Help with Hostile Doctor

[[al...]]

Hello,

 

My doctor suddenly wants me off a .5 mg K and I have to see him on the 28th for my thyroid. He was rather hostile during the last appointment when I simply told him that my body wouldn't be able to tolerate that big a cut. This medication was prescribed by him since the beginning (10 years ago), starting at 1 mg K and then during a hospital stay in June, I was put on an additional 1 mg K. He mentioned that apparently, I was supposed to stop the added 1 mg after 3 months (3 months, really, aren't our bodies usually dependent after 3 WEEKS?). However, no one ever told me. Not him. Not anyone at the hospital.

 

I have been planning and have started a micro-taper. I need to move at a slow pace right now due to a delicate thyroid condition and a sleep specialist who wants me off Remeron 15 mg because he says he cannot help me chronic insomnia, and suggests I see a shrink.

 

Please, any suggestions on what to do when I go see the doctor who wants me off the .5? I'm concerned I will run out of medication for tapering in the long run.

[[Ch...]]

I would take a printed excerpt from the Ashton Manual about 10% (or less) cuts.  After ten years of refilling your prescriptions and upping the dose it would seem like he could prescribe for another couple of months to get you through this.

[[al...]]

Hi Challis,

 

I did that initially and he disregarded it. He said he didn't know of the AM and remarked to my husband that I had become "insane" after the death of my mother.

 

True story.

[[be...]]

Hi Challis,

 

I did that initially and he disregarded it. He said he didn't know of the AM and remarked to my husband that I had become "insane" after the death of my mother.

 

True story.

 

I would suggest that you see a psych rather than a PCP or an Internist. They think they know it all about benzos, but they rarely do. No use in asking for something he doesn't want to do or he'll just get more angry at you. I'd advice a psych whose sub specialty is addiction. If it helps, I don't think you are insane at all. If you were, then I'd have to jump on the bandwagon Bets

[[An...]]

Get to a specialist. Immediately. Explain that you are having a reaction to going off a med too quickly and the other medical factors and let him/her handle the rest of the med situation. Alternately, explain that your PCP no longer wants to prescribe a drug you've been on for years and just tell him what you're on and ask to have it prescribed. At least that way you'll have enough to taper yourself, worse comes to worst.

 

Just my advice. While many here have been scarred by interactions with psychiatrists, going to one to get this prescribed so you don't end up cted is a much better idea than the PCP handling (mishandling) it further. My doc tried this crap and I just switched. Fired him and switched.

[[An...]]

Seriously, mine became hostile wanting me to make ridiculous cuts while I'm still recovering from surgery. I don't understand this sudden hostility or inability to understand that this is physically (and emotionally) a very taxing process, but it's just not something anyone should put up with. There are tons of other doctors out there and most people suggest getting a 2nd opinion for anything having a serious effect on your health, this is no different.

[[th...]]

Good grief. This crap makes me embarrassed to be part of the medical field! Ugh! Why so mean to patients? It's so sad! We are supposed to be causing no harm for crying out loud! Makes me want to scream! 

 

Grinch

[[An...]]

LOL Grinch!

[Guest [ba...]]

Mine got a little perturbed when I said that I had stopped taking the pills that he had so willingly provided for years.  It was like I was rejecting his help.  Actually, he had given me a lot of good advice over the years (except about the benzos). 

 

Many professionals don't like for 'outsiders' to offer advice or knowledge.  It's not just doctors.

[[th...]]

Seriously! What is wrong with these people of medicine? We take an oath "DO NO HARM" ...yet so much unnecessary harm is happening. Sometimes I daydream of picketing outside someplace important about this injustice 

 

Then I realize I am too tired 

 

Grinch

[[ig...]]

Hi Grinch,

Hippocrates got thrown overboard once kickbacks started. Then it was the almighty dollar.

They should replace the Hippocratic Oath with the Ode to the Almighty Dollar.

 

Just my two cents, which was not a kickback from anybody.

 

Iggy

[[al...]]

Seriously, mine became hostile wanting me to make ridiculous cuts while I'm still recovering from surgery. I don't understand this sudden hostility or inability to understand that this is physically (and emotionally) a very taxing process, but it's just not something anyone should put up with. There are tons of other doctors out there and most people suggest getting a 2nd opinion for anything having a serious effect on your health, this is no different.

 

I might be wrong but perhaps the reason they do this is to cover their backsides. Again, in the humblest of opinions. Western medicine is a business like all others and unfortunately, we are mere dollar (or enter your currency here) signs. A lot of people say the doctors don't know better. Again this is my opinion but my gut instinct tells me they do know when they've erred in terms of supplying us with vast quantities of controlled substances. Sometimes they forget to keep track and then realize their mistakes. In all finality, their priority is to save face. Must incessantly reiterate that this is my mere opinion.

[[An...]]

Well, yes, and I am prone to w/d with just about anything. Try going in and telling a doc you need to taper off of an opiate painkiller; they think you're trying to get more, need a rehab or just nuts. Few understand. I thought lining up an army of specialists SPECIFICALLY about the med reactions while on no meds there would do the trick, but the second I had to take one again and had a reaction, bam, they scatter or change their stories. Or the dreaded new thing I keep hearing places about people getting supposedly paranoid about prescription drugs, that we're not reacting at all but just acting like those anti-vaccination people because we've read too many conspiracy theories online. On another forum someone even posted something attacking me last year from a psychiatrist stating that anyone who says they have a reaction to a psych med are actually more psychiatrically sick (I've never been treated for a psych condition before other than trauma with a therapist) and that's the real problem, that "mentally ill people blame their meds". I think even my pharmacist thought I was just paranoid until I had 2 seizures. Then he started working to protect me. Did my prescribing doc care that I'd had seizures? Hell no, he was about to rapid taper me into more.

 

This doctor freak out/hostile doc actually destroyed my one chance with scheduling to fly back to my surgeons, who I desperately need to see. This all has to be rescheduled, etc. which is a giant pain and not at all a pleasant thing to have to work out. I cannot even believe someone would do that to someone, especially in a state with so much tort reform that doctors cannot even be sued. All he had to do was follow the slow taper protocol and it would've been fine but even that was too much to ask, which caused a few weeks of horror to my family, missed flights, and other various problems.