is there a DR in the house...

[[Mo...]]

Stacy, i laughed out loud and for hours, i could just imagine my Doctor with

a banana in his hands and throwing it out again. hilarious, could be a scetch

out of a movie by woody allen.  :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

[[...]]

I work in mental health (not a Doctor) and I've come across a doctor or 2 on benzos... Happens to all of us...

 

In fact, Dr's have to be supervised in the meds cupboard by a nurse in my region in the uk... due to historical issues with high misuse rates!!! 

 

Okay sorry my replies are some what late.

 

Yes the dispensing of drugs should be supervised but believe me this is not always the case my recent stay in psych hospital this was not the case and this did not just happen on the one occasion.

 

Nurses would prepare the drugs for each person and would get ones drug chart and place the paper cup on top of ones chart and they would sit there next to all the other patients charts.

 

They then would just pick them up and give them to you. By rights the drugs should be checked by two nurses then placed in paper cups. But this did not happen there would be two nurses each doing different patients. They were to busy to check each others dispensing.

 

I myself was given the wrong drug I knew what I was supposed to be taking but some patients were that for want of a better word drugged up, I feel that they would just take what was given and had no idea whatsoever they were being given the wrong drug.

 

Duck

[[...]]

My pleasure Duck

 

It's not helpful to have simplistic solutions repeatedly advanced to deal with complicated problems.

 

If ALL doctors stopped prescribing benzodiazepines today, or even limited their use to those times and conditions considered legitimate by whichever Great and Good, it would be about as "successful" as Prohibition was in taming alcohol abuse.

 

A "healthy" and not particularly subterranean black market already exists. The street value of their adulterated products would quadruple overnight and, in time, given the nature of the benzodiazepine withdrawal that probably comes to everyone with time and successive challenges, they would rule the world.

 

The steps in the patterns of prescription of new drugs are well-known. An initial reluctance to prescribe, doctors are conservative beings, is always followed by enthusiastic overuse in expanding areas.

 

In time, there being no such thing as a free lunch, the problems of mass medication arise and there is then a retrenchment to curtailed usage where the ends are thought to justify the downsides of the means.

 

This hasn't happened with benzodiazepines despite many concerns being raised many times. The reason the retrenchment has failed is one we are all familiar with...stopping these drugs is only the start of a long-suffering story. Healing comes hard.

 

Before rational, limited use of benzodiazepines can occur, it will be necessary for the extended withdrawal syndromes of them and the other psychoactive drugs used with them, to be properly recognised...and dealt with.

 

Sadly, I can't find anyone overly exercising themselves in this direction.

 

With love, spartacus x

 

PS The only benzodiazepine addict I ever colluded in making was myself

 

 

 

Edit:  personally identifying info.

~Juliea

 

Sorry again replying late

 

Hi Spartacus

 

I was told that there have been changes to the prescribing of benzos that now for instance sleeping tablets will only be prescribed for a few weeks but as you know this is stated on the leaflet that comes with these drugs. Stupidly I never once read it but I was never given this leaflet when I was first given them.

 

This was in the psych hospital. Just had a thought anyone reading this would be thinking we have a right nut case here she has spent a lot of time in a psych hospital. Well in total if any one is wondering I spent a total of two lots of 4 months every time I tried coming off but sadly it went wrong and I was put back in hospital not to help me with what I had done but to feed me with drugs again that I no longer wanted to be on.

 

It wasn't until I went to collect my bottle of diazepam that I was taking to taper off my benzo that I knew that it was a controlled substance. I can't tell you how I felt when I went to collect my prescription and the pharmacist said loudly , you do know that this is a controlled substance ,

 

Yet previously I was collecting my prescription and nothing was mentioned. Obviously this came into force and I just did not know about it.

 

Spartacus you know me well and I doubt that they will never accept that we who have chosen to come off these drugs have withdrawal symptoms. I myself have said this to various supposedly medical professionals. Even to Psychiatrists who are top in their field and they will not have it that this occurs. Yet it is written in black and white that this occurs but they will not have it.

