Posted by Tabitha on March 9, 2003, at 18:54:30
I tried a new pdoc and I think he doesn't know what he's doing. It's hard to believe.
- he put me on 150mg doxepin as an add-on for insomnia. this is the wrong dose--it's a full antidepressant dose, but I'm bipolar and already on celexa. a sleep add-on dose should be small, maybe only 10mg.
- I told him I've had trouble with tricylics before causing pounding heart. he told me doxepin is not a tricyclic, it's a tetracyclic. I looked it up and it's a tricyclic.
- he told me doxepin has no side effects except sedation. again, wrong- it's listed at the top for antihistamine effects.
- the trial was a disaster. I doubted the 150mg dose so I tried 100mg (this was before I looked up dosing) and it was still the worst med trial ever. I got severe pounding heart, a sick paralyzed panicky feeling, woke up several times in the night with completely dry mouth, overslept by several hours, then the next day felt too groggy to drive, and had the worst food cravings ever. the grogginess and food cravings lasted all day. then I was bloated for days from all the binge eating.
- I asked him what he thought of lamictal and he said it was good for mania. Everyone here says it's good for bipolar depression and does nothing for mania.
Am I missing something? how can a pdco be so wrong so many times. This guy was recommended by my therapist based on other clients using him. This is like what you'd expect from a really incompetent GP who doesn't follow psych meds at all.
It's really discouraging. He charged my insurance $200 for this experiment. I've gone to bad pdocs before but they were HMO docs. This guy is private practice. I don't know how to find a competent doctor without wasting time and money like this.
The other thing is I hate the new patient interview. It's so humiliating having to lay out my whole history to a total stranger, having it go into his files, all for nothing.
poster:Tabitha
thread:207549
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20030306/msgs/207549.html