In the middle of an intense conversation A.F. said to me, "I'd like to see how you would act if you were on a bunch of psych drugs," and he proceeded to list each medication that he was taking for bipolar disorder. He told me about the side effects. He declared it was the medication that caused his somnolence, he wasn't lazy. He wanted to attend group therapy, but some days he had trouble thinking straight and starting the day.
Sadly, one patient, A.N., was beyond the point of no return, having been institutionalized since the 1970s. That's right, folks, way back in the day, before the presidency of Ronald Regan. At one point in his life he was on chlorpromazine, a drug that is rarely administered anymore. A.N. displayed tremors... of his hand, of his arm, and of his lips. While chlorpromazine may reduce the positive symptoms of schizophrenia (hallucinations and delusions), it is also known to cause adverse side effects, such as tardive dyskinesia.
I mentioned olanzapine in an earlier post. The issue with olanzapine is weight gain. I suppose G was a big boy... had he simply gained weight from the medication, or was he overweight to begin with?
M.D., a fan of Slipknot, mentioned to me he was on quetiapine. This antipsychotic is known to cause sedation. Those who have a history of insomnia are prescribed this drug. Suppose M.D. had no history of insomnia but quetiapine was the only drug that he responded favorably to and, after a while, the sedation was just too much so he switched to another drug but had trouble sleeping for some reason. Kind of a catch-22, right? My point is, can it be plausible to say that rehabilitation itself may cause unwanted side effects?
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