Misdiagnosed anti-psychotic drug may be killing stressed veterans

By The Associated Press
Monday, August 30th, 2010 -- 10:50 am


Traumatized vets take potent drug to help them sleep, but questions loom about potential risks

Andrew White returned from a nine-month tour in Iraq beset with signs of post-traumatic stress disorder: insomnia, nightmares, constant restlessness. Doctors tried to ease his symptoms using three psychiatric drugs, including a potent anti-psychotic called Seroquel.

Thousands of soldiers suffering from PTSD have received the same medication over the last nine years, helping to make Seroquel one of the Veteran Affairs Department's top drug expenditures and the No. 5 best-selling drug in the nation.

Several soldiers and veterans have died while taking the pills, raising concerns among some military families that the government is not being up front about the drug's risks. They want Congress to investigate.


...

Marine Cpl. Chad Oligschlaeger, 21, was being treated for PTSD when he died in his sleep at Camp Pendleton, Calif., in May 2008. Oligschlaeger was taking six types of medication, including Seroquel, to deal with anxiety and nightmares that followed two tours of duty in Iraq.

The military medical examiner attributed the death to "multiple drug toxicity," indicating that Oligschlaeger, too, died from a drug interaction. Because of the complex reactions between various drugs, medical examiners do not attribute such deaths to any one medication.

Please!

And really, should be banned - especially the ones that are linked to suicide and psychosis, which is most of them.

Natural substitutes are available for these drugs.

You are obviously one lucky person to never have had problems with depression or obsessive compulsive disorder.

Give a little thought to those of us who do.

Am I addicted? no. I've stopped and started two. Do I want to return to the hell I was in before? I would rather eat razor blades with lemon sauce.

Your natural substances are crap. I tried them. They don't do shit for a person with even a slightly serious problem.

...I'll pass. I have PTSD that went untreated for 20 years. Give me a joint and I get totally paranoid.