Posted by zonked on June 8, 2011, at 22:04:13
In reply to public health+benzos, posted by Christ_empowered on June 8, 2011, at 12:33:55
> Yeah, it kinda sucks. I mean, for me at this point, its not a big deal; I take my Abilify, sometimes an antidepressant in addition, lots of supplements, and I'm more or less good to go.
CE I have *tremendous* respect for you man, but I did want to ask you: you've mentioned psychosis is one of your symptoms - which came first, the psychosis or the antipsychotics? The reason I ask is because I know of one person I've met in real life who had rebound psychosis after D/Cing Abilify *when he had no prior history of psychosis*....> I think the shrinks use a lot of seroquel and antidepressants for anxiety, not sure though.
SSRIs (and some other antidepressants) can truly be effective for anxiety, and despite the fact that they no longer work for me, I think they are safe drugs. I have no problem with an MD preferring to try SSRIs first on a benzo-naive patient. I am sure BuSpar must work for some people although I've never found anybody with much good to say about it.
Using drugs with SERIOUS and potentially PERMANENT
side effects (TD, TP, NMS, EPS, Akathisia, metabolic syndrome, diabetes, weight gain) as a first-line treatment, off-label, for anxiety disorders, when much safer and more effective treatments (the benzodiazepines, in particular, Xanax) are available is irresponsible and immoral IMO. Benzos are controlled medication, sure, but in the next-to-least abusable category.
> Benzos do have a pretty bad reputation, for not really much reason. I think its really ridiculous when doctors (and some private practice docs do it too) refuse to write for them, or only give tiny amounts. I mean, they've been around for decades and they're safe, non-toxic, and effective. And CHEAP.Amen! Blame the Valium craze of the 1970s... (wasn't alive then, but have heard that everybody *and* their doctor had Valium in their medicine cabinet in those days...) But don't blame Valium itself - blame a branch of medicine that is highly subject to prescribing trends. 70s to mid 80s? Mass-market the Benzos. They're on patent! 90s? Get everbody on SSRIs, *they* are on patent! 2000s, 2010s? Let's start putting out TV ads for "atypical" antipsychotics. THEY are on patent!
> A lot of psychiatry really doesn't make sense. It almost makes me wish we could have a free and open market on drugs currently available only on Rx; that would drive prices down and also prevent people from being put on treatments that suck.
>
Let them eat pills!-z
poster:zonked
thread:987292
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20110529/msgs/987515.html