A Trip To The Dermatologist

 

 

Pattern matching is an important skill for all physicians.  It is rarely discussed these days despite all the continuous hype about artificial intelligence replacing doctors by reading x-rays and other lab tests.  I taught a course in diagnostic reasoning for about 12 years and the examples of pattern matching I used were from dermatology and ophthalmology.   The dermatology experiment was a straightforward comparison of dermatologists to primary care physicians looking at the same slide set of rashes and skin lesions (1).  The dermatologists were correct more often, faster at diagnosing, and able to correctly diagnosis equivocal cases compared with the primary care physicians.

I want to be clear that does not mean that primary care doctors don’t do a good job.  Some are so good that dermatologists know that they need to attend to the diagnosis and treatment of some physicians who refer them significant numbers of patients with melanoma and other types of cancer.  All these factors were probably in my subconscious when I decide to call to see a dermatologist.

It was not easy.  The first appointment was a teleconference and I would call it a swing and a miss. I was given a very expensive prescription for ocular rosacea that did nothing. When I called again to be seen in person, I was given an elaborate algorithm based on how many problems I wanted to be seen about. The more problems – the longer the wait.  I decided to go outside of my usual healthcare providers to a private clinic closer to my home. 

I have noticed a gradual accumulation of dermatology problems with age. I have made every effort to avoid direct sunlight.  If I must be outside at any time when my shadow is shorter than my height, I am wearing a high SPF shirt and sunscreen, a baseball cap, and wrap around polarized sunglasses. I have probably been sunburned twice in my life and tanned once. About 2 years ago I noticed a ring-shaped red lesion on my right forearm.  Every now and then it seemed to burn but generally it was static.  I saw my primary care MD and he did a scraping and potassium hydroxide preparation to see if it was ringworm (tinea corporis). It was not, so he told me to apply the betamethasone ointment that I typically use for eczema to the area.  I did for a couple of weeks and there was no effect.

At about the same time, I happened to notice a blue spot on the lateral aspect of my left ankle.  That is a difficult area to see.  I went into see a primary care MD who used an ophthalmoscope for magnification and concluded it was a collection of pigmented cells that did not look like a melanoma.  She said she would describe it in my chart including recording the diameter so it could be followed along by primary care. 

I described all these problems to the Dermatologist's assistant before he walked in the room.  I had photos of all the dermatology products I had been using and what had been tried in the past.  Even though the pattern matching diagnosis in Dermatology is good, like other areas of medicine – the treatments seem to be hit or miss and even then the response seems to vary over time.  I made a note to myself that I should look for papers claiming that these are placebo treatments or it is just all regression to the mean.  But I doubt that there are any anti-Dermatologists out there complaining about that and too many diagnoses and too many medications.

The intake form that I completed was just 2 pages long and there was an occupation section probably to consider environmental exposures.  When the Dermatologist came in he was very cordial and talkative.  He established that we both went to the same medical school (27 years apart), lived in the same neighborhood while we attended, and knew some of the same professors.  He took the history and clarified the technical points to his assistant who had now become his scribe.  He used a dermatoscope to inspect the lesions and make rapid diagnoses on the right forearm (actinic keratosis), left ankle (fibroma secondary to trauma) and left malar area (actinic keratosis).  He recommended freezing the malar area and forearm with liquid nitrogen and said the fibroma was just a skin reaction to some trauma that did not require treatment. At that point we went into a more detailed discussion of the rosacea and ocular rosacea and failed treatments with doxycycline and tacrolimus.  He recommended a compounded product of azelaic acid, metronidazole, and ivermectin, advised me of the cost, and has his assistant set that up. It was a very efficient process – the diagnoses, freezing treatments, and discussion took about 20 minutes.  At the end all of the follow up, prescriptions, and documentation was done and he was moving on to the next person.

