Renegade Psych

This segment includes one of the most important and under-recognized phenomena when it comes to benzo withdrawal... that Xanax, or Alprazolam, has a unique chemical structure that makes its' withdrawal resistant to other benzo's. In other words, patients in Xanax withdrawal can present to the hospital with Altered Mental Status and possibly convulsions and/or hallucinations, and their withdrawal syndrome can be incompletely treated with other benzo's (most commonly Lorazepam or Ativan). So, if you take nothing else from this series, USE XANAX FOR XANAX WITHDRAWAL. We also talk a little bit about how the pharmacokinetics of each benzo dictate their withdrawal syndrome, using a case study involving Valium, or Diazepam, as an example.

Listen throughout January 2024 with releases every Tuesday and Friday morning. Feel free to email us with comments, questions, suggestions at [email protected] and check out our website at https://renegade-psych.podcastpage.io/ for additional links and resources. ENJOY!

Thanks for listening. For more social media content, check us out on all social media platforms @Renegadepsych. If you have any comments, questions or challenges to the information we've presented here, if you'd like to be a guest to the show, or if you have general comments, questions, or suggestions, email us at [email protected] and follow the link https://renegade-psych.podcastpage.io/ to our website for source material, transcripts, and additional links for my guests. If you feel passionate about our message and what we're trying to do, and you'd like to donate, you can also follow the link in the show notes to our website.

Disclaimer, this podcast is for informational purposes only. The information provided in this podcast and related materials are meant only to educate. This information is not intended as a substitute for professional medical advice. While I am a medical doctor and many of my guests have extensive medical training and experience, nothing stated in this podcast nor materials related to this podcast, including recommended websites, texts, graphics, images, or any other materials should be treated as a substitute for professional medical or psychological advice, diagnosis or treatment. All listeners should consult with a medical professional, licensed mental health provider or other healthcare provider if seeking medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.

Here, Michael and I go back to the origins of benzodiazepines, the cultural factors that increased their popularity in the United States, the evolution of what drug class they have belonged to over time (named, of course, by pharmaceutical marketing divisions), and surmise about what 'new' classes of drugs might replace them. We then give a basic explanation of how they work and why they cause a withdrawal syndrome.

Listen throughout January 2024 with releases every Tuesday and Friday morning. Feel free to email us with comments, questions, suggestions at [email protected] and check out our website at https://renegade-psych.podcastpage.io/ for additional links and resources. ENJOY!

Thanks for listening. For more social media content, check us out on all social media platforms @Renegadepsych. If you have any comments, questions or challenges to the information we've presented here, if you'd like to be a guest to the show, or if you have general comments, questions, or suggestions, email us at [email protected] and follow the link https://renegade-psych.podcastpage.io/ to our website for source material, transcripts, and additional links for my guests. If you feel passionate about our message and what we're trying to do, and you'd like to donate, you can also follow the link in the show notes to our website.

Disclaimer, this podcast is for informational purposes only. The information provided in this podcast and related materials are meant only to educate. This information is not intended as a substitute for professional medical advice. While I am a medical doctor and many of my guests have extensive medical training and experience, nothing stated in this podcast nor materials related to this podcast, including recommended websites, texts, graphics, images, or any other materials should be treated as a substitute for professional medical or psychological advice, diagnosis or treatment. All listeners should consult with a medical professional, licensed mental health provider or other healthcare provider if seeking medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.

Here, Michael and I reveal several historical, and more recent, statistics and common-sense findings regarding the dangers of benzodiazepines. It is so explicit to us that, while this class of medications does have several beneficial short-term uses, the longer-term uses of benzodiazepines undoubtedly do more harm than good. Benzo's combined with opiates exacerbate the respiratory depression effect and make fatal overdose much more likely, contributing to tens of thousands of overdose deaths every year, in addition to so many more non-fatal consequences. It's another clear-cut example of how profits have been prioritized over legitimate medical and academic progress. Listen throughout January 2024 with releases every Tuesday and Friday morning. Feel free to email us with comments, questions, suggestions at [email protected] and check out our website at https://renegade-psych.podcastpage.io/ for additional links and resources. Let's dive in!

