āA study published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine on Monday suggests that the link is strongest for certain classes of anticholinergic drugs ā particularly antidepressants such as paroxetine or amitriptyline, bladder antimuscarinics such as oxybutynin or tolterodine, antipsychotics such as chlorpromazine or olanzapine and antiepileptic drugs such as oxcarbazepine or carbamazepineā¦ā
https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/24/health/dementia-risk-drug-study/index.html
Yep. Thereās been a lot of publicity on and off in UK Press for several years now particularly about ADs and Dementia. All these drugs are so powerful and Goodness knows what they might be doing to us all really. Still forum users can take some comfort from the fact that my mother took a selection of the various tricyclic antidepressants and most others available on the UK market and in far higher quantities than MAVers ever take from the age of 39/40 every single day until she died at almost 90 and her brain was as sharp and her mind as clear the day she died and within hours of dying as it had been the day she swallowed the first pill. So a poor outcome is not necessarily guaranteed. Helen
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Wow. Iāve been meaning to get off risperdal (anti-psychotic) and will be seeing a new neurologist next month but am going to ask my primary if I can start decreasing to get off it now (the only current thing Iām trying for migraines is taking a dexabion shot and took it a month ago and will take again in a couple days and once a month in a month to see if that helps).
You see this happening with a lot of chronic issues: patients take treatment for one condition and end up with another due to the treatment.
And this is why medicine should focus on the causes of MAV/VM and not just treat the migraine and dizziness with psychoactive drugs.
Itās an outrageous situation and only serving the drug companies and the status quo.
āItās migraineā says the Neurologist. People, tell them thatās NOT good enough next time you hear that!
Onandon thanks for your post in this topic. i have been reading these articles recently and its made me very nervous as I have been on 75 mg nortriptyline for 4+ years. My neuro does not appear to be concerned by these findings. He has me on nori because it has less side effects than some other meds. Not sure if I ahould switch it up at this point or stay the course for now. I just hate having to be on meds at all but this dementia link really worries me.
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Itās definitely an interesting article, but to put some of us at ease a bitā¦
Exercise, diet, eliminating alcohol/tobacco, using your brain regularly, getting good sleep, lowering stress, etcā¦ will likely drop your risk of dementia way more than an antidepressant raises it. And the biggest risk factors for dementia are age and genetics - things we can do little about. Both my grandmothers have/had dementia and neither were on antidepressants.
In addition, the authors make if very clear in the article that they have not found ācauseā. Itās just a correlation. Could be something else. Antidepressants go hand in hand with depressed people who often donāt exercise, donāt eat well, and have substance abuse problems. Iām not knocking those peeps either, I know first hand because Iāve been depressed before! Itās very hard for the scientists to account for all the other variables, which is why the lead author was very clear that this is not proof that antidepressants cause dementia.
Oh come now, the drug companies served you well with Ami! And its extremely affordable, somewhere around $0.04 U.S. per dose. Hard to believe theyāre making much of a killing off of us MAVers with old drugs like Ami. 
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Yep Erik. As you say itās a skewed audience. Trouble is medicine is an art I think not a science. Basing results on outcomes of specific beings is flawed one reason for which is because there are no ācontrolā beings. An identical twin being for each participant without exposure to all the environmental factors just doesnāt exist. There are no perfect specimens for comparison.
I think you will probably agree with me when I say t I think itās best to put such adverse possibilities out of mind. If one really needs certain drugs to function/live thereās no option but to take them. Worrying about what the long-term future effect might be is pointless. Worse case scenario is we have no long term future at all. We could easily get struck by lightning or hit by a truck tomorrow and be out of it. The future is uncertain. As a current UK advert on TV keeps saying āLife isnāt measured by the number of breaths we take but by the moments that take our breath awayā. Up to a point, and Iām not saying not to be law abiding or careful crossing the road, live for and in the present and not worry about the future. It may never happen. Helen
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It did, and that drug is generic and cheap ā¦ but some others, less so.
I guess Iām not really focussing on my case (I only needed Ami for 1.5 years), Iām more concerned with people who had no obvious reason to have MAV and have had an intractable case thatās lasted > 10 years (with similarly long drug use).
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