"So, when in doubt ... prescribe psych drugs, right?"

Misdiagnoses rampant among psych drug users; children with digestive problems being labeled schizophrenic, drugged with deadly SSRIs

by: Jennifer Lea Reynolds

As if it's not bad enough that Big Pharma engages in price gouging – who can forget Turing Pharmaceuticals' Martin Shkreli, who raised the price of a life-improving medication from $13.50 to $750 a pill – another sad reality is that lots of people aren't even being prescribed the appropriate drug for their condition in the first place.(1)

For example, psych drugs are being prescribed to people who don't even need to be taking them, thanks to frequent misdiagnoses. In turn, people are not only spending money on the wrong kind of drug, but they're taking medications that have detrimental side effects, including the ultimate one – death. Here they've been thinking they're taking something to improve their health, when their mental and physical health has been toyed with all along.

Over a decade after initial diagnosis, boy told he didn't have schizophrenia after all

Take the instance of an 18-year-old boy who was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. Twelve long years after his diagnosis, it turns out that what he really had was Wilson's disease (WD), which can occur when the body is unable to properly metabolize copper. This case is mentioned in the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, which states that the man had to continue taking the neuroleptics he'd initially been prescribed "... because of the delay in diagnosing the illness, which diminished the efficiency of the single chelating treatment."(2,3)

Unfortunately, cases like this are all too common.

Sadly, there are misdiagnoses galore surrounding Wilson's disease, which is often initially diagnosed as a mental disorder. As such, people go on to take damaging psych drugs, when in reality, they could have a number of other conditions that may not require the need for such drugs, or maybe none at all. Sometimes a simple change in diet makes the difference, but we all know that Big Pharma would have nothing to do with that, lest good health come before greed.

Misdiagnoses commonplace; knee-jerk reactions lead to prescriptions of psych drugs

Information in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry makes the issue of diagnostic errors very clear:

"Of the 307 patients of WD diagnostic errors by referring doctors from different specialties of health care were detected in 192 patients. These were diverse and multiple and included schizophrenia, juvenile polyarthritis, rheumatic chorea, nephrotic syndrome, metachromatic leucodystrophy, congenital myopathies, subacute sclerosing panencephalitis, neurodegenerative disease among others."(3)

That same journal also notes that WD, "... with its varied clinical manifestations, often poses a diagnostic and therapeutic challenge." It's also mentioned that "no two patients are ever the same," and that "... there is no such thing as typical picture of Wilson's disease."(3)

So, when in doubt ... prescribe psych drugs, right?

'There must be a hundred ways to go crazy ...' making it easy for drugs to be issued at the drop of a dime

Indeed, many ailments have been said to take on schizophrenia-like behaviors. The late Carl C. Pfeiffer, Ph.D., M.D. wrote that "... there must be a hundred ways to go crazy and be diagnosed as schizophrenic." He provided a list of what he called schizophrenia "disperceptions," or causes often inappropriately linked with the disorder. They range from heavy metal toxicity and sleep deprivation, to hypoglycemia, Wilson's disease and even dialysis therapy.(4)

That's quite the spread of possibilities, which means all the more room for a person to receive mind-altering, damaging drugs. And let's face it, these drugs often include SSRIs, or selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, which basically change the brain's chemicals in an effort to improve mood. Talk about damaging!

Furthermore, when improper WD diagnoses are ultimately better assessed (oh, it's not schizophrenia after all, whoops!), it's often too late; many people are so affected by the drugs they've been told to take, that their bodies simply aren't receptive to a treatment that addresses their newly, more appropriately-diagnosed condition. All of this is chalked up to an "... underestimation and lack of awareness among treating physicians and laboratory errors in estimation of copper and ceruloplasmin concentrations."(3)

Yes, people make mistakes and misdiagnoses can occur. But that's simply not an acceptable excuse, especially when it continues happening and it's destroying health. Enough with the knee-jerk, let's-prescribe-psych-drugs reactions. The medical community should more thoroughly assess patients, giving them the in-office visit time and review they deserve, before handing over a script for the likes of mind-altering drugs that could kill them.

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/053254_misdiagnoses_schizophrenia_psych_drugs.html#ixzz42V8W7KA2