There are times when it pays to see an expert and this is an illustration of one of those times.  I had been looking at these lesions for 2 years and trying to take the next steps.  There are as many barriers to seeing a Dermatologist as there are to seeing a psychiatrist.  I knew enough to monitor these lesions and they did not seem to get worse, but they were also not improving. After 2 years I got the definitive diagnoses and treatment I had been looking for as well as reassurance that the ankle lesion was not a melanoma.

This is an impressive result compared with most physician visits.  Even considering that there were a couple of things that did not fit.  Sun exposure for one.  I am what is referred to as a white fish in upper Midwest vernacular.  That means apart from my blue veins and the redness of rosacea – my skin is generally as white as the background of this page.  I had some early exposure to people with skin cancer and have been very diligent about keeping my skin and retinal exposure to direct sunlight at a minimum.  I suppose there are other factors at play such as age and know there are senile keratoses – but this did not resemble typical lesions in my dermatology texts or online. The Dermatologist predicted that the freezing treatment would cause these lesions to slough off and be replaced by normal smooth skin.  I have a follow up in 3 months to see if that happens and if the compounded topical rosacea medication works.

I am currently studying high prevalence polygenic diseases and have included eczema on that list.  Some estimates say that 20% of the population may have it.  There is the association with asthma but in my case as my asthma improved with age, I developed eczema and then worsening eczema.   I expect there will be many parallels with psychiatric disorders and diseases when my comparison is done. 

In the meantime, a Dermatologist in the right setting is a good consultant to have in your corner.

 

George Dawson, MD, DFAPA

 

References:

1:  Norman, G.R., Brooks, L.R., Rosenthal, D., Allen, S.W., & Muzzin, L.J. (1989). The development of expertise in dermatology. Archives of Dermatology, 125, 1063–1068

 This is the original reference I used in my course on the diagnostic process and how not to make a mistakes.  The first author has written significant papers about this.  

Graphic:

I mapped the dermatology conditions onto the body outline. If someone has a better body outline or one that they use on a standardized form and you want to send it my way - please do.  I can make a much better graphic if the outline is a separate shape.  The actinic keratoses areas on the map are probably both only 2 cm in diameter.  The rosacea can happen anywhere on the face and most annoyingly on the eyelids.  The eczema is a whole body condition that started out subtly as intense pruritis on the extremities and eventually spread to the abdominal area, chest, and back.  Pruritis is the most significant symptom with occasional lesions that looks like abrasions.  It can be exacerbated by skin contact with allergens like ECG electrodes. 

The Retired Consultant

 

I happened across this old post on approaching retirement today and reread it. Of course, I am biased but it holds up well.  It contains information about psychiatrists retiring that you will not see anywhere else – including why we are happy.  I currently spend much of my day doing the usual chores, exercising, and writing.  I have several writing projects going and am near completing one that is unique.

I don’t get out much and I like it that way. I am an introvert and have been subjected to the usual jokes about introversion.  The pandemic was a factor but not the only one.  I just got back from working out in a gym that has Cybex machines.  After that I went to Target to pick up a supply of blueberries and frozen burritos.   

On the way out – I stopped to get a mocha and 2 biscottis.  The barista was young and we talked about the closing time of the coffee shop relative to the store. I associated to what I was doing at that age.  I was a janitor in a dormitory. It was a thankless job.  Luckily with increasing college experience I was able to move on to more technical work as a lab and research assistant.  I wondered if she would reflect on her work as a barista when she got to be my age and I sincerely hoped she would get to my age and beyond.  I thought about writing a poem about that brief encounter, probably because I had just read two Emily Dickinson poems and have a history of writing free verse in the style of ee cummings.

On the drive home, public radio was playing election coverage from South Carolina.  It was the GOP primary and I shut it off. I always have public radio in the background – but listening to this is just too much.  I drove, drank my mocha and crunched on my biscotti in silence. I had some thoughts about biscotti.  A competitor has a much harder biscotti.  It is so hard the almonds are cut sharply with the slices.  The biscotti I was eating was not as hard but still had an almond and vanilla crunchy taste.

