Another Poor Soul

I found out a couple of days ago that a friend of mine has died aged 32. I don't know the cause of her death, but she has had more than one serious attempt at suicide in the past, one of which left her in a wheel chair. She leaves behind a sister and a young lad. This brings the total suicides of people from the mental health system that I have known personally, to 19. It isn't healthy to keep a tally, but given the sorry state of treatment and the general understanding of illness, I think its important to remember every one of them. She suffered from severe depression.

Milliband Strides Out for Mental Health

I have written to Ed Milliband several times, even posting him a copy of the Mental Health Manifesto, and this week he will make a speech, saying that mental health in the UK needs to be improved in terms of access to a full range of therapies, (referring mainly to talking therapies), and comparing stigmatisation of the mentally ill, to racism and sexism. He says that "Just as we joined the fight against racism, against sexism and against homophobia, so we should join the fight against this form of intolerance." He goes on to say that "There are so many people in Britain today who could be treated but who are intimidated from seeking help." By intitimdated I'm guessing that he means people with depression who are too aware of other peoples attitudes. Colleagues, family and so on. I don't think he means people with ongoing severe mental illness who are too scared of being sectioned to tell their mental health team that they're not feeling well? Good for Mr Milliband though.

In other news a survey of mentally unwell young people has surprised me, and must have surpried others. The headline figure said that 90% of young people with a mental illness had suffered some form of discrimination. Unfortunately I cannot locate the source of this research. I saw a news story on the TV. But if I find it I will let you know...

The Vast and Gruesome Clutch of Our Law

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Coffee and Escitalopram!

For years I have struggled with motivation and concentration and I still do. It would take me three weeks to wash up, three months to hoover. It took me five years to finish my first book. I would struggle to get into town to do shopping and struggle back. I would end up spending the day playing cards on my computer and checking emails, mostly achieving nothing. I might do ten minutes work a day if that. I have suffered from depression for many years, and I put my lack of motivation down to not feeling like I had a future, or that I wanted one. But recently I have tried a cocktail of strong coffee and a low dose of the anti-depressant Escitalopram. I have tried anti-depressants before, and believe me I don't have much faith in them. Most of them are effective for about three months and then their efficacy drops off a cliff. So far I have taken it (when I remember) for about six weeks. I have also increased my caffeine intake. This combination seems to be working, but not always. I am a little more active and I am writing again, after a period of being totally blocked. I just didn't want to write. I felt silly, like I wasn't good enough. I plan to take Escitalopram for three months and see what happens. Not that I am recommending drinking loads of coffee and taking anti-depressants as a solution to chronic laziness, driven by desperately bad depression, but hay, what works, works. The trouble is my blood sugar levels have shot up, as a result of taking this drug. So as soon as I solve one problem I have effectively created another, potentially as serious as the one I was trying to solve. Prolong my life, by feeling happier, but shortened it via diabetes. I can't win.

Read my books! http://www.vagabond-unlimited.co.uk

The Vast and Gruesome Clutch of Our Law: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0954969189/

Super Red: http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0954969170/

Has The Science Been Lost in Big Pharma?

Over the last year I wrote to several leading science journalists and scientists, one of whom was lamenting the loss of two major drug companies to neuroscience. They didn't want to develop drugs for the brain any more, and while I sighed with relief, others were calling it a tragic loss to brain medicine. In my letters I explained the following: 1) We don't yet fully understand the normal brain and how it functions. 2) We don't yet know what causes schizophrenia and 3) we prescribe expensive and risky drugs, based on what exactly? The science just isn't there to justify millions of presciptions, to millions of people across dozens of different drugs. But not only are we taking them in large quatities, we are also forced or intimidated by the health authorities to take them.

One of the people I wrote to was Ben Goldacre, a journalist and author, who has recently published his new book, Bad Pharma, published by The Fourth Estate. Even though he never replied to me, I read an excerpt from his book on the Guardian website and in it he describes an industry that has lost all sense of scientific rigour, lies to and manipulates doctors, withholds vital data, and issues drugs that are not only completely useless, but also cause unpleasant and dangerous side effects. The drug companies are not held to account by the regulators and they are deliberately using ineffective regulations to push drugs that have very iffy efficacy data. Goldacre says that 'Because researchers are free to bury any result they please, patients are exposed to harm on a staggering scale throughout the whole of medicine. Doctors can have no idea about the true effects of the treatments they give.' This admission is just unbelievable. The trouble is though, governments and politicians cannot move against big pharma to sort this out, because of lobbyists, who will hound and buy off politicians, with offers to fund campaigns. In America if the government moved to tighten regulations, the right would block any major restrictions against dodgy drugs. The reason for this is that because a lot of drugs are implicated in this scandal, the pharmaceutical industry would be threatened with almost total collaspe. Goldacre claims that so many drugs are ineffective, with masses of withheld data, held back by drug companies, that every type of illness would be effected, from anti-depressives to statins.

Also, Goldacre explains about one scientific journal who published an article about the scandal. The journal Jama, explained the situation and the regulator in Denmark, Lif, went on the offensive and attempted to refer the authors to the Danish Committee on Scientific Dishonesty. They presented zero scientific evidence that the authors had been dishonest, but the investigation was conducted any way, eventually being dropped after a couple of months. This is what doctors can expect who don't tow the line of a system that has lost all perspective about scientific rigour in medicine. And in the meantime we all suffer.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/sep/21/drugs-industry-scandal-ben-goldacre

Books Selling Well.

My book The Vast and Gruesome Clutch of OUr Law, seems to be shifting copies, in the few bookshops who have taken it. After all these years something is happening at last. I have offered the book for sale on the UK Amazon site (http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0954969170/), and the US site, using Createspace an Amazon service: http://www.amazon.com/dp/0954969170/

The Vast and Gruesome Clutch of Our Law is also available to you at http://www.vagabond-unlimited.co.uk, where you can check artwork, satirical cartoons, and my animated film, which is still seeking funding.

Super Red, which I think is a cool little production, is also available here at the UK Amazon site: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0954969189/ and here in the US, also using Createspace: http://www.amazon.com/dp/0954969189/ .

Kindle versions are also available.

My other sites worth a recce:

http://www.the-debt-pack.co.uk
http://www.futuretowns.org.uk

Changes to Working Practices

It seems that in two key areas there are positive signs that the mental health system is recognising it needs to do better. In my local NHS Trust at least, doctors are now required to give patients a run down of side effects of the drugs they are prescribing. I recently saw my doctor, and was prescribed a new drug. She got out the BNF book (the British National Formulary - the reference book for drugs), and ran off a very long list of known side effects. It read like a very horrific medical accident, but it was important to do this. However, it also means that patients can't claim they didn't know about the drugs side effects before agreeing to take it. At that point of desperation, when a patient feels they need something to help them, who is going to turn it down based on side effects? However, I have in the past turned down medication because of unnecessarily high risk, due to side effects. But many patients won't.

Secondly there are plans a-foot to allow advocates to come in with patients when seeing a doctor, so that patients can ensure that they get good advice, and another perspective to their care, other than their doctors. There is a new law going through parliament (which I myself haven't had a chance to read yet), but you can take a look at here:  http://services.parliament.uk/bills/2012-13/mentalhealthdiscriminationno2.html. This law also states that people who have been sectioned for longer than six months, cannot be barred from becoming MP's and company directors.