Tuesday, 5 November 2013
Many people who were not sensitive to salt become so when they take certain prescription drugs
Tuesday, 17 September 2013
If you are trying to get off amitriptyline, stay motivated by focusing on how much better you will feel without it.
Wednesday, 29 May 2013
You are wondering whether you would lose weight if you cut down on or give up the amitriptyline you take?
Saturday, 11 May 2013
If you are about to start taking amitriptyline then be prepared for weight gain, bloating, excessive thirst, painful breasts, swollen face, constipation, memory impairment and other problems.
Monday, 18 March 2013
If you are going to start taking prescribed steroids, e.g. prednisone, or prescribed antidepressants, e.g. amitriptyline, you would be wise to avoid food containing added salt
Saturday, 17 March 2012
How can eating salt and salty food when you are on certain medications cause weight gain?
If you want to get the hang of it better, I suggest you read http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/lose_weight.html and http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/obesity_and_the_salt_connection.html
Saturday, 21 January 2012
If your medication gives you a dry mouth or makes you thirsty
Saturday, 18 June 2011
Thinking of taking amitriptyline or other antidepressants? You may like to think again.
Thursday, 9 June 2011
Average Drug Label lists 70 potential side-effects!
And Dr Mercola tells us that "according to the latest statistics from the Kaiser Health Foundation, the average American aged 19 to 64 now takes more than 11 prescription drugs!" - And all of them have their side-effects! And side-effects are potentiated when more than one drug is being taken! - No wonder that prescription drugs occasion many thousands of visits to emergency services and are the fourth-leading cause of death in the United States!
Clearly this is a deplorable state of affairs. On my own website, more people visit with concerns about amitriptyline and other antidepressants, than about any other drug or family of drugs. And since antidepressants work no better than dummy pills and have lots of undesirable side-effects, most commonly weight gain/fluid retention/sodium retention, the massive prescribing of these particular harmful prescription drugs could and should be stopped ASAP, with great benefit to health and massive saving of money.
Monday, 30 May 2011
Taking Amitriptyline for oral/mouth pain is not a good idea in my opinion
Doctors who prescribe amitriptyline for pain sometimes explain to the patient that amitriptyline is an antidepressant drug that can help with pain, but often these doctors deliberately deceive the patients into believing that amitriptyline actually is a painkiller and do not mention that it is an antidepressant, and that they are prescribing it because they have decided the patient is 'a depressive', not a person in pain. Doctors often confuse depression and pain, unfortunately.
Now 'dry mouth'/lack of saliva obviously makes dental decay more likely, especially of the lower teeth, since normally many of these are bathed in saliva most of the time, and this inbuilt natural 'mouthwash', therefore, protects the teeth to some extent from food residue clinging to them. Furthermore, saliva is a buffer solution which chemically protects teeth from acid attack. So existing mouth pain is likely to be augmented by the development of dental caries, making matters worse, not better.
Wednesday, 1 December 2010
Study links tricyclic antidepressants to increased risk of CVD
Since antidepressants do not work anyway, doctors should not be prescribing them. Don't doctors ever read research about antidepressants? Don't they care about the harm their prescribed drugs cause their unfortunate patients? The very tiny likelihood of benefit from them is far, far outweighed by the harm they do, and the risk of further harm, including brain damage in later life.
Saturday, 22 May 2010
Antidepressants taken during pregnancy could harm the unborn baby
Doctors are supposed as far as possible to avoid prescribing drugs to pregnant mothers because pharmaceutical drugs are far, far more harmful/dangerous to unborn babies than they are to the mother herself. It is shameful that medics give so little heed to this precaution. In fact, prescription drugs are also more risky to pregnant women than to women who are not pregnant. - So it's a no no all round...
Coupled with all that, antidepressants don't work anyway! See Anti-depressants are no better than dummy pills
See also amitriptyline
advice for pregnant mothers
And see Sodium in foods.
Non-drug therapies for depression include:
a walk in the country (recommended by MIND, the mental health charity) and
improving nutrition by avoiding dieting (a well-known cause of depression) and avoiding eating salt and salty food.
Monday, 12 April 2010
Long In The Toothache - Short Story by Margaret Wilde
"These Fat Depressives: they’re always complaining of pain; they’re never happy unless they’re moaning." The consultant was musing to himself. He was a very important man. He hadn’t much time to spare for this silly woman.
He glanced at the notes. She’d complained of an acute abscess to her dentist nearly a year ago and then come afterwards to the Dental Hospital with the same complaint. Well, clearly she couldn’t have had it all that time. She couldn’t have put up with the pain.