I started thinking about a paper I was writing. Even though it was about rhetoric, it seemed quite exciting.  I have not encountered any papers like it.  I thought about where it should be submitted and how I should modify the introduction. One of the most insightful and informative books I have read lately was about rhetoric. It tied together so many things.  The author was gracious enough to respond to two of my emails.  I need to incorporate more of his concepts into the paper – but his book is encyclopedic.

I thought about some advice I had given lately.  Even though I am retired and people know it – they still call me.  I tell them that technically I am not treating them or directly giving them medical advice because we do not have a physician patient relationship, I don’t have a working office setting or records, and I don’t have malpractice coverage.  They understand that and it doesn’t deter them.  I am licensed and recently contacted the Board of Medical Practice about continuing medical education (CME) credit reporting this summer. The pandemic created a lot of confusion about deferred CME reporting.  I need to report 75 credits and I currently have 74 with a 6 CME credit conference in March. I wonder how long I will keep that up in retirement.

On the home stretch, I think about the advice I have given people over the years.  The qualified advice on the system over the past 2 years tells me how bad things have gotten.  Parents calling me about their adult children who are not doing well.  Adult children calling me about parents who are not doing well.  The occasional email directly from a person who is dissatisfied with treatment. Many calls about what happens in emergency situations.  Many calls about what specific diagnoses, imaging findings, and labs really mean.  Was the emergency department trying to talk me out of being admitted? Why wasn’t I treated with anything?  It just seems like I sat there a long time, nothing happened, and they sent me home.  Are these side effects that I am getting from this medication and what can be done about it?  Are there any resources out there that can help me? I don’t seem to be getting any help?

I try to help people negotiate available systems and help them prioritize what should happen first.  There is a general reluctance to call their clinic or doctor and report that there are potential side effects. Overall, there is a lack of help for people with psychiatric disorders. I know that is not strictly true and that there are many large systems of psychiatric care nearby – but even when people get in - there is difficulty getting what they need. I shock them with basic information about when to call their doctor and what might be helpful to discuss.  I never second guess their doctor.  I am focused on how to help them get the answers they need.  It is not at all like practicing psychiatry.  The most valuable product of that work is a patient who feels understood at the end of the session. None of the people calling me feel understood at even a superficial level.

Just a few years ago, I was an insider working in an intense hospital environment. I was generally feeling the stress all day long. I had the physical manifestations of that stress that were measurable – but I pushed through every day and made it home to unwind.  In some cases I could not unwind and ended up calling my nursing staff at 2AM to make sure that things were going OK.  I think about that right after thinking that I should still be working – just based on all these systems problems that people are telling me about.

I come to the realization that I can’t do it anymore. Cognitively and technically it is certainly not a problem. I have no doubts that my diagnostic and treatment skills are still there. Physically it is an interesting story.  I just lifted plenty of weights and will lift more tomorrow.  My aerobic capacity is very good. I have posted some of my chronic health problems here on this blog to illustrate diagnostic, pathophysiology, and treatment concepts. So generally my health is pretty good.  That can always turn on a dime.  I can’t work anymore because of the stress response.  The mental and emotional demands of work become physical demands and that creates significant problems. Doctors reading this in those environments know what I am talking about and I wish them the best because I know nobody is trying to alleviate any of that pressure.  Nobody is trying to help them.

I finish off my mocha and biscotti as I am pulling into the driveway. It is 7PM and dark out here in Minnesota.  I had over 30 years of pulling in my driveway in the dark after work and still feeling tense and in some cases jumpy about what happened that day.  Things are different now.  I can decide how much pressure I am under and when I can unwind. I wish I could do more for all these people who need help – but I can’t. 

It is time to finally take care of myself.

 

George Dawson, MD, DFAPA

Supplementary:

@dahlle on Twitter read this post and posted the NASA Task Load Index - a workload measure that has been validated across a number of settings.  Just looking at the scales - it is easy to see how physicians can max out almost every scale except for the physical demands (at least for non-surgeons).  With enough stress - heart rate and blood pressure increase just like you are running.  

