Posted by Horned One on June 7, 2008, at 15:43:36
In reply to Re: Any doctors in UK prescribe dexedrine??, posted by dbc on June 7, 2008, at 10:58:21
>The UK mental health system sounds well...odd. In the US things like social anxiety are usually taken care of by a psychologists rather than medication.
Sounds like an awful lot of posters in the US are taking medication (particularly benzos) for social anxiety. I thought the craze for CBT was pretty much a UK thing - CBT is the preferred treatment for social anxiety and depression here, with medication usually being a short-term measure. My pdoc insisted I see a CBT therapist as one of the conditions of supplying me with clonazepam, and I'm still being pestered to have therapy. Actually I had a referral in January, but I still haven't heard anything back from that. It took over a year to get an assessment interview from my CBT therapist.
>Hey parnate is an awsome drug for depression and the anhedonia you describe but its not something to be taken lightly. It can be dangerous if a doctor doesnt understand what they're doing with an MAOI or a patient doesnt know about some of the dangers (ie you can die from eating types of cheese).
On balance, Dexedrine isn't a drug to be taken lightly either. I think the dietary restrictions are pretty much notorious, but I didn't have a problem with them myself.
>The same goes for dexedrine except its amazingly and brutally addictive. During the 60s and 70s it was prescribed pretty openly along with valium and both became a problem of epidemic proportions and so prescribe it very infrequently in the US compared to ritalin or adderal. The only drug with more negative stigma attached to it is Desoxyn (methamphetamine).
From the 50s through to the 70s there was an epidemic of barbiturate/amphetamine (Purple Hearts, Dexamyl etc) and benzo addiction here. These days it's pretty much impossible to get prescriptions for any of those drugs, especially if you're a young adult. There was a big crackdown on these kinds of drugs from the late 70s to the mid 80s, but British doctors certainly weren't always as conservative in their prescribing habits. Prescriptions for Valium, barbs and amphetamines peaked in the 70s - I read in "The Pursuit of Oblivion" that in 1976 there were enough barbiturates prescribed on the NHS to supply every man, woman and child in the country with a sleeping pill for every day of the year. Amazing to think how prescribing habits have changed so drastically in a relatively short period of time. One of the reasons my pdoc is willing to give me zopiclone is because he did his training in that era, and thinks that 'the pendulum has swung too far in this country'.
-Horny
poster:Horned One
thread:833341
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20080606/msgs/833506.html