True, she’d kept going back to her dentist. But that was the way with Depressives: obsessive about health, always wanting attention. The dentist hadn’t pandered to her, sensible fellow. He hadn’t taken any X-rays. As he’d told the woman last summer when she’d had her breakdown, that proved the ‘pain’ was just her nerves.
Coincidence that she had, after all, developed an abscess on that tooth, and it must have been there a while or the bone wouldn’t have rotted so far. Still, it would have been chronic. Lots of people had so little discomfort from chronic abscesses that they were only discovered in the course of other dental treatment. The pain of acute abscesses was of a different order of magnitude altogether, though they all become chronic if left untreated.
He knew how to deal with Depressives: Shock Treatment. It never failed. Let them know you’ll stand none of their nonsense. They needn’t whine to you for sympathy. If only everyone would treat them in the same way. They’d soon snap out of their silly behaviour then. He prided himself on his decisiveness.
She entered his room nervously. Her eyes were puffy. She appeared tired and confused. Of course, she was on Librium and amitriptyline.
"You Fat Depressives!" he greeted her. "You grind your teeth, don’t you?"
"No," she replied, and started to cry.
"All Fat Depressives on amitriptyline grind their teeth."
"Well I don’t." The silly woman was weeping copiously and blowing her nose. What a mess she looked! No wonder no-one had ever wanted to marry her.
"The last three Fat Depressives I had all ground their teeth. Why should you be any different?"
"I’m not a Fat Depressive; I’m a person. And I’ve got a lot of toothache. My mouth is a sheet of pain."
"A bit of sensitivity: we all get that as we get older. Don’t be childish. The fact is you grind your teeth while you’re asleep and that makes them hurt a bit."
"But I don’t sleep! That’s the point! I’m in too much pain. That’s why I had the breakdown. I’m so desperately tired."
"Rubbish, Woman! Of course you sleep. You just think you don’t. Pull yourself together!"
“And I’m very concerned about my work. I have a good honours degree and a distinction in teaching – but how can I give of my best to my pupils when most of my concentration is focussed on this excruciating pain and I’m so tired I can’t think properly?"
Ah that was it! She needed something to blame for poor performance in the work situation! – A classic example of neurosis!
He raised his voice to drown hers: "It is no good being hysterical with me, Young Woman. You’ve got to learn to be quiet and listen. You Neurotics are fond of the sound of your own voices."
"Tell me, Mr Lambert, don’t ‘Depressives’ ever get toothache? I have had an acute abscess left untreated for nearly a year; I have had a just-detected cracked cusp which has been painful for almost as long, one tooth just filled because it had decay and another still awaiting treatment. There are sympathetic pains all over my mouth. I am in torment."
"Stop exaggerating. - You Fat Depressives are all the same. You eat oranges and drink fizzy drinks all day, don’t you? I know these fad diets."
She looked bewildered at the change of direction of his questioning. "I don’t eat oranges. My teeth hurt too much. I never drink fizzy drinks. And I’m not normally fat. The amitriptyline holds water in my body and has caused me to gain two stones. – But what has any of this to do with the abscess, the decay and the cracked tooth?"
"Fat women always claim they never eat. - I’ll make you a bite-guard to wear at night to stop you from grinding your teeth."
She realised the advantage to the Dental ‘Mafia’ of covering up gross diagnostic errors over such a long period, but surely a consultant would have had a greater allegiance to truth and scientific exactitude than to negligent incompetents, professional colleagues or not. Surely he must realise that it was stretching credulity and coincidence too far to maintain that an abscess, a cracked tooth and two decayed teeth had all appeared by magic on the day that, fighting her appalling weariness, she had made a scene and insisted that her ex-dentist write a note for the Dental Hospital to have another look at the abscess!
The interview was at an end. He had not looked at her teeth, of course. You didn’t need to, with Depressives. The diagnoses were always the same: tooth-grinding, ‘target teeth’, acidic foods, sugary drinks, imaginary pain and exaggeration.
Well, he’d do the operation to remove the abscess and the rotting bone in June. At the same time he’d excise the scar from a previous mouth operation as it had healthy nerve tissue trapped in it. There was no urgency. She was a healthy woman in no pain and could wait four months.
He informed her doctor that she was just a Depressive. It wasn’t possible to have pain in so many teeth. "We have a Pain-Prone Neurotic here, Doctor. If I were you I’d treat any pain she complains about with a pinch of salt. These people waste a lot of our time."