It is also an illustration of how things can get rapidly complicated when there are people actively standing in your way and other people demanding that you do more.  Work setting is critical here as well as adaptation to work.  I have talked with hospitalists who told me their cognitive performance dropped off steeply on day 6 (of 7).  On the other hand I have talked to physicians who were used to seeing 30 patients for a minute or two at a time in an afternoon who were not stressed at all. 

At least one study has established a dose response relationship between physician task load using this scale and burnout:

Harry E, Sinsky C, Dyrbye LN, Makowski MS, Trockel M, Tutty M, Carlasare LE, West CP, Shanafelt TD. Physician Task Load and the Risk of Burnout Among US Physicians in a National Survey. Jt Comm J Qual Patient Saf. 2021 Feb;47(2):76-85. doi: 10.1016/j.jcjq.2020.09.011. 

Graphics Credit:

Biscotti is via Wikimedia Commons.  https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Biscotti_1.jpg

Mokkie, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Blame Gun Extremists – Not Parents

 

   

 The Crumbley verdict is in and in the usual manner – the media is either celebrating it or bothered by it.  The bothered response is more muted this time – probably because Americans have been conditioned to see national court cases as vindication or rejection of whatever moral position they seem to have on the issue. Without reading the court transcript – media reports suggest that the prosecution in the case portrayed Jennifer Crumbley as a distracted mother who did not pay adequate attention to her son – 15-year-old Ethan Crumbley’s mental status.  If she had - he would not have had access to the 9mm semiautomatic handgun that he used in the Oxford school shootings.  On November 30, 2021 – he shot and killed 4 students and wounded 7.  The jury agreed with the prosecution despite Ms. Crumbley’s statement: "You never would think you'd have to protect your child from harming somebody else. That’s what blew my mind. That was the hardest I had to stomach is that my child harmed and killed other people."  She was found guilty of 4 counts of involuntary manslaughter and the sentence is pending. 

Jennifer Crumbley is of course right.  Professionals charged with assessing the potential for harming others cannot accomplish this task with any degree of certainty.  Should untrained parents be held to that standard, especially when they are emotionally involved with the children they are supposed to assess?  A summary of her court testimony is available from several sites at this point. It focuses on testimony and texts that suggest her son was having difficulty at school and that other people noticed he was moody and depressed. The parents were called in by school officials because they had noticed violent content in his drawings, but after a meeting they did not insist that he be removed from school.  I do not know the school professionals involved – but if there was that level of concern – why not insist that the parents take their son home and give them a clear plan of care?

With any criminal proceeding there are always a lot of discrepancies.  Jennifer Crumbley denied that her son was symptomatic (hearing voices and depressed).  She denied knowing anything about his preoccupation with violent thoughts.  Ethan Crumbley apparently intentionally injured birds and enjoyed doing that.  I do not know if the parents were aware of this or not. There was some debate about the family’s health insurance situation.  Coverage for Ethan lapsed when his father lost his job and his mother was trying to enroll him during the next enrollment period in her plan.  There is also the question of what is generally available for emergency psychiatric care for a 15 yr old.  I don't know if that was bought up during the hearings or not.  I can't speak to what is available in that specific area, but I can say that it is generally non-existent throughout much of the country.    

There is some opinion in the media right now that this trial is precedent setting in that it may translate to parents being held responsible for the crimes of their children. Although I am not a lawyer – to me the precedent seems to already have been set – parents are not responsible for the crimes of their children.  There have been other parents convicted in cases where their children were involved in school shootings.  In one case the mother of a 6-year-old who shot his teacher was sentenced to 21 months, but that was for illegally obtaining a firearm by denying a that she had a drug problem.  In the other case, a father of a shooter who killed 7 people was eventually charged with 7 counts of reckless conduct for assisting his son in obtaining a firearm license even when he had expressed thoughts about killing himself and others.

