT with minors (see Appendix), order cheap zithromax online. b) Absence of evidence the treatment is appropriate is compellingly relevant to ECT for young minds. Zithromax online without prescription, In response to Consultation Point 3.10: The Government would welcome your views on these proposals to extend legal protections to children while respecting parents' rights to make decisions about their children's treatment, I stress the lack of knowledge of ECT's long term adverse effects on the personality of the young recipient. It is especially noteworthy that pro-ECT researchers Walter, Rey and Mitchell have stated,
"There is no published data about the experience and attitudes of adolescent recipients of ECT, or their parents, regarding their treatment. Zithromax sales, However, in a recent survey of 26 patients who received ECT in adolescence, and 28 parents, we found that overall ECT was viewed favourably." ('Practitioner Review: Electroconvulsive Therapy in Adolescents, J. Child Psychol. Psychiat 40:3, 1999)
ECT was indeed viewed favourably, zithromax bangkok, but the survey Walter et al.. mention reported of adolescent recipients three years on from the ECT experience that they were socially inadequate, living on welfare benefits, "chronically ill [and] functionally impaired...." ('Electroconvulsive therapy in adolescents: experience, knowledge and attitudes of recipients,' Walter, Koster and Rey, J, zithromax online without prescription. Amer. Acad. Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 38, 1999). Zithromax price, Lasting functional impairment following treatment and all that this implies is conveniently dismissed as 'continuing mental illness,' but interpretation by pro-ECT psychiatrists does not constitute proof of cause of functional impairment or that ECT ought to be being viewed favourably. Zithromax online without prescription, Besides, 'continuing mental illness' is actually an admission that the treatment hasn't worked and effectiveness in the age group in question is undemonstrated, for:
"No scientific evidence based on controlled evaluations supports the use of ECT with children and adolescents. No data exist to support the use of ECT in preference to other less invasive treatments." ('Shock Story,' Nursing Times, Barker and Baldwin, February 21, Vol. 86, cheap price zithromax, No. 8, 1990
In the matter of adolescent ECT, legal protection as envisaged would not be adequate. To repeat, there is no backing from controlled studies, Cheap zithromax from usa, reliably applied criteria or valid assessment scales in short, no body of scientific knowledge. Therefore, parents should not be able to use the law to force ECT onto anyone whose brain and personality are still developing, and no government should countenance mind control 'treatment' where immaturity further compounds the dubious suppositions surrounding such a measure, zithromax online without prescription.
In the absence of medical evidence generally, although the expertise of the experts of experience is treated with contempt, ECT survivors are the only ones in a position to counsel the government on the ways in which ECT that subdues and controls actually works. As noted, important questions being avoided include the question of what ECT really does to personality and functioning.
As for the ethics of the proposals, buy zithromax cheap, to ignore the ethical dimension is folly. In a Sunday Times article which appeared on 24.1.1999 ('Psychiatrists accused of serial rapes') Lois Rogers reported, "One alleged victim, a 41-year old interpreter with two teenage children, claimed that Haslam ensured her compliance with repeated sex attacks by subjecting her to excessive amounts of electroconvulsive therapy...." (The reference is to retired a psychiatrist Michael Haslam, who is still being investigated for sexual assaults on female patients.)
The reasons ECT has the potential to facilitate rape is because:
a) ECT concusses and head trauma often leaves recipients with such poor judgement (Breggin, Zithromax tablet, 1998 see Appendix) they place themselves in dangerous situations. Zithromax online without prescription, b) The ECT impact on brainwaves increases suggestibility and can result in pathological ductility.
Concerning impact on brainwaves, Grey Walter reported:
"The only characteristic of behaviour which was significantly correlated with the presence of delta activity was...a relatively promising attitude.... ... Consideration...has suggested that the common factor related statistically to delta rhythms is a comparatively docile attitude to suggestions from others. The terms 'malleable', 'easily helped', 'easily led' were used, zithromax non prescription, and the word that seems most apt and free from irrelevant or misleading associations is 'ductile.' ('The Living Brain,' Penguin Books, 1961, p. 182)
Psychiatrists have observed yielding, agreeable, easier patients after ECT, and they acknowledge that ECT induces increased delta activity, zithromax online without prescription. The 'Handbook of ECT' (Kellner et al., American Psychiatric Press, Zithromax approved, 1997) reports that "Increased predominance of delta activity on interictal EEG is seen as a function of the number of ECT treatments given in a course of ECT and their rate of administration. (Fink 1979)."
In reality, what the nature of interictal EEG changes is a function of is interpretation. It should not be assumed that a large number of treatments is essential to effect extensive EEG changes. According to Professor Robert Kendell:
"If bilateral electrodes are used paroxysmal delta activity starts to appear in the frontal leads after the first two or three treatments and becomes steadily more prominent and extensive thereafter." ('The Present Status of Electroconvulsive Therapy,' Brit. Zithromax online without prescription, J. Psychiat. (1981), best price for zithromax, 139)
Nor should it be assumed that increased delta activity is therapeutic, as this hasn't been demonstrated and such activity is by no means universally accepted as therapeutic. In fact, Laverne Johnson et al. pointed out that: "With the exception of Fink and his co-workers, there has been almost complete unanimity in the finding that clinical improvement was not related to post-ECT changes in the EEG or to pre-ECT patterns." ('Electroconvulsive Therapy (With and Without Atropine), Zithromax in bangkok, ' Arch Gen. Psychiat., Vol, zithromax online without prescription. 2., 1960)
'Clinical improvement' is a value judgement according to Professor Fink (see Appendix). Nevertheless, this leader in the field maintains that EEG changes are an index of efficacy, and he advocates the obtaining of an appropriate EEG sequence. By rights, the fact that ECT induces EEG changes with the potential to create victims vulnerable to assault a potential one unscrupulous psychiatrist is accused of turning to advantage should have led to the conclusion the risks vastly outweigh benefits, tablet zithromax.
A key area of interpretation concerns durability of brainwave changes, which are said to be "transient." Therefore, I would add my own personal statement to that of the interpreter who claims ECT was employed to ensure her compliance with rape. Zithromax online without prescription, Whether or not ECT is actively employed for this purpose, I will say that it facilitates all types of victimisation, from scapegoating to rape.
I am a woman who stood there unable to say "No!" when faced with rape eight years after ECT was used. I had been a fighter as a child, yet I let a little man with a little penknife have things all his own way. Zithromax overnight delivery, I wasn't frightened of him, rather permanent ECT-inflicted ductility prevented appropriate action in word or deed. My mental capacity to resist rape having been diminished, it transpired my behavioural repertoire was lastingly contracted. (I received compensation from the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board, i.e, zithromax online without prescription. the fact of rape may not be discounted.)
The point I am making is that although it is true ECT renders people docile and suggestible, those proposing to give ECT to prevent violent behaviour or danger to others cannot afford to ignore the various ramifications of their stated intention. Does the proposed removal of "the problem in the current Act that people with mental impairment or psychopathic disorder need to fulfil a requirement that 'treatment is likely to alleviate or prevent a deterioration of this condition'" (para. 2.11) mean the pretence ECT is of therapeutic benefit to the recipient disappears in tandem, cheapest generic zithromax online.
This being how things appear, and how they would in any case operate in practice given that the requirement for treatment to be of therapeutic benefit to the recipient will vanish, naturally the question arises as to whether treatment is envisaged, or punishment. Zithromax online without prescription, According to Abse, "the very nature of the treatment itself can produce the attitudes described. The success of EST principally in depressions is thus associated with hostile or punishing attitudes on the part of the therapist...." ('Transference and Countertransference in Somatic Therapies,' Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases, Buy zithromax overnight delivery, 1956)
Is the underlying justification actually meant to be of the eye-for-an-eye variety, with perpetrators to be turned into victims, themselves at risk of assault from others. As for would-be perpetrators, is it to be a matter of the authorities getting in a pre-emptive strike via doctors who swear to do no harm but who are nevertheless rendered hostile and punishing by ECT's very nature. In short, does the State intend health care which is more oppressive than legal sanctions and punishment. That being where the logic of the ECT proposals points, purchase zithromax online, I doubt anyone has thought the matter through at all carefully or considered reasonableness.
Government-sanctioned intent to subdue and make docile with ECT those deemed to require this type of 'management' implies the will to gross violations of Article 3, zithromax online without prescription. It is obvious psychiatrists (and now officials in Whitehall with a duty to promote public health) are fully aware that ECT is a system not of health but of control, compulsion, restraint and punishment. I find it remarkable that the government should need to be reminded of Article 3 of the ECHR:
No one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
Yours faithfully, Best price zithromax, Appendix Supplementary Material
… According to Dr. Peter Breggin (a psychiatrist who wishes to see ECT banned),
"Head-injury victims, including post-ECT patients, frequently develop an organic personality syndrome with shallow affect, poor judgment, irritability, and impulsivity, buying zithromax. Zithromax online without prescription, They seem "changed" or "different" to people around them, much as lobotomy patients often seem to their families. Sometimes they become slightly clumsy, moving awkwardly or dropping things. Often they have "lapses" where they cannot think or cannot voice their thoughts. Sometimes their handwriting deteriorates. Headaches frequently begin with the traumatic treatment and may recur indefinitely. "Many post-ECT patients suffer from irreversible generalized mental dysfunction with apathy, deterioration of social skills, trouble focusing attention, and difficulties in remembering new things., zithromax online without prescription. I have evaluated a number who have suffered from dementia, Zithromax in uk, confirmed by neuropsychological testing. Several have developed partial complex seizures or psychomotor epilepsy, permanently abnormal EEGs, and atrophy as measured by brain scans. Many have been deprived of the experience of years of their lives, their professional careers, and their mental ability following ECT." ('Electroshock: scientific, ethical, find zithromax, and political issues,' Peter R. Breggin, International Journal of Risk & Safety in Medicine 11 (1998) 5-40, IOS Press)
… Professor Kendell (1981) has pointed out that, "A course of ECT almost invariably produces extensive EEG changes" and Dr. Zithromax online without prescription, Breggin mentions permanently abnormal EEGs following head trauma. Buy zithromax pills, If ECT is head trauma how likely is it that the inevitable ECT-induced EEG changes are transient in an overwhelming majority of cases, given:
"Williams (1941) has shown that the E.E.G. may remain abnormal for many years after a head injury and has demonstrated a relationship between E.E.G. abnormalities and the severity of the injury, as judged by the length of post-traumatic amnesia." ('Electro-Encephalographic Studies of Psychopathic Personalities,' Denis Hill and Donald Watterson, J. Neurol, zithromax vendors. and Psychiat., 5-6, 1942-3)
… Professor Max Fink, writing on ECT to 'improve' behaviour, has provided indication that so-called 'therapeutic' EEG changes are a matter of opinion, zithromax online without prescription.
