Benzatropine

Say that again?

Cogentin?

Cogentin.

Cogentin.

Yes.

And is that for schizophrenia?

And, and you, you know what I've seen psychiatry do time after time after time in the institutions I worked at, is when that started, especially in the psychiatric, in the, uh, state hospital.

They would give, um, Cogentin, which masked that sh- that shaking.

It stopped the shaking, but the damage was still going on.

So they weren't able to detect that damage, but they were still poisoning the patient with these drugs.

Anticholinergics are going to block the effect of acetylcholine, and this helps restore the normal balance of dopamine, which reduces the symptoms of Parkinson's disease.

So anticholinergics, such as benztropine, which goes by brand name Cogentin, they're used for severe tremors, severe rigidity, and are rarely the primary choice for pharmacologic treatment.

They should definitely be used carefully or avoided in older adults because anticholinergics are on the Beers List, and I did a whole episode about the Beers List, which I will link to in the show notes.

But they are avoided or used very carefully in the elderly due to anticholinergic side effects, and these are urinary retention, dry mouth, blurry vision, and decreased short-term memory.

And it's good you mentioned that because there is an alternative.

There's Benztropine, which isn't licensed in the UK, but we can get a supply of it.

Use it similarly to Iamprocyclidine and you can give one to two milligrams intramuscularly or intravenously.

And thinking about the procyclidine, that's only, it's not the oral route has been affected by supply issues.

Mm-hmm.

Like King David says, "It was good for me that I have been afflicted that I might learn your decrees." And I got off this thing called Cogentin, which gave me bad side effects.

I had throwing up, nauseousness.

Thank God I'm not on it anymore.

I have records of that.

And Cogentin and things like that too, these psychotropic drugs, Stelazine, IV Amytal, Librium, blah, blah, blah.

They're all fatal also.

And then 35 years of lithium, where the first adverse reaction is sudden death, and- When I found that out, I stopped the lithium cold turkey, never had an adverse reaction, and sued my psychiatrist for $3 million for wanton and reckless endangerment and unjust enrichment.