The day of the operations came. He had not told her what to expect. She lived alone and would have made suitable preparations had she known how ill the operations would make her, how long they would take, how much blood she would lose. She was in ghastly pain in some other teeth. They had been treated at last, but the trouble had gone on so long before they were treated that they were taking months to ‘settle down’. Her tongue was exquisitely sore from contact with rough edges of temporary crowns and from encountering oil of cloves – balm for aching teeth but corrosive to tongue and gums. She was desperate, absolutely desperate – genuinely suicidal because of the continual pain, tension and lack of sleep. - She forced herself to remain calm. Some relief was at hand.
He had a student to assist him. He talked ‘at’ the patient. - It was only a local anaesthetic despite the operations lasting well over an hour. She had her mouth open and the scalpel and aspirator in it. Blood and saliva were removed as they appeared. She was unable to reply even if she had wanted to.
"Well Miss – Er -, you will have followed the Falklands Campaign. Brave men. They know what genuine suffering is."
As he cut through the gum during the apicectomy he accidentally cut deeply into the dentine of the perfectly healthy tooth next to the abscessed one. – God! - That’d be painful when the anaesthetic wore off! Rather her than me! Still, she’d be in shock today and it wouldn’t be absolute agony till tomorrow. It’d do her good to have some real pain for a change, anyway.
She was, after all, extremely fortunate to get the services of so eminent a dental surgeon on the National Health!
The following day, after a night of sitting upright to keep the swelling to a minimum, she was amazed to discover its actual extent. Her nostrils were splayed out to either side far wider than the outer corners of her eyes. The space left was too narrow for breathing. She had to breathe through her mouth. Blood and saliva ran down her chin. The upper lip was so swollen that it extended right over her lower lip, touched her chin and turned up at the bottom so that the inside was on the outside, so to speak. She strongly resembled the snouted Trolls she had once seen in a performance of ‘Peer Gynt’.
All was stiff – stiff as a board, she started to think, but realised that if a board were pressed, its rigidity would resist. If this stiffness were to be pressed, what would happen? The blood-gorged flesh would surely tear internally? She must try to keep very still and not touch it or stretch it.
But it was necessary to eat and drink to restore her strength after the loss of blood.
This was not only painful; it was extremely difficult. Her lips did not make a seal, since the upper was so much bigger than the lower. To drink in the normal way was impossible, as the upper lip was unusable. She had to introduce a small spoon into her mouth and ‘pour’ a little liquid from it into the bottom of her mouth and then bend her head backwards for it to reach her throat. It was a messy, immensely slow business.
She had not believed her ordeal could worsen so much. The healthy tooth which had been damaged by the surgeon’s carelessness astonished her by being the most harrowing of all the teeth. The scar excision had proved a much bigger operation than she had been led to expect. Painful throbbing extended from her mouth, up the side of her nose and as far as the outer edge of her left eye.
Her mouth was to her the very jaws of Hell.
The sweet focus was her TONGUE.
How deliciously sensitive the tongue to delight! – How agile a member when all had been well with her mouth! But for three months now it had been constantly chafed by the temporary crown and sticking-up point of the tooth which had been cracked. She had been embarrassed at school by having to use chewing gum to cover the sharp point. This was effective but it had to be continually chewed in order to function. If just left on the point without chewing, it went flaccid and soft in the heat of her mouth and slipped its mooring.
But how was she to chew? – With the great need for inactivity for healing to take place and the swelling to subside?
Unhappily, there proved to be no choice. The tongue’s demands were the most strident. She chewed all day – and all night, since the pain from the tongue would not allow her to sleep. In sleep the chewing gum would leave the tooth, the tongue would relax onto the point and the pain would wake her from that tiny sleep.
How could this torture have been allowed to happen? If an I.R.A. prisoner had been made to suffer as she had, Amnesty International would have intervened. But she was allowed no advocate. Her torturers were the prosecution, judge and jury.
She could feel the tight flesh tearing as she chewed. She could feel the stitches tugging through the delicate skin. She knew that she was doomed.
Lack of sleep. Horrendous pain.
She had the stitches out a week later and begged that the sharp point be ground down. It was, a little, but the remaining tooth tissue had to be conserved at all costs, apparently, even the possible cost of her sanity. She had no strength to argue and her tongue did not permit much speech.
Three days after this the migraines began. She took paracetamol and embarked on a futile expedition to find and purchase a glue to stick the chewing gum into position. She obtained some, but the glue remained in position and the gum slid off! Then the next shopkeeper told her that the glue was poisonous.