"Behavioral change is a consistent accompaniment of alteration in cerebral function. Changes in mood, language, attitude, judgment, thought process, Zithromax in malaysia, perception, and insight attend changes in cerebral function, from whatever cause.... "In this study, electroshock has been shown consistently to alter the electroencephalogram in a fashion which we have come to associate with states of altered cerebral function. The studies of Davis and Davis (1939), Ostow and Strauss (1953), Ostow and Ostow (1946), cheap zithromax pharmacy, and Jung (1954) have affirmed the significance of diffuse delta activity as an index of altered brain function.. Zithromax online without prescription, Symmetric dysrhythmic delta activity has been interpreted as evidence of dysfunction of midline hypothalamic centres the centrencephalic system (Ostow and Strauss, 1953). Such activity is also indicative of an alteration in the state of consciousness, more marked alteration being directly related to the duration, amplitude, and frequency of the slow-wave activity. The demonstrated relationship between induced delta activity and behavioral response after electroshock, Zithromax india, therefore, permits the conclusion that changes to the centrencephalic system with attendant alteration in consciousness are the physiologic basis of the electroshock process. ... "These studies of the electroshock process have demonstrated that alteration in brain function is induced early and is sustained in patients in whom the greatest degree of behavioral change is noted. .., zithromax online without prescription. "We have been impressed that the ratings of improvement are value judgments of the behavioral response. All patients in whom cerebral changes are induced by electroshock manifest changes in behavior. The range of behavioral patterns induced under these conditions is wide. .., pharmacy zithromax. Zithromax online without prescription, "Improvement" is a special case of behavioral response, being a subjective evaluation on the part of the observer that the patient is "better." Electroshock does not induce "improvement"; it induces a milieu of cerebral activity in which behavior is different than before electroshock. To the extent that the induced behavior in depressed patients is perceived as less complaining, or anxious, or in schizophrenic patients as less delusional, hallucinatory, or excited, the patient is evaluated as "improved." When behavior, Buy zithromax cheap, however, is perceived as anxious, agitated, paranoid, complaining, or withdrawn, it is evaluated as "unimproved." The particular type of behavioral pattern induced by electroshock is dependent on a number of factors, such as personality, find zithromax on internet. "Another aspect of the rating of improvement is the environmental response to the induced behavior. The modification of mutism, withdrawal, and negativism to excitement, overactivity, and irritability may be considered a positive movement by the therapist but a disorganization by the ward physician or family." ('Relation of EEG delta activity to behavioral response in electroshock: Quantitative serial studies, Cheap zithromax internet, ' Fink and Kahn, Arch. Neurol. Psychiatry, 1957, 78:516-525)
… Restrictions on use of ECT with minors: Texas law stipulates:
§ 578.002, zithromax online without prescription. Use of Electroconvulsive Therapy (a) Electroconvulsive therapy may not be used on a person who is younger than 16 years of age. (b) Unless the person consents to the use of the therapy in accordance with Section 578.003, electroconvulsive therapy may not be used on: (1) a person who is 16 years of age or older and who is voluntarily receiving mental health services; or (2) an involuntary patient who is 16 years of age or older and who has not been adjudicated by an appropriate court of law as incompetent to manage the patient's personal affairs. (c) Electroconvulsive therapy may not be used on an involuntary patient who is 16 years of age or older and who has been adjudicated incompetent to manage the patient's personal affairs unless the patient's guardian of the person consents to the treatment in accordance with Section 578.003. The decision of the guardian must be based on knowledge of what the patient would desire, approved zithromax pharmacy, if known. Zithromax online without prescription, Added by Acts 1993, 73rd Leg., ch. 705, § 5.01.
… Respecting medication employed to "limit the acts," as with ECT, there is no established indication for any substance to control aggression even aggression as a mental illness symptom.
"Most clinical information on treating aggression has been collected for atypical neuroleptics, particularly for clozapine. ... At the moment, clozapine seems to be the first choice in aggression treatment, zithromax online without prescription. Within the last few years, about 10 articles were published showing that this is the most effective antiaggressive agent in the treatment of aggression and agitation in psychiatric patients, independent of psychiatric diagnosis. However, clozapine, like all the other substances used, does not have an established indication for the treatment of aggressive symptoms. ... Ethical, juridical and methodological problems prevent controlled studies from establishing a reference in the treatment of aggression in mentally ill patients." ('Psychopharmacological Treatment of Aggression in Schizophrenic Patients,' T. Brieden, M. Ujeyl and D. Naber, Pharmacopsychiatry 35, 2002).
Similar posts: Accutane online without prescription. Zoloft online without prescription. Nexium online without prescription. Wellbutrin sr online without prescription. Amoxicillin online without prescription. Kamagra online without prescription. Kamagra effervescent online without prescription. Kamagra oral jelly online without prescription. Melatonin online without prescription. Acomplia online without prescription.
Trackbacks from: Zithromax online without prescription. Glyburide without a prescription. Female cialis online without prescription. Buy actos without prescription. Buy viagra without prescription. Buy premarin without prescription. Buy diclofenac without prescription. Tindamax without prescription. Glucophage without prescription. Buy mojo maxx without prescription.
Added: July 17, 2006 |
No Comments
Cipro online without prescription, Sunday Times of London
DECEMBER 09 2001
It has a brutal history. We don't know how, or even if, it works. So why do we still give electric shocks for depression. Kathy Brewis investigates.
Some countries refuse to use it. Scientists have little idea how it works, and precious few doctors have been properly trained to administer it, cipro online without prescription. But in contrast with much of the rest of Europe, Buy cipro online, patients in Britain are routinely sedated and shot through with electricity, in an attempt to fix their troubled minds. The horror stories surrounding electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) abound. This is the poet Sylvia Plath's grimly eloquent account from her autobiographical novel The Bell Jar: ''Don't worry,' the nurse grinned down at me. 'Their first time, everybody's scared to death.' 'I tried to smile, but my skin had gone stiff, like parchment, buying generic cipro. Cipro online without prescription, Doctor Gordon was fitting two metal plates on either side of my head. He buckled them into place with a strap that dented my forehead, and gave me a wire to bite.
'I shut my eyes. There was a brief silence, like an indrawn breath. Then something bent down and took hold of me and shook me like the end of the world. Whee-ee-ee-ee-ee, it shrilled, through an air crackling with blue light, and with each flash a great jolt drubbed me till I thought my bones would break and the sap fly out of me like a split plant, cipro online without prescription. 'I wondered what terrible thing it was that I had done.'
In the popular mind, Compare cipro prices online, ECT is barbaric, a brutal abuse of power by men in white coats. Its portrayal in films such as One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest and famous real-life cases from the 1950s and 60s have only added to the guilty verdict. Ernest Hemingway, given about a dozen shocks in an attempt to ease his recurring depression, found the resulting memory loss unbearable and shot himself a few days later. 'What is the sense of ruining my head and erasing my memory, which is my capital, and putting me out of business?' he asked, order cipro from canada. Cipro online without prescription, Vivien Leigh underwent a series of shock treatments as part of a 'care' regime for manic depression, which left her, as her husband Laurence Olivier put it, with 'slight but noticeable personality changes... She was not, now that she had been given the treatment, the same girl that I had fallen in love with'.
So far, so damning. So how can ECT continue to be used as a treatment for depression, albeit with modifications (now the patient is anaesthetised, Cipro malaysia, and a muscle relaxant is given to prevent the body jolting and possible broken bones). The answer is simple: it is still used because most psychiatrists believe that it does some good - that it can even save lives. The Royal College of Psychiatrists, the professional body to which all psychiatrists belong, claims an 80% success rate for the estimated 12,000 Britons who receive ECT for severe depression each year, cipro online without prescription. But there is a reason why ECT has been so demonised, beyond the violent images and a level of distrust of psychiatrists: nobody has adequately explained what goes on when those 220 volts zip through your brain. 'It works, we're just not sure how,' psychiatrists say. One doctor described it thus: 'Psychiatrists are constrained to tuning very high-tech internal combustion engines, but they are only allowed to listen to the exhaust note, purchase cipro no rx. Sometimes slamming the bonnet makes it go. Cipro online without prescription, If it works, why not?' Which sounds scarily cavalier.
There has, however, been a scientific drive to understand ECT. In recent years, various hypotheses have been put forward to explain how ECT might be acting on the brain, all of which assume that depression is a physical illness. Cheap cipro online, One theory is that inducing a seizure causes a shift in the body's neuroendocrine system so that stress hormones are kept in balance. Another is that artificially inducing a seizure somehow taps into the brain's natural ability to stop seizures. A third idea is that the electricity somehow changes the level of chemicals in the brain, cipro online without prescription. These are tiny pieces of an intricate jigsaw that may or may not fit together one day.
Now leading researchers here and in the United States are making an extraordinary claim: ECT works by causing brain cells to be renewed. It has been known since the mid-1990s that new nerve cells (neurones) form throughout a person's life in the hippocampus, a brain structure known to be involved in memory and emotion. An American team led by Professor Ronald Duman at Yale university, and others, suggest that depression, cipro in malaysia, particularly if it is stress-associated, results from the death of vulnerable neurones in a region of the hippocampus called CA3. Cipro online without prescription, Some of the features seen in depression, such as poor concentration and memory, could reflect this loss of nerve cells - indeed, brain scans of severely depressed patients show that the hippocampus is smaller than it should be. Both antidepressants and ECT have been shown to induce brain cells to produce a protein called brain-derived neurotropic factor (BDNF), which promotes the growth, repair and resilience of neurones. It has been observed that, following ECT, Cost cipro, new neurones form and existing ones sprout new connections. Various studies taken together have led to a dramatic hypothesis. 'The research suggests depression causes neuronal cells to be damaged and antidepressant treatments cause the neurones to be regenerated,' says Professor Ian Reid of Dundee university. 'It may be that some of the treatments that people think are rather crude are in fact quite effective rescuers of the dying neurone.'
