U.S. government researchers have found that a widely prescribed asthma drug originally sold by Merck & Co may be linked to serious mental health problems for some patients, according to a scientific presentation reviewed by Reuters.
The researchers found that the drug, sold under the brand name Singulair and generically as montelukast, attaches to multiple brain receptors critical to psychiatric functioning.
But by 2019, thousands of reports of neuropsychiatric episodes, including dozens of suicides, in patients prescribed the drug had piled up on internet forums and in the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s tracking system. Such “adverse event” reports do not prove a causal link between a medicine and a side effect, but are used by the FDA to determine whether more study of a drug’s risks are warranted.
I know it’s anecdotal and perhaps can’t be blamed entirely on this medication, but I’ve been taking singulair since I was 12 and I dropped out of school at 17 with a 3.8+ gpa. I did three psych holds and two years of therapy and I didn’t feel better until a few years ago at age 26, which was when I was booted off my parent’s insurance and no longer able to get my prescription singulair.
I did get a high school equivalent degree and an associates degree in my early 20s, but even then it was very difficult for me to hold a job with how often I would burn out and suffer extended depressive episodes. I’m doing better now, but it was definitely a major set back socially and career-wise.