 

I find it strange but no not really that certain drugs are what I call flavour of the month. This means in my opinion how much one can get by promoting a certain drug. At my last stay Risperdal although not a benzo was widely being prescribed. So who knows what goes on behind closed doors.

 

Duck

[[...]]

Yes Claudia, bleak indeed.

 

My generation, the huge, unprecedented population group of Baby Boomers are retiring en masse.

 

The next generations of doctors, while dazed and confused by expanding demand, have been spoon fed certainties by vested interests...the lifetime sceptics are about to be replaced by True Believers.

 

That can only be changed by finally addressing ludicrous demand...and I don't mean by increasing supply.

 

In a 40-year working lifetime the biggest change I saw in medicine was a change from patients demanding the right to be well, to a much more vocal group demanding the right to be sick.

 

It was first noticeable with "ME", neither myalgia nor encephalitis and now subsumed in the larger group of CFS. Nobody ever "demands" that they have cancer...they often fear it, need reassurance they don't have it, but they don't flood into clinics demanding their right to have it in the absence of any objective evidence.

 

In retrospect the rise of ME probably coincided with the first wave of benzodiazepine dependents. It has been followed by the rise of many other "soft" diagnoses and syndromes...IBS, POTS, fibromyalgia...and multiple, isolated, unexplained "idiopathic" symptoms...vertigo, tinnitus, uncorrectable blurred vision, hyperacusis, akathisia, restless legs, non-congenital dystonias, shortness of breath, chest pain, cognitive defects, agoraphobia, eating disorders, insomnia.

 

I don't need to mention the recent relentless expansion of psychiatric diagnoses and morbidity. Suffice to say that the right hand of psychiatry needs to take a hard look at what the left hand is doing in the name of making their Black Art more "scientific".

 

Time to walk in the sun I think

 

Take care, with love spartacus x

 

You are so right Spartacus

 

We now have a young generation of doctors etc that all they know is what they read in a text book. And if it is not there in front of them they will not accept such things as withdrawal side effects from drugs.

 

My own doctor is in her early 30's and she will not accept this happens. She like many others are in the opinion once off these drugs after they are out of your system that is it. W e know different of course.

 

Duck

 

 

[[...]]

Hi Duck,

 

I know the feeling, I can even detect a smirk on their faces when I complain of any physical ailment pretty much. To them maybe some mood disorder fits just fine, so they can recommend me to go on some other funny pill.

I've had real physical complaints since I started to withdraw the benzo, and that's as real as anything else. Things like GI tract disturbances, dizziness, lower back pain, and a few more are just me being anxious and making a bigger deal than it must really be.

But I don't hold any grudges, in the end I know they can't help me anyway. So, probably the most scary feeling I've been trying to overcome is that I'm on my own to go through this in regards to healthcare that is.

 

HI guitarman

 

Hope you are still playing with your G string

 

Seriously I know what you are saying about feeling real pain. I and all of us that are having these pains are real. But trying to explain this to the medical field that it is real. Well I was told that what I am going through is psychological and that it needs addressing . How this would be solved is no doubt by the use of a drug. Well it is not going to happen in my case.

 

Sadly you are right we are on our own in getting through this.

 

Duck

[[...]]

Hello Buddies.

 

Just to confirm...I AM a doctor and I AM human

 

Take care,

 

spartacus x

 

Blimey dear Spartacus,

i started feeling so guilty and embarrassed about my posts, since i know i am not

a heartless person and of course i know Doctors are human .

 

took me a long time to search through your posts and i was successful. 

i knew, you and i have a common point of view dear lady, 

so here we go if i may and i hope you take it with humour.

 

on march 28 th 2013. title of the thread: dangerous dump diagnoses (quote by spartacus)

'' i think what needs to happen is the odd psychiatrist, intern, whatever, should be

force fed Xanax for a couple of months and then cold turkeyed....in a cage ...in a public place.

 

i would not want to be inhumane; it would be a nice cage , all mod cons

and the odd banana thrown in.

it would be interesting to see how long it took them to crack and throw the bananas back

and demonstrate a touch of drug-seeking behaviour .''

 

i am so glad i found this post, because i can assure everyone, i do not need to be reminded

that Doctors are humans as well. 

