“I tried covering it up with cardboard or tape,” Arturo said, “but I couldn’t breathe. I tried to wrap myself, but it didn’t work.” Like many of the boys who gained weight on Risperdal, the gynecomastia was overlooked at first. “The more weight I lose, the more disfigured I become.”
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“I had bigger boobs than most of the girls in high school,” Eddie said. “I’d go to the locker room, and people would point and stare. They’d make comments. I would get so angry, I didn't even know how to express myself.” He explained that he stopped going outside with his friends, retreated into his room, and played video games to shut out the world.
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“I first thought it was puberty, but the bigger they got, the more concerned I got.” Laraina was talking about her autistic son, Isaiah, and the breasts he developed as a result of Risperdal. When she raised the issue at a hospital, doctors, at first, were concerned it could be cancer. When that was ruled out, they conducted a prolactin test and found his levels elevated.
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Pedro started developing breasts in middle school. When he first noticed them, he stopped taking his shirt off at the beach or the pool. But Pedro loved sports, and by high school, he couldn’t hide his breasts from his teammates. “People picked on me, and I tried to laugh it off,” he said. “In the locker room they would call me names and flick my boobs. It wouldn’t stop.”
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“I remember going to the pool and a friend came over, and after that, he stopped being my friend.” Michael (a name he gave to preserve his anonymity) started taking Risperdal as a preteen. By 15 he had grown breasts. “Girls would shoot me down publicly,” he said. “They would brag about how they rejected me. I wanted to duct tape my chest.”
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“I just don’t trust the medicine thing anymore,” Brandon said. His mother, Brenda, interjected and mentioned that Brandon would benefit from some sort of medicine to help regulate his anger issues, but Risperdal is definitely not the one.
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