Posted on 05/17/2008 3:16:10 PM PDT by neverdem
Coroner officials released an autopsy report Friday suggesting that a slain Roosevelt High School sophomore who attacked a campus police officer was not taking proper dosages of drugs prescribed to control his mental illness.
Dr. David Hadden, Fresno County coroner, said it's clear that Jesus "Jesse" Carrizales, 17, had a high dose of the antidepressant Lexapro in his blood that could have caused him to be paranoid.
But the teen's blood also revealed he was not taking antipsychotic drugs.
Carrizales' family has said he was taking Lexapro and Geodon, an antipsychotic medication, for depression.
Hadden said it's far too early to draw conclusions about Carrizales' use of prescription drugs. People react differently to drugs and have different tolerances to them.
"This picture is not complete," Hadden said.
On a night when family and friends held a vigil at Roosevelt High, the findings of his autopsy reveal new information about the special education student who was classified as emotionally disturbed.
At the Friday night vigil, family members said they still were waiting to see what the final police report on the incident says. They also said they had submitted a list of questions to Fresno Unified and had yet to receive answers.
"It hurts very much every day, and it doesn't get any easier," said Elisa Ortega, Carrizales' sister.
Said his uncle, Gilbert Abarca: "Something has to change."
Gloria Hernandez, a mental health patient advocate who came to the vigil in support of the family, said the Police Department needs to provide training to officers in how to deal with the mentally ill.
"They need to learn how to de-escalate the situation," she said...
(Excerpt) Read more at fresnobee.com ...
Thanks. I’ve read it now, and the cause is, as I indicated it would be, listed as homicide.
Thanks for the ping. Interesting.
the kid was manic depressive, not schizophrenic.
Often when I saw patients with problems from SSRI anti depressants, I referred them...many turned out to be bipolar (manic depressive)...anti depressants can “flip” them into mania.
Often bipolar patients do better on the third generation anti depressants like this kid was taking...and often they add an antipsychotic to stop them from getting mania.
They are not easy patients to treat, and alas we can’t put them into the hospital until they stablize like in the old days, which might take a week or month.
Another problem is that when patients get hypomanic, they often enjoy the feeling and stop the medicines to calm them down, or the medicines (e.g. lithium, anti convulsants) that controls their mood swings. Then they get full mania...
As for “fatal levels of SSRI”, I didn’t know there was such a thing...and many medicines can interact with SSRI’s, including street drugs.
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