Posted by JohnL on October 27, 2000, at 14:26:45
In reply to Re: SLS...more psychiatry vs jensen(For John L.), posted by SLS on October 26, 2000, at 18:39:02
Scott,
You're too funny. Experiments on ourselves? Funny. What do you think doctors are doing to us? We're all experiments. Only, they get to experiment on us instead of themselves! As someone recently said, doctors are practicing medicine...yeah, practicing on us. Something like that.Am I encouraging self medication? No. Will I help if asked questions? Yes. I won't abandon, no matter what someone's choice is.
A person has made a conscious decision to do so. Their decision, not mine. I'm a veteran of both sides of the fence. That is, I was your standard garden variety psychiatric patient for half a decade, and then I was also a take-charge self medicating patient after that. I'm not at all qualified from a scholastic or legal point of view, but from an experience point of view it's a different story. Been there. Done that. Still do. I can be there with real life experience for anyone else who chooses for themselves the same path.
So someone wants to self medicate. Whoopie. They've obviously been disappointed by standard treatment. More power to them as far as I'm concerned. If asked, I'll do whatever I can to help them figure out how to get well. Am I qualified to do that? No. Capable? Yes.
Self medication does have risks that I think everyone should be aware of. 1)Know what early liver toxicity symptoms look like so it can be stopped promptly. 2)Know firmly what the risks are with the particular medication. 3)Know what side effects are normal, which are serious. 4)Know what can be combined, what can't, and how combinations affect concentrations of each other. 5)Know how to titrate on and off wisely.
You know, if all of a sudden there were no prescriptions needed for anything, and no doctors, I'm perfectly capable of managing my own affairs. I could pick out my own medication at the store. I know how to administer it and manage it safely. So would anyone else here who's been around the block. St James, Andrew, just a couple examples. In a world with no doctors, and all former prescription meds are now OTC, they would do fine regardless. They know what they're doing. (excluding scheduled controlled substances of course, which aren't available to a self medicator anyway)
Self medication isn't the almighty taboo voodoo sin you make it sound like it is. Average people who don't know a darn thing do it all the time, with SJW, aspirin, ginkgo, ma huang. These things can, and do, kill people, spark mania, cause heart attacks, eye bleeding, and more. Not a word on their self medicating. In comparison, some of these psychiatric drugs are far safer if for no other reason, we know more about them. Key word...'some'...not 'all'. Again, it's important the person knows the drug they're taking. One can't just haphazardly start popping pills. That applies equally to OTC and herbs, not just prescriptions. Someone would have to try real real hard to hurt themselves with Paxil. On the other hand, they could do serious damage fairly easily with careless dosing of aspirin or ma huang.
No big deal. If someone wants help, and I'm asked, I'll help. I treat myself the way I want, and someone else can do the same. If I can help them avoid some common pitfalls, I will try. In this case, the person has an awesome medical manual and roadmap to follow and won't likely need much help. More power to them as far as I'm concerned. I'm not encouraging, but not discouraging either. We're all different.
John
poster:JohnL
thread:46914
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20001022/msgs/47528.html