Michael Moore wants our stories...

[punky]

Hi everyone,
Just got an email from the Michael Moore website wanting horror type stories when dealing with docs, insurance companies, pharma...anything medically oriented...here's the email:



2/3/06
Friends,

How would you like to be in my next movie? I know you've probably heard I'm making adocumentary about the health care industry (but the HMOs don't know this, so don'ttell them -- they think I'm making a romantic comedy).If you've followed my work over the years, you know that I keep a pretty low profilewhile I'm making my movies. I don't give interviews, I don't go on TV and I don'tdefrost my refrigerator. I do keep my website updated on a daily basis (there's beensomething like 4,000,000 visitors just this week alone) and the rest of the timeI'm... well, I can't tell you what I'm doing, but you can pretty much guess. It getsharder and harder sneaking into corporate headquarters, but I've found that justdying my hair black and wearing a skort really helps.Back to my invitation to be in my movie. Have you ever found yourself getting readyto file for bankruptcy because you can't pay your kid's hospital bill, and then yousay to yourself, "Boy, I sure would like to be in Michael Moore's health caremovie!"?Or, after being turned down for the third time by your HMO for an operation theyshould be paying for, do you ever think to yourself, "Now THIS travesty should be inthat 'Sicko' movie!"?Or maybe you've just been told that your father is going to have to just, well, die because he can't afford the drugs he needs to get better -- and it's then that yousay, "Damn, what did I do with Michael Moore's home number?!"OK, here's your chance. As you can imagine, we've got the goods on these crooks. Allwe need now is to put a few of you in the movie and let the world see what thegreatest country ever in the history of the universe does to its own people, simplybecause they have the misfortune of getting sick. Because getting sick, unless youare rich, is a crime -- a crime for which you must pay, sometimes with your ownlife.About four hundred years from now, historians will look back at us like we were somesort of barbarians, but for now we're just the laughing stock of the Western world.So, if you'd like me to know what you've been through with your insurance company,or what it's been like to have no insurance at all, or how the hospitals and doctorswouldn't treat you (or if they did, how they sent you into poverty trying to paytheir crazy bills) ...if you have been abused in any way by this sick, greedy,grubby system and it has caused you or your loved ones great sorrow and pain, let meknow.Send me a short, factual account of what has happened to you -- and what IShappening to you right now if you have been unable to get the health care you need.Send it to michael@michaelmoore.com. I will read every single one of them (even if Ican't respond to or help everyone, I will be able to bring to light a few of yourstories).Thank you in advance for sharing them with me and trusting me to try and dosomething about a very corrupt system that simply has to go.Oh, and if you happen to work for an HMO or a pharmaceutical company or aprofit-making hospital and you have simply seen too much abuse of your fellow humanbeings and can't take it any longer -- and you would like the truth to be told --please write me at michael@michaelmoore.com. I will protect your privacy and I willtell the world what you are unable to tell. I am looking for a few heroes with aconscience. I know you are out there.Thank you, all of you, for your help and your continued support through the years. Ipromise you that with "Sicko" we will do our best to give you not only a greatmovie, but a chance to bring down this evil empire, once and for all.In the meantime, stay well. I hear fruits and vegetables help.Yours,Michael Mooremichael@michaelmoore.comwww.michaelmoore.com


________________________

let's speak up! If enough of us send him our horror stories about paxil or other SSRI's maybe one of us could actually be in his movie and tell our story to the world!Punky

[punky]

I wanted to post the story I emailed to Michael. I think if you read it then maybe you won't be so worried about what your story might seem like. Mine is humiliating to say the least...but I think it might be worth reading. I think the angrier I get the more I want to do something about it. Maybe that makes me an activist and if so-- great! At this point in my life I can't think of a more worthy cause that we can all relate to. Come on, let's do this.

Dear Michael,

I was delighted to get this email from you! I spend quite a bit of time at http://paxilprogress.org and http://paxilprotest.com I think you can guess what my story is about. Here goes:

I was prescribed paxil almost 8 years ago by my obgyn for anxiety and panic attacks. At the time, I was told by him, the FDA, and GlaxoSmith that the drug was a "safe, effective, nonaddictive" way to help control my panic. In the beginning the drug did help. It was, however, not too long after starting the drug ~one month, that I realized that if I missed even just one pill, I'd practically lose my mind. I'd get electric shock sensations (now called simply "zaps") extreme rage and violence. Someone said recently in the forums where I go, "A person gone without their Paxil is like a dangerous ticking bomb with a very unpredictable fuse." I couldn't put it better myself. The following is a good and very personal example of what can happen and what did happen to me.

