Posted by med_empowered on September 20, 2007, at 0:35:44
In reply to Re: Other benzos for social phobia? » Sigismund, posted by Mishal on September 20, 2007, at 0:03:27
look, parke-davis had to pay 100s of millions of $$$ b/c they promoted it off-label. You can google it; the settlement was pretty recent, it was big news, and yet..shrinks still, apparently, haven't altered their prescribing practices to match up with, you know...*evidence*.
Its a terrible mood stabilizer. In the few trials that *weren't* funded by the manufacturers, it not only didn't out-perform placebo, it did *worse* than placebo. Worse as in more mood issues, and, I believe, more suicides.
Its not an anxiolytic, either. Apparently docs associate "mind-numbing" with "anxiolytic;" this may explain the use of Gabitril, Depakote, and atypical neuroleptics as anxiolytics. With that sort of logic, we should all be prescribed anxiolytic hammers with which to bash our own heads. Such an approach would be efficient, cheap, and non-addictive.Anyway, sorry to rant, but its ridiculous that your doc is pushing Neurontin as if its actually useful. If you have epilepsy that's only partly controlled by other meds, and that's the reason for your anxiety, then maybe Neurontin could help--its really only good as an adjuvant anti-convulsant in some forms of epilepsy. that's it, at least in terms of solid, data-supported indications.
poster:med_empowered
thread:783942
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20070919/msgs/784087.html