Sunflower,
Good points there. I had the same thing happen to me, I wasn't prescribed any kind of medication through any kind of psychiatrist or anyone else in the mental health field at all. My family doctor prescribed me the Xanax when I started to show symptoms of anxiety/panic disorder around 4 years ago. I had just moved, going through a messy breakup with a guy (who was mentally abusive, BTW) I was desperately in love with (or so I thought at the time), and under a lot of stress at work. These panic attacks would come on out of nowhere on me, and I honestly thought it was a medical related condition because most of my symptoms were of a physical nature. I would get dizzy, nauseous, sweaty, shaky, couldn't breathe and eventually I started to vomit during attacks.
They were mostly at night, I was only getting an average of 2 hours of sleep a night, if that, because if I did manage to fall asleep, I'd wake up having an attack. Then I'd be drained the whole next day, the symptoms would stay with me, and since I have a low blood sugar/low blood pressure problem, so the anxiety went undiagnosed for a while. When my doctor finally did come to the conclusion that I was suffering from anxiety and panic disorder, she prescribed me the Xanax and just told me to take them at night before I went to bed. The first few times I took it, it really gave me a mean buzz, but after about a month, I had adjusted to it and hadn't had a panic attack in weeks.
A few months later, she changed her tune. She wanted me to try a new "Anxiety" medication called Paxil that said would control my condition without the groggy side effects I got from taking Xanax. At the time, I was all for it, but a few weeks later, I was more depressed than I ever remember being in my entire life, and eventually became suicidal.
I've thougth about the possibility that her cutting me off the Xanax cold turkey and gave me a med that could take anywhere from 2 weeks to a month to start to work was a major contributing factor to my mental state at the time. When I told her that the Paxil was IMO making me worse, she guinea pigged me on Zoloft, Wellbutrin and Lexapro, which all made me feel like a walking zombie. Not so much the Lexapro, but on Zoloft and Wellbutrin, my personality was completely removed, I was literally incapable of feeling any emotions, good or bad.
I posted in here before about how I found OP's and just said eff going to this doctor, and went back to Xanax.
I actually did get her to prescribe it to me short term last year when I was going on vacation and was nervous about flying (it was my first time on a plane), but I swear to you that IMO, all of that guinea pigging she did to me with antidepressant meds completely altered my brain chemistry to the point where there is no turning back from it now. I'm stuck with anxiety and panic disorder for the rest of my life now (at least that's how I feel about it) and I can't imagine keeping my anxiety under control without taking something for it.
Xanax has always been the most effective med for me, for others it's Valium or Klonopin, but I have to wonder if the fact that Xanax was the initial med prescribed to me has anything to do with why I can't seem to function without it. And the real million dollar question here is why I was never referred by her to a psych doctor by her, even after I admitted to feeling suicidal while I was taking the Paxil.
It's all about money to these people, it seems, they push the meds that the pharmaceutical companies are giving to them for free with the understanding that the patient is going to walk out of the office with a bag of samples and a prescription for their medication. There's definitely a kick back from the pharmaceutical company for every script they write, and you can't convince me, otherwise. It's just wrong, in my book, and highly unethical.
Sorry for the ramble, but I rue the day that I ever took an SSRI, expecially one that was prescribed to me by a medical doctor and not by a psychologist. These doctors really have to get their fecal matter together and stop capitalizing on the SSRI trend by prescribing it to patients before they know how it may react in that person's systems. These doctors should all lose their licenses for participating in such a corrupt system, but that's JMO.
Eeyore
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~ R.I.P. Darrell Abbott 12/08/04
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