I had gone without my paxil for three days. I was low on the drug and just one script runs me over a hundred bucks. Plus I had just had my last eye surgery to help save my vision and was just out of it much of the time. I found myself in the shower with a razor wanting to die. The zaps would come if i'd so much as move my head. My boyfriend came home to find me cut and bleeding lying in the tub. He freaked out and started screaming. I started screaming and from there on it only got worse. I had only cut my arms and legs...no arteries or veins. I had never done anything like this before. I ran naked downstairs screaming like a freakin nut into the kitchen. I grabbed the first thing I saw which unfortunately was a steak knife. I held the knife out at my boyfriend. I didn't know what I was doing. I was crazy. The zaps were echoing in my brain and all I could do was scream. I began stabbing at the air and eventually found my way to the counter where some pans lay out and began stabbing them feriously. It wasn't too much later the knife dropped to the floor and I realized I couldn't draw my fingers in. I had cut the tendons in my right hand with the blade of the knife. I had been stabbing so violently the blade had slipped into my palm. I did not feel any pain. It was like I was super woman. I kid you not. It was enough of a shock for me not to be able to close my hand to snap me back for a moment. There was blood EVERYWHERE. I stood naked and shaking and crying uncontrollably. My boyfriend came towards me and I swung and screamed at him. He ran upstairs to get a towel as I sat at the kitchen table with paper towels dripping with blood wrapped around my hand. It was then I saw a gun. A man dressed in a suit rounded the corner, gun first pointed right at me. He was followed by five uniformed officers and a child endangerment officer. (I have two children...luckily there were at their daddy's) My boyfriend had just came back down with a towel and he was wrestled to the ground by two female cops. He was cuffed and sat out on the lawn for all the neighbors to see. He was too covered in blood...my blood. They had thought the worst. I started screaming, "He didn't do anything, I did this to myself!!!" It took what seemed like hours to convince the cops that I had done this to myself. I had to show them the kitchen pans and counters. It was the most humiliating experience of my life. Me with no insurance had to go to the ER and eventually have tendon laceration repair surgery. My right hand isn't what it used to be, but I get around it the best I can.

Today I am still addicted to paxil. My psychiatrist seems to refuse to believe that there is withdrawl associated with the drug and i should be able to come off of it whenever I want to. And why not? That's what the docs are bing told. However, my obgyn that got me on the drug in the first place, is more than supportive of my newest attempt to get off the pill. I didn't think I could do it until I found the paxilprogress.org website. There are so many people in this world just like me and now I know I am not alone and with their support and stories I think I can get off paxil this time once and for all. I am a different person now.

Since being on paxil they diagnosed with borderline personality disorder because of the cutting episode, major depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, etc. I was less crazy than when I was put on the drug. I have so much anger and hatred towards big pharma I could scream. I've sent letter after letter, email after email to GlaxoSmithKline and all they can do is send me the same bull**** they always do. I've sent letters to the FDA and they aren't doing anything to help me either. I've talked to attorneys who tell me that "their hands are tied" and for me to blame the Bush Administration. Blaming Bush for one more thing? I hate the bastard. They tell me that I am not alone that they receive hundreds of inquiries a day via their websites about Paxil lawsuits.

I want to know how many more people have to die? It seems more and more on the news you hear stories of people...normal people...on SSRI's or coming off of them, etc. that kill themselves or their entire families. That day in my home I could have killed my boyfriend and myself. I know this now. I was out of my mind and even the police and the ER docs were able to understand because apparently I'm not the only one that's been without their SSRI that's had the law called on them because they thought someone was being killed next door. I'm apparently not the only one that's been without their paxil to show up in the ER completely out of their freakin mind. So if I am not the only one and this i know, then why isn't there ANYTHING being done about it??? They pass those pill packs out in doctor offices like CANDY! I see it everytime I go to my psych doc. Pill packs. Candy. Miracle pill. And they still advertise that it's safe? Non habit forming?

