Posted by JohnX2 on March 5, 2002, at 22:55:32
In reply to skilled doctors and time and A/D'S, posted by ross on March 5, 2002, at 20:18:01
My opinion,
Finding a good doctor and getting a good diagnosis
is the ticket! This is where I ran into the most interference
all the recs from my good GP were not taking patients.
The guy who treated me wasted my time misdiagnosing me as
major depression and putting me through medicine hell because
of this. I wish I new nothing about psychiatry/medicine/etc
and just got a good pdoc on day 1 who would give me the right
medicine. I don't see too much value trying to be a chemist
or psychopharmacologist, I see value trying to understand our
disorder as it applies to us, find a good doc who will give the
right meds, and go on from there. God help me if I was still
dx'd as Major Depressive, I may be dead. This bipolar thing is
a bitch to deal with, frankly now that I have good medicines
to keep me under control I see more value in using cognitive
therapy, etc to help me learn how to enjoy my life despite my
special little issue. PS, you are right about duking out
the medicine side effects, etc. Its just they way it works.
Can't get something for nothing. Pain will be substantially
minimized if your dx is correct however and you duke out
the correct medicines (don't need to know how they work).
Unfortunately, how do you know if things are going the
right path without doing a little research on your own?my thoughts.
Best Regards,
John> you know why alot of us do not get any better with time? here's how im starting to see it.
> im 34 and have been inpatient 7 times i my life since the age of 25. my best hospital was Hampton in NJ. i was there a full 37 days and started on Anafranil 12 years ago. since then any hospital i have gone into is short term acute. eaning they just stabalize, or try to, your meds. i have great insurance ( state ) and they only hold you for 5-6 days. what can possibly happen in 5-6 days unless you are psychotic or in a manic state? if you are depressed your screwed. also there are covering doctors for covering doctors. its a joke.
> 2) i felt alot better before i became my own Doctor. reading all the journals, calling meds by their chemical name and boosting about how much i know psychiatry. yes we all should find out as much as possible about medications but we all thik we are psychopharm's each and everyone of us. its time to listen to the Doctor if he/she is board certified and a good reputation. my last pdoc was a prescribing machine. you ask him and he will write the script. case in point the Nardil. it was absolutly worthless for me. others respond different just like Paxil works for some and Prozac for others. we read into this BS to much and start to think we have 18 different problems. i believe we do not. we need to keep it simple and stay on the meds for as long as we can before calling it quits with one or the other.
> a good pdoc is one who answers pages, calls you back and listens to your needs and makes a diagnosis with that information. 15 minutes s just to short of a time for med monitering and they charge isurance 90 bucks. same as in therapy. do you ever get the full 45 minutes and do you ever get a social worker older than 35????
> i suffer from major depression, im bi-polar type 2, and i feel i have social anxiety. i cannot say i have not responded robustly to the ssri's. i respond well. i just have some social fear and you know what? you cannot change who you are through drugs. you can just dull the senses a bit in order to cope better.
> so its back to lithium as that has always held my moods the best. an ssri which has always kept my depression,ocd and panic attacks in check. and klonopin which has helped with the socialanxiety aspect.
> any views--any thoughts??
> do we make ourselves feel much worse than we really feel???
> ross
poster:JohnX2
thread:96610
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20020301/msgs/96621.html