 

 

I'm sorry but I just laughed out loud about feeding them Xanax and putting them in a cage

 

 

My primary care told me I was on a low dose when I was trying to taper off nasty ativan and yelled at me and said I had a mental disorder mind you I was in perfect health before mentally and physically I just couldn't sleep was stressed out about having another attack do to a traumatic event in my life. So I yelled back at him and reported him to the board he was over prescribing I found out he was just careless and refilled via phone for 3 months after he gave me the first bottle of 60 pills

 

Not all doctors are bad my sisters doctor is amazing she wouldn't give her anything at that time told her to do some yoga and excersise  eat right she doesn't even prescribe benzos she says there addicting and people can find other wats to fight anxiety  I'm going to her for a physical next week first time but won't get into detail about my situation.

 

Very hard to find a caring Doc these days

 

Hi SB

 

My previous doctor never once reviewed my prescription of my then benzo. I could have made a fortune by selling them on the street. Your sister is lucky to find a doctor who will help her by suggesting other means of helping her.

 

I could quiet easily take a chill pill to overcome my anxiety if I had chosen to. But instead I have chosen to ride it out. its not nice what I feel as no doubt those that suffer with anxiety only know to well.

 

Strange the symptoms that I am having now I am no longer on drugs. But I just can not convince any one that it is because I am drug free is the reason I feel so ill, But one day at a time.

 

Duck

 

[[...]]

Hello Ducks,

 

And thank you for all your posts at a time when life is so hard for you.

 

As we've discussed you are, by definition, in withdrawal...from nitrazepam, diazepam, mirtazapine, lorazepam, risperidone and citalopram in the time we have known each other.

 

Given such a drug history in such a short time it's not surprising that you have had so many awful symptoms. Its equally unsurprising that, like all of us here, you have struggled to decide which are withdrawal and which need further investigation in their own right...people in withdrawal may also get ill.

 

Watchful waiting may be the best course but, given the inaccessible, slow-moving, fractured system that the NHS has become, this can test the nerves to shreds.

 

And you have been tested Ducks.

 

You will get there, we all will one day.

 

Take care, and love from spart x

 

Sorry missed this and after today I will post as soon as I can. Sorry for the lateness in posting.

 

Well Spartacus you have saved my fingers in typing what drugs I was on. The Risperdal/ Risperidone the drug that I was put on because I became psychotic, of which is a w/d sxs coming off benzos. But alas was poo poo under the table.

 

Yes I am not surprised that not only myself but no doubt many of us have taken a multitude of prescribed drugs not realising the consequences. But lets be honest if it was not the fact that we chose to come off our drugs.

 

We would be like thousands of people just keep taking them. because they are making us feel so much better. I was told this several times that I am so much better when I am taking drugs. No I am not what you see on the outside is not what only I can feel in the inside.

 

Duck

[[gu...]]

I remember there was one time I went to the A&E because I had a terrible abdominal pain and I sort of panicked my guts were going to burst or something like that, you know what I mean. They didn't find anything as per usual but nevertheless I left with a box of co codemol, which is basically codeine, I didn't take any and later researched it only to find that there are a lot of problems with this med as people get addicted to it, well it's no wonder, codeine, hello...Is this irresponsible or what?

 

The healthcare industry has become so reliant on pharmaceuticals that we won't find anything else in it I'm afraid. They don't care/don't want to know about what might have caused the problem. Never asking you about what you eat, drink, consume, levels of stress, etc.

 

Oh and on their generalised denial about benzo w/d from psych docs, I remember once I asked one of these psychs if it was possible that my sudden bout of tinnitus might have been connected to benzos and this doc answered absolutely not. It took me 15 mins on the internet to find out there are plenty of reports of real cases on this. Is that laziness or what? I mean I'm puzzled.

 

I don't mean to slag off an entire profession by any means, but come on! What's this all about? I think is a valid question, no?

 

 

[[Mo...]]

yep, it is more than a valid question and its about time we would get some answers.

[[sp...]]

Hello Everyone,

 

The questions you all ask are more than valid...and they are ones I've asked myself many times over the last few years.