The fifth migraine in a day – she had not believed so many were possible in a day – attacked her on her way home. It was the end. No-one would help her. No-one understood her wretchedness and it increased when she sought to explain it. since this involved moving her tongue. So many teeth hurting; gums throbbing; face painful; head pounding; eyes aflame and unseeing.
As a stumbling, purblind, weary, yet supremely lucid and logical act, in order at last to end the pain and blessedly to go to sleep, she stepped in front of the approaching car.
………………………………….
Notes.
Every word I have put into the mouth of the surgeon in talking to me is what Mr Reg Dinsdale (I have used a pseudonym in the story) actually said to me, but there was more than this, of course.
I have telescoped two ghastly interviews into one.
Much of what ‘she’ says in the story was actually written for the surgeon, as I was far too ill to speak much.
He did look in my mouth actually, to see if an apicectomy on the Upper Left 2 would be feasible. But this was only after he had made his ‘diagnosis’ – of Depression and Tooth-grinding!
The car stopped (end of story). I felt contrite that I had frightened the driver – though it was not a pre-meditated act. I went to Dr Hazel Radley and told her I had just attempted suicide. – Please would she help me to get the dental treatment I needed? – Coldly she told me not to be silly. – I was not in pain, she assured me.
Margaret Wilde
Monday, 29 March 2010
Antidepressants don't work and most of them make you fatter.
MIND, the mental health charity, recommends a walk in the country as being helpful in lifting depression.
Are you on a diet? - Dieting is an often overlooked, but significant cause of depression. Good nutrition is an excellent way to improve your health. Obviously when you are not eating enough for the needs of your body and your brain you will experience both physical and mental harm. - It is not necessary (or desirable, or effective or even safe) to diet to lose weight. The safe, natural way to lose excess weight is to cut down on salt and salty food. Avoid ready meals and takeaways because these are usually highly salted and offer poor nutrition. They are likely to worsen your feelings of depression.
See amitriptyline
And see Sodium in foods
Tuesday, 16 March 2010
Don't damage your health with prescription medicines
Prominent among harmful prescribed drugs are tranquillisers, anti-depressants, pain-killers and steroids. If you value your health you should avoid taking these potentially harmful pharmaceuticals (some of which are obtainable without prescription) unless they are absolutely necessary, because the adverse side-effects of the drugs, including possible addiction, are frequently far worse than the health problem for which they are being taken. - ALWAYS check out the possible side-effects and bear in mind that drug companies have a track record of not disclosing unfavourable information about their products if they can get away with it.
You can read about some of the many dangerous prescription drugs on these pages:
Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection
And see Sodium in foods and
Tuesday, 9 February 2010
Prescription Drugs Can Seriously Damage Your Health
Adverse side-effects from prescription drugs are not at all rare. In fact, many drugs routinely cause very serious adverse side-effects, often very much more serious than the health problems for which they are taken. Only take them if they are really necessary and take them in the lowest effective dose.
Get informed about the harm drugs do. – For a start you could read about tricyclic antidepressants like amitriptyline here:
and about steroids like prednisolone or HRT here:
Thursday, 4 February 2010
Amitriptyline, Constipation and All-Bran
As well as frequently causing weight gain/sodium retention/water retention/obesity as a side-effect, amitriptyline also causes constipation. Doctors sometimes suggest counteracting the constipation by eating All-Bran because of its high fibre content. - But you would be wise to avoid All-Bran, because it is high in sodium/salt. This high salt content will increase the weight gain from the amitriptyline and will increase all the other problems associated with the weight gain - higher blood pressure, swollen blood vessels, breast tenderness, etc. If you take amitriptyline it is advisable to lower your salt intake as much as you can in order to keep the weight gain to a minimum.
Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, stroke, osteopenia, osteoporosis, osteomalacia, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, boost your lung function and improve your health in many other ways without drugs, hunger or expense by eating less salt! - Try it!
See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.
Sodium in foods
Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection
Friday, 29 January 2010
Prescription Drugs are a Major Cause of Obesity.
prescribed steroids and HRT
Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection
Lose weight safely.
See Sodium in foods
Fat retention and fat excretion: the importance of getting enough calcium.
Wednesday, 27 January 2010
Did I have a visitor from the MHRA (the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency) to my website today?
If it was someone from the MHRA (the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency) then maybe what they have learned from my website will get them to pull their little socks up!
Thursday, 31 December 2009
How to lose amitriptyline weight gain:
Amitriptyline is one of the many prescription drugs that cause salt sensitivity/sodium retention/water retention/weight gain/obesity.
Lose weight by eating less salt/sodium.
Sodium in foods
Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection