Thursday, April 26, 2012

Holger Stenzel is dead


I received the sad news that Holger Stenzel is dead. He was well-known in Germany and with international experts for his keen interest in stuttering medication and his self-reports on using medication. Holger was also a great source for my blog, and constantly kept me informed on stuttering medication.  Check out these few posts where I talked about Holger.

He once came to visit me in Luxembourg. I was certainly impressed by his level of understanding on the functioning of neurotransmitters in the brain. His day job was as an independent electrician. He tried a few medication and wrote about his experiences, but none was ultimately very effective. He had high hopes for Pagoclone. Too high hopes, which ultimately left him deeply disappointed and probably without a fall-back option, I think. Which should also be a lesson for those that create those high hopes...



I am really sad to see him gone. Especially, as his sudden death was of course not an accident, but his own decision. Which makes me wonder whether stuttering played a crucial role or not. We will never know.

Holger, Vielen Dank für Deine Arbeit und Deine Unterstützung. Durch Dich war ich und alle meine Leser immer gut informiert! Wir werden Dich nicht vergessen und an besseren Therapien und Verständnis des Stotterns arbeiten: Medikament oder nicht!


7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Very sad news Tom, it's a reminder how frail the human mind can be. RIP Holger

Michale said...

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Anonymous said...

I think it was the medicine that made him commit suicide not the stuttering itself. i really feel sad about him. I also used some medicines to cope with my stuttering. It really helps i was almost %100 fluent but it had serious side affects, i started to have memory loss, sexual disorder, i was always tired and sleeping too much so i quit, when i quit i get into depression and at some point i did not care if iam dead or not. before this drug i was always baffled when i heard someone committed suicide it seemed impossible for me to do it but after what i go through with the medicine i understood how those people feel. So if you ever think about taking drugs consider it twice. it really messes up your brain chemistry and i assure you that thats much worse than stuttering

Anonymous said...

I rarely find your blog informative or exciting anymore, you seem to focus on stories with very little relevance, not talking about this one in particular but in general I don't see the appeal of your blog anymore

Anonymous said...

I agree, but there isn't much publishing going on with stuttering research right now. Drug research on stuttering is now focused on finding the underlying cause with less going down blind alleys with drugs like pagoclone and zyprexa. Drayna published another linkage study back in December that Tom didn't pick up, but they're still years away from finding the actual gene (my guess is group of genes like in 2010 will be found every 3-5 years). There are some brian imaging studies, but really no breakthroughs. There also isn't much Tom hasn't already said.

Anonymous said...

I just found this blog and your homepage...I haven't read a lot so far but I'm really happy that I found somebody who's committed to this topic! thanks a lot for your effort!


Fabian B.

Unknown said...

May he rest in peace, I just found your blog and have been reading few posts.. Thanks for posting Tom