 

Initially wounded and in pain, as Claudia's quote from a posting of mine suggests, I contented myself with targeting single ignorant doctors and exposing them to bananas and public humiliation.

 

In time, as my cognition improved, I became less hopeful that this might do more than make me feel better. I began to see the scope and scale of the whole problem of a society bent on consciousness lowering at any price.

 

As I've tried to say, it's too easy, however tempting and potentially amusing, to lay all the blame for this at the feet of the door-keepers, particularly when they have been either systematically disempowered or their obstruction bypassed with society's blessing.

 

A professional is someone with specialised training, part of a self-regulating body of people tasked to provide objective counsel and services to others. They can only do this if they have work autonomy, are free from political interference.

 

By definition doctors in the UK are no longer professionals.

 

But some of them do try...my generation, about to leave the field of battle en masse, were known to drug company reps as "the awkward squad". When I trained the aim was to avoid polypharmacy...to rationalise and reduce medication. This seems unbelievable now, a different age.

 

In the New Age, it's useful to consider Norway. Norwegians live longer than anyone else in the West...if there is a definition of healthy, they are it. Nonetheless, if their doctors followed all the extant guidelines they are meant to(and sometimes made to)at the age of 21, 50% of Norwegians would be on medication, by the age of 50, all of them would be.

 

During the last few years of my own practice I was often questioned about my use of antidepressants. Each doctor's detailed prescription statistics are available for scrutiny, by politicians, managers and...drug companies.

 

My "Prescribing Advisor"(a pharmacist)was concerned that I used so few antidepressants compared to my peers...to the extent that he had shared his concerns with my Appraisor who was the person instrumental in my revalidation. The feeling was that I was radically underdiagnosing depression among my patients...particularly as I didn't use the approved "Depression Questionnaire"(PHQ-9) to feed them into a therapeutic algorithm.

 

I was already being financially penalised for this issue, Primary Care pay has long depended on meeting contracted, ever-changing "targets", but it was felt there may also be a case for "re-education".

 

This is not a picture of a professional at work, it's a picture of factors at work on the professional.

 

Take care,

 

spartacus

[[...]]

Dear Spartacus

 

You have said it all. Thank you.

 

I feel that I have said what I have had to say on this topic and I really can not say anymore.

 

But the only last thing that I want to say is that despite the prescribing of these drugs have changed here in the U.K it is a bit late for those of us that are now in the positions that we are in.

 

And sadly I honestly do not think it will ever be changed the way people are treated when they present with issues such as depression, anxiety etc because it is much quicker and cheaper to treat with what I call a chill pill rather than get say for instance CBT. It all boils down to costs IMO.

 

Duck

[[sp...]]

Hello guitarman,

 

The specific instance of codeine is interesting and well illustrates the forces brought to bear on prescribing "habits".

 

There are remarkably few different classes of painkillers overall, NSAIDs like ibuprofen at one end of the scale and opiates and their analogues at the other. The middle ground, the territory occupied by moderate pain, has always been a bit of a desert...until co-proxamol(Distalgesic).

 

A combination of paracetamol and a weird opiate analogue, detropropoxyphene, this totally occupied the middle ground within a year of its introduction. It was weird in that for a medication containing an opiate analogue, it never really developed an abusive street market, perhaps because the mild euphoria sometimes seen with it WAS very mild, and it couldn't be augmented safely with alcohol. The two together in quite small doses were potentially lethal.

 

Over the years the problem became that co-proxamol was as cheap as chips, less than a penny a tablet. It made little profit for anyone yet was firmly blocking the middle rungs of the pain ladder at a time when Big Pharma was developing lots of lovely, expensive opiate analogues.

 

About 15 years ago it became apparent that drug reps were trying to introduce the notion that opiates and their analogues could be for life...could be used for chronic as well as acute or terminal pain.

 

My generation, able to remember all too easily the history of the first set of medically-created opiate addicts, were curiously resistant...and helped in this by having co-proxamol to fall back on.

 

To cut a long story short, co-proxamol was systematically discredited, banned except on a named patient basis, withdrawn, and, in prescribing "advice" circulated everywhere, replaced by compound codeine-based preparations(co-codamol).

