Posted by ed_uk on April 16, 2005, at 20:44:30
In reply to Re: Anyone still taking Prozac? » ed_uk, posted by Maxime on April 16, 2005, at 20:17:22
Hi Maxi,
>Seems like it's hard in the UK to get on a cocktail of meds........
For many years, pdocs in the UK have looked down on 'polypharmacy'. Everyone is supposed to be treated with only one drug. Combining ADs has been viewed as 'contra-indicated'.
>Ed, is there a reason why they are so conversative with psych meds in the UK.
I don't know really, I would imagine that teaching quality (RE psych meds) in medical schools is very poor. For many years, benzos were prescribed like sweets- there was a massive backlash. Similarly, SSRIs have often been very carelessly prescribed in recent years. Many doctors view them as being 'very safe' and have very negative opinions of older drugs. Most doctors seem to prescribe an extremely limited range of psych drugs. Treatment-resistant patients don't really exist in the UK because so few people actually get to try a wide range of treatments! If you don't respond to Effexor you are likely to be pronounced 'treatment resistant' and abandonned. Effexor is the latest 'cure-all' in the UK.
>...what about people with treatment resistant depression. How do they get by?
They probably just take one SSRI after another for 30 years.
Many consultant psychiatrists here never prescribe MAOIs. I mean, serious, how can a consultant pdoc have never prescribed an MAOI? I imagine that if you asked them they would say that they were 'too dangerous' or that they had never needed to prescribe one. In reality, all pdocs are likely to have had many patients who didn't do well on the 'common' drugs. IMO, the reason why they don't prescribe them is because they don't know anything about them. In some cases, their knowledge of phrmacology is nothing short of appauling. My last pdoc though Buspar was a tricylic antidepressant. They seem to think that everything can be treated with SSRIs, they don't seem to appreciate the side effects, nor do they have a good idea of the common psychological effects of these drugs. The pdoc I saw as a child never believed me when I said that Paxil was making me drowsy and lazy, she kept telling me that it was 'stimulating' and that it would make me highly motivated. I don't know, our pdocs seem to live in a fantasy world.
Ed xxxx
poster:ed_uk
thread:485014
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20050413/msgs/485272.html