Posted by shelliR on June 6, 2001, at 22:04:45
In reply to Re: Codeine for Depression Treatment » shelliR, posted by Elizabeth on June 6, 2001, at 21:03:10
> Don't self-medicate, if you can avoid it. It's a risky thing to do.
>
> -elizabethThanks for the information, Elizabeth. Actually I have no choice but to self-medicate. My pdoc says it's okay to take the hydorcodone but he won't prescribe it. My gyn will give me enough for 10 days for pms symptoms, but that's it. And I don't believe that I will find a pdoc who will prescribe hyrodocodone for depression (even Dr. bodkin won't anymore).
I am planning to ask my pdoc about Buprenorphine, which I may have a better chance of getting from a doctor. I think I am self-prescribing, rather than self-medicating, in a sense. My pdoc is informed about what I am taking so I'm sure he will warn me if there is any danger involved. But because opiates are so often addictive drugs, doctors other than pain management doctors have to be really careful. I think I mentioned before that my gyn told me that doctors are very carefully monitored for these drugs and she said it is the most common way that doctors get warnings and lose their licenses.
When I was a very young adult and severely depressed (pre-prozac) my pdoc gave me tricyclics and I couldn't take them. They completely disoriented me. I ended up in the hospital (Sheppard-Pratt, supposed to be a good hospital) and again they gave me tricyclics, and again I couldn't adjust. Neither my pdoc or the pdocs in the hospital even suggested a MAOI.
Right after my hospital stay, absolutely on a fluke, I happened to catch Nathan Kline on PBS, and bought his little paperback book (From Sad to Glad). I asked my pdoc why she hadn't put me on one of them and she sort of hemmed and hawed and said, "oh, yes, that was going to be my next suggestion." Like right, thanks. So basically at the age of 22 I felt that I saved my own life because I just happened to have been lucky. And I have never ever put my life totally in the hands of any doctor, without doing my own research. It's much easier now, but there were times I spent entire days at the library at NIH.
I had a pdoc for ten years who is considered the best in the city with treatment resistent depression. She would not even read any of the McLean studies on opiates. Over and over I heard definitively that codeine is not an anti-depressant. So although my preference would be collaboration with a pdoc, I'll take my chances with supervised self-medication.
Shelli
poster:shelliR
thread:64320
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20010605/msgs/65603.html