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I've had a PM that makes me think I should clarify my opinion on the use of Prescription Drugs. After 9/11 their use way more than doubled, and I was one of the people who was put on them.
I do recognise that there are those people who need them because of their physiology. I mean no insult to anyone in that category. However, there are just lots of us that were put on drugs after 9/11 and it is incumbent upon those who can to get the hell off them if we can. I am gonna say this damb straight. The drug companies are not going to buy into getting you off the drugs, and the Doctors who get commission on drug sales are not going to say it either.
It was hard for me to get off them but it can be done.
Good luck
Gwen
Comments
Clarifying my opinion of Prescription Drug use
Why I am only taking them as prescribed. Overdosing and mixing with booze can be fatal.
May Your Light Forever Shine
May Your Light Forever Shine
I think...
I THINK Gwen's mainly talking about anti-depressants and other drugs relating to the mind (ADHD, etc.) that are over prescribed in our country. Some people continue to get prescriptions for meds - AFTER they no longer really need them. Some doctors will prescribe meds to get parents off their backs - even when not really needed, as long as they probably won't HURT the kid... Etc.
It's worth reviewing all the meds a person is on with their doctor periodically, to see if they are all still needed. My elimination of Blood Pressure meds is a good example.
Anne
I agree that some things are over prescribed
I am on two drugs for depression. Without them, I would very possibly not be here. I have no intention of trying to get off of them, as they have changed my life! I'm even writing again!
I have a large number of drugs I take. If I had been born in the early 1900's, I would have died a painful death already. Sometimes, Khadijah, they are necessary!
Wren
I've stopped taking anti-depressants
once I started taking the T-Blockers. Haven't had a depressive episode yet.
Dorothycolleen
My own experience-
is somewhat similar to Gwen's. Again talking about anti-depressant class drugs, the doctors I've dealt with tend to proscribe far too easily. Unless it's changed most studies show that a combination of drugs and therapy works best. However most the doctors I've had is more concerned about the two questions they always ask. "Are you likely to hurt someone else, and are you suicidal." Forget about helping with the root cause of your problem. In my opinion they are taking the easy way out with medication.
I got my own self off the things, but it sure hasn't been easy. I still have times I backslide, but before I would go back on that stuff, I would have to be in a major depressive state. Like many I developed a tolerance to the stuff that required for me to take larger and larger doses. Also I react strangely to medications sometimes. Certain classes are just bad, bad news for me. I would rather feel bad than feel nothing at all. It was like taking zombie juice. I was emotionally numb.
Yes, I know that for many people medications like these are life saving, but like with everything there's a price. You have to know yourself and ask if it's worth it. The kicker is that it is possible I will end up taking that crap again. I still have issues and more downs than ups. However, it is unwillingly and with the understanding I'll do everything to get 'clean' again, just as I strive to prevent it from happening.
Hugs!
Grover
I agree
I agree especially in the case of depression. Therapy can help with depression a lot. The drugs can help get a person up a bit, but I don't believe the drugs are the total answer. If you are just on drugs you will need them forever because you haven't developed coping mechanisms and changed the reasons you went into depression.
However, there are people that absolutely should be on the medications long term if not forever.
I don't think anti-depressants should ever be prescribed without therapy as well to be honest.
Cajun Pharmacist?
...wid out meds? Kone-FU-shown...no meds for de shugars? Des-PA-Ray-shown? No anti-DE-PRAY-saunts? EX-AYS-Per-RAY-shown! No Lee-REE-kaw for de Fi-BRO-ME-Al-juh? Ex-AWST-shown! Able to funk-shown wit de meds? PUB-LI-KAY-shown! NO meds for de pain or de flashbacks? LAH-Kree-May-shown! Mon Amis on de in-tur-net? KO-MU-Ni-KAY-shown!
Knowing dat mon amie Gwen is a spay-shul person and dat she be right dat we should use meds only when necessary?
Reh-KOG-Ne-shown. An finally mes amies, Ko-min' to dis site and feeling WELL-kome??? Ah-PRE-She-AY-shown! Merci, Erin!
Dio vi benedica tutti
Con grande amore e di affetto
Andrea Lena
Love, Andrea Lena
My Depression Was Tied To My Gender Issues
A lovely litttle cocktail for me daily
As a combat veteran with PTSD and constantly being handcuffed to a hospital wall with each PTSD episoide in the mid nineties to 2000. I was diagnosed with PTSD but given no medication in 1996. In 2005 I was given Paxil, it made me hyper so being a good patient I took myself off the paxil. Six months later I asked for a new drug and was prescribed prozac.
In 2008 I asked to be re-evaluated for possibly being bi-polar. I was diagnosed with anxiety and panic disorder, ergo I was prescribed Klonopin along with prozac.