If this turns out to be true, the potential applications could go beyond treating depression to more obvious neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases, cipro online without prescription.
ECT's origins go back to the turn of the 20th century, when mentally ill patients tended to be locked up in asylums and left. Psychiatrists started to experiment with a variety of new 'treatments' for the severely ill, including lobotomy and temporary, insulin-induced coma, find cipro. One doctor had the idea, based on the (untrue) belief that epilepsy and schizophrenia could not coexist, of injecting epileptics with serum from schizophrenic patients, and injecting schizophrenics with the stimulant Metrazol to induce a seizure. The latter was a hideous procedure - the patient would convulse violently and often vomit - but for mysterious reasons it tended to reduce the symptoms. Cipro online without prescription, In the 1930s, Ugo Cerletti, an Italian psychiatrist, wondered about using electricity as a way to induce a seizure more quickly than with Metrazol. With his assistant, Lucio Bini, Cheap cipro in uk, he experimented on dogs and found that, yes, electricity could indeed induce a fit. They also sent their assistants to observe pigs being stunned by electricity before slaughter - clearly it was important to get the dose right. By 1938, Cerletti and Bini felt ready to test their method on a human. Their subject was a Milanese man who had been found mumbling incoherently to himself in the railway station. Electrodes were applied to his temples, an orderly put a rubber tube between his teeth to stop him biting his tongue, and the electricity was applied, cipro online without prescription. The patient's muscles jolted but he was not rendered unconscious. 'Not again, cipro pills, it's murderous!' he pleaded - but they carried on. After several shocks they stopped, and he spoke more coherently. After 10 treatments, they claimed, the patient was released 'in good condition and well-oriented', and a year later he had not relapsed. Cipro online without prescription, Now, 63 years later, a refined version of ECT is the treatment of choice for severe depression that has not responded to other treatments, such as antidepressant drugs and psychotherapy. Cipro cheapest price, Each year, thousands of people receive ECT and quietly get on with their lives afterwards.
One such person is Professor John Lipton, 62, a university lecturer in the north of England. A softly spoken man, he describes how, 20 years ago, the pressures of academia led to a bout of depression so severe that he more or less ceased to function and finally attempted suicide, lowest price cipro. 'I bypassed the GP to the extent of overdosing and was taken to the local psychiatric hospital,' he says. 'I was lucky in that there was a new psychiatrist who had worked in research, cipro online without prescription. He suggested ECT. When you're depressed, you're not all that rational. You don't have confidence in your own judgment. You're in a high state of fear, Cipro side effects, so any rumours you've heard about treatment are likely to be accentuated. Cipro online without prescription, I knew that ECT can affect the memory badly. I thought it might damage my ability to work.' The psychiatrist suggested that Lipton should have unilateral treatment, with electrodes placed on one side of his head only, to cause less memory loss.
'You have a headache afterwards,' he recalls. 'It does affect your memory quite badly at the time. It's hard to tell if it's disorientating. If you are depressed, you're not really noticing much that's going on, anyway, cipro online without prescription. A colleague came to see me and it became apparent that he had visited me the previous week, cheapest cipro price, but I had no recollection of it.'
Lipton was in hospital for more than three months. Part of his recovery, he admits, may have been the removal of everyday pressures. 'I can only say that I gradually felt easier in a way that was other, more than just being in there. I began to see things in a more positive light. Cipro online without prescription, Actually, it's very civilised. Cipro discount, You walk along a corridor, wait outside the treatment room, you go in, lie down, they make you comfortable, and then they inject you. You wake up and you're on a trolley. You collect a series of little bruises from the injections. There's no doubt that your memory does suffer, buy cheap cipro, but I've survived perfectly well in academic practice for 20 years since.'
His memory impairment continues - though it is usually referred to in psychiatric literature as 'temporary'. 'I feel as though there's a part of my memory system that doesn't retain very well,' he says, cipro online without prescription. 'My wife will tell me things that I've said to her and I've no recollection of ever having known it, let alone said it. My capacity to remember things of a trivial sort has disappeared. If I want to be sure to remember something when I go home, I put a note in my sock. I associate it with that time because I had an exceptionally good memory before. Cipro online without prescription, But it doesn't seriously impinge on my life.' Not that he wants everybody to know about it, though - he asked that his name be changed for this article. Cipro from india, If this sounds like too easy an acceptance of the side effects of ECT, consider how bad a state Lipton was in before the treatment. His physical symptoms included stomach cramps, a constant feeling of heaviness, tiredness and anxiety and a perpetual state of terror. 'Everything frightens you and you don't know why you're frightened, but you are,' he says. The symptoms became worse, discount cipro overnight delivery, to the extent that he had to take a spare pair of socks to work every day because by mid-morning his feet were squelching around in perspiration. He also had severe dandruff, cipro online without prescription. Finally it was too much. 'I thought, 'I can't stand months of this, feeling permanently suicidal while I wander around hoping I might recover - let's get out of it now while I've still got the courage to do it.''
Yet ECT has many detractors. Campaigning bodies such as the Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR), an offshoot of the Church of Scientology (which is opposed to most aspects of psychiatry) wants ECT to be banned. Cipro bangkok, Brian Daniels from CCHR will tell you that ECT has been used in Nazi concentration camps and other heinous institutions. Cipro online without prescription, This may be true, but it misses the point. The answer to misuse is not non-use but correct use. Opponents also used to point to the broken bones resulting from ECT convulsions. Nowadays, however, thanks to the muscle relaxant, the only sign of the electricity passing across their brain is the patient's toes twitching. But this does mean that a higher dose of electricity is needed to obtain a seizure.
Daniels is adamant that ECT has no positive effect, cipro online without prescription. 'All they've done is numbed the person to the point where whatever was troubling them has been completely masked, cipro vendors. If you were bashed over the head with a sledgehammer and then told to walk off down the street, you'd walk off going, 'Ow, my head hurts,' but you wouldn't think about your problem.'
He points to people like Diana Turner, 55, who was in her 20s when she had six 'doses' of ECT at a clinic in Worthing, Price of cipro, West Sussex. 'Some of the other patients must have had far more than me; they were like zombies,' she recalls. Turner had gone to her GP complaining of headaches. Cipro online without prescription, Looking back, she says, they resulted from the tension of running a home; she had three children under the age of four. But she was diagnosed as suffering from depression and referred to a psychiatrist. 'On my second visit, he said, 'If you don't want to take tablets, I've got another treatment that might make you feel better.' So I said I'd try it.' She doesn't remember being told what it was, cheap cipro internet. She was taken to a clinic once a week.
'I lay down and I had to take my shoes off. They said, 'We're just going to give you an injection in the hand,' which they did, cipro online without prescription. The next I knew, I was being shook awake. I was in so much pain, my husband would have to undress me and put me to bed. It took about an hour for me to remember who I was and why I was there.' She returned five times. Cipro online, 'I thought you had to feel worse before you felt better,' she says. Cipro online without prescription, 'I was very, very naive in those days.' Finally her husband agreed that she shouldn't return to the clinic. She has memory problems now, including a blank spot that stretches across a year of her daughter's life, and has unsuccessfully tried to sue the clinic.
Pat Butterfield set up ECT Anonymous four years ago, after having ECT in 1989. All its 600 members insist that it has ruined or damaged their lives. It's not just the patients making such claims: their relatives back up their stories with statements like, order generic cipro, 'My wife isn't the same as she was.' 'Once [doctors] have given you ECT, they're not willing to acknowledge your experience. They'd much prefer to tell you it's your original illness that's giving you problems,' says Butterfield, cipro online without prescription. 'It [ECT] absolutely wrecks your psyche.' She claims most psychologists are against it. 'Psychologists get what's left of people after they've been through psychiatry.' (Psychiatrists are medically trained doctors; they tend to diagnose and treat depression as a physical ailment. Psychologists aim to help people surmount their symptoms by making sense of their experiences.)
One such psychologist is Lucy Johnstone. She is not popular with the medical profession. Cipro online without prescription, In a book published last year, Users and Abusers of Psychiatry, she suggested that problems such as depression and schizophrenia weren't illnesses at all but reactions to events in patients' lives. Two years ago, Buy cipro internet, she published a paper detailing the negative psychological effects of ECT. 'There was a lot of anecdotal stuff, so I decided to investigate what ECT is like if you find it an unpleasant experience,' she says. 'Not everyone finds it unpleasant, but there's a significant minority who do - up to a third. What I found was people reporting very strong negative reactions which had left them feeling they couldn't trust staff. They had to pretend to be better, to avoid having ECT again, cipro online without prescription. They used very strong terms like 'humiliated', 'assaulted', buy cipro lowest price, 'abused', 'shamed', 'degraded'. There's a lot of debate about whether ECT causes lasting intellectual damage, but this psychological damage seems to me to be just as important.'
Johnstone admits that she had a biased sample - of people who had responded to adverts specifically asking for subjects with negative experiences of ECT. 'Not everyone experiences ECT like that,' she admits. Cipro buy online, 'But if a significant number do, and if you can't work out in advance who those people are going to be, then you run a high risk of making people worse, not better.'
She believes that ECT and treatments like it have no place in the care of people suffering from depression. Cipro online without prescription, 'All the people I spoke to in my research said that, looking back, there were reasons why they were depressed: their mother had died, they were out of work. If that's the case, then obviously electricity through the brain isn't going to help.
If you think about it, there's no reason why an essentially random blow to the head should have a specific effect on some chemicals that may or may not be related to depression. It's so speculative that there's almost no logical chance of it being true, buy cipro no rx. In psychiatry, a lot of theories are stated as facts.'
Even within the psychiatric profession, there is wide dissent over the use of ECT. It is rarely used in Canada, Germany, Japan, China, the Netherlands and Austria, and Italy has passed a law restricting its use, cipro online without prescription. In the US, where more than 100,000 people are treated each year and numbers are increasing, we find one of its strongest critics: Peter Breggin, Cipro prescription, the director of the International Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology in Bethesda, Maryland. Breggin has been arguing against ECT since 1979. He says that it 'works' by causing a head injury. The aftereffects of such an injury are memory loss and temporary euphoria, which last for up to four weeks - effects that, he claims, can be mistaken for improvement by physicians and patients alike. Cipro online without prescription, Even those committed to using ECT admit that its efficacy varies. The Royal College of Psychiatrists has commissioned two surveys into the quality and scope of ECT treatment in England and Wales over the past 20 years, buy cheapest cipro online, both conducted by Dr John Pippard. The first, in 1981, made some appalling findings. 'Only one in four doctors received some tuition, but often not until after he had begun administering ECT,' Pippard noted; '27% of clinics had serious deficiencies such as low standards of care, Cipro rx, obsolete apparatus, unsuitable buildings. Included in these were 16% with very serious shortcomings: ECT was given in unsuitable conditions, with a lack of respect for the patients' feelings, by staff who were ill-trained, including some who consistently failed to induce seizures.'