The critical events in the Crumbley case seem to be the parent purchasing the handgun for their son as a way to lift his spirits, not securing the gun when he was not under their direct supervision, and the two meetings at school on the day before and the day of the shooting. On the first of those days there was concern that he was researching ammunition on his phone during class.  He explained that he went shooting with his mother and that was a hobby.  The counselor called his mother who communicated by text and joked that he had to learn to not get caught.  On the day of the shooting, his parents were called in after he was seen watching a violent video in class, drawing guns and a bleeding body on a math worksheet and writing several nihilistic statements. The counselor was concerned that he might be suicidal. During the meeting the Dean of Students brought in Ethan’s back pack but nobody searched it.  The handgun was in the backpack.  He returned to school from that meeting with his backpack and started the shooting (2).  

In a related matter – there is a civil suit but the trail of that paperwork is difficult to follow.  The original suit against the school and staff was dropped but a subsequent suit against the counselor and Dean of Students was allowed to proceed. There was also a lawsuit against the Michigan State police.

From what I know about this case so far, it appears that Jennifer Crumbley’s trial was primarily an attack on her character. Combined with hindsight that is a powerful approach to find someone guilty of a crime.  I looked up the definition of involuntary manslaughter in the state of Michigan according to this reference it requires proving one of 2 theories:

1:  That the deaths were caused by grossly negligent actions of the defendant

2:  That the defendant neglected her duty as a parent to “exercise reasonable care to control their minor child so as to prevent the minor child from intentionally harming others or prevent the minor child from conducting themselves in a way that creates an unreasonable risk of bodily harm to others.”

There is a lot of room between "gross negligence" and "reasonable care." In this case the parents were responsive to school authorities and those responses at the time satisfied those authorities to the point that they allowed Ethan to return to school.  

Applicable laws in the State of Michigan state that handgun purchasers must be 18 years of age to purchase from a private seller and 21 years of age to purchase from a federal licensed firearms dealer (FFL).  The handgun purchase in this case occurred when Ethan Crumbley was 15 years of age.  Michigan will not have a safe storage law for firearms until February 13, 2024.  The law mandates that unattended firearms must be locked and unloaded and it defines crimes and penalties for problems that occur as a result of violations defined as behavior ranging from threats to deaths resulting from unauthorized access to that firearm.  Since the Oxford school shootings occurred in November 2021 – that law does not apply. 

The medical literature has a few studies that appear to address the issue of age-related firearm purchases and homicide and suicide.  The authors of one study (6) found no correlation between higher age requirements and homicide rates of 18-20 year olds; but discuss the reasons why that was the case.  Most of those reasons come back to the firearm density in the United States and how easy it is to access firearms through back channels.  Any casual inspection of those firearm density figures in the United States – shows an incredible number of firearms even relative to war zones across the globe. The United States ranks 9^th in gun homicides.  The 8 countries ranking higher all have significant amounts of gang and cartel related violence, some to the point that it is driving the current immigrant crisis at the southern border.  Five of those 8 countries have the highest crime index.  Four have the highest homicide rates.  The US has the gun homicide rate of lawless low and middle income (LMIC) countries.  

The cultural effects of gun extremism are never discussed as being a cause of gun violence in the United States.  Over the past 50 years, gun extremists have pushed for increasing accessibility to firearms by shall issue laws, stand your ground laws, fewer restrictions, and loopholes that allow back door access to firearms. In the process, common sense gun laws that were developed in the 19^th century, like city ordinances that forbade carrying guns in town have fallen by the wayside.  Some gun extremists are pushing to eliminate domestic violence charges as a disqualifier for gun possession. In that landscape there is a subcultural effect that (for some) guns are a legitimate way to express anger or dissatisfaction in school or the workplace. Nobody is standing up against that myth.  If anything, the gun extremists are rationalizing it as mental illness or not enough guns (arm the teachers) rather than far, far too many guns.

