Harvard, Eli Lilly, and Zyprexa

Well, I don’t want to dig myself into a Slam Big Pharma Black Hole but…

I’ll just say that people are entitled to their opinions. Whether or not they’re all “bedfellows” I am really not “wont” to say.

What I will say is that in some cases, the Atypicals can do some good but you really need to look at the patient. And there is a big difference between Atypical usage in Schizophrenia (long term) and Bipolar (some short term and some longer term.) It’s a risk-benefit analysis and with a lot of head meds, they haven’t been on the market long enough to really know what they’re ultimately doing to us (if you want to get really paranoid and worry about things like that.) I don’t. Because the point is, we need them now in order to stay sane (relatively speaking.)

*If* I were a treating physician, due to having taken the damn things (well, one–Olanzapine) if possible, I would stick with the use of Anticonvulsants and/or Lithium for Bipolar treatment and leave the Atypicals as “Emergency Use Only.”

For Schizophrenia, well, I will say that the Atypicals do offer perhaps a better side effect profile than the older Antipsychotics but CATIE didn’t prove that the “old school” drugs were any less effective.

But again, everything on an individual basis.

Okay Patient Anonymous just “played doctor.” I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing but there you go.