On his return in 1992, Pippard found that ECT clinics had improved in terms of equipment and environment. But he concluded: 'There has been little change in the way psychiatrists in training are prepared for and supervised in what they do in the ECT clinic.' Elsewhere, he said: 'ECT requires more of the psychiatrist than just pushing a button.'
This is because patients' seizure thresholds vary up to 40-fold, cipro online without prescription. In other words, the level of electricity needed to induce a seizure varies dramatically from one individual to another, buy cheapest cipro. As far back as 1960 it was shown that the severity of side effects was proportional to the dose of electricity used. This may partly explain the negative experiences of some patients. If ECT were administered at the optimal seizure level for each patient, in ideal surroundings, its efficacy would almost certainly be improved. Cipro online without prescription, Practitioners admit that relapse rates are high. Nor is it universally accepted that ECT saves lives. The medical literature on suicide rates after treatment is inconsistent and, No rx cipro, in a recent review, Breggin claimed that ECT increased the suicide rate. 'Patients frequently find that their prior emotional problems have now been complicated by ECT-induced brain damage and dysfunction that will not go away,' he wrote. 'If their doctors tell them that ECT never causes any permanent difficulties, they become further confused and isolated, creating conditions for suicide.' He accuses the American medical profession of a cover-up - psychiatrists protecting their own interests to avoid being sued by former patients. In his view, ECT should be banned, cipro online without prescription.
Perhaps the thorniest issue in the ECT debate is consent. In Britain, canadian cipro, under the Royal College of Psychiatrists' guidelines, valid consent must be obtained from the patient - based on their understanding 'the purpose, nature, likely effects and risks of treatment in broad terms'. Under common law, valid consent is required before any medical treatment can be given, except where the law provides authority to give treatment without consent. Cipro overnight, According to the 1983 Mental Health Act, a person is presumed to have the capacity to make a decision unless he or she is considered unlikely to take in, or unable to believe or properly weigh up, the relevant information. Cipro online without prescription, In other words, if your doctors believe you aren't in a state to know what's best for you, they will make the decision for you.
As one formerly depressed person put it, 'If you're bad enough to need that sort of treatment, how can you possibly be in a state to make a sound judgment on it?' When it is deemed that any delay in treatment would be life-threatening, patients are treated without their consent. For this to happen, cipro cost, they must first be sectioned, a decision taken by two independent doctors and an independent, specially trained social worker, who must agree that there is no alternative. For ECT to be administered, the opinion of a third doctor must be sought. Still, Buy cipro no prescription required, treatment without consent is interpreted by some as the arrogance of the medical profession versus the powerlessness of the patient. The mental health charity Mind holds that nobody should have ECT against their wishes, whatever their mental capacity, cipro online without prescription.
However, a recent study by Dundee and Aberdeen universities had some surprising results: 150 patients who had received ECT two weeks earlier were asked: 'Did ECT help you?' Of these, 110 said yes. Of the 11 among them who had not consented, nine also said yes. It is possible that some try to give the 'right' answers to health-care professionals, and that two weeks after treatment they may be too confused to give a true answer. But it is hard to dismiss these findings, cipro sales. Cipro online without prescription, Think of the alternatives, and the desperate need of those to whom ECT is given. Cognitive behavioural therapy has proved as effective as antidepressant medication for moderate depression, but there is a long waiting list. Antidepressant drugs, on the other hand, are unsuitable for pregnant women, as they can affect the foetus, and they have side effects that the elderly are far less able to tolerate. For them, ECT is often prescribed instead.
A governmental committee set up in 1999 to investigate ECT as part of an overall review of the 1983 Mental Health Act recommended that it continue to be used, within strict guidelines, both with and without patient consent. The committee's findings and recommendations were published in a white paper at the end of last year, and legislation is being drafted for a bill that will be debated in parliament, cipro online without prescription.
Research is under way into a proposed alternative to ECT: repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS), which stimulates the brain using a magnetic field and is not thought to impair memory. But at present it is of limited use. ECT is here to stay, at least for the near future, and research into how it works continues.
'If we understood how ECT worked in detail, then we'd have the opportunity to replace it with something better,' says Professor Reid. Meanwhile, he has instructed his colleagues that if he ever has a severe depression, is not eating or drinking and is trying to kill himself, 'Please make sure I get the right treatment.' He says that if he, or anyone he cared about, had a depressive illness to the point of being suicidal, he would want them to have ECT: 'A psychotic depression is like your worst nightmare.' It's the one statement on which everybody agrees.
Similar posts: Zofran online without prescription. Abilify online without prescription. Acai online without prescription. Acai natural energy boost online without prescription. Accupril online without prescription. Actonel online without prescription. Aggrenox online without prescription. Albenza online without prescription. Aldactone online without prescription. Alert caps (sleep & relaxation aid) online without prescription.
Trackbacks from: Cipro online without prescription. Buy dostinex without prescription. Buy nexium without prescription. Buy selegiline without prescription. Inderal without a prescription. Seroquel without a prescription. Buy acai without prescription. Buy glucophage without prescription. Flagyl without prescription. Robaxin without prescription.
Added: July 17, 2006 |
4 Comments
Malegra fxt (sildenafil + fluoxetine) online without prescription, Psychiatrists set to mount defence of ECT
Anthony Browne, Health Editor
Observer
January 23, 2000
When Jack Nicholson's character was subjected to ECT in the film One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, the images horrified a generation. Banned in several countries, cheap malegra fxt (sildenafil + fluoxetine) no prescription, Buy malegra fxt (sildenafil + fluoxetine) generic, and severely restricted in many others, in Britain the technique is used around 50, sale malegra fxt (sildenafil + fluoxetine), Compare malegra fxt (sildenafil + fluoxetine) prices, 000 times a year: up to 400 volts of electricity pumped into the brains of the mentally ill, often against their will, buy malegra fxt (sildenafil + fluoxetine) online cheap. Buy malegra fxt (sildenafil + fluoxetine) low price, The aim - though psychiatrists admit they have no idea how it works - is to induce severe convulsions to make the mentally ill better, the depressed happier, order malegra fxt (sildenafil + fluoxetine) overnight delivery. Buy discount malegra fxt (sildenafil + fluoxetine) online, The result, say critics, cheap malegra fxt (sildenafil + fluoxetine) tablets, Buy malegra fxt (sildenafil + fluoxetine) pills, is memory loss, brain damage, pharmacy malegra fxt (sildenafil + fluoxetine), Buy malegra fxt (sildenafil + fluoxetine) from india, physical disability, paralysis and, malegra fxt (sildenafil + fluoxetine) for order, Overnight malegra fxt (sildenafil + fluoxetine), too often, death, buy generic malegra fxt (sildenafil + fluoxetine) online. Real malegra fxt (sildenafil + fluoxetine) without prescription, 'There's many patients whose brains are frankly fried,' said one campaigner, find no rx malegra fxt (sildenafil + fluoxetine).
This week the psychiatric profession - which is set to be hit by a wave of compensation claims by Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT) 'survivors' - will robustly defend what is often seen as the indefensible, in a move that has been dismissed as a public relations stunt, malegra fxt (sildenafil + fluoxetine) online without prescription. Order discount malegra fxt (sildenafil + fluoxetine), The Institute of Psychiatry, based at London's prestigious Maudsley Hospital, find cheap malegra fxt (sildenafil + fluoxetine) online, Order malegra fxt (sildenafil + fluoxetine) without prescription, will stage a high-profile debate on ECT. Pat Butterfield, cheapest malegra fxt (sildenafil + fluoxetine), Malegra fxt (sildenafil + fluoxetine) overnight shipping, founder of the pressure group ECT Anonymous, was invited to put the case against, buy malegra fxt (sildenafil + fluoxetine), Cheap malegra fxt (sildenafil + fluoxetine) in usa, but boycotted the event. 'I think it's a bit of a PR job, buy malegra fxt (sildenafil + fluoxetine) once daily. Malegra fxt (sildenafil + fluoxetine) purchase, They're trying to gain a bit of credibility' said Butterfield, whose group has 600 members who say they've been harmed by ECT, malegra fxt (sildenafil + fluoxetine) for sale. Malegra fxt (sildenafil + fluoxetine) online without prescription, 'We think it's beyond debate. Malegra fxt (sildenafil + fluoxetine) in australia, There is so much evidence that it harms people. What we need is action.'
Dr Mark Salter, where to order malegra fxt (sildenafil + fluoxetine), Find cheap malegra fxt (sildenafil + fluoxetine), a consultant psychiatrist at St Bartholemew's Hospital - who has administered ECT himself - will be putting the case for the treatment. 'The emotional debate obscures the arguments in favour of ECT, malegra fxt (sildenafil + fluoxetine) pharmacy, Cheap malegra fxt (sildenafil + fluoxetine) no rx, ' he insists. 'I am certainly in favour of ECT as a treatment of last resort, buying malegra fxt (sildenafil + fluoxetine). It's the one reliable treatment for severe psychotic depression, which can kill people.'
Some severe depression drives people to 'kill themselves for no particular reason,' says Salter, malegra fxt (sildenafil + fluoxetine) online without prescription. Find discount malegra fxt (sildenafil + fluoxetine), 'There is no doubt it is a physical disorder, and ECT cures that, buy malegra fxt (sildenafil + fluoxetine) on line. Malegra fxt (sildenafil + fluoxetine) uk, ECT definitely saves lives. You should see someone when they are starving and dehydrating themselves to death, malegra fxt (sildenafil + fluoxetine) us. Malegra fxt (sildenafil + fluoxetine) price, The change after a couple of ECTs is incredible. Malegra fxt (sildenafil + fluoxetine) online without prescription, You are saving them and their families'.