 

At first glance this seems something of an own goal for Big Pharma, codeine also costs pennies. But, as they knew only two well, it is highly addictive and, available over the counter. It would provide a very easy passage, facilitated passage to the expensive opiate analogues crying out to recover the costs of research and development.

 

Now, codeine is the third most abused drug where I live, Solpadeine is heavily flogged on UK TV, and worldwide, the most frequently prescribed drug is hydrocodone(Vicodin).

 

Game , set and match...and most people, doctors included, didn't even realise a contest was under way.

 

Take care,

 

spartacus 

 

 

[[Mo...]]

Hello Spartacus,

what i can't understand is, (i have done some research) . the first Benzo on the market was Contergan , i believe

there was a huge scandal in  1959 or something. terrible damage on new borns ,

i spare you the deatails but it must have been pure horror. i believe there are still some

victims alive and get a miserable sort of pension, but Big Pharma had to pay millions

on compensation. (mainly in germany, uk and usa )

 

after all this they brought Valium and Librium on the market. (and then all the others followed). how come that the

medical profession was not suspicious over the decades that this crap

could do damage as well ? 

 

and why is norway much more advanced . ? come to think of it , denmark as well.

[[sp...]]

Hey Claudia,

 

Contergan is thalidomide, a synthetic glutamic acid derivative not a benzodiazepine, that I discussed at some length above. In particular the fact that many of the people harmed bought it over the counter, mostly in Germany. It was only available for a few years, nowhere near long enough to establish if it would have had problems other than teratogenicity and more like benzodiazepines.

 

These are chemically different and I don't believe the requisite work has been done to see if they cause foetal abnormalities. They will be contraindicated in pregnancy or, "only to be used with caution", the usual cop out. So different drugs, different days, different damage, different doctors.

 

Norway isn't any more advanced, they just live a long time...probably a result of the usual combination of genetics and lifestyle and nothing to do with medicine. Norwegian doctors don't follow prescribing guidelines slavishly any more than anyone sane. Even now most doctors have a much more realistic view than consumers of how well both disease screening and drug-based prevention work.

 

As to the rest, I've covered most of what I think somewhere above except to say that medicine, like everything else, is subject to "fashion". There are generations of people out there without teeth, tonsils or appendices...the removal of each of these had a period in vogue which has largely lapsed...except interestingly for teeth. Gum disease, a source of amorphous "inflammation", is again being implicated in the causation of heart disease. It appears the Victorians, widely ridiculed for this thinking and wholesale dental clearances, may have been right.

 

And now a cop out of my own. "Those who don't remember history are condemned to repeat it". I would disagree with this only to the extent that I believe those who DO remember history are also condemned to repeat it.

 

History itself tells us that.

 

Take care, spartacus x

 

[[Mo...]]

thank you for the reply Spartacus, interesting....very interesting.

[[ig...]]

Spartacus, you wrote:

 

And now a cop out of my own. "Those who don't remember history are condemned to repeat it". I would disagree with this only to the extent that I believe those who DO remember history are also condemned to repeat it.

 

History itself tells us that.

 

Take care, spartacus x

 

------------That's so true--in medicine and everything else.

Take care too, Iggy xoxo

[[sp...]]

Hello again.

 

It's the paranoid android...and I've just read the Sunday Times. Those of you with doubts about the unholy alliances being formed between government and Big Pharma may be interested in today's headline...

 

"NHS SELLS A BILLION PATIENT RECORDS"

 

"A billion NHS records containing details of patients' hospital admissions and operations have been sold to a marketing consultancy working for some of the world's biggest drug companies...

 

The database handed over by health officials covers 125 million "episodes" of hospital treatments each year, with details of every patient admission, A&E attendance and outpatient appointment...

 

Harvey Walsh(the marketing consultancy concerned)says it already has 10 years of data and can "track" the treatments that individuals receive over their life time. It said yesterday the data helped pharmaceutical companies to drive improvement in patient care...

 

The Health & Social Care Information Centre(HSCIC) -the government body responsible for the database- admitted there was  a "small risk" that patients could be identified...

