Suggest Remedy For Sever Headaches Along With Paranoid Behavior And Aggressiveness

Posted on Mon, 16 Feb 2015

Medically reviewed by Ask A Doctor - 24x7 Medical Review Team

Mon, 16 Feb 2015 Answered on

Fri, 13 Mar 2015 Last reviewed on

Question : My brother-in-law has had a sudden onset in the last 4 months of personality changes. He has become aggressive, secretive, delusional, paranoid, severe headaches. He has spent a lot of his life savings and ran up credit cards with no reason or anything to show for it. A CT scan and MRI without contrast have showed nothing. He has now been put into a mental hospital. A possible diagnosis of bipolar disorder is considered by the doctors. This doesn't sound like a reasonable explanation to the sudden changes in this man. Something physical like exposure to some chemicals or toxic substances makes more since to me. I have read in the past of black mold exposure causing extreme mental changes in people. What is your opinion of his sudden personality change?

Answered by Dr. Dr. Chintan Solanki (25 minutes later)

Brief Answer:
prozac is responsible likely

Detailed Answer:
Hello XXXXXXX

Thanks for writing to us.

From history you mentioned about your brother in law I guess he is suffering from bipolar disorder with current manic episode.Good thing is MRI CT normal.

Precipitation of this manic episode seems to be due to prozac. You have mentioned that he has been given prozac for depression. It is SSRI medicine. When depression occurs in bipolar disorder it should be treated with lithium lamotrigine or quetiapine not with antidepressant medicines. He was given prozac in stead which had precipitated episode of mania-mentioning symptoms you described.

There is no evidence that black mold can cause such manic sympotms. And if by chance it affects behaviour it can not last so long at all.

First and foremost thing is to stop prozac if not stopped yet. And suitable mood stabilizer drug must be added to treat him.

Hope I have answered your query, I will be happy to answer if more queries are there.

Regards,
Dr.Chintan Solanki.

Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Vinay Bhardwaj