Which is little comfort for Alex Doherty, cheapest generic malegra fxt (sildenafil + fluoxetine) online, Malegra fxt (sildenafil + fluoxetine) professional, a Glaswegian whose brother Joseph was one of the thousand people a year in Britain given ECT against their will. 'His nursing notes record 17 times when he resisted treatment or said he didn't want it,' said Doherty, whose younger brother had schizophrenia. 'The doctor didn't even get a second opinion. Joe was given eight or nine treatments against his will over eight weeks. He just wasn't Joe, he became hyper and permanently confused.'
Nursing notes show Joe told his 'carers' twice that if it carried on he would run away and jump off a bridge and kill himself, malegra fxt (sildenafil + fluoxetine) online without prescription. 'And that's exactly what he did. He was 30,' said Doherty. 'It was horrendous'.
ECT patients are given general anaesthetic and strong muscle relaxant to virtually paralyse them, and stop dangerous physical convulsions. Malegra fxt (sildenafil + fluoxetine) online without prescription, Their skin is smeared with gel for electrical conduction, and electrodes are taped to the forehead. The patient is then strapped on their back to a flat table, which pivots so patients can be turned upside-down if they vomit. One patient was recently given ECT on a fixed table, and when he started vomiting they couldn't remove him quick enough to prevent him choking. He ended up brain damaged and permanently paralysed.
Psychiatrists increase voltage until they get a twitching toe - a sign that, despite paralysing drugs, the body's nervous system is in major convulsion. The electrical storm raging through every synapse of the brain is meant to cure patients, although psychiatrists admit they have no idea how, malegra fxt (sildenafil + fluoxetine) online without prescription.
Rebecca Jason (not her real name), a literature graduate, went through ECT about 40 times. 'It was very easy for them to get me to agree to it, because I did not know what I was doing,' she recalled. 'It had a very profound effect on my ability to make decisions. I had panic attacks for ages. Malegra fxt (sildenafil + fluoxetine) online without prescription, It affected my memory greatly - I could no longer remember books, or quote from them, which I used to be able to. There are certain things I've never been able to do since, like sew. I'm shaking all over just thinking about it.'
Butterfield claims half those given ECT are harmed by it. Solicitors are preparing two class actions for ECT survivors who want compensation, and hope to force a ruling on its legality. Butterfield wants ECT banned for those over 65 or under 18 and pregnant women - but most urgently on forcing people to have it.
Salter admits that, if people are given it against their will, psychiatrists should have to go to court to get permission. 'But for God's sake, carry on using it when it can save lives. Are we going to just let these depressed people die?'.
Similar posts: Buy female pink viagra without prescription. Buy viagra without prescription. Buy gold viagra without prescription. Buy viagra super force without prescription. Buy viagra oral jelly without prescription. Buy viagra plus without prescription. Buy viagra professional without prescription. Buy viagra soft tabs without prescription. Buy viagra super active+ without prescription. Buy yagara (herbal viagra) without prescription.
Trackbacks from: Malegra fxt (sildenafil + fluoxetine) online without prescription. Buy arimidex without prescription. Spermamax without a prescription. Buy provera online without prescription. Alert caps (sleep & relaxation aid) online without prescription. Robinaxol online without prescription. Bactrim online without prescription. Tetracycline online without prescription. Buy allopurinol without prescription. Viagra oral jelly without a prescription.
Added: July 17, 2006 |
7 Comments
Lithium online without prescription, April 2001
Thanks for the memories, Fox TV.
BY LIZ SPIKOL
lspikol@philadelphiaweekly.com
It is not my habit to sit at home on Saturday night and watch the Fox 10 O'clock News. It is my habit to sit at home on Saturday night, but watching Fox doesn't generally enter into it. One night, though, my tendency toward the raw side of the TV dial got the better of me. Lithium medication, It was a strange twist of fate, I guess--one of those moments some would say was guided by a Higher Power but that I say was simply guided by desperation in the newsroom. The dirty, hidden secret Fox unscraped from beneath the news desk was this: Shock treatments are still performed in the United States and a new study says their benefit is even shorter-term than previously believed, lithium online without prescription.
The coincidence was that I had spent much of the day before reading that study, talking to people about it and even being interviewed for an AP wire report about it. Even at home on a Saturday night, I couldn't escape that study. And I was reminded of it again this week, when 60 Minutes II did a similar story documenting the shock experience, cheap lithium from canada.
I had shock treatments for depression in 1996, which I suppose seems like a long time ago. Lithium online without prescription, One negative side effect has been that the passage of time does not compute for me the way it does for others. I couldn't tell you a thing about what I did two weeks ago, so it's as if two weeks ago never happened. If you go through years like that, the years easily disappear. Discount lithium online, The benefits were short-term--about three months. Exactly one year later, I was back in the psych ward once again. If it surprises you that I had shock treatments, it shouldn't--between 100,000 and 200,000 people will have them this year, and that's just an estimate, lithium online without prescription.
Unfortunately, there are no reliable statistics on the administration of shock treatments because, unlike most medical practices, reporting is not federally required. Just this year, order no rx lithium, Vermont became the first state to mandate record-keeping about shock therapy. And the machines used to perform shock treatments have been grandfathered out of regulation, so they can be as old as a Chevy in Cuba.
Fox News didn't say much about regulation, but they did something few media outlets had done before this week: They showed someone receiving shock treatments. Lithium online without prescription, In most people's minds, the image of shock is of Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest . That's no longer accurate. Order lithium in us, As the doctors will tell you, with the IV muscle relaxant, the most that happens to the body when the electric shock induces a grand mal epileptic seizure is a slight curl of the toes.
The woman on Fox, who was a patient of Dr. Harold Sackheim, the author of the new study everyone's in a lather about, was pretty, buy lithium overnight delivery, with dark brown hair, and looked to be in her 40s. As Sackheim is a great proponent of shock therapy, and a financial beneficiary (hence the controversy surrounding his research), he was likely more than happy to provide Fox with an exemplar of how well the therapy can work, lithium online without prescription.
But if you're at the point in your mental illness where you need shock treatments, you are truly in extremis. Is this an appropriate time for a doctor to ask his patient to appear on television.
I'm not surprised by Sackheim because, Canada lithium, as I'll relate later, I think he lacks integrity. Nor do I blame Fox, because I imagine Sackheim (the supposed expert) told them she was fit as a fiddle for an interview. Lithium online without prescription, But she wasn't, really. One friend who saw the broadcast said, "She looks like she's on Pluto."
There she sat, her hair still wet from the gel they use for the electrodes. She had a strange half smile on her face and her eyes were looking beyond the camera, lithium in bangkok. She spoke of feeling like this might actually be the answer for her. But her voice was light and airy and she gave the impression of being less than her physical being would imply. I felt sorry for her, lithium online without prescription.
When I had shock treatments, I was just as hopeful. I wonder if she will be as crushingly disappointed when she discovers how short-term her relief will be. Will she, Lithium in us, like me, think it darkly comic that though shock treatments are most often given to people who are suicidal, the majority of those who end up killing themselves have already had shock treatments.
I did all the right things the following Monday--called the bioethicist, talked to the activists, did the research on the newest research. Lithium online without prescription, I don't think the information on this study is being disseminated properly, and I'll do my best to remedy that. But for now, I can't help thinking of that woman and the newscast of her shock treatments, cheapest generic lithium.
I was expecting the curl of her toes. But I had no idea the face contorts like that.
I understand now why I had a huge mouthpiece between my teeth. They told me it was just a precaution in case something went wrong, lithium online without prescription. But the muscles in the face tense pretty violently.
So now I have another memory I didn't have, courtesy of Fox News on a Saturday night. Cheapest lithium online, Who says it's a bore to stay home. PW
The Shocking Truth, Part II
Why the sudden media blitz. Lithium online without prescription, And why is it all so lacking.
BY LIZ SPIKOL
lspikol@philadelphiaweekly.com
The Pelican Brief is bad, stupid filmmaking. But Sunday night, I sat in my bedroom, transfixed by Julia Roberts as a young law student pursuing The Truth despite the fact that it puts her life in danger and kills her older/drunk/ depressive lover, buy lithium us. Denzel Washington plays Woodward and Bernstein all by himself--taking deep-throated tips on the phone, calling his editor from pastoral scenes that actually bristle with malice. With all that expressionless tenacity and sleeping upright with scribbled notes in lap, the only cliche Washington isn't shoved into is an affair with Roberts, which I assume is because he's black and she's white.
Thing is, the movie does get you all runny about being a journalist, lithium online without prescription. It makes you ask yourself, Lithium cheap drug, again, why you do what you do. And when I get really, really mad at another media outlet, I try to think of a producer from, say, 60 Minutes II, watching The Pelican Brief in his pajamas on a Sunday night getting all runny inside, lithium india, too. Maybe it's at a moment like this that he thinks, "Gee, I really screwed that story up ..."
I'll own up to mistakes myself. In my last column, I said Vermont was the first state to require record-keeping in relation to shock treatments. Lithium online without prescription, That's not true. Buy no rx lithium, Normally, the column would have been fact-checked, but I told our copy editor, "I fact-checked it myself." (If that isn't a cry for help, I don't know what is.) The other states that require record-keeping are California, Colorado, Texas, Illinois and Massachusetts, order lithium cheap online.
I know 60 Minutes II has to give Charles Grodin his 30 seconds or so to be droll and effete, so I thought I'd issue a clarification on its behalf--when I got a call from Joel Bernstein, the producer of the segment on shock treatments who I'd just, one night before, been envisioning in footies.
Turns out, Lithium alternative, of course, that Bernstein and I were talking about radically different shows. While I heard him call Dr. Harold Sackheim a "physician," he told me that right before the show he changed that to "doctor," after he was informed that Sackheim was not, in fact, an M.D, lithium online without prescription. We had other disagreements about Sackheim: I think the show made an error in judgement by giving Sackheim a disproportionate amount of air time, making it seem as though he were the primary expert in the field.
Bernstein told me, "The hospital where he works does a lot of it [ECT]. They have a strong research program there." Well, buying lithium online, I do a lot of playing with my dog, but that doesn't make me an animal behaviorist. And Sackheim doesn't actually "do" any ECT--because he's not a psychiatrist. Lithium online without prescription, Bernstein told me, "I'm sure Sackheim makes a nice salary, but he doesn't make any money from doing the treatments himself." Because he can't--but those research grant applications have been rolling in under his name since 1981, garnering roughly $5 million dollars from the National Institute of Mental Health.
