TEGRETOL

I cannot PROVE that TEGRETOL gave me BREAST CANCER but I will put forward some CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE. Firstly I'd like to say that it is probably safe for the majority of users, as they say, but the fact that my own Psychiatrist ignored the warning signs should have meant some sort of an inquiry. Of course it DIDN'T.

My first experience of TEGRETOL was when I had first left my husband and was trying to get myself stabilised as much as possible so that I would hopefully be balanced enough to maintain the responsibilities of motherhood. Dr Cliff put me on Tegretol. These anti epileptic drugs were considered a new way of treating Bi-Polar but to be effective one must be maintained at a THERAPEUTIC LEVEL. (That means quite a high amount for which one needs to have blood tests regularly because it can lower your immune dangerously)

Anyway, as I trusted my Doctors implicitly, I took it but I developed a lump in my left breast and called my Lawyer, Simon, about it. For that reason and others, when my husband took back my son from my mother, I concluded that it might be for the best because I was TERRIFIED of having to be maintained on these medicines anyway. Even though I was EMPHATICALLY ASSURED that TEGRETOL does not cause cancer.

Because of these assurances I gave Tegretol another go at a later stage and another lump appeared. Each of these lumps appeared within a short time period of taking the drug.
I'm a little hazy but I think it was the third round that did the MOST DAMAGE. This time it was the lovely Dr Timney that promised me that he would stabilise me out of Depression and wound the Tegretol up to the THERAPUTIC LEVEL. Within a couple of weeks I was home but I remember writing a letter to Dr Timney in the middle of the night saying that I was scratching like a Guerrilla and most worryingly couldn't ..................................... No response. Another one or two weeks later I went for my drug level test and got a phone call that I was to drop my Tegretol because it had dropped my white blood count below .4 which had thrown me into DANGER. On the lower dose my Immune had risen again, which was a relief, but what ASTOUNDED me at the time was that Dr Timney actually recommended then to take a higher dose than that which had caused my immune to drop in the first place. It was about the same time that I was almost screaming with pain in my left breast and hopping around my flat in agony. Dr Timney matter of factly told me that lowering my immune to DANGER LEVEL could cause cancer. THANKS. I dropped the drugs at that time in absolute frustration but I had also developed Tinnitus and by the way I could no longer balance my Bank Statements I have only CIRCUMSTANTIAL evidence that the Tegretol also caused BRAIN DAMAGE at the same time. I discovered later that it was when I wrote that letter about the fact that the Tegretol was causing the itching was when He SHOULD HAVE STOPPED IT because that is a basic WARNING SIGN. Much later when Eleni and I were going over my notes I discovered that letter had been removed from my file or perhaps was never even put in because I'd told him I couldn't...........................
Eleni urged me that it would probably be too stressful to make an A.C.C. claim and as we all know A.C.C. is a Gobble-De-Gook Nightmare that does anything BUT protect it's clients so I agreed with her. However, I did apply much later and was told by A.C.C. themselves that TEGRETOL does not cause cancer. Funny that because when the last lump appeared, a much larger one, and my lovely Psychiatrist Eleni got me in for treatment I was told by one of the Nurses in Radiology that the association between taking of TEGRETOL and people complaining that why they suspected they'd turned up the SEEMED TO BE A COMMON THEME!
At least in America the Drug Companies would have to give you a Princely Pay out. HERE you may as well give them the SPADE and let them BURY you ALIVE.