PrescribedHarm

A space dedicated to the Prescribed Harm Community.
Raising awareness about issues in psychiatry and med-induced iatrogenesis since 2021.

[Dr Joanna Moncrieff @joannamoncrieff]

Coverage of our paper about long-term antidepressant use, including lack of evidence for benefits and under-appreciated adverse effects. @markhoro @WallisKatharine. https://t.co/zTxNTpH2XY

[Dr Joanna Moncrieff @joannamoncrieff]

If you accept that psychiatry is not about treating objectively identifiable entities or diseases, then the only way to maintain that it is a medical enterprise is to extend the definition of medicine to a meaningless degree. A response to @awaisaftab by @psychgeist52. https://t.co/W4sOU03vPL

[Mark Horowitz @markhoro.bsky.social @markhoro]

Precisely. if we don't know who needs slow tapering and who doesn't the precautionary principle dictates we should go slowly and speed up if there is no trouble and not the other way round. Like driving. I spent years trying to educate doctors about safe tapering, almost no one listened, I received 10,000+ emails from patients so I helped to set up a clinic to deal with this because no one else would. Your repeated insinuation that I am advocating solely for a business is absurd. I spend 90% of my time teaching and writing which directly runs counter to the clinic's interest. I have literally published our protocols in a book for anyone to use. You repeatedly sidestep sensible discussion with unevidenced assertions and ad hominem attacks. I have a suspicion that you are also paid for your work. And I do not attribute all your views to the fact that you are paid by the manufacturers of the drugs. It seems that this is a bit of a game for you - you are on holiday, and you like saying clever things, but a lot of people's lives have been upended by withdrawal from these drugs (even if you think that number is small). The lack of senior leadership on this issue is deeply unnerving and contributes to the sense that people's wellbeing is not being taken seriously, but that scoring points and saving face are more important.

[AC @ACsomenumbers]

I’ve talked to far too many people with PSSD to buy the narrative that it’s “rare.”

Who decided it’s rare?

[Camus @newstart_2024]

“I have no sensation in my genitals. My clitoris is completely numb.”

Lauren Friedman, 23, shared her devastating experience with PSSD (Post-SSRI Sexual Dysfunction) — permanent loss of libido, sensation, and ability to orgasm after taking antidepressants.

Chris Williamson and Isabel Brown reacted with shock, noting how little mainstream coverage this issue receives.

Sexual side effects from SSRIs affect 50-70% of users. For a subset of people, these effects (including genital numbness and anorgasmia) persist long after discontinuation, a condition known as Post-SSRI Sexual Dysfunction (PSSD). The exact prevalence is unknown, but patient reports and emerging research suggest it may be under-recognized.

People deserve full informed consent about potential long-term risks before starting these medications.

What do you think, should PSSD get more public and medical attention?

[Mary MacCallum Sullivan @MacPsy]

A key moment: psychiatry has fallen.

[PrescribedHarm @prescribedharm_]

@realDailyWire @theisabelb @ChrisWillx Thank you for sharing stories of harmed patients 🙌 #prescribedharm

[Daily Wire @realDailyWire]

"You're watching a lot of the same downstream effects as the trans movement with over prescription of SSRIs."

@theisabelb tells @ChrisWillx that doctors are using the same playbook with SSRIs that they used with so-called "gender-affirming care" for kids.

[sami timimi @stimimi]

Diagnosing a child with ADHD does not liberate them but instead may lead to them becoming yet another victim of psychiatrisation

[Bert @HenryRunamucker]

"Suicidal thoughts:
Placebo: 2 (1.5%)
Lexapro: 13 (9.5%)

If this had been efficacy data, AbbVie would have been ecstatic - that difference is dramatic. Unfortunately for the kids, it’s in the direction of killing yourself."

[Harriet Vogt @harriet48293]

@DescribeHealth @iatrogenicaware @KennethMPeters1 @CorewellHealth @BeaumontUrology Medical director perhaps needs reminding - informed consent of risks a patient would consider material is an ethical & legal obligation. Not their right to decide on patients’ priorities.

[David Wayne @DescribeHealth]

@KennethMPeters1 @CorewellHealth @BeaumontUrology As a psych nurse, I proposed an update to our patient education materials to include a warning about PSSD. The medical director's response? "No, that will create hesitancy"

[Antidepressant Coalition for Education @ACE_CoalitionEd]

There are hundreds of thousands of members in withdrawal-related support groups and that figure does not include the countless individuals who never formally joined these communities or those who suffered in isolation, never finding them at all.

It is a profound failure that drug manufacturers and regulators did not adequately warn patients, people who simply trusted their doctors, about the possibility of severe, life-altering withdrawal and the need for careful, often years-long tapering. For many long-term users, tapering is not a passive process. It requires measuring tiny amounts of medication (crumbs, beads, or drops) with extraordinary precision to avoid debilitating symptoms.

In the absence of meaningful medical guidance, patients have become the experts, creating makeshift laboratories in their kitchens and developing tapering methods through necessity and lived experience. Attempts to dismiss these experiences as mere anecdote, or to discredit patients’ accounts of their own bodies and minds because they have a mental health diagnosis, are fundamentally anti-patient.

[USA TODAY @USATODAY]

After stopping antidepressants, this 23-year-old said she experienced a “chemical castration." What to know about PSSD, according to experts. https://t.co/jfG3KoxoMq

[Paul D. Thacker @thackerpd]

It's kind of amazing the way so many journalists fail at basic science and report that SSRIs are safe during pregnancy.

[PrescribedHarm @prescribedharm_]

@RecoveryDoctor Oh, Michael. There's still time to delete this.

[NOMAC @nomacxyz]

I‘m about to break my tapering border from 32,5mg Venlafaxine to 32mg. Thats about 1 bead. It‘s everytime the same: restless, pacing, anger, scolding and the feeling of being torn apart from the inside.I‘m furious this isn‘t aknowledged, it‘s not malpractice it‘s a medical crime!

[Suneel Dhand MD @DrSuneelDhand]

I’m a doctor and I’m convinced there’s a coherent argument that if the entire specialty of Psychiatry DISAPPEARED in the United States, the country would actually have better mental health

[BASED PSYCHIATRIST @BasedPsychMD]

Statistics are irrelevant to the individual.

“It’s very rare” means absolutely nothing to me if I or someone I love has been debilitated by a medical intervention.

A 1 in 100 event is 100 percent of your life when you are the one living it.

And “rare” only holds if anyone bothered to count. For withdrawal, they never did. The number is a guess dressed up as data.

[Mark Horowitz @markhoro.bsky.social @markhoro]

I wrote a blog on "Why Doctors Don’t See Withdrawal:
Severe antidepressant withdrawal is often hidden in plain sight. Here's why most clinicians don't recognise it – and why I wouldn't have either until it happened to me." Link below. Please re-tweet.