Psychiatric Drug Prescritions - Our Culture Needs to Question Itself

Top 25 psychiatric medications

Doctors wrote 47 million prescriptions for Xanax in 2011 . Followed by 37 million for Celexa.

It's amazing how many prescriptions are written for such mind altering substances. In my opinion this is medical insanity. A paradigm that creates such wide spread use of chemicals that are designed to poison the brain is deeply dysfunction.

Additionally, critiques against the widespread use of psychiatric medications is repetitive, but in the face of such medical madness worth repeating.

1) Patients are not warned about "addiction" to the medications, which has been relabeled by the psychiatric industry with names like "continuation syndrome."

What I have learned from my clients is that not only are they not warned about any possible dangers of these medications, they are pressured by doctors into taking them. I have had numerous clients tell me, when they refused psychiatric medications their medical doctors would give them all sorts of reassurances that the drugs will work, and are safe. This is clearly not true to anyone who does a brief search online for dangers of these medications.

To really be honest about this, if a patient is told that a drug such as Celexa is safe and doesn't have withdrawal effects, they are being lied to.

2) The diseases are not real.

OK, anxiety and depression are real. Real feelings. They are not medication diagnoses. People are given medications to fix chemical imbalances that don't exist

3) What does this say about our society as a whole.

We live in a very unhappy culture. All out technology seems to do little make people happy. Why do we need all these drugs? Why are we drugging children?

The real answers to these questions will take us quickly outside of the narrow realm of health and into psychology, sociology and economics.

Years ago PBS aired a Frontline investigation into drugging of children:

 This is one of the most disturbing documentaries I've ever seen. In fact, I never watched the whole thing because I could not stomach the insanity and, perhaps I should say evilness of doctors and the system. This is an obvious example of not only the medical establishment turning being a child into a disease, but a failure to undergo any sort of assessment. 

Perhaps a reason why psychiatric drugs are liked, is that it lets our culture scapegoat fictional "chemical imbalances" in the brain instead of really looking at what we are doing wrong. Why are we so unhappy? Why are we so anxious? What is causing people in our society to suicide? What do so many young people resort to self harm?

The brain doesn't just become a scapegoat for the clueless psychiatrist. It becomes a scapegoat for dysfunctional families, school, and I would extend the dysfunction to our sociology-economic system in general. In a would of such amazing technology, why are Americans so unhappy and poor while working so much harder then they did 50 years ago. Why can we not use science and technology to created a would that provides for objective human needs? That being physical needs and psychological needs?

As shown in the film Zeitgiest Moving Forward, our society, on a foundational level is not designed to provide for objective human needs. 

But no reason to really reexamine our paradigms, if you feel unhappy go and get Celexa.

4) Ignorance of natural health is a driving force behind psychiatric medications.

People will be prescribed psychiatric drugs to mask psychological problems, Candida, hypothyroidism, metal toxicity, protein deficiency and other health problems. This is what I see. Often people will take such drugs for years, only to find out later that what they really have is some other problem.

But other times people end up on a cocktail of various psychiatric drugs for years that they are unable to get off of. They continue to see the prescribing doctors and fiddle around with this drug and that, possibly changing doses, but never really getting healthy.

Of course, every case is different, but from experience many of these people may just have food allergies, Candida, some hormonal issues, need for folate, or something else which it totally treatable with natural medicine.
 

The Candida – Psoriasis connection

 Psoriasis is not caused by a steroid drug deficiency

Typically conventional medicine treats psoriasis with steroids. While this may help symptoms, it is entirely useless in addressing the cause of psoriasis. In other words, psoriasis is not caused by a deficiency of topical corticosteroids.

Several times I have seen psoriasis patients who were actually surprised when I mentioned the possibility of candida. In actuality the relationship between psoriasis and chronic candida overgrowth is understood by many in natural health.

Additionally, there are research studies backing this up. So there should be nothing controversial about considering candida in a case of psoriasis.

Studies that show link between Candida and Psoriasis:

Incidence of Candida in psoriasis – a study on the fungal flora of psoriatic patients

This study found candida in 72% of the psoriatic patients, but in only 46% of the controls. Also, they found candida in 78% of the saliva samples of the psoriatics but in only 50% of the controls.

A 1994 article “Microorganisms and Psoriasis” reported completely, or almost completely clearing psoriasis in 50% of 126 patients, using antimicrobial treatment.

Interestingly, this article covers other organisms that may be factors in psoriasis besides Candida albicans. These are:

• Malassezia ovalis
• group A beta-hemolytic streptococci
• group B beta-hemolytic streptococci
• Enterococcus faecalis
• Pseudomonas species
• Klebsiella species
• Bacillus cereus

While I don't entirely agree with their method of treatment, and would prefer a more natural route (using herbs instead of drugs, the "Candida diet", liver support, etc...), this is still an excellent article on the microbial triggers of psoriasis and treatment.

What about studies that found no relationship between Candida and Psoriasis?

A study from 2003; Microorganisms in Intertriginous Psoriasis: No Evidence of Candida culture took culture samples from psoriac patients and found no evidence of Candida. Therefore, the study recommended that Candida not be treated with anti-fungal agents, and instead be treated with topical steroids.

However, upon actually looking at how the study was conducted, the samples for culture where taken from the actual psoriatic lesions.

From the perspective of a natural health care practitioner who has experience with Candida patients, this is not surprising. The link between Candida and Psoriasis is not so direct. In other words, the psoriatic lesion is not a candida infection. Rather, this is the body's response to an internal overgrowth of candida, which is generally traced back to the digestive tract. It is the candida in the digestive tract, which releases toxic by-products and triggers the immune system that causes the body to produce psoriasis lesion as part of a response. Therefore, cultures for candida should be from stool, not the skin, and treatment with anti-fungals should be directed at the digestive tract as well. 

Of course, a comprehensive history should be taken as well, and if some thing comes up in history that leads case in a different direction other than Candida or similar microbial overgrowth, then other triggers should be considered as well. Candida is not the THE CAUSE of psoriasis in all people. It is just a likely trigger.