Letter: The darker side of Prozac

WITH reference to your article "The mothers who pop Prozac" (Review, 16 June), I feel it might be useful to some people to hear of my experiences.

I took Prozac for some weeks a few months ago when I had become stressed and depressed struggling to hold my life together while suffering from ME and coping (just about) with two young children. After three weeks on it I was feeling suicidal. I could barely sleep or eat and felt incredibly anxious and extremely fearful almost constantly. Because I felt so terrible, worthless and unreachable (the side-effects came on gradually and became gradually worse) it was hard for me to realise that I didn't "normally" feel like this. When I came to the realisation that it was the effect of the drug, I immediately stopped taking it. Within a few days the appalling anxiety left me, although it took me a long time to recover fully from this awful experience.

Prozac may be a wonder drug for some, but it was anything but for me and I've since read that my experience was not that uncommon. I feel that the darker side of Prozac has been dangerously underpublicised.

Jane Booth

Bristol, Avon