Posted by androog on January 24, 2003, at 13:33:00
In reply to Re: opiates and major depression, posted by Blah on January 23, 2003, at 22:40:06
Hi Blah,
I'm sorry to hear about your experience with the pdoc. It sounds to me like the old carrot-on- a -stick routine. There seems to be an endless loop of drug combinations that can be tried on a person with refractory depression.
I don't know if you're being strung along or if your new pdoc really intends to try opiates or tramadol. I was lucky enough to find a legit doc to write my scripts, but it took some pushing on my part -- something that doesn't come easily when you're seriously depressed.
There are sites on the internet where it appears you can get tramadol legally with the benefit of an online consultation. I say "appears to be legal" because I'm not a lawyer and can't state for a fact that it is legal. A simple search on the internet took me to one such site:
xxx
Once again, I have to say that I'm not a doctor and can't make any recommendations to you regarding your decision to try to find or use tramadol. I say this because I don't in any way want to be construed as offering medical advice or trying to prescribe medicine. I think you can understand my dilemma.
The suggestion that you go into the hospital is a little scary to me. Having been in the cuckoo's nest myself, I think the whole thing was simply aimed at protecting me from myself. It was my experience that they couldn't do much more for me in the hospital than they could do on an outpatient basis. Even the ECT, which was started in the hospital, was completed on an outpatient basis. The big difference to me is that the hospital stay was VERY expensive. Also, from what little I can remember and what I'm told by my wife, I was treated like an inmate. Cigarettes (I've since quit smoking. Yea!) were used as rewards and my wife was not allowed to visit me unless she attended certain classes. Try pulling that on someone who is hospitalized for, say, diabetes.
I truly wish I could be of more help to you. I would love to be able to write a prescription for you, if only to give you temporary relief -- a "breather". What you are experiencing is more awful than most people could ever understand, and is something nobody should be forced to endure. It's just plain cruel to allow anyone to exist in your state without trying something that might possibly bring immediate relief.
Please don't do anything rash. Pursue all your options. I'm convinced that each one of us will respond to something, it's just a matter of finding what that something is.
androog
poster:androog
thread:81414
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20030119/msgs/137346.html