Prescription Drug and Suicide Connection

The Food and Drug Administration are now focusing on the risk of suicide in adolescents while taking antidepressants. One of the major risk factors associated with physical illness is depression. We can easily confuse our everyday emotional struggles with the mental health side effects. Here we have two examples of distinctly prescribed medications who experienced suicide in their family firsthand.

Cody Miller, a high school football player, was taking a prescribed drug for his allergies, but switched to Singulair because the doctor assured his mother to be better. He began showing signs of being anxious and moody. Approximately two weeks after starting his newly prescibed medication, he was found hung in a closet in the family's home.

Douglas Briggs, a physician, was taking medication because of an old back injury starting in February of 2004. He was prescribed Neurontin, an epileptic drug that would help in the treatment of his nerve-related, chronic back pain. Soon after he began taking this medication his family noticed some abnormal behaviors. He expressed to his family a losing desire for practicing medicine, which was completely startling to the family since he had such a great passion for it. On Christmas Day 2004, he convinced his family to go watch a movie. When the family returned home, he was found hung in the their foyer.

Though some medications are identified to specifically treat certain problems, there is a possibility of getting into the brain, which is potential for psychiatric side effects. Not all medications do, and because our brain is protected by a cellular barrier, they block many new substances from circulating in our blood. A very important question scientists have to ask, is if the drug will affect the brain, especially with mental health side effects.
(Associated Press., http:www.foxnews.com, October 10, 2009)