Thanks for listening. For more social media content, check us out on all social media platforms @Renegadepsych. If you have any comments, questions or challenges to the information we've presented here, if you'd like to be a guest to the show, or if you have general comments, questions, or suggestions, email us at [email protected] and follow the link https://renegade-psych.podcastpage.io/ to our website for source material, transcripts, and additional links for my guests. If you feel passionate about our message and what we're trying to do, and you'd like to donate, you can also follow the link in the show notes to our website.

Disclaimer, this podcast is for informational purposes only. The information provided in this podcast and related materials are meant only to educate. This information is not intended as a substitute for professional medical advice. While I am a medical doctor and many of my guests have extensive medical training and experience, nothing stated in this podcast nor materials related to this podcast, including recommended websites, texts, graphics, images, or any other materials should be treated as a substitute for professional medical or psychological advice, diagnosis or treatment. All listeners should consult with a medical professional, licensed mental health provider or other healthcare provider if seeking medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.

Per usual, in this first episode of the series, I give my rant on the subject of benzodiazepines, followed by an introduction to our repeat guest for this series, Michael Shuman, a clinical pharmacist with expertise in psychopharmacology. Benzo's include medications such as Xanax, Valium, Klonopin, and Ativan. Join us as we discuss historical trends in benzo prescribing, appropriate and inappropriate uses, the scary interaction with opiates that kills tens of thousands of people every year, and the withdrawal syndrome, including the importance of using Xanax to treat Xanax withdrawal (as opposed to other benzo's). Listen throughout January 2024 with releases every Tuesday and Friday morning. Feel free to email us with comments, questions, suggestions at [email protected] and check out our website at https://renegade-psych.podcastpage.io/ for additional links and resources. ENJOY!

Thanks for listening. For more social media content, check us out on all social media platforms @Renegadepsych. If you have any comments, questions or challenges to the information we've presented here, if you'd like to be a guest to the show, or if you have general comments, questions, or suggestions, email us at [email protected] and follow the link https://renegade-psych.podcastpage.io/ to our website for source material, transcripts, and additional links for my guests. If you feel passionate about our message and what we're trying to do, and you'd like to donate, you can also follow the link in the show notes to our website.

Disclaimer, this podcast is for informational purposes only. The information provided in this podcast and related materials are meant only to educate. This information is not intended as a substitute for professional medical advice. While I am a medical doctor and many of my guests have extensive medical training and experience, nothing stated in this podcast nor materials related to this podcast, including recommended websites, texts, graphics, images, or any other materials should be treated as a substitute for professional medical or psychological advice, diagnosis or treatment. All listeners should consult with a medical professional, licensed mental health provider or other healthcare provider if seeking medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.

In this month's series, we're talking about Benzodiazepines, or Benzo's, which include medications like Xanax, Valium, Klonopin, and Ativan, among others. Joining me for the 2nd time in this series is Michael Shuman, PharmD. In the segments that follow, we'll discuss historical trends in benzo prescribing and use, appropriate and inappropriate uses of benzo's, scary med-med interactions that kill thousands of people every year, and the withdrawal syndrome, including the importance of using Xanax to treat Xanax withdrawal (as opposed to other benzo's). Enjoy some of our best clips in this teaser episode and listen throughout January 2024 with releases every Tuesday and Friday morning. Feel free to email us with comments, questions, suggestions at [email protected] and check out our website at https://renegade-psych.podcastpage.io/ for additional links and resources.

Thanks for listening. For more social media content, check us out on all social media platforms @Renegadepsych. If you have any comments, questions or challenges to the information we've presented here, if you'd like to be a guest to the show, or if you have general comments, questions, or suggestions, email us at [email protected] and follow the link https://renegade-psych.podcastpage.io/ to our website for source material, transcripts, and additional links for my guests. If you feel passionate about our message and what we're trying to do, and you'd like to donate, you can also follow the link in the show notes to our website.

Disclaimer, this podcast is for informational purposes only. The information provided in this podcast and related materials are meant only to educate. This information is not intended as a substitute for professional medical advice. While I am a medical doctor and many of my guests have extensive medical training and experience, nothing stated in this podcast nor materials related to this podcast, including recommended websites, texts, graphics, images, or any other materials should be treated as a substitute for professional medical or psychological advice, diagnosis or treatment. All listeners should consult with a medical professional, licensed mental health provider or other healthcare provider if seeking medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.

Dr. Healy and I discuss how providers can navigate the current system we operate in, and offer our closing thoughts on the series.