Now I see a neurologist who tells me that if I don't get off of Paxil asap I could develop "Pseudoparkinsonism" due to the current symptoms I'm exhibiting of constant muscle twitching and jerking, etc. I am now blind in my right eye with no medical explanation from my eye doc at Duke University Eye Center who says...it could be the paxil. I may be a minority with my experiences, but I have been on the drug for about as long as it's been out there and we are just now starting to realize the long term effects of this brain damaging drug. And that's just what the neuro called it...brain damage. I am an educated person with a nursing degree who's been unable to practice nursing since I lost vision in my right eye and sliced the tendons in my right hand and what I've been given to blame is Paxil. I put the blame where it lies and that's with GlaxoSmithKline, the FDA, and why the hell not? George Bush.

I have no history of violence. No history of cutting. No history of neurological problems. No history of blindness in my family. None until Paxil. Now loved ones walk around on egg shells knowing that I am going through withdrawl. I hate it. I want to educate the whole world about my experiences (no matter how humiliating) and the experiences of those like me. There are more of us than I ever realized. Our voices have got to be heard one way or another and if we can't scream loud enough for them to listen then maybe you can.

Sincerly,

Tonya

[rdjanis]

Way to go punky!!!... and thanks for sharing this!

[Shellshock]

Good Luck Punky,

Please keep us updated .......

[sherijo]

Tonya!
Outstanding.. if that doesn't make him sit up and read, nothing will!
nice job!

sheri

[Healing]

Punky - Tonya -- Outstanding indeed. Well done. And I am outraged about what you've been through. Outraged, outraged, outraged. I wish you the very best and hope that your healing leads to great things for you.

[Trying66]

Tonya, it is very brave of you to share your story. I can certainly relate with everything we have been through with my son. As hard as it is to talk about these things, it's important to share them if we can.

And thanks for sharing the link.

[scotty]

Oh, I feel an email coming on!!!

[rdjanis]

Originally Posted by scotty

Oh, I feel an email coming on!!!

You mean you havn't sent it yet???..roflmao

[scotty]

I sent him one a long time ago... but hey another opportunity!!!

[scotty]

Done!

[rdjanis]

My fingers are crossed for you!

[punky]

Yay! Now that's what I'm talkin about! Everyone tell him the real truth about SSRI's and big bad pharma and spread the word!

[scotty]

Punky, I've told SO many people Ryan's story that I have it in a word file, so I can cut and paste!!!

[punky]

LOL! cut and paste away! The more people that tell their stories about SSRI's and the big drug companies the better! I actually have a pretty good feeling about this

[Trying66]

Originally Posted by punky

LOL! cut and paste away! The more people that tell their stories about SSRI's and the big drug companies the better! I actually have a pretty good feeling about this

I agree. We certainly cannot expect the drug companies to tell the real story.

I couldn't get into that website to email, It took me to a log in screen with no where to register. ??

[rdjanis]

Trying Go here:
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/me...ate=2006-02-03

Scroll to the bottom of the page michael@michaelmoore.com
You don't need to register.

[scotty]

Trying, I just cut and pasted that email address into a regular email.

[rdjanis]

roflmao.... now why didn't I think of that!

[eileen]

I just sent him and email. If he wants to hear horror, I got it for him!! Right her in our Canadian Mental Health Care System. I know Rita would be proud of me.
eileen

[rdjanis]

LOL You make me laugh Eileen! What would also make my day is hearing from a pp member that they have been contacted!

[eileen]

Maybe I should invite him to my House By the Sea to write his book Rita!
He'd have to pay of course, walking along a beach listening to the waves is excellent. If I hear from him I'll let you know.
eileen

[rdjanis]

Now wouldn't that be cool!

[eileen]

Do you think I should invite him? LOL
eileen

[Kristin]

Punky, Thanks for sharing your story. One comment... I kept waiting for the humiliating part...your story just struck me as a factual account of your exprience with a drug reaction. I sometimes get wiggy about having "mental problems" and realize its just a cultural bias making me feel that way. I think you're brave. Michael is my hero-he'll do your story justice!