Remember: Nobody on this site is a doctor, therapist, or a pharmacist. Know your sources!  Crazy Meds is not responsible for the content of sites we provide links to.  We like them, but what's on those sites is their business, not ours.

We comply with the HONcode standard for trustworthy health information: verify here.

What are other people writing about Crazy Meds?

The people over at SoftBase rank all sorts of information products.  29,200 websites, shareware, free software, stuff you have to pay for.  They have a bunch of criteria they explain on each page where they rank everything.  Of the Medicine and Health products  Crazy Meds comes in at number 6 and number 7 for most important suppliers.  What's really astonishing is for all information products we come in at number 98!  Zounds!  This has nothing to do with personal preference either.  From the great pithy comments for the various sites and products one can tell when they don't like something, but they have way too much integrity to not place the site or product where it belongs base on their own criteria.  The site is pretty popular, so you may have to check back now and then.  Shukran jazeelan!

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The people at Top100 Medicine somehow search through all sorts of websites looking for references to health-related sites.   Apparently they've found over 16,000 references to Crazy Meds, thus putting us in the mid-300s.

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Five stars from John McManamy!

McMan's Medication Links:

"A refreshing mix of over-the-top prose and down-to-earth horse sense, this site tells us what we need to know, or what doctors and others often neglect to mention. By a patient for patients - an indispensable read."

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In a recent article that explains consumer-created sites to health care professionals Crazy Meds was essentially described as the most balanced in its presentation, and the easiest to find when searching for such information.  To quote from that article:  Surprisingly, content featured on CrazyMeds.org, a popular blog that highlights patient experiences with psychiatric medications, had a higher page ranking than Eli Lilly’s Strattera Web site. 
And:  
CrazyMeds.org features more balanced commentary. [Compared with the predominately negative reactions posted on other sites referenced.]   Readers learn about the pros and cons of taking Strattera – and about some “freaky” side effects.

Since that article was published, there has been a spate of publicity regarding how consumers would rather get their information from us than from "official" sites.  See the page about our being in the news for more details.

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"You can bet that this site is industry sponsored. It goes out of its way to mislead you on many things."

- Catherine Creel, Withdrawal and Recovery, a Yahoo! group that, according to its introduction:

"This group is here to assist you in the careful withdrawal and recovery from the use of psychiatric drugs including antidepressants, benzodiazepines, and antipsychotics.

"Our focus will be on withdrawal and recovery utilizing nutrients, homeopathy, flower essences, a few herbs (most are not suited to those in early recovery), and proper diet as medicine. We also explore and support emotional and spiritual health."

Nutrients, homeopathy, flower essences are certainly going to do a hell of a lot by themselves to see you through bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and/or epilepsy.  And I wish we were an industry sponsored site.  Then I probably wouldn't have had  to sell my house to cover my medical bills.  Talk about misleading!  This is a fine example of why I'm none too impressed by Yahoo Groups in general.

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Of course you know we're doing something right when both the fearmongers and the pharmaceutical reps hate us.  Check out this particularly vehement comment from cafepharma's forum for the pharm reps:

"Latest Press", looks like a three year old runs that "latest press" website, and half the stuff mentioned doesn't even make sense or isn't true.

Somehow the reps were under the impression that Crazy Meds is some sort of site involved in press-releases and keeping up with the latest news and trends.  You'll note that the posters tend to be anonymous and attack each other with equal abandon.  Now the comments were in regards to our Abilify page which, as of this writing, is woefully in need of a makeover.  We wrote that bit back in July of 2003 and haven't really updated it since.  Like many of the pages it's a throwback to the original Poppin' Zits! Consumers' Guide to Psychiatric Medications.  Regardless, what I find most interesting about the cafepharma is the way they go after each other.  Here is a prime example:

You cephalon fuckers are the most unethical piece of shits in the industry. Its only a matter of time before the FDA catches on to your off-label promotion activity.

No wonder the majority of boards there are anonymous.  They'd go after each other's children like the jackals they are if there were no cloak of anonymity.  Yet they are all sweetness and light when they are plying doctors with $6,000 to $7,000 a year in goodies to push drugs that may or may not be appropriate for their patients.  Or just plying them with food, drink and fancy "seminars."