That is what I think about when I think about the Jennifer Crumbley verdict. In many ways she was set up to take a fall for 50 years of gun extremism. Certainly, her son should have never had a handgun.  But do other parents buy firearms for their children?  They certainly pose them with guns on Christmas cards. When I was a kid 50 years ago – no kid had one and it was the law. There was a good reason for it and that reason was not discovered until the 21^st century.  Teenagers may look like adults but they do not have the brain development or judgment of adults. Combining that with a general culture of gun extremism and a subculture of mass shootings is a recipe for disaster. Until we recognize the cultural effects and how guns became part of the culture wars – we will not be able to stop this violence and loss of life.  

Parents may have become the next casualty.

 

George Dawson, MD, DFAPA

Photo Credit to my colleague Eduardo A. Colon, MD

References:

1:  El-Bawab N.  Jennifer Crumbley says she wishes son had 'killed us instead' as she took stand in manslaughter trial.  February 1, 2024.  https://abcnews.go.com/US/jennifer-crumbley-takes-stand-manslaughter-trial-tied-sons/story

2:  Snell R.  Oxford school shooting victim's family sues Michigan State Police in latest legal challenge.  October 5, 2023  https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2023/10/05/oxford-school-shooting-victims-family-sues-michigan-state-police/71074873007/

3:  Stack MK.  What Is This Mother Really Guilty Of?  New York Times.  Febnruary 1, 2024. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/01/opinion/mother-homicide-court-crumbley.html

4:  Strom S. Michigan Involuntary Manslaughter Law.  FindLaw.  February 7, 2024. https://www.findlaw.com/state/michigan-law/michigan-involuntary-manslaughter-law.html

5:  Associated Press.  Timeline: Key moments surrounding the 2021 Michigan high school shooting as mother of shooter is found guilty.  https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/timeline-key-moments-surrounding-the-2021-michigan-high-school-shooting-as-mother-of-shooter-is-found-guilty/3348384/

6:  Moe CA, Haviland MJ, Bowen AG, Rowhani-Rahbar A, Rivara FP. Association of Minimum Age Laws for Handgun Purchase and Possession With Homicides Perpetrated by Young Adults Aged 18 to 20 Years. JAMA Pediatr. 2020 Nov 1;174(11):1056-1062. doi: 10.1001/jamapediatrics.2020.3182. Erratum in: JAMA Pediatr. 2020 Nov 1;174(11):1119. PMID: 32870238; PMCID: PMC7489426.

Drugs from Gas Stations and Other Notes from the Field...

 

The Food and Drug Administration has not approved tianeptine for use in the United States; however, it is readily purchased in elixir formulations online or at gas stations informally referred to as “gas station heroin”  - from reference 1

 I shot the photo at the top of this post at my local gas station.  A couple of months ago they installed this neon sign advertising Kratom for sale and another selling Delta-10 THC.  Both compounds are intoxicants and are a part of the multigenerational drug epidemic that the United States finds itself in.   Depending on how you are reading about it that epidemic may seem restricted to fentanyl or in some cases amphetamines – but make no mistake about it there is a general trend in making all intoxicants more easily accessible and even making it seem like they are a legitimate business. Even the fentanyl story is only partially told.  The backdrop of excessive prescription opioid prescribing is rarely told – apart from a dramatized version.  The only good that has come of this is that all the hype about medicinal cannabis seems to be rapidly dwindling along with the lack of medical evidence that it has any such properties.

That brings me to the latest gas station intoxicant – tianeptine. It was originally intended to be an antidepressant based on a very general tricyclic structure.  I made the graphic below for a rapid structural comparison with standard tricyclic antidepressants (nortriptyline) and selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (escitalopram). It is obviously not structurally like either class of compounds and has a unique moiety – the 5,5 dioxo structure on the central cycloheptane ring.

In terms of receptor affinities, the first property that jumped out at me was that tianeptine had none of the usual receptor or transporter affinities expected of typical antidepressants in the PDSP database.  The only affinity in that data set was for the mu opioid receptor (MOR). 

