Posted by JohnL on February 8, 2001, at 4:12:25
In reply to Re: Dr. Martin Jesen-Q for JohnL » JohnL, posted by shellie on February 7, 2001, at 14:16:25
> John L- truely not trying to be controversial (having read a lot of controversy in the past concerning Dr. Jensen), I am curious why you respect him so much since he gave you nine medications that did not work. And after talking to you for an hour. Is it the technique of trying things quickly that impressed you. Do you feel at all a bit taken that he was not head on, on any of his recommendations and that you had to find your own, partly out of the U.S. I know Michael F. highly respects him because he was a lot closer in picking the right combination (and an unlikely combination), but with you and Neal, it feels like he wasn't even close. ShellieHi Shellie,
You ask some very good questions. I'll try to address them as best I can. It isn't controversial at all.First off, please understand that prior to these 9 drugs, I had already tried 9 others in the 5 years or so leading up to it. I had already learned that drug choice isn't really a whole lot better than a random guess, since the results can turn out to be a lot different than what the doctor predicted. I felt like every 2 or 3 months that went by was a total waste of time. I didn't want to stay with a drug that long if I didn't like it. But I was given no choice.
With Dr Jensen I was able to try more drugs, except in an accelerated fashion. I liked that. Instead of taking another few years to explore some drugs, I was instead looking at about 3 months. That seemed very very attractive to me. As long as it's just an educated guessing game anyway with no idea in advance of what the results will be, I liked the idea of sampling drugs I hadn't tried, especially in a speeded up fashion.
Jensen didn't actually prescribe any meds for me. He made a list of suggestions with his reasoning behind them. It was up to me and my local doctor to actually decide which to try and in what order. Then my local doc wrote the actual prescriptions.
I think what is important to realize is that with Jensen's method, the first couple or three visits are not intended directly in finding the right drug, though it's nice when that happens sometimes. Instead, the purpose is to gather clues from which the best drugs can be identified. Since I only sought help from Jensen on one visit, he never had the opportunity to add up the clues and make his best bets. I ended up doing this part of it myself, mainly because I felt capable of doing it and I needed to avoid the expense of more doctor bills.
It's true Jensen did not suggest the actual drugs that worked best for me. But it was his method that led to the discovery of the correct drugs. Without his strategy I would still be stuck back in SSRI land.
Hope this helps clear it up a little.
John
poster:JohnL
thread:53318
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20010131/msgs/53493.html