J** P

 I am wondering if medications (specifically Celexa 
[Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD: Citalopram, an SSRI]
 and Buspirone
[Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD: an anxiolytic]
) can cause brain
damage or otherwise cause an adult 
[Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD: how old is she?]
 to
experience a drastic decline in mental functioning. Our daughter has been on
these meds ( for anxiety) for approx. three years and her full scale IQ has
declined by 17 points since 1992  
[Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD: There are virtually no long-term trials of psychotropic drugs; anything as long as a year. The first "experiments" of what 3 years worth of such drugs do to human beings are those carried out in the practice setting on persons such as your daughter. Further, not only is it not known what either of these drugs does to human beings over three years, it is absolutely unknown what this combination of 2 drugs will do over that period.]
. Our physician is at a loss as to
what is wrong and has recommended we see a neurologist.I am worried that the
drugs may have damaged her brain. Please help us any way you can.
[Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD: Your physician, the one, I assume, prescribing thus, should know and convey to you that no psychiatric diagnosis, and surely not "anxiety" or "generalized anxiety disorder" is a bona fide disease due to an abnormality in the person. Further, he has a duty to tell you that all drugs are general, whole-body, -brain toxins and that they are the first and only abnormality in the individual--in this case, your daughter. It is his duty to tell you--your daughter--that any troublesome change in such a patient cannot be due to the "disease"--there is no disease, but must be due to the drug(s) and that as such drugs are never essential (unlike in the treatment of real diseases), they ought be discontinued, keeping the patient off of all non-essential drugs. This would include any psychotropic drugs. You should also get her to a neurologist to be sure no other disease is present. The sooner she is off of nervous system-acting drugs the sooner the neurologist can know what the problem is, and is not. --FB]
 *I am in
no way your/your daughter's treating physician.