Author lost £500k to compulsive shopping
BBC • • health
Key Points:
- Children's author Sally Gardner developed a severe shopping addiction linked to dopamine agonist drugs prescribed for her Restless Legs Syndrome (RLS), leading to over £500,000 in debt and significant life disruption.
- Dopamine agonist medications, commonly used for RLS and Parkinson's, can cause compulsive behaviors such as shopping, gambling, and hypersexuality, often going unrecognized and untreated, especially in women.
- Gardner's compulsive spending included extravagant purchases and denial of her behavior, with little warning or monitoring from doctors about the drugs' psychiatric side effects.
- Experts highlight that compulsive shopping is harder to detect than other impulsive behaviors due to lack of immediate social feedback and stigma, resulting in prolonged hidden addiction.
- Gardner now manages her condition with reduced medication dosage but continues to struggle daily with compulsive urges, calling for better awareness and guidelines for patients on dopamine agonists, particularly women with RLS.
