Brain dysfunction changes

Psychiatry has yet to face the fact that it has trapped millions of patients into taking SSRI and SRI drugs for years on end because they are unable to endure the withdrawal symptoms. Sometimes the brain changes are so persistent or irreversible that the individuals feel compelled to remain on the drugs indefinitely. Often the withdrawal symptoms lead them mistakenly to believe that they suffer from an underlying mental illness that requires medication, when instead they have persistent brain dysfunction caused by medication. 

Medical illnesses that lead to systemic changes and ultimately to brain dysfunction (see figure 5-A). 

Switch phenomenon. Switching refers to the changing of one end-organ response to another end-organ. For example, during a 24-h reaction the same toxic chemical exposure can start off as transient brain dysfunction and be followed by arthralgia, diarrhea, and then arrhythmia. 

Blood pressure lowering drugs reduce risk of stroke (and myocardial infarction and death) in middle aged patients and even better in the elderly (NNT 86 vs 29 over 5 years) (Pearce 1998). However in the elderly the dysfunction in the autoregulation of brain blood flow, salt and fluids, and increased sensitivity to adverse effects and symptoms may change the picture. 

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