What follows is the most uplifting part of this entire series and one of my favorite songs by a local Louisville artist that we've included in the podcast thus far, "Roses" by 'Nolia Noon.' I hope you enjoy. You can find more of their music at their YouTube link below:

Nolia Noon YouTube page

Thanks for listening. For more social media content, check us out on all social media platforms @Renegadepsych. If you have any comments, questions or challenges to the information we've presented here, if you'd like to be a guest to the show, or if you have general comments, questions, or suggestions, email us at [email protected] and follow the link https://renegade-psych.podcastpage.io/ to our website for source material, transcripts, and additional links for my guests. If you feel passionate about our message and what we're trying to do, and you'd like to donate, you can also follow the link in the show notes to our website.

Disclaimer, this podcast is for informational purposes only. The information provided in this podcast and related materials are meant only to educate. This information is not intended as a substitute for professional medical advice. While I am a medical doctor and many of my guests have extensive medical training and experience, nothing stated in this podcast nor materials related to this podcast, including recommended websites, texts, graphics, images, or any other materials should be treated as a substitute for professional medical or psychological advice, diagnosis or treatment. All listeners should consult with a medical professional, licensed mental health provider or other healthcare provider if seeking medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.

Enjoy this extra segment that didn't fit into the main topic on SSRIs, but is very interesting and relevant to current times. First, we talk about the potential benefits and pitfalls of using Artificial Intelligence in medicine. Then, a brief question about Dr. Healy's exposure to Robert F. Kennedy's platform leads to another interesting story about the first coronavirus vaccine trial that started all the way back in the 1930s and ended in the 1970s without production of a vaccine against coronaviruses.

Thanks for listening. For more social media content, check us out on all social media platforms @Renegadepsych. If you have any comments, questions or challenges to the information we've presented here, if you'd like to be a guest to the show, or if you have general comments, questions, or suggestions, email us at [email protected] and follow the link https://renegade-psych.podcastpage.io/ to our website for source material, transcripts, and additional links for my guests. If you feel passionate about our message and what we're trying to do, and you'd like to donate, you can also follow the link in the show notes to our website.

Disclaimer, this podcast is for informational purposes only. The information provided in this podcast and related materials are meant only to educate. This information is not intended as a substitute for professional medical advice. While I am a medical doctor and many of my guests have extensive medical training and experience, nothing stated in this podcast nor materials related to this podcast, including recommended websites, texts, graphics, images, or any other materials should be treated as a substitute for professional medical or psychological advice, diagnosis or treatment. All listeners should consult with a medical professional, licensed mental health provider or other healthcare provider if seeking medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.

Dr. Healy talks about trends in falling life expectancy (worst in the US of developed nations) and relates it to being over-medicated, or poly-pharmacy. He emphasizes the importance of listening to your patients, educating them on the untoward effects of being on too many medications, and involving them in the decision-making process. This clinical practice has led him to learn so much from his patients, including that Nicotine has been studied in and has some utility in treating OCD, as do SSRIs. He uses this example to compare the ill effects of a lifetime of exposure to nicotine TO the ill effects of a lifetime of exposure to SSRIs, antipsychotics, and other psychotropic medications. Dr. Healy is NOT anti-medication; he simply wants to ensure that patients understand every substance has a poison-like quality to it and we need to ensure that they are benefitting and getting what they desire out of medications more than they are detrimental to their well-being. Ultimately, WE, as patients, need to limit our reliance on medications to treat all of our ills, and WE, as providers, need to strongly consider reducing medication burden when patients present to us with problems as opposed to reaching for another new medication every time.

Thanks for listening. For more social media content, check us out on all social media platforms @Renegadepsych. If you have any comments, questions or challenges to the information we've presented here, if you'd like to be a guest to the show, or if you have general comments, questions, or suggestions, email us at [email protected] and follow the link https://renegade-psych.podcastpage.io/ to our website for source material, transcripts, and additional links for my guests. If you feel passionate about our message and what we're trying to do, and you'd like to donate, you can also follow the link in the show notes to our website.

Disclaimer, this podcast is for informational purposes only. The information provided in this podcast and related materials are meant only to educate. This information is not intended as a substitute for professional medical advice. While I am a medical doctor and many of my guests have extensive medical training and experience, nothing stated in this podcast nor materials related to this podcast, including recommended websites, texts, graphics, images, or any other materials should be treated as a substitute for professional medical or psychological advice, diagnosis or treatment. All listeners should consult with a medical professional, licensed mental health provider or other healthcare provider if seeking medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.