Sackheim has also acted as a (paid and unpaid) consultant to a company that makes ECT machines, MECTA. The show did not disclose Sackheim's ties to MECTA, Discount lithium, including the fact that he testified on their behalf in a product liability suit against a shock machine manufacturer in 1989.
"I knew about his ex-ties with MECTA," Bernstein said, but he also said Sackheim denied any current financial connection, which would--he's right--negate conflict of interest. Should the past linkages bother me. They don't bother Bernstein, and he's been doing this a lot longer, lithium online without prescription.
Bernstein and I quibbled on other details, but he believes he presented a balanced view, lithium no online prescription. "We pointed out what everybody ought to know by now--that there is no cure for depression. I never implied that this was a magic bullet." That's true, but Sackheim was allowed to say on-camera, with no opposition, that, "The medical community recognizes universally that ECT is the most effective antidepressant we have."
The "medical community" does no such thing--and who is Sackheim to speak for it. Lithium without rx, ECT can be effective for roughly 80 percent of those who undergo it. Lithium online without prescription, But as with any medication, if you stop taking it, you stop receiving the benefits. Interestingly, the most recent study on the devastatingly high relapse rate was done by Sackheim himself. The study showed that more than half of those who undergo ECT will relapse in 6-12 months. One wonders if Sackheim's increased media presence isn't the industry's way of putting a spin on those very depressing results.
Sometimes journalists rely on others to tell them who to interview. "Who's the best person to talk to in this field?" I might reasonably ask someone who specializes in hot-metal biomechanics, lithium online without prescription.
In this case, 60 Minutes II didn't do enough backgrounding, best price for lithium. I find it discouraging that with so many qualified, uncompromised, knowledgeable and honest psychiatrists who practice ECT, 60 Minutes II chose to highlight Harold Sackheim. Nothing could be worse for the show's credibility.
Producer Joel Bernstein told me at the end of our call, Lithium prices, "We did this whole thing in 10 days--it was very fast. Lithium online without prescription, In retrospect, I wish I could have taken more time with it." I have a feeling he wouldn't have relied on Harold Sackheim if he did.
I asked Bernstein where he got the idea for the story. "A psych friend told me that shock therapy was making a comeback and then The Atlantic magazine story came out, and that was the shove I needed."
Perhaps that's the real story here. Is all this damage control, orchestrated by Sackheim and friends. Who called The Atlantic Monthly --or Associated Press or Reuters or Fox News--and pitched the story. That, I'm sure as I am a journalist, is the bigger tale to tell, lithium online without prescription. PW
THE TROUBLE WITH SPIKOL
The Shocking Truth, cheap lithium pharmacy, Part III
As the battle over "informed consent" rages on, when does "yes" mean "yes".
BY LIZ SPIKOL
lspikol@philadelphiaweekly.com
I have a vague memory of it, sitting across from my mother in a booth at PhilaDeli on Fourth and South, begging for shock treatments. I'm not sure what I had heard and where, Order lithium in canada, but on that day, I would not be deterred: Give me ECT or give me death.
From research, I had come to believe that electroconvulsive therapy was not only my last hope, but also my best hope. Lithium online without prescription, And though I was not well enough to work or to live alone or to even get through the day without my mother's care, I could still, through it all, be as persuasive as the captain of a winning debate team.
It wasn't so much the logic of what I said that convinced her, but more how I said it--tacking on a guarantee (and she knew it was no bluff) that I would kill myself if we didn't try it. My life was ruined, lithium pharmacy online, over, everything had been lost. I had failed to respond to every medication combination, and lived in constant pain. What did I have to lose.
Of course, my mother didn't leave that conversation and immediately sign me up, lithium online without prescription. She did her own extensive research and she and my father spent long hours talking about whether they could subject their child to such seeming barbarism. Lithium internet, She spoke to various experts on the subject who told her the pros and cons.
At the time, we were all desperate, and wanted badly to hear the pros outweigh the cons. And luckily, they did. Lithium online without prescription, The experts talked only of immediate after-effects: headache, nausea, muscle aches. They also talked about memory loss, but said it was transient, find lithium without prescription.
There would be short-term amnesia--a post-ECT "Where am I?" kind of thing--and some memory loss of the events surrounding the treatments themselves. Worst-case scenario: permanent memory loss for the couple months preceding the treatments and maybe a month after.
A missed movie, perhaps. Or a forgotten conversation, lithium online without prescription. All of which sounded like small-time worries compared to suicide.
This was presented as the treatment of last resort--as the one thing that might save me. Get lithium, So I consented. I signed the forms myself because, though I was in terrible shape, I was able to do so. Lithium online without prescription, It amazes me now that a doctor considered me competent enough to sign a consent form at the time. But I'm sure it helped having my parents standing right there with me.
Knowing what I do now, I'm not sure I (or my parents) would make the same decision again. What the doctors don't tell you is that the memory loss is much more devastating--and the ECT industry continues to deny this, discount lithium without prescription, to cover it up. Of the 240 online responses to last week's 60 Minutes II broadcast on shock treatments, most were from people saying they'd had ECT.
What, in particular, compelled them to write, lithium online without prescription.
The issue of memory loss.
I started to count, but I'm horrible with numbers. Lithium approved, One after another, the posts are a sad catalog of anger and despair. The majority spoke of losing more memory than the doctors said they would. Lithium online without prescription, "I don't remember my children being born," says one.
The loss these ECT patients suffer goes far beyond the commonly cited "1 in 200" figure that shows up on the model consent form drafted by the American Psychiatric Association (APA). It is this consent form that most hospitals in America still use before giving ECT. It is the consent form I signed.
In a 1996 article from the Washington Post, Dr, lithium non prescription. Harold Sackheim, whom I wrote about last week, admitted the 1-in-200 number was a fabrication, "an impressionistic number" that would "most likely be omitted from APA reports in the future." That was five years ago, and it has yet to happen, lithium online without prescription.
The real number, of course, is much higher. The fact of the matter is that despite numerous journal articles and testimony from many respected neurologists and psychiatrists, the psychiatric establishment continues to ignore the problem of memory loss. Since research dollars are monopolized by those with an interest in sustaining the industry, Approved lithium pharmacy, no reliable post-ECT studies are being conducted.
When I said "yes" to ECT, I did not truly know what I was saying "yes" to. Lithium online without prescription, I was not accurately presented with the risks, benefits and outcomes.
Did I know it was possible I would lose years of memory. Did I know I would forget how to spell certain words, that it would take me years to be able to read a book again. Did I know it was possible the benefits would last only a few months.
No one told me these things, lithium drug. If they had, would I still have done it, lithium online without prescription. I highly doubt it.
I gave consent to the procedure, but it wasn't truly informed--something the supervising doctor on my case admitted to me years later. Unfortunately, the alternate consent forms I've seen proposed are so extreme as to serve only as a deterrent. What is needed is a form that fesses up to the very real probabilities--both good and bad. Lithium online without prescription, But if you think it's a violation of human rights to get a treatment that destroys your brain in ways doctors didn't warn you about, think about the injustice of receiving that treatment against your will. Lithium cheap, Paul Henri Thomas has already received 40 forced electroshocks at Pilgrim State Psychiatric Center in New York. Another patient there, Adam Szyszko, has gone to court to stop the same hospital from forcing him to receive ECT.
I'll write about both their cases next week. Stay tuned. PW
The Shocking Truth, Part IV
Forced electroshock isn't just the stuff of movies, lithium online without prescription.
BY LIZ SPIKOL
lspikol@philadelphiaweekly.com
I've always been somewhat awed by the Hippocratic Oath. Unlike the presidential Oath of Office, generic lithium, forever tarnished by Bill's perjury, the Hippocratic Oath is still imbued with dignity. I saw this at work on 60 Minutes Sunday, in a story about a mentally ill man who had been moved from death row to a psychiatric facility once it was discovered he was incompetent to stand trial.
His doctor had the ability to make him well enough to stand trial, but told Leslie Stahl that making a man well in order to have him killed violated his notion of the Hippocratic Oath's primary dictum: Do no harm. Lithium online without prescription, Why don't doctors who perform electroshock therapy feel the same way. Buy cheap lithium internet, New York State Supreme Court Justice W. Bromley Hall decided April 16 that Pilgrim Psychiatric Center on Long Island can resume its shock treatments of Paul Henri Thomas, despite Thomas' opposition. Thomas is a 49-year-old inpatient at Pilgrim, which is under the jurisdiction of New York State Office of Mental Health (OMH). He emigrated to the U.S. from Haiti in 1982, lithium online without prescription. Though he has been diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder and bipolar mania (among other diagnoses), he does not believe he is mentally ill, where to buy lithium. This, according to doctors at Pilgrim, is part of his illness.
Thomas did initially consent to ECT in June 1999. At that time, he was considered competent to consent. Lithium online without prescription, But after three treatments he decided he'd had enough--at which point the Pilgrim doctors decided Thomas was incompetent. Cheap lithium without prescription, Newsday staff writer Zachary R. Dowdy characterized the situation as "a kind of Catch-22--the strange circumstance that Thomas was fine when he consented to the procedure but mentally incompetent when he refused it." Since 1999, Thomas has received nearly 60 forced electroshocks.
Part of the doctor's defense of Thomas' forced ECT was the patient's erratic behavior. Justice Hall agreed, writing in his decision, "He was wearing three pairs of pants which he believed provided therapy for him. At the same time he was found, in the ward, wearing layers of shirts which were inside-out, together with jackets, gloves and sunglasses."
Oh my God, lithium online without prescription. Someone stop this man before his commits another fashion faux pas, lithium australia. Strap him down, put him in a diaper, shove a mouthguard between his teeth, administer sedatives and then induce a grand mal seizure in him against his will. Surely after that he'll be calm enough to reconsider his wardrobe.
As his case heated up, Thomas issued a public statement in which he said, "I am currently undergoing forced electroshock treatment. Lithium online without prescription, ... It is horrible. ... I am strong. But no human being is invincible. .., lithium online without prescription. I ask God to bless you in anticipation of your helping me in my torture and traumatization. ...Do whatever is possible!"
Anne Krauss worked as a peer advocate in the New York OMH and was assigned to Thomas' case. Krauss supported Thomas' fight against forced ECT but was ordered by her superiors to cease action on his behalf.