 

	NET	SERT	DAT	5-HT2A	5-HT1A	MOR
tianeptine	-	>10,000	>10,000	>10,000	>10,000	383 nM
nortriptyline	1.8 nM	15 nM	1,140 nM	294 nM	5 nM
escitalopram	6,514 nM	1.1 nM	>10,000	>10,000	>10,000

A recent CDC report (1) describes a spike in tianeptine ingestions and complications due to contamination from synthetic cannabinoid receptor agonists (SCRAs) between June and November 2023.  Fourteen of the 17 exposure calls involved patients drinking an elixir called Neptune’s Fix – a mixture of tianeptine and kavain or Piper methysticum root.  Six of the patients ingested other compounds including benzodiazepines, Kratom, trazodone, tramadol, and gabapentin.  Nine had previously used tianeptine. Thirteen of the 17 patients were admitted to intensive care units (ICU) and 7 required intubation and ventilatory support.  There were cardiovascular complications including conduction abnormalities, hypotension, tachycardia, and a cardiac arrest. All the patients had altered mental status.

Six samples of the Neptune’s Fix preparation from 2 of the patients were analyzed by gas chromatography-(GS-MS) and compared with a standard database of compounds of interest.  All of the bottles were labelled tianeptine and kavain. Two of the samples contained THC and CBD.  Two of the samples contained the SCRAs ADB-4en-PINACA and MDMB-4en-PINACA. 

The overall message of the report is that tianeptine preparations available as unregulated preparations can potentially be addictive and may contain adulterants that can produce severe adverse effects requiring resuscitation or ICU admission.  This has been noted in previous literature about SCRAs including severe psychiatric effects.  There have been 144 synthetic cannabinoids identified since 2014.  In some circles these compounds are referred to as JWH compounds after the organic chemist who first synthesized and researched them.

The way that tianeptine is described in the literature seems to parallel the interests of the authors.  The FDA references are uniformly negative because they are focused on severe side effects including death and addiction. Authors who are interested in the opioidergic system in depression will describe how it is a legal antidepressant in several countries and minimize both potential addiction and severe side effects. Either way it maps well onto the current American pro-drug culture. The sheer number of new intoxicants and widespread access to these intoxicants is staggering. Hundreds of new compounds in the past ten years.  Addictive compounds readily available at gas stations?  Those compounds laced with additional problematic intoxicants?  The so-called War on Drugs is obviously non-existent at this time. 

One of the questions I always get from people in response to posts about contaminated, adulterated, and counterfeit intoxicants is why?  Why would drug dealers or semi-legitimate businesses want to kill off or injure their customers?  What is their motivation? The most obvious one is that they don’t care.  There always seems to be a significant number of people out there interested in a new or higher high so demand is never a problem.  The second is marketing.  In a previous post I described a case where fentanyl was being pressed into tablets that looked like Xanax bars and the purchasers were not only aware of that but preferred to purchase those tablets even after directly observing them being made. A third possibility is ignorance. People looking to find intoxicants and sell them on the street are not medicinal chemists – even though they may talk like it. Some of these compounds vary in potency by a factor of a hundred or a thousand.  The fourth is a lack of accountability.  Even the most cynical conceptualization of the pharmaceutical industry recognizes the fact that the products are approved, manufactured, and monitored according to standards. Manufacturers are subject to regulatory bodies, criminal and civil liability, and accountability at the business level from a board of directors and at the shareholder level. It is fairly easy to find that the industry has paid tens of billions of dollars in civil and criminal penalties over the past 30 years. None of these incentives applies at the level of small companies marketing unapproved but unregulated drugs or street sales of illicit drugs. For that matter it probably also does not apply at the level of legal cannabis dispensaries. Even though legally prescribed and regulated medications have risks – unregulated and street drug risk is much higher.  As demonstrated in this post that risk starts with what is really in the bottle complicated by even higher risk adulterants. 

