Posted by Elizabeth on March 9, 2002, at 12:05:08
In reply to Drug/Diagnosis History (or why never to give up), posted by Blue Cheer 1 on March 7, 2002, at 6:12:49
Hi Blue. Thanks for posting this. I think your story (as told by this list) reflects some of the changing attitudes of psychiatrists. The use of "schizophrenia" as a wastebasket dx in the past (at some point that you should be able to identify more precisely than I can) should serve as a caution to all of us. Psychiatric diagnosis really hasn't gotten much more exact or objective since then, and misdiagnosis may be the cause of many people's perceived "treatment resistance." I'd speculate that some conditions that were underrecognized in the past might be "overrecognized" today, and vice versa.
I notice that Marplan, Nardil, and Parnate only show up after you'd tried loads of tricylics and dopamine antagonists. That's nuts! It seems more reasonable to try a different class of drug when one class isn't working, rather than sequentially trying a long list of similar drugs. Also, IMO, the MAOIs are less likely to trigger mixed states and rapid cycling than the TCAs are. It seems that doctors have only recently started to shed their MAOI-phobia, tho'.
Congratulations on having survived all these years in "the system." :-}
-elizabeth
poster:Elizabeth
thread:96853
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20020307/msgs/97198.html