Altered Person

Reading this article about medications affecting our brains struck a painfully familiar chord for me. I used to know someone who sounds very much like Patient Five described in this story. Having a medical condition that simply cannot be managed without medication combined with the destructive side-effects of that medication can put in person in horrific trap. In the case of Patient Five, he was fortunate to get his personality back. As the author rightly points out such is not always the case

Others have not been so lucky. Over the years, Golomb has collected reports from patients across the United States – tales of broken marriages, destroyed careers, and a surprising number of men who have come unnervingly close to murdering their wives. In almost every case, the symptoms began when they started taking statins, then promptly returned to normal when they stopped; one man repeated this cycle five times before he realised what was going on.