Posted by battygoth on May 12, 2001, at 11:28:17
In reply to Re: New to Effexor, posted by Ann NY on May 11, 2001, at 15:09:18
-Ann NY
Thanks for the input. I'm from NY, but live in MD now. Anyway, what really angered me was that this drug was given out like candy at the pain clinic. The nurse practitioner has the authority to write prescriptions and give out free samples of FXR even tho he is not required to have any psychiatric training. Therefore, he is ill informed of side effects and how to prescribe a drug cocktail to help patients thru side effects. I just quit FXR cold turkey bec I've only been on it a short time and luckily it hasn't really made me very sick. And I am grateful that I can actually get out of bed and stay up. I am so annoyed that this nurse practioner can hand out this drug like its tylenol and he was completely unconcerned when I told him it made me sleep all day and unable to go to school. He did not care and did not offer any other medical solutions. He went as far as to ask me how I even know its FXR. He never even did a psych eval on me. He walks into the room and immediately blurts out that I have anxiety, take this. He doesn't even seem to know that different people have different types of anxiety. I admitted to having anxiety for years, well before my chronic pain incident. I did not tell him about my repetitive behaviors, hair picking, skin picking etc which would be important in determining which drug to prescribe. I was just too blinded with the idea of saving money and being able to get free med from him. Now I learned the hard way that I will have to see a qualified psychiatrist if I want to try something else. I am probably going to write a letter to the nursing board and physician boards in my state asking them to reconsider allowing non-psychiatric professionals to prescribe psychiatric drugs with serious side effects without having the necessary training background to do so and without considering how that affects the "victim" (patient). You just can't treat SSRIs or other psych drugs, whatever they consider FXR to be, like its an over the counter pain reliever or like its a bandaid cure-all. He seems to think that it is as simple as noting that someone seems anxious, but then again, how many people feel anxious when going to the doctor about a serious and chronic injury??? DUH! So to freely give out drugs like FXR w/o really examining the patient from a psychiatric standpoint is just totally absurd and irresponsible in my opinion. I just happened to have anxiety, but like I said, its nothing to do with the chronic pain because I've always had problems. It was tempting to not see a psychiatrist bec I do not currently have health insurance and they usually charge mega bucks unless I'm confusing what they charge with what psychologists/therapists charge. Anyway, I will see what I can do as I'd maybe like to try something like paroxetine as I've read it can help for people with anxiety with a touch of OCD.
-Jen C.
poster:battygoth
thread:13781
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20010507/msgs/62617.html