I get a bunch of e-mails from people purporting to be M.D.s about the site.  Quite honestly the ratio is over 10-1 in favor of what I'm doing here (as in over 50 like it / love it / like it enough with a couple of suggestions to 5 who think I'm doing a disservice to the mentally interesting).  The guestbook is filed with entries from people working the trenches - psych nurses and the like.  Here's one entry on a public site I've found from someone who identifies himself as a doctor:

Excellent resource/repository of information about psychiatric medications that is down-to-earth and practical, yet scientifically valid and accurate (this from my perspective as an M.D.).

Plus there are blogs, blogs and more blogs from doctors, nurses and med students linking here.  As well as from the occasional site that is part of a doctor's actual practice.  I think I'll give them a page unto themselves.

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You can rate Crazy Meds yourself!  I have no idea how much impact that has, but what the hell, a rating is a rating, right?  Well it would help if you could actually see the ratings and reviews somewhere.  The ratings come up when you do a search on the site (try "crazy"), but when you look under the psychopharmacology category, no site has any ratings.  What gives?

Still, we are getting some reviews there.  At least, one review:

http://www.healthboard.com/cgi-bin/review.cgi?ID=43797

Kassiane
Crazy Meds is one of the first sites I found when I was researching medications that I would soon be trying.
The site is a work in progress, but the authors say right on the site that they arent done yet, and content is always being updated, and most of it is fairly up to date. All of the information is written in regular English, rather than Doctorese, and the set up is such that the information that the reader needs is readily accessable.
The authors have a personal bias against a few medications because of personal experience, but they say that flat out, so it is no secret.
Great site-easy to navigate and understandable. And I love the gallows humor.

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"the guy is clearly a bit odd." - nico33

"this would have been really useful when I worked at the pharmacy" - aurelia

"it's just kind of weird he knows so much about every med out there... weird." - lomogeek

All from Sensible Erection's review of Crazy Meds.  Where we scored a +7 Informative on a scale of I don't know what.

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Somebody listed us in Yahoo's Directory of Depressive Disorders with this concisely accurate description, "outlines the pros and cons of many psychiatric and depression medications in simple, straightforward language."

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We seem to be making a bit of a name for ourselves on alt.support.depression.medication

We are described us thusly in one post:

This page is kind of what you're looking for, but is a bit on the gonzo side. The author makes no attempt to be objective in several places. He does include a lot of unbiased information as well.

Hey, it's good to see that you can still find accurate information on Usenet!  Granted, we do have issues with antidepressants that we're trying to work through.  And "gonzo" is one of the better descriptions of this site.

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Nom dePlume, Ph.D., physicist and fellow dilettante psychopharmacologist describes Crazy Meds as, "Quirky, but good medication database."  Hey, I'll take that.  Check out Nom's most excellent Summary of Psychotropic Medications.

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The "Youth Scoop" page of Sacramento's Depression & Bipolar Support Alliance describes Crazy Meds as such:

Caution:  Although, the language is unconventional, and might be considered questionable,  it contains no expletives (swear words,  foul language, obscenities, or indecent materials of any kind. Only a couple of words like "suck", and "donkey-dung".) This is a no-nonsense website that comes highly recommended by 16 to 28 year olds who are dealing with this issue. Created by a young peer who addresses the effects and the importance getting help and then staying on meds; tips to staying on medications, the type of medications that might be described and how you, as a young person can have a strong voice in your treatment. This site speaks directly to young people like himself who are dealing with the ups and downs of bipolar disorders and medications.

Heh.  I guess I still haven't lost my Central Valley accent after all.  Not if I'm still passing for being twenty years younger than I actually am.  Either that or I still remember what it's like to be young and crazy and that comes across in my writing.  Although they may want to do a site search on the expletives, as I do use quite a few.  And it's "donkey dong" for those who are keeping score.

There's also our Mental Mall to snag some free software or a purchase some books. 

Better yet, if you run a business and want to advertise on Crazy Meds, see our page on ad rates and policies.  I'm all about fiscal transparency, so follow the money for full disclosure of my finances.

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