Neuroleptics and Neurotoxicity
Letter to a survivor list...Hi,
Years ago I suffered from very severe reactions from neuroleptics; Thorazine,
Haldol, etc. The worst symptom was having music going around in my head
non-stop; at a loud internal volume which felt like it was tearing my brain
apart. I also had tactile hallucinations of needles going in and out of my eyes
and face. It was a torment I would not wish on anyone. I was put on Dilantin and
Centrax for nine months, to calm the neurotransmitters so these horrible effects
would go away.
Two years ago I was put on Buspar and the same effects came back, even though
this drug is an SSRI. I thought I was safe because it was not a neuroleptic, but
I was wrong, in that these anti-depressants can affect the neurotransmitters in
uncertain ways.
What I have thought of in my case, is that each brain is a unique holistic
entity, and it is possible for some people to have severe reactions to excess
dopamine and others to have no effects at all.
Phenothiazines create excess dopamine by blocking dopamine at the post-synaptic
neuron, thus causing the pre-synaptic neuron to sense a deficit and secrete too
much dopamine into the synapse; when the synapse also already has enough
dopamine in reserves. This causes the dopamine neurons to fire like crazy, and
since my brain is sensitive to excess dopamine, it produced terrible
neurological symptoms.
I think that when people seems to respond to neuroleptics, that maybe their
brains are sensitive to excess dopamine and the neuroleptics produce a
paradoxical effect and suppress dopamine, thus covering up symptoms. But
Phenothiazines increase dopamine, they do not inhibit it, as Valenstein has
said.
It has occurred to me that these neuroleptics may be causing the "mental
illnesses" in patients by disrupting the neurotransmitter system, and that maybe
Dilantin and Centrax in a cocktail dose could help them the way it helped me.
Also the SSRI's can cause the same neuroleptic effects, as I found to my
detriment.
It is my conviction that changes in brain chemestry can cause trouble, but these
changes are due to neurotoxicity caused by neuroleptic drugs, and not by any
organic cause. Neuroleptics and stigmatization as well as psychosocial causes
produce distress that is mistaken for "insanity."
Environment and experience, cognition and emotion produce brain chemistry
changes, they are an effect of mental states, not a cause. I am still recovering
from the neurological and emotional damage and deficits caused by these horrible
drugs. I would like to thank you as well as all others that are speaking out on
the fascistic fraud of biomedical psychiatry.
D.
Reference
material on the effects of neuroleptics on brain structure.
