Most Doctors Don’t Know
Wednesday, July 12th, 2000.
It’s true that some doctors are now becoming aware of Paxil withdrawal. I sent an email to my doctor after I experienced the living hell of cold turkey withdrawal, and yesterday he got back to me. I’ve included his reply in this message just so some of you (at least in Canada) can get an idea where general practitioners are in their understanding of Paxil. It seems that those of us who experience extreme withdrawal are learning about it as our doctors are learning, if not faster.
I’ve edited my doctor’s email message here, removing any remarks that could identify him:
I am sorry that you had such a bad experience on stopping the Paxil. You are right when you state that I was ill-informed when I advised you that withdrawal symptoms would likely be mild and transient. I gave you that information based on the year 2000 edition of the Compendium of Pharmaceuticals and Specialties [C.P.S.] which is the information source most widely used by physicians in Canada. You should be pleased to know that physicians are becoming aware of distressing adverse effects of withdrawal from SSRIs such as Paxil… I recently attended a continuing medical education session on the management of depression where the speaker who is a psychiatrist spoke at some length on ‘withdrawal syndrome’ and the need to taper SSRIs rather than stopping ‘cold turkey.’ I plan to report your experience (without identifying you) to the Canadian Adverse Drug Reaction Monitoring Program at Health Canada in Ottawa. Hopefully they will include a warning to Canadian physicians in the next issue of their Adverse Drug Reaction Newsletter.
P.S. (Sept. 2006): I wonder if doctors are any more aware today of the effects of paxroxetine withdrawal. Is the CPS still “the information source most widely used by physicians in Canada”? Is the CPS still heavily financed by the pharmaceutical industry? I wonder how much has changed in 6 years.