Ponderings about my GP - no idea where to put this...

[Musings]

This was back along now and I have just been reading something on another forum that got me thinking about my own doctor..

When I first went to him for help with anxiety he put me on fucking thorazine then stelazine and then risperidone!

Is this irresponsible do you think? I know anti-psychotics are generally bad news...

That crap didnt do shit for my anxiety sooo I started taking alprazolam that I acquired... after a while I was up to 4mg a day and had ran out and had no way to get more... so I went to him and told him the situation and he just basically shrugged his shoulders and turned me away and luckily I had a friend who was able to help me taper off...

anyway.. is it just me or does this guy sound like an ass?

 

[Cyc]

I have a friend who is a 4th year resident and we got into a heated discussion about this a few months back.

She said it's standard to do a 3 day in-patient taper for people with severe benzo dependency and I countered that that was ridiculous. She said that doctors can't just give someone with a history of drug abuse a prescription for those same drugs, and it's a liability. I told her that I find it strange how we give people methadone for a non-life-threatening addiction to opiates, but we often turn away patients who have dangerous addictions to benzodiazepines. She's fucking stubborn, so I'm not sure whether I got through to her or not, but I think in the end we reached an understanding.

He doesn't sound like an ass. He sounds like he's covering his ass. Doctors are justifiably worried about being strung along by patients who abuse their meds, and becoming liable for an overdose. Many don't know how dangerous benzo addiction can be, or how long a safe tapering program should last. They also don't know how high the LD-50 is for benzos. I know, you're thinking, "But they're doctors, wtf!". Unfortunately, many doctors do the bare minimum to get their degree (medical school is pass/fail after all) and cruise on autopilot for their entire careers.

 

[suessmayr]

^ I agree with the above. I don't think there was anything wrong with your doctor giving you anti-psychotics instead of benzos to begin with - that's his call. The fact that you're on an online forum second-guessing your doctor, and the fact that you got benzos illicitly when he wouldn't prescribe them, suggest to me that his decision not to give you benzos was probably the right one.

Secondly, I don't think you could really have expected him to give you benzos just because you refused his initial advice. If he wouldn't give you benzos initially, why should he prescribe them to you just because you've generated your own addiction? That's the job of ER's/addiction specialists, not GP's.

Sorry man, I'm with your doctor.

 

[charcoal]

Antipsychotics are not "generally bad news" and can work fucking fantastically for some people. Benzos for anxiety works in the short term ONLY. As in a couple of days. Long term anxiety must NOT be treated with benzos; it just won't work. Antipsychotics (and there are lots of them) can work great for long term anxiety, as can some of the SSRIs. None of these drugs get you high, and most need to be taken daily, long term. If that isn't something you want to do, you'll have to use illicit benzos which will most certainly bite you in the ass, hard, in the near future.

Just don't go stomping off to eat benzos because the first three prescribed drugs didn't work. You need to keep trying different ones, for a length of time for each one giving them a chance to work or not before moving on to another. That's psychiatry for you. You gotta be patient. it took me 10 years to find the perfect combo of drugs and I am happy as fuck now.