AYOUNG woman suffering from depression is prescribed the latest wonder drug: it comes from a new generation of so-called non-addictive medicines, supposedly a world away from the Valium-based tablets that a previous generation of women battled to give up. Europe Intelligence Wire via NewsEdge Corporation : AYOUNG woman suffering from depression is prescribed the latest wonder drug: it comes from a new generation of so-called non-addictive medicines, supposedly a world away from the Valium-based tablets that a previous generation of women battled to give up. But, years later, Fiona Reid finds herself struggling along the same road as countless numbers before her - that of fighting addiction to a prescription drug. The drug is Seroxat. It is one of a group called Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors, or SSRIs. It has replaced Prozac, which replaced Valium as the GPs' answer to depression, anxiety, and panic attacks. But, like them, Seroxat now appears to have serious drawbacks. Originally described by its makers, GlaxoSmithkline, as non-addictive, it has caused such severe withdrawal symptoms that 4000 people in Britain are pursuing a lawsuit. Reid, from Edinburgh, is one of them, prompted into action because, at 23, she is angry about the effect it has had on her young life. She is determined that other people will not take the drug without knowing more about its likely effects. ''They are saying it is non-addictive, but GlaxoSmithKline uses a medical definition of addiction, which says that it is addictive if you need an ever-increasing dose to gain the same effect, but a layperson assumes that non-addictive means you can stop without withdrawal symptoms,'' she says. As a first-year student at Edinburgh University, Reid went to the doctor because she was depressed. Five years later, and with the benefit of hindsight, she says that although she was depressed at the time, she doesn't think she was suffering from depression. It's a significant difference because there were good reasons for her to be depressed. Not only was she adjusting to university life and under some financial pressure, but her mother had MS, her grandparents had moved into the family home, and her brother, with whom she was sharing a flat, had developed schizophrenia. She was prescribed Seroxat and told she would need to stay on it for six months. It solved her immediate problems, and she found it easy to come off. So when, a year later, she experienced depression again, she went back on Seroxat without any serious qualms. By that time, her state of health had become more complicated. She had developed ovarian cysts and a damaged liver. Concerned that these could be the side- effects of Seroxat, she decided to reduce the dose. Immediately she suffered diarrhoea, sickness, and abdominal spasms, which became so bad that she was hospitalised. She was diagnosed with irritable bowel syndrome and referred to a consultant. He was pleased that she was already taking Seroxat, since anti-depressants are recommended for people with IBS for their anti-spasmodic effect. ''He told me to stay on it. I trusted the doctors and none ever raised Seroxat as the possible cause of the problem,'' she says. Her stomach problems continued and she turned to alternative therapies. That brought a diagnosis of candida - an overgrowth of yeast in the bowel. Treatment consisted of a strict diet, plus supplements, and eventually she felt well for the first time in years. She then learned that candida could cause depression and decided to come off Seroxat. Her GP told her to cut down by moving from a daily dose, to every second day, then every third day. She got as far as every fourth day before succumbing to a succession of tonsilitis, flu, and what she thought was food poisoning. After five days her temperature ''went through the roof'', she was in severe abdominal pain, being constantly sick, and suffering severe mood swings. She asked her GP if this could be related to cutting down the Seroxat and was categorically told no. However, she was switched to the liquid form of the drug because it is easier to take small doses and therefore cut down. ''The problem with the liquid was that it made me throw up, even though I took it with food.'' When Reid talks of ''throwing up'' she means running in and out of the bathroom for a couple of hours every morning. It is so bad that she has had to reduce her working hours to start at 10.30am instead of 8.30am. She works in a call centre dealing with pensions and disappears to the toilet between calls. Undeterred, her priority is now getting back to work full-time and so she is starting a new course of Seroxat - at 10mg, half her previous daily dose - and is preparing for a long, slow reduction to a Seroxat-free future. ''I just want my life back. I am young, I should be able to work and be able to go out and see friends, or go to the cinema. I should be able to plan for the future. What I have learned about Seroxat and the other SSRIs has convinced me that it has caused most of my problems,'' she says. She has two friends who have also suffered severe problems. One took 18 months to come off Seroxat, while the other experienced electric-shock-type blinding flashes. Mark Harvey of Hugh James, solicitors in Cardiff, is preparing a class action on behalf of 4000 potential claimants in the UK and Jersey, and expects to submit a letter of claim early next year. He says: ''There are a few cases involving relatives of people who have committed suicide, or committed violent acts against their families, but the vast majority tell remarkably similar stories of being unable to come off the drug without their lives being made a misery.'' The evidence is building. In 1999 the World Health Organisation placed Seroxat at the top of a list of drugs which doctors believe cause marked withdrawal problems. In January this year, GlaxoSmithKline was required by the Food and Drug Administration, which licenses medicines in the United States, to attach a new warning to Seroxat. It says that patients must be monitored for the side-effects of physical dependency and that the dose should be gradually reduced. Recent US trials for new uses of Seroxat found that even with gradual reduction, at least two in every 100 people suffered abnormal dreams or pains resembling electric shocks, and seven in every 100 experienced dizziness. In December 2001, two months after the September 11 disaster, Seroxat, known as Paxil in the US, was approved for treating post- traumatic stress disorder, and was widely prescribed to New Yorkers. The lessons of Valium may be as pertinent to the legal as to the medical profession, however. Attempts to take legal action against the makers of the benzodiazapines, which were also said not to be addictive, collapsed because the legal aid was used up in the investigations of the cases demanded by the companies before the action reached court <> << Copyright ©2002 Financial Times Limited, All Rights Reserved >>
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