Dr. Healy tells us how the industry's commanding influence over medical literature has allowed them to create guidelines and take over clinical practice at the extreme detriment of people's health. They use Randomized Controlled Trials as a gold-standard and a crutch to justify stating medications work and de-legitimize any anectdotal experiences from doctors and their patients because 'its not an RCT.' The FDA (and other regulatory agencies) have failed to adequately regulate the industry and find ways to hide in the shadows from practitioners in order to avoid taking any proactive action against the industry. They are limited in the fact that they do not regulate the medical literature and ultimately, as Dr. Healy argues, People believe the FDA is supposed to keep us safe, but they aren't.

Ultimately, clinical decisions used to be made betwen doctors, who would read clinical data researched and written BY ACTUAL CLINICIANS, in order to make clinical decisions WITH THEIR PATIENTS about the best course of action. Nowadays, there are guidelines for everything that us doctors are 'supposed to follow,' or else we run the risk of getting in trouble for not doing what we're told. The problem is, we're being told what to do by entities whose primary outcome measure is profitability, and who, ultimately, care more about their bottom line, than patient outcomes or the pursuit of enhanced scientific understanding of what causes and best treats our diseases.

Thanks for listening. For more social media content, check us out on all social media platforms @Renegadepsych. If you have any comments, questions or challenges to the information we've presented here, if you'd like to be a guest to the show, or if you have general comments, questions, or suggestions, email us at [email protected] and follow the link https://renegade-psych.podcastpage.io/ to our website for source material, transcripts, and additional links for my guests. If you feel passionate about our message and what we're trying to do, and you'd like to donate, you can also follow the link in the show notes to our website.

Disclaimer, this podcast is for informational purposes only. The information provided in this podcast and related materials are meant only to educate. This information is not intended as a substitute for professional medical advice. While I am a medical doctor and many of my guests have extensive medical training and experience, nothing stated in this podcast nor materials related to this podcast, including recommended websites, texts, graphics, images, or any other materials should be treated as a substitute for professional medical or psychological advice, diagnosis or treatment. All listeners should consult with a medical professional, licensed mental health provider or other healthcare provider if seeking medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.

In 1987, roughly 0.2% of American kids were taking psychiatric medications. Now, over 15% are taking psych meds, with some estimates much higher than that; the majority of these are SSRIs. Dr. Healy gives us the inside scoop on how companies like Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline manipulate data for FDA approval and wonders what the effects of so many SSRI prescriptions are on the next generation. Some of the manipulated efforts include labeling children with bad side effects as having an 'intercurrent illness,' thereby excluding them from the final clinical trial data, labeling a suicide as 'death by burns' because it took 5 days for the individual to die from his injuries, letting the placebo group 'cross-over' into the SSRI group after the trial was completed then logging any suicidal events that occur as a placebo-related suicidal event, and lumping serious behavioral effects in with more common neurological effects like headaches and dizziness to evade statistical significance.

If you don't believe Dr. Healy, ask yourself what motivation he has to report this. Why would other clinicians agree with his findings. Who has more to lose here by revealing the truth about this class of medications. Other than good patient care and concern for his patients, what movitations would so many clinicians have to sound the alarm on the problems with SSRIs? If protecting our adult population isn't motivating enough to make some noise about this problem... maybe protecting our kids is...

Thanks for listening. For more social media content, check us out on all social media platforms @Renegadepsych. If you have any comments, questions or challenges to the information we've presented here, if you'd like to be a guest to the show, or if you have general comments, questions, or suggestions, email us at [email protected] and follow the link https://renegade-psych.podcastpage.io/ to our website for source material, transcripts, and additional links for my guests. If you feel passionate about our message and what we're trying to do, and you'd like to donate, you can also follow the link in the show notes to our website.

Disclaimer, this podcast is for informational purposes only. The information provided in this podcast and related materials are meant only to educate. This information is not intended as a substitute for professional medical advice. While I am a medical doctor and many of my guests have extensive medical training and experience, nothing stated in this podcast nor materials related to this podcast, including recommended websites, texts, graphics, images, or any other materials should be treated as a substitute for professional medical or psychological advice, diagnosis or treatment. All listeners should consult with a medical professional, licensed mental health provider or other healthcare provider if seeking medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.