Posted by Lyrical13 on December 21, 2003, at 21:34:40
In reply to should i find a new psychiatrist ?, posted by phunz on December 17, 2003, at 17:40:42
I recently changed pdocs because I felt like my previous doc wasn't helping me. Best move I ever made. When I called my former doc, soemtimes he would get back to me that day, sometimes 3 days later. His answer was, if it's an emergency go to the ER. Well, I live in a small town where everyone knows everyone's business. I'm not going to the ER to tell them that I've been falling apart at work, am incredibly depressed, anxious etc. and want an increase on my meds. I wasn't calling because I had a hangnail...I was starting to think about suicide. In your case, it sounds like you have tried several different meds. I was in the same boat. I've been on Paxil, Celexa, Serzone, Wellbutrin along with various benzos for anxiety...Buspar, Klonipin, Attivan, Xanax briefly. My new doc actually educated me about depression..he said with my type of problem (chronic and I'd already maxed out a couple drugs) One med alone won't do it. I needed a 2nd med to augment the AD. There are 4 ways to augment:
Thyroid meds
Mood stabilizers
Low doses of antipsychotics
An AD that acts on a different chemicalAPs work the fastest so I added Seroquel to my handful of meds. Also added Synthroid since I do have low thyroid levels. Also take Attivan PRN for anxiety. (My original med is Effexor...I'm on 225 mg of that) Within a few days of starting the Seroquel I felt much better.
It sounds like you might be diong the same type of thing with your meds...here's a new tidbit I just found out from my doc at my last appt. I was telling him some of my recent symptoms (sleeping only a few hours a night and feeling like I was constantly on the go until late the next night and then only sleeping a few hours again etc....talking a lot and feeling obnoxious, talking loud, irritability and a hx of spending sprees and taking on multiple projects at once) He now thinks I am BPII. My major problem is depression but also have high anxiety. He told me that BP2 is often mistaken for depression with generalized anxiety and that if it's really BP2 then benzos are a bad choice for treatment. A better choice is to take Lamictal as a mood stabilizer..I may still need a low dose of Effexor for the depression aspect or may only be on Lamictal. He said that instead of treating the anxiety with benzos, to treat it instead with an atypical antipsychotic like Seroquel.
You sounded like you might have similar symptoms and tried similar treatments so I thought the above info might help. But IMHO I think you really do need to get help for the dependency on benzos. That doc was incredibly unethical and has caused you more harm than good (a major violation of the hippocratic oath he took when he got his medical degree...first line of the oath is "first do no harm") He certainly has not done you any good by just blinding prescribing what you asked for. Xanax is one of the most addictive meds around (I only took it for a few days as an interim measure until I could get into a pdoc when I very first started treatment for mood disorder)
Please get help. The world needs you and it sounds like your parents care about you a great deal and want to help you
Good luck
Lyrical13
poster:Lyrical13
thread:291057
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20031221/msgs/292238.html