Trazodone for Dummies

Trazodone bottle

After almost two years of looking at the constant dumbassery posted to pay-for-writing sites, we thought we'd reached a level of jadedness such that we could no longer be surprised by someone's stupidity. We were wrong! While poking through that mother lode of misinformation, eHow.com, we ran across a graphic designer (with a BFA, cum laude!) using the name of Leonor Crossley. Although not a medical professional – not even a medical amateur, as far as the Antisocial Network staffers can tell – Crossley decided to answer the question, "What is Trazodone?"¹ Her answer does not paint a pretty picture...

According to Crossley,

"Drugs.com [says that] trazodone is prescribed by doctors for patients who are experiencing bouts of depression, anxiety attacks or chronic pain..."

...well, no: Both Drugs.com and WebMD state that trazodone is prescribed for depression or major depressive disorders. This ain't no Paxil or Zoloft. Nothing is said of anxiety or chronic pain. Perhaps in the six-plus years since Leonor penned this dreck, the information has changed (but probably not)... Leonor goes on to tell, in loving detail, facts about how (she thinks) trazodone works; rewording both Drugs.com and the Merck Manual, which she misidentifies as "the pharmaceutcal company Merck." At one point, Crossley's rewording veers into misinterpretation: "According to Drugs.com, consuming alcoholic drinks, barbiturates and sedatives while taking too much trazodone can possibly lead to death..."

...which is apparently an attempt to reword "An overdose of trazodone can be fatal when it is taken with alcohol, barbiturates such as phenobarbital, or sedatives such as diazepam..."

She also missed the warnings about recent use of MAOIs (monoamine oxidase inhibitors, common antidepressants); an omission that could be quite dangerous.

The proof, however, is in the pudding: Crossley clearly is merely parroting information about which she knows nothing. That's clear from this sentence way back in her introduction,

"The generic brand is known as Desyrel."

We don't know about others, but we are disinclined to trust any drug information, no matter how carefully reworded, from someone who doesn't know the difference between generic and brand names: Desyrel® and Oleptro® are brand names, trazadone is the generic name (hence the lower-case "t"). That's all we needed to hand Crossley her first-ever Dumbass of the Day award.

¹ The original has been deleted by Leaf Group, but can still be accessed using the Wayback machine at archive.org. Its URL was   ehow.com/about_5449066_trazodone.html

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