 

Details of the previously undisclosed government deal will raise new questions about the plan to extract data from GPs' surgeries for a new centralised database..."

 

Harvey Walsh promotional material is interesting. From "Big Data...extraordinary insights"...the company was granted a commercial reuse licence in 2009 for information known as hospital episode statistics. It says it can share the 1billion linked care records it holds with pharmaceutical clients so they can develop the "optimal strategy" for their products.

 

A Harvey Walsh document marked "Confidential" states: "Each month the company is sent every patient HES(health episode statistics)record. As each patient has a unique HES ID number that stays with them for life this enables Axon(the name of their NHS health data warehouse)to "track" patients round the healthcare system.

 

Harvey Walsh later said, "Our clients include pharmaceutical and healthcare companies, who use this data to help improve the use and provision of medicines and medical interventions".

 

They denied it was used directly to raise the brand profile of drugs.

 

Gives me a nice warm glow...or something...to know that my ill health will at least benefit Big Pharma and their world-saving agenda.

 

Take care, spartacus

 

 

[[ig...]]

Hi Spartacus,

warm glow...or one giant painful hot flash?

 

Iggy 

[[sp...]]

Hi Spartacus,

warm glow...or one giant painful hot flash?

 

Iggy 

 

Hey Iggy,

 

Probably red hot anger if anything.

 

I was robbed...we was robbed.

 

Love, spartacus

[[gu...]]

Spartacus,

 

Thanks for all your posts here. Very interesting back stage picture you've portrayed, somehow I imagined.

I wonder nowadays whether pharma industry only influences government or they plain and simply are the government. Everything falls into place for them very neatly. We can also see how academia is into it as well as nearly every relevant research into health sciences has been hijacked by pharma interests.

It's interesting to work out that the medication business, same as its siblings banking and arms, can be instrumental not only in what we perceive as the healthcare business but the control of the masses. I believe it to be very hard for drug depending individuals to make free choices and have really critical mind at the end of the day we don't bite the hand that feeds us, and in this case "keeps us healthy"

 

One more point I'd like to make threading carefully is that the blame has to be laid at the individual in the end.

The fact that it is legally framed and generally accepted as common practice doesn't make it right. There's got to be individual choices made by the professionals who have the final decision making power. I mean like you described about yourself, and I wish there were many more like you by the way, if doctors refused as general consensus pharma industry would have to change. I know it's not as simple as this but it would kick start a trend. The public trust their doctors way more than they would ever trust a pharmacist or a pharma rep, so the power of suggestion is at the hands of doctors.

 

Take care

[[gu...]]

yep, it is more than a valid question and its about time we would get some answers.

 

Absolutely. Interesting thread that's developed here. 

[[sp...]]

Hey guitarman,

 

Thank you for your interesting reply.

 

Please don't misunderstand me...there are days when I would happily hang individual doctors(or lock them up, drug-dependent in cages, and throw bananas at them). This would make me feel better and would certainly be effective in limiting the prescribing of however many individuals I could kill.

 

I'm trying to suggest though that it wouldn't address or solve the problem...which is way more complicated than the disempowerment or collective derangement of a profession.

 

I have tried to demonstrate the powerful forces at work when it comes to the Health Care Business, whether these be governments using health fears as destabilising instruments of control...happily accepting the side-effects of the current opium of the masses as a welcome bonus distraction. Or, Big Business, focused on the bottom line and equally uncaring about collateral damage unless it impacts on their profit line.

 

Whatever organised  forces of evil are at work it is important eventually to recognise that all of these "organisations" are collections of individuals, individuals typical of the society in which they live. If progress lies in the education of individual doctors it equally requires change in the behaviour of all individuals...we all must stop trying to have our cake and eat it.

 

Ultimately few doctors force feed their patients pills. Their efforts to stop the rot, especially that started by their own actions, are undermined not only by more powerful organisations, they are comprehensively trashed by the efforts of highly-trained individual consumers.

 

Doctors are not the only legal source of drugs. In the UK, any nurse can go through a "prescribing course" and swiftly gain access to his or her own prescription pad and the whole pharmacopeia. Pharmacists, dentists, paramedics, all have routinely expanded their use of drugs and the facilities extant for them to do so without the intervention of a doctor.