Towards the end of 2010 I notice I was getting easy to unravel so I asked for a change of medicines. I was prescribed Wellbutrin to take with my prozac and klonopin. I have mellowed out, and got off the roller coaster ride.
I know that I cannot stop taking those three medications without dire consequences. My meds are paid for by the VA.
I see a therapist weekly and a Psychiatrist every other month.
I'm easy to be around and I now play well with others.
I'm not a person who enjoys taking prescription drugs, so i keep track of whats prescribed and if it does have side affects I ask to not be given the med.
I have learned more about myself in the past year then I was willing to admit. I've come to accept who I am and am very comfortable in my own skin.
I do agree with you that doctors prescribe medicatiions for a monetary kickback, but if one has access to a computer, one should look up what has been prescribed and what the side affects are.
I actually take herbal medicines because they do not have the side affects of manufactured medication.
When I was told SRS was not an option for me I took it with a grain of salt. I don;t like the idea but if I want to remain alive I neeed to accept what the endocrinologist tells me.
I will remain as I am and not go back to a masculine lifestyle. I can still be the woman I am, I just can't get the surgery.
If each person would tell their primary care physician no, I don't see any reason to take a new medicine and explain they looked it up on the internet and it has side afffects they don't want to deal with.
My side affet of klonopin it winds me up for an hour after taking it then I settle down and go about my daily business.
Jill Micayla
Be kinder than necessary,Because everyone you meet
Is fighting some kind of battle.
Jill Micayla
Be kinder than necessary,Because everyone you meet
Is fighting some kind of battle.
Psychosomatic drugs.
I have avoided doctors like the plague ever since I escaped their clutches in my early teens. I was on drugs, (mainly psychosomatic) from aged six to about thirteen. (They more or less stopped half way through borstal cos the reason's for my behavioural disorders were pretty bloody obvious.)
The endocrinologists had concluded there was little they could do for my transvestism and realised I seemed to be inviting trouble by being disobedient and angry.
That's when I realised that kicking against the system would only bring me an early end and I DID NOT WANT TO DIE!. I stopped becoming a toublesome little bitch and 'knuckled down to it' as the wardens demanded. I was in fact planning my escape and the third attempt was successful.
The 1st and 2nd attempts were really sallies to steal washing and assemble an outfit of girl's clothes for a disguise. Because I was a persistant escapee, they only allowed me my boots when I had to have them otherwise I went barefoot most of the time. Then I finally escaped during a cross country run around the grounds of the borstal. I was not supposed to be allowed on these runs but there was a new warden and he didn't check the list properly. I siezed the chance.
Fourteen was the end of drugs for me and after becoming a seaman I never looked back. The only drugs I took were broad spectrum antibiotics to cure my syphilis and gonorrhoea probably contracted at one of the inummerable 'parties' I was taken to as the main course on the menue. I might also have contracted it as a child prostitute when working the streets after absconding. I don't know and I don't care. I've had two kids by a beautiful wife and there don't seem to be any problems associated with my diseases.
The only drugs I've taken since that day is selfmedicated hormones off the internet and they've worked. I'm growing tits.
Bliss it is to be partly feminine.
I wouldn't give anybody, any advice about medications, I'm the world's worst for avoiding doctors and I treat myself.
My doctor knows about this and he has organised tests though he's tried to persuade me to come off the antiandrogens, (Spirolactone,) and I will after 2 years when my testicles are dead. I'll have to continue with the female hormones (Progynova) for the rest of my life but that won't be a long one. I've learned from my brother that our family usually kick off in their seventies and I'm 65 now.
Oh I am asthmatic so I carry inhalers but I cycle extensively and that seems to help.
The excercise is very theraputic both physically and mentally. I go on long lonely bike rides (Always enfemme wearing girly lycra.)where I can clear my head and sort my world to rights.
Byee for now, I'm off to take my medication. (Approx 25 miles up and down the Afan valley cycle trail. And it's raining.)
XZXX.
Bev.
Growing old disgracefully.
Hmmm.
I guess you could say I'm very odd when it comes to this sort of thing. Therapists wanted to drug me as a child, but my mom wouldn't allow it. She dosed me with valerian root instead(godawful stuff, it smells something awful. Imagine stinky socks soaked in yeagermeister and left to dry.) Needless to say, I didn't take it. As a partial result, I became the child with no friends who practiced killing every day. I was a very odd child.
I'm glad they didn't drug me as a kid, I dread to think what might have been. As it was, I left at 15 and after a long strange trip, found love in the place I was born. Like the song says "Life aint nothin but a a funny funny riddle.... Thank god I'm a country girl!"