Akathisia Stories

On this episode, we hear from Denise Collins, whose husband, John, died in 2018, nine days after going on the antidepressant Citalopram, better known in the United States as Celexa. Earlier this year, her book, What Happened To John?: A memoir of enduring love, mental health, and suicide, was released and is available now in paperback and for Kindle. Denise spent three years researching, wr...

On this episode, we hear from Geraldine and her daughter, Cindy. In 2015 Geraldine's ex-husband, Louis, Cindy's dad, ended his life at age 63, the victim of prescription drug-induced akathisia.

[Geraldine] The fact that the doctors kept him on the drugs and didn’t – you know, they don’t brush up and figure out there’s got to be a better way. We can’t...

On this episode, we hear from 24-year-old Marcello, who, prior to being severely injured by a prescribed antidepressant, was a healthy and happy college sophomore at The New School in New York City. Just days after starting the prescription, he suffered a catastrophic adverse reaction to the medication that led to akathisia, inappropriate polypharmacy, and years of suffering.

On this episode, we hear from Kerri Lynn. Kerri says that she was taught to trust doctors, taught to trust prescriptions, taught to trust the assessments she received from hospitals. And she did, but, she says, this trust nearly killed her.

[Kerri Lynn] It’s traumatizing what I went through.  I never, ever in my life thought a person could feel ...

On this episode, we hear from author, blogger, researcher, and self-described humanist and humorist Bob Fiddaman. His eponymously titled blog has focused on drug company and regulatory malfeasance since making its debut in 2006. At the time, Bob, an Englishman living in Birmingham, was taking himself off of Seroxat, a GlaxoSmithKline-produced antidepressant known here in America as Paxil. A...

In this episode, we hear from Heather McCarthy, mother of O'Shea McCarthy, known as Shea, who was born in December of 1988.

His love of art and music was apparent from an early age, and by the time he reached adolescence, he had become proficient in a variety of instruments and was the recipient of numerous art awards. Shea excelled in his studies ...

In this episode, we hear from Angela Peacock. At age 18, Angela went into the United States Army, where she rose to the rank of sergeant. Five years into her service, the U.S. invaded Iraq and Angela was deployed to Baghdad. For a variety of reasons, the deployment took a physical and mental toll on her, and within six months she was medevacked out of Iraq to recover in Germany. A day a...

In this episode of “Akathisia Stories,” we hear from Colleen Bell, the loving niece of Stephen O'Neill, who died in 2016 at the age of 48. Stephen was a devoted family man who Colleen describes as having dedicated his life to helping others. A talented singer-songwriter and guitarist, Stephen was well known to pub-goers and nursing home residents in Northern Ireland, playing frequent gigs...

In this episode of “Akathisia Stories,” we hear from Chris Paige.

A licensed psychotherapist, Chris had maintained a successful private therapy practice, working face-to-face with hundreds of clients over the years, and taught multiple semesters of psychopathology to master’s-level students, teaching students how to diagnose disorders. In all that t...

In this seventh episode of Akathisia Stories, we hear from Janet Schiel.

In 2016 her husband, Joe, was nearing the end of his 37-year career in the pharmaceutical sales business. But prior to making his own announcement of retirement, his boss had a health scare and retired, and several people at the company were let go, thereby doubling Joe's workload and his regional responsibilities, from half the country ...

In this sixth episode of “Akathisia Stories,” we hear from two amazing women: Mathy and Caroline Downing. Mathy was Candace Downing's mother and Caroline her sister. Candace died 16 years ago this month. Her older sister, Caroline, is now 30 years old. She's been outspoken about drug education since losing her sister in 2004. Just a child herself at the time, she co-wrote and narrated the documentary "Prescription: Suic...

In this fourth episode of Akathisia Stories, we hear from Kim Witczak, whose husband, Woody, was having trouble sleeping in the summer of 2003. He paid a visit to his regular doctor and left with a three-week sample pack of Zoloft. Kim was out of the country for the first three weeks Woody was on the drug; when she returned home, she was alarmed to see what was happening to her husband of almost 10 years. Kim Witczak: “...

In this third episode, we hear from Kristina Kaiser Gehrki, whose daughter Natalie's prescription drug-induced tragedies began at the age of two and a half, when she was prescribed a powerful cancer drug to combat juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. Around the time of her 10th birthday, Natalie was put on Prozac for mild social anxiety. A year and a half later the prescribing doctor advised Natalie to take a medication holid...

On this second episode of Akathisia Stories, we hear from Gail Regenbogen. In late 2010 Gail's husband, Howard, went on the antidepressant Cymbalta; in a short period of time he changed from the "very outgoing, happy" man Gail had known him to be through 30 years of marriage, to someone who was "real quiet and withdrawn." "This was three weeks into the course of the Cymbalta,” she recounts. “And that night my daughter c...

We launch the Akathisia Stories podcast series with MISSD founder Wendy Dolin. Over the course of two interviews recorded in the first half of 2019, she talks to Akathisia Stories host Andy Miles about the 2010 suicide of her husband, Stewart Dolin, the work of the foundation she started in his name, medication-induced suicide and cases of chronic akathisia, her work with and on behalf of veterans, the legal battle she ...