Posted by Elizabeth on April 19, 2002, at 0:57:38
In reply to Re: Marketing Hype and Specificity of Drug Treatments » Elizabeth, posted by alan on April 17, 2002, at 21:08:15
Funny (in a creepy way) thing I heard: you know how in New York doctors have to use a special triplicate form in order to prescribe benzos? (Well, they do. Maybe in other states too, but NY is the only one I know of.) I heard that doctors there took to writing scripts for things like Placidyl and Miltown (two of the widespread downers that people used in the '70s if they couldn't get Quaalude) so they wouldn't have to bother with the paperwork!
> 2)Can't be bothered with the AMOUNT OF TIME of keeping track of managing a patient when they call in saying they "lost" or "accidentally flushed" their prescription and need more (keeping track of paperwork, records, etc.).
Being more than a little bit disorganized, I'm constantly losing things. My pdoc in Cambridge didn't give me a hard time when this happened (he'd known me for years and is pretty mellow in general), but the pdoc I've been seeing since I moved is not so easy-going.
> What about the risk of withdrawl syndromes and high incidence of sexual side effects of the ssri's that docs - including many pdocs - deny are possible straight to their complaining patient's faces?
I've never had a pdoc tell me that I could stop taking ADs abruptly (except Prozac). Tapering off antidepressants is one thing; tapering off benzos is *much* harder. Getting off benzos after you've become addicted is a major undertaking.
> That's what I read here just about more than any other subject - side effects of ssri's and their equivalents.
SSRIs are very common, and that probably accounts at least in part for the amount of discussion. But yeah, people with anxiety disorders usually tolerate benzos much better than SSRIs.
> What about the risk of TD or the euphemistically referred to "movement disorders" with antipsychotics - even in small doses?
I think that it's really rare (EPS from low-dose APs). But still, antipsychotic drugs are *not* a substitute for benzos, and they aren't a very effective treatment for classic anxiety disorders. To be fair, some specific types of (nonpsychotic) anxiety or agitation seem to be particularly responsive to low-dose APs; and people with certain disorders are at increased risk for potentially harmful disinhibition if they take benzos. But these are specific situations; they don't justify using APs as a general substitute for benzos!
> How's that for getting of on a rant? Maybe even Dennis Miller would be envious.
<g>
-elizabeth
poster:Elizabeth
thread:103076
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20020416/msgs/103492.html