 

But no professional prescriber contributes half so much as the individual...the one who places the locus of control, the "blame", firmly outside themselves, just another helpless victim in a victim society.

 

This would be the same victim that the drug companies knows will be happily instrumental in their own downfall if they can only persuade government to let them sell direct to consumer over the counter(OTC), if they can only cut out all middle men, whatever their provenance.

 

The same drug companies know that, globalisation being what it is, it doesn't matter if they don't win this battle all the time everywhere. They know that cross-border drug runs, whether to and from Mexico or Canada, are not only about illegal drugs. They are about the fact that each country approves a different range of medication, whether prescribed or OTC, and that patients have proved more than willing to travel to obtain them.

 

Not that such travel is necessary any more...on line shopping is so much more convenient. Faced with a diagnosis of gastroparesis I legally obtained through the mail a drug licensed only in China. I also was all too willing to advise fellow American sufferers that domperidone, unapproved by the FDA, was nonetheless freely available in Canada.

 

Most things are freely available somewhere  in the world.

 

 

Take care, spartacus

 

 

 

 

 

 

[[sp...]]

PS. You said, "the fact that it is legally framed and generally accepted as common practice doesn't make it right".

 

On a moral and ethical level this may well be true, though the individual taking a stand against the majority in either of these areas is in a difficult position when it comes to prosecuting their case.

 

For starters, if common practice is legally framed, they may well be breaking the Law...disabling to a degree.

 

They will anyway lose the day through force of numbers unless they can dig up enough charisma to convert the masses. History gives us many examples of people successful in changing opinion and common practice using the force of their personalities. They have not always proven to be "a good thing" nor their aberrant opinions useful or valid.

 

In medical terms, it's important to understand what constitutes medical negligence. Powerful precedents have established that if an action is one that would be carried out by a reasonable number of a given doctor's peers at the time the action was undertaken, then it is not negligent. Ripping out a generation's tonsils, whatever the costs in terms of morbidity and mortality was in retrospect misguided, but not negligent...everyone was doing it at the time.

 

An individual doctor "kick-starting a trend" will therefore potentially attract accusations of negligence. In our litigious society they are placing themselves in triple jeopardy...potential targets for their own professional bodies, individual patients in civil law and the legislature in criminal law. A doctor found guilty of negligence these days loses more than job and income... they often lose their liberty.

 

And I make no comment about that except to say that all three severely curtail their role as patient advocate.

 

Take me and antidepressants.

 

I didn't prescribe as many as my peers. What if one of my depressed patients had killed themselves and their family felt that an antidepressant might have saved them, had even perhaps lobbied for their use? They could sue and win easily.

 

Meanwhile, many inquests attest to the fact that a lot of people on antidepressants DO kill themselves.

 

I might feel the two things are linked...that antidepressants increase the rates of suicide over and above the glib justification usually trotted out by drug companies...that as their magic pills begin to work they lighten depression just enough to give the patient sufficient drive to kill themselves, a passing phase.

 

But while society and the courts, let alone a majority of my profession, take the view that antidepressants are a good and necessary thing, not prescribing them leaves me in jeopardy and sometimes in prison...totally unable to kick anything but myself

 

Take care, spartacus

[[Mo...]]

OMG, this is it, this is what happened to a dear neighbour of mine, the ssri must have

lightened her depression and gave her enough strength to kill herself.

makes sense now , even though it shouldn't..

 

 

[[sp...]]

Hello Claudia,

 

The glib explanation for people on antidepressants killing themselves disproportionately is just that...a glib explanation.

 

It's a semi-plausible fairy story standing glibly in the way of research addressing whether antidepressants should be banned on the grounds of safety...as seroxat and Prozac under the age of 21 have been. The tendency of Prozac to cause teens to kill themselves and others(think Columbine etc)was known to the responsible pharmaceutical company a decade before the research showing this surfaced.

 

Interestingly most drug data sheets in this class now recommend that antidepressants should be used "with caution" in those who are deemed suicidal.

 

And that noise you hear is Big Pharma washing its hands

 

spartacus x