I always think of the former President of Mexico Vincente Fox in these situations.  When asked about the American drug problem and the involvement of Mexico he characterized the problem as “America’s insatiable appetite for drugs.”  When I think about people going into a gas station and buying Neptune’s Fix or Kratom or Delta-10 THC and not really knowing what they are getting in the bottle – he can’t be wrong.

George Dawson, MD, DFAPA

Supplementary:  On not caring that I mentioned in the above post.  I think there is a case to be made that the same attitude can fuel legitimate retail sales of drugs that reinforce their own used including alcohol, cannabis, and tobacco. Increasing liquor stores will increase alcohol consumption by increasing access.  That increased access comes with smaller distances to liquor stores, home delivery, placing liquor stores in proximity to other retail stores and supermarkets, and the commoditization of alcohol – you will always be able to find a cheaper drink. Since a significant portion of any population are problematic drinkers all this increased access directly impacts them. The people that create all this access, typically argue that the intoxicants are legal, they run a legitimate business, and not creating all this access puts them at a disadvantage compared to other sellers.  That argument leaves out the significant morbidity and mortality associated with alcohol and ironically that argument is typically used when advocates are trying to legalize another intoxicant as in:  “Our new intoxicant is not as dangerous or lethal as alcohol.”

 

References:

1:  Counts CJ, Spadaro AV, Cerbini TA, et al. Notes from the Field: Cluster of Severe Illness from Neptune’s Fix Tianeptine Linked to Synthetic Cannabinoids — New Jersey, June–November 2023. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 2024;73:89–90. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.mm7304a5.

2:  El Zahran T, Schier J, Glidden E, et al. Characteristics of Tianeptine Exposures Reported to the National Poison Data System — United States, 2000–2017. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 2018;67:815–818. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.mm6730a2

3:  Samuels BA, Nautiyal KM, Kruegel AC, Levinstein MR, Magalong VM, Gassaway MM, Grinnell SG, Han J, Ansonoff MA, Pintar JE, Javitch JA, Sames D, Hen R. The Behavioral Effects of the Antidepressant Tianeptine Require the Mu-Opioid Receptor. Neuropsychopharmacology. 2017 Sep;42(10):2052-2063. doi: 10.1038/npp.2017.60. Epub 2017 Mar 17. PMID: 28303899; PMCID: PMC5561344.

4:  Nobile B, Ramoz N, Jaussent I, Gorwood P, Olié E, Castroman JL, Guillaume S, Courtet P. Polymorphism A118G of opioid receptor mu 1 (OPRM1) is associated with emergence of suicidal ideation at antidepressant onset in a large naturalistic cohort of depressed outpatients. Sci Rep. 2019 Feb 22;9(1):2569. doi: 10.1038/s41598-019-39622-3. PMID: 30796320; PMCID: PMC6385304.

5: Wikipedia contributors. Nortriptyline. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. December 20, 2023, 17:01 UTC. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nortriptyline&oldid=1190922632

Accessed February 4, 2024.  Wikipedia table was used for nortriptyline because the PDSP database was no longer working.

6:  Jelen LA, Stone JM, Young AH, Mehta MA. The opioid system in depression. Neurosci Biobehav Rev. 2022 Sep;140:104800. doi: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2022.104800. Epub 2022 Jul 30. PMID: 35914624; PMCID: PMC10166717.

7:  FDA.  Tianeptine Products Linked to Serious Harm, Overdoses, Death.  https://www.fda.gov/consumers/consumer-updates/tianeptine-products-linked-serious-harm-overdoses-death

8:  FDA.  Tianeptine in Dietary Supplements.  https://www.fda.gov/food/dietary-supplement-ingredient-directory/tianeptine-dietary-supplements

9:  FDA.  FDA warns consumers not to purchase or use Neptune’s Fix or any tianeptine product due to serious risks.  https://www.fda.gov/drugs/drug-safety-and-availability/fda-warns-consumers-not-purchase-or-use-neptunes-fix-or-any-tianeptine-product-due-serious-risks