On March 21, Krauss resigned. Lithium online without prescription, In her letter of resignation, she wrote, "The New York State OMH is taking the position that for me to actively advocate (on my own time and at my own expense) on behalf of Paul Thomas creates a conflict of interest for me in my job .... Given the choice between continuing to work for an agency which so discounts recipients' voices that it will repeatedly force electroshock on someone who has clearly said that he experiences it as torture, or advocating for this person's right to make his own decision about whether electricity should be run through his brain, I am choosing to advocate."
Referring to Thomas' history as a human rights activist, Krauss said, "I am following Mr. Thomas' own example in putting ideals of human rights and liberty before my desire for personal comfort or job security."
Doctors say Thomas' liver would be "further damaged" by giving him antipsychotics. ECT is approved, recommended and effective primarily for depression. It has never been definitively proved, in any clinical study, to be effective for psychosis. Did someone fail to tell the judge that ECT does not equal treatment with antipsychotics, lithium online without prescription.
They also say one of the reasons Thomas denies his illness is because in Haiti, cultural perceptions of mental illness are different. Additionally, doctors admitted that if Thomas were at a private facility, he'd be unlikely to receive ECT.
Is it fair to discriminate against someone simply because he doesn't have money for private care. Or because he comes from a different culture. Lithium online without prescription, If this seems like an isolated case, one need look no farther than down the proverbial hall--where 25-year-old Adam Szyszko also fights forced electroshock at Pilgrim. Szyszko was granted a temporary restraining order. His mother told the Associated Press, "I think it's horrible they are holding my son prisoner. I want the treatments stopped." Her son, a diagnosed schizophrenic, is allergic to the medications Pilgrim would prescribe. Forget the fact that Szyszko and family prefer he try psychotherapy instead of drugs.
Why is Paul Henri Thomas being forcibly shocked while Adam Szyszko--while admittedly in a horrible situation--is not, lithium online without prescription. I wonder if it's because Thomas is black and Szyszko is young and white. Isn't it more wrenching to read about a young man who played classical piano and won awards in grade school. The New York Post sees fit to blare, "MOM'S IN TEARS AS DOCS 'TREAT' HER CAPTIVE SON" about Szyszko, but says nothing about Thomas.
"do no harm." Can anyone at Pilgrim be said, like the doctor on 60 Minutes, to be guarding the integrity of the Hippocratic Oath. It would seem that in New York, the oath has long been forgotten. PW.
Similar posts: Buy black cialis without prescription. Buy cialis without prescription. Buy cialis jelly without prescription. Buy cialis professional without prescription. Buy cialis soft tabs without prescription. Buy cialis super active+ without prescription. Buy female cialis without prescription. Buy tramadol without prescription. Buy levitra without prescription. Buy levitra jelly without prescription.
Trackbacks from: Lithium online without prescription. Opticare ointment without a prescription. Buy lithium without prescription. Buy acomplia without prescription. Buy topamax without prescription. Keppra without a prescription. Buy flucort cream without prescription. Kamagra effervescent without prescription. Xopenex online without prescription. Buy zanaflex without prescription.
Added: July 17, 2006 |
1 Comment
Prilosec online without prescription, As campaigners protest about mental patients being treated against their will, Sally Weale asks why so many women are still coerced into electro-convulsive therapy
Thursday November 18, 1999
The Guardian
Jennifer Laws used to be a schoolteacher. She used to be able to remember things. Now her memory is shot to pieces, fda approved prilosec. Sometimes she gets into the car and drives off only to stop, Prilosec no rx, bewildered, unable to remember where she's supposed to be going. Her forgetfulness is because a few years ago - she can't remember when exactly - she underwent two courses of electro-convulsive therapy (ECT), prilosec online without prescription.
She had suffered from depression from the age of 19, prilosec online without prescription. Finally, Prilosec overnight delivery, in her fifties, as a last resort she was given ECT. She felt bullied into having it, free prilosec, she says after the doctor she consulted "more or less said he was not prepared to carry on" unless she went through with it. Buy prilosec without prescription, "It's barbaric. All I could remember was everyone handling me with rubber gloves. Prilosec online without prescription, It was horrible."
Depression is a 21st-century condition which will affect millions of us. One in five people reading this will suffer a severe depressive episode at some point in their lives - and if you're a woman, prilosec, the probability doubles. Prilosec free delivery, Yet ECT - where an electric current is passed through the patient's brain to produce a seizure or fit aimed at relieving severe depression - seems to belong to the last century, rather than the next. And it is one of the key treatments available to psychiatrists, prilosec online sale.
Last month figures revealed that doctors still administer 1, Prilosec online cheap, 300 ECT treatments a week for depressive illness. Of those patients, almost 68% are women, more than 40% of them over 65, prilosec online without prescription.
The government sets out radical new plans for the mental health services in its green paper which was published on Tuesday, including proposals to improve safeguards governing ECT, purchase prilosec online, particularly when administered without the patient's consent. Find discount prilosec online, However, this is against a background of increasing use of coercion in the mental health services. This is reflected in other proposals for increased compulsion in treatment, prilosec generic, to which women are particularly vulnerable. Prilosec without a prescription, So why are so many women still receiving ECT. Prilosec online without prescription, One reason is that more women suffer from depression. But Pat Butterfield, co-founder of ECT Anonymous, prilosec information, a group which campaigns to have the treatment banned, Buy prilosec cheap, thinks the reasons are more complicated. "Women are more vulnerable. They are easier to bully, prilosec online stores. There's this feeling of: oh, Purchase prilosec without prescription, it's only a housewife, it doesn't really matter. It's easier to persuade husbands: 'We'll put your wife right, prilosec online without prescription. She'll be back and busy around the house before very long.'"
But why do so many older women have it, drug prilosec online purchase. "It's easier to get them to agree, Order discount prilosec online, " says Butterfield, who has herself undergone ECT. "They are still awestruck by the medical profession, prilosec sale. There's that old-fashioned idea that doctors are gods. Prilosec online without prescription, They can do no wrong. Cheap prilosec from uk, "
Butterfield says people from all walks of life contact her seeking help and advice after ECT, from nuclear physicists to journalists. Among them is Una Parker, buy prilosec online australia, 64, Lowest price for prilosec, a former nursery group leader from Pontefract, west Yorkshire who had two courses of ECT, each involving seven or eight individual treatment sessions, prilosec canada. She had a breakdown and was referred to a consultant psychiatrist who saw her, Best price prilosec, with her husband, for about 10 minutes.
The consultant asked Parker to leave the room and then told her husband that he could not guarantee that she would ever be normal again, buy prilosec in canada, unless he was allowed to treat her with drugs and ECT.
After the first treatment, she ran around the hospital tearing her dressing gown to shreds, prilosec online without prescription. Drug prilosec, She was kept in for a month. Three weeks after being released, she was found in tears and taken to see the psychiatrist who told her how much she needed further ECT, buy cheapest prilosec on line. She signed herself back into it. Prilosec cheap price, "It took me a long time to recover from the feeling of being useless. Prilosec online without prescription, For me and for many people, it's a massive attack on your self-confidence," says Parker, whose daughters were nine and 11 at the time.
She suffered memory loss - a common complaint among former ECT patients. When she got back home, prilosec buy, she couldn't remember where she kept her sewing things - items she was used to using regularly. Discount prilosec no rx, She still has problems with memory. "It's an assault on the person. It's like hitting someone over the head, prilosec online without prescription. It didn't just damage me - all the relationships in the family were devastated."
Beryl Manklow's continuing anguish is painfully obvious - she sounds hesitant, prilosec online without a prescription, anxious and tearful. No prescription prilosec, Manklow, 60, of Rugby, order cheap prilosec online, Warwickshire, Fda approved prilosec, went to see a consultant about unexplained severe pains in her joints and ended up having ECT. "If they can't come up with an answer straight away, they think it's in your brain, prilosec purchase. It's not just people who have serious mental problems who have ECT. Prilosec online without prescription, They gave me four sessions. Discount prilosec no rx, When I came round, I just felt I had completely changed.
"My personality had changed, cheap prilosec in canada. I used to be a manageress in the fashion trade, Discount prilosec overnight delivery, but I could never have gone back to that. My mind just won't do what I want it to. I feel as if I've aged 30 years in the eight years since I had it, prilosec online without prescription. It's taken my life away."
ECT Anonymous, which has a growing membership currently standing at 600, is putting together a group legal action seeking compensation for 12 ECT "survivors"; a further 200 cases may follow. In a survey of members last year, many reported memory loss, cognitive impairment, head pains, neck pains and migraine. These symptoms have never disappeared; 85% of the women were unable to return to work after treatment. "It wrecks lives," Butterfield says. Prilosec online without prescription, Thankfully, ECT is dwindling in popularity as a new generation of anti-depressants come on the market - in 1991, doctors were administering 2,000 treatments per week. But many, such as Marjorie Wallace, chief executive of Sane, the campaigning mental health body, believe it is important that ECT should exist as an option in the most extreme cases. "ECT can be life-saving for a very few people who are so suicidal and depressed that they are not eating and their kidneys are packing up. Anti-depressants and counselling take some weeks to make a difference and in those cases it may be the only choice."
The psychologist and writer Dorothy Rowe, who has worked in institutions where ECT is given, believes it is a quick-fix treatment used to control and subdue women. She thinks it should be banned: "There are many men psychiatrists who believe all a woman needs to be happy is a home, a husband and children. Any woman who gets depressed and has already got a home, a husband and children - they think - must have endogenous depression, prilosec online without prescription. The psychiatric theory is that the best treatment for endogenous depression is ECT - that's why women get it.
"Women become depressed because of the circumstances of their lives. A woman gets older, the big changes in her life come about, she gets through the menopause, her children grow up and leave home, her parents get older and die, her friends die," says Rowe.
"What such women need is care, attention and someone to talk to, but that takes too much time and money. Prilosec online without prescription, ECT quietens her. She will be very passive and then they can give her medication. But all the research shows that with ECT you just get depressed again."
"The system of psychiatry is not in the business of changing society, or in confronting the problems that are in society. The job of psychiatrists is to keep us quiet. Psychiatry is about social control. When women complain, when they express their distress, they are just shut up.".
Similar posts: Buy soma without prescription. Buy propecia without prescription. Buy xenical without prescription. Buy prozac without prescription. Buy ultram without prescription. Buy clomid without prescription. Buy accutane without prescription. Buy zoloft without prescription. Buy nexium without prescription. Buy wellbutrin sr without prescription.
Trackbacks from: Prilosec online without prescription. Buy zestoretic without prescription. Tentex royal without prescription. Buy meclizine without prescription. Buy viagra super force without prescription. Pheromone cologne for men without a prescription. Cardura online without prescription. Atripla online without prescription. Buy elavil without prescription. Keppra online without prescription.
Added: July 17, 2006 |
No Comments
Strattera online without prescription, by Jamie Saari, The Daily Miner (Kenora,Ontario)
January 21, 2000
Local shock treatment victim Wayne Lax is giving his support to a woman in Montreal who is suing the federal government for $4.6 million after most of her life was blanked out by shock therapy, induced comas and a mixture of drugs. Strattera sale, "I back this woman 100 per cent because I know what she went through," said Lax, strattera drug. Strattera prices, "Shock therapy treatment was abused. It blanks the mind out and damages you permanently."
Gail Kastner, real strattera without prescription, Cheap strattera pharmacy, now 56, was admitted by her father to the Allan Memorial Institute when she was 19 for depression, find no rx strattera. Strattera online without prescription, She was given electroconvulsive therapy (ECT treatments) otherwise known as electroshock treatments in 1953 by a doctor notorious for his brainwashing experiments.
She is blaming the federal government for supporting Dr.Ewen Cameron's research, which left her with bizarre behaviour including screaming nightmares, persistent seizures and a complete blank about her past, strattera online without prescription. Kastner was ostracized by her family and left nearly homeless after she reverted to childlike behaviour such as wetting the living room carpet, cheap strattera from canada, Buy strattera online australia, sucking her thumb, babytalk and wanting to be bottle fed, order strattera no prescription required. Buy strattera overnight delivery, Her trial is presently underway in Montreal.
Lax, strattera without rx, Order strattera in canada, who currently lives in Kenora, is presently involved in his own series of lawsuits which he says are not out of revenge, strattera us, Strattera overnight, but out of concern for others.
Lax said he spent 25 years in a state of confusion and despair, order strattera in us, Buy generic strattera online, undergoing 108 admissions to mental institutions, 80 ECT treatments and taking up to 17 different pills per day, cheapest generic strattera. Strattera in bangkok, "I am missing large portions of my memory and suffer from chronic, severe back pain when I broke a bone in my back because I didn't have enough muscle relaxant during ECT treatments, strattera no prescription, Pharmacy strattera, " said Lax.
"People need to be aware of what shock does to human beings, generic strattera. Strattera cheapest price, And we are human beings, not just patients."
Lax is presently drug free and is a member of numerous psychiatric survivors groups, strattera without prescription. Best price for strattera. Strattera overnight shipping. Strattera medicine. Strattera medication. Strattera online sales. Buying generic strattera. Cheap strattera pill. Order strattera on internet. Strattera malaysia. Cheap strattera no rx. Cheap strattera tablets. Cheap strattera from uk. Purchase strattera no rx. Cheap strattera in uk. Find strattera on internet. Strattera for order.
Similar posts: Buy amoxicillin without prescription. Buy kamagra without prescription. Buy kamagra effervescent without prescription. Buy kamagra oral jelly without prescription. Buy melatonin without prescription. Buy acomplia without prescription. Buy paxil without prescription. Buy zithromax without prescription. Buy valtrex without prescription. Buy lexapro without prescription.
Trackbacks from: Strattera online without prescription. Buy hyzaar (losartan + hydrochlorthiazide) online without prescription. Buy benzac ac without prescription. Buy cardura online without prescription. Buy fusidic acid without prescription. Motrin online without prescription. Buy female rx plus liquid without prescription. Minocycline without prescription. Depakote without prescription. Cymbalta without prescription.
Added: July 17, 2006 |
No Comments
Flagyl online without prescription, THE TROUBLE WITH SPIKOL
Shocked and Appalled
If The Atlantic Monthly can't get its facts straight about shock treatments, I suppose it's up to me. Flagyl order, BY LIZ SPIKOL
LSPIKOL@PHILADELPHIAWEEKLY.COM
2-7-01
In the fall of 1996, I had electroconvulsive therapy, flagyl internet, Order flagyl from us, or ECT. While I have written in the past about the good it has done for me--saving me from suicide and enabling me to follow a medication regimen for a couple months after--I have also pointed out the negatives, flagyl buy drug, Flagyl cheap price, which include long-term memory loss, changes in personality and a general drop in intellectual acuity, cheap flagyl internet. Buy flagyl online, Given that I was back in a psychiatric hospital in the fall of 1997 and endured several suicidal crises after that, I don't believe ECT had any long-term benefit for me or, discount flagyl online, Order generic flagyl, as studies have shown, for any psychiatric patient, free flagyl. Compare flagyl prices, Most ECT benefits last little more than a month, though it has been shown that ECT makes patients more docile, cost flagyl. You could do as much with a lobotomy--or by smacking them in the head with a ball-peen hammer, flagyl online without prescription. Drug flagyl online purchase, ECT is a series of "treatments" that are generally given over the course of three weeks. It can be done inpatient or outpatient, flagyl, Purchase flagyl overnight delivery, though the latter can be especially difficult for people without sufficient support systems. The treatments consist of electrically induced grand mal seizures, order cheap flagyl. Flagyl in malaysia, While sedatives and muscle relaxants prevent the body from convulsing � la One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, it is still necessary to wear a bite-plate and a diaper--just in case, buying flagyl. Flagyl online without prescription, Aside from wearing a diaper as an adult, which never bodes well, I was distressed by the fact that each of the 12 times I came out of the ECT room, I had no idea where I was, why I was in a wheelchair, where I was going or how to speak. Order flagyl overnight delivery, My head ached horribly, my muscles felt sore and tired and I could not understand the simplest, flagyl cheap drug, Generic flagyl cheap, most basic proof of one's sanity: who I was. I was told I would not remember the ECT itself, low price flagyl, Buy cheap flagyl internet, nor the month before and the month after the treatments. According to the shrink-math I consented to, buy flagyl in canada, Find cheap flagyl, I would only lose, at most, find flagyl no prescription required, Flagyl in us, three months of memory.
If only, cheap flagyl online. Ask anyone close to me--my parents, my friends, my ex-husband--and they will all tell you how much I changed after the treatments and how much I forgot, flagyl online without prescription. Flagyl in uk, Even today, I have a severely compromised memory for the years--years --between 1986 and 1998, online pharmacy flagyl. Cheap flagyl on internet, I have intermittent flashbacks, usually triggered by smell, lowest price for flagyl, Flagyl price, and I can often piece things together so that, at least logically, flagyl tablets, Cheap flagyl without prescription, I know what happened. But knowing and remembering are two different things, find cheap flagyl online. Find flagyl online, I wrote a cover story on all of this a couple years ago and, despite my harsh words, find discount flagyl, Cheap flagyl in usa, received a letter from the American Psychiatric Society thanking me for doing a responsible job on the piece. Flagyl online without prescription, Part of what was responsible, I thought, was pointing out that the leading figures in the psychiatric community who were constantly endorsing ECT, writing so-called scientific studies of ECT and who edit the only journal on ECT--and who are thus oft-quoted on the subject--are all, in one way or another, ethically compromised.
Dr, where to buy flagyl. Max Fink makes money from the videos sold by the makers of the Thymatron, a seizure inducement machine, yet a recent article in The Atlantic Monthly leans heavily on Fink's testimony. A local psychiatrist said of Fink: "He makes me ashamed to be in this profession." Many of Fink's colleagues have a financial stake in ECT's success, which would normally disqualify them from commenting so publicly and with such a discursive monopoly on this controversial procedure.
But it doesn't, because no one is minding the store, and of those who are, most are disgruntled patients who lack credibility because they're not objective. I would think clinicians who stand to gain financially would not be objective either, but their presence in a respectable publication like The Atlantic implies (incorrectly) otherwise, flagyl online without prescription.
The Atlantic Monthly, a magazine in the style of the "old, good" New Yorker --that is, long, rambling stories by the likes of boring naturalist John McPhee--just published another long, rambling story about author Daniel Smith's experience at McLean Hospital in Massachusetts, where he observed ECT being administered. Mainly, it's pro-ECT, though it does present the movement against ECT--in the most unflattering light.
While it's true that the loudest group of activist ex-patients are Scientologists, theirs aren't the only voices crying out in this scientific wilderness. In fact, there are many credible voices, including my own, calling for a wholesale reinvestigation of the practice and the industry. Flagyl online without prescription, Yet Smith picks quotes that make them sound daft. If they are still crazy, maybe it's because the ECT didn't work for them after all.
There are many problems with ECT that must be acknowledged: the overwhelming application of it to the elderly; the increasing use on children and adolescents; ECT done against a patient's wishes; and the lack of real informed consent.
But Smith doesn't address these issues. Instead, he goes for the extremist jugular. For example: The Atlantic published an article in 1980 called "Electroshock: The Unkindest Therapy of All." According to Smith, Max Fink compared that article to Mein Kampf, flagyl online without prescription. Which I guess is rational when you consider that Fink's reputation owes everything to the continuation of ECT.
Unfortunately, I do not have the space here to do a point-for-point refutation of Smith's take on ECT. But shouldn't respectable journalists do more research before taking on subjects as truly puzzling as this one. People are being misinformed and taken advantage of because of the lack of ethics in the administration of ECT. I'm thinking maybe it's time for Daniel Smith, the author of "Shock and Disbelief," to have his head examined. PW.
Similar posts: Buy armour without prescription. Buy malegra fxt (sildenafil + fluoxetine) without prescription. Buy lithium without prescription. Buy prilosec without prescription. Buy strattera without prescription. Buy allegra without prescription. Buy flagyl without prescription. Buy premarin without prescription. Buy tetracycline without prescription. Buy celexa without prescription.
Trackbacks from: Flagyl online without prescription. Buy levitra without prescription. Buy maxalt without prescription. Kapikachhu without a prescription. Buy gentamicin without prescription. Torsemide online without prescription. Abilify without prescription. Niaspan without a prescription. Vpxl without prescription. Female rx plus oil online without prescription.
Added: July 17, 2006 |
1 Comment