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Jul. 14th, 2005 02:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
urocyonI finally had to turn on the air conditioner; the hot weather has dragged on about long enough, no matter the good it's probably doing the tomato plants. :) My mother has been half-threatening to come and visit us where it's cooler, but she'd be a bit disappointed this week.
It's been refreshing, though, being able to tolerate the heat this well. I was blaming the lack of perspiration/overheating on one medication, but general temperature regulation has been less of a problem since I stopped taking another (buspirone). It didn't seem to be doing much good, anyway, but I kept taking it before on the basis that it didn't seem to be doing any harm, and it might be doing some subtle good. The substitute pshrink I saw last time felt a need to mess with my medication, and I decided that stopping taking the BuSpar was a reasonable way to pacify him. He is not the only one who has expressed concern about it; the GP acted like it was a miracle I could walk around, not to mention the raving junkie potential. The NHS mandate to cut down on (ostensibly unnecessary) prescribing of any sort of antianxiety medication has gone too far in its effects. Part of it, I think, is because the number of benzodiazepine scripts written is being figured into GP surgery ratings, providing an incentive not to prescribe at all. (My goofy GP claimed to have 2400 patients, none of whom were on medication for anxiety. If this is the case, some of them could probably benefit from it.) They are interpreting this such that people who get so that they have trouble going out of the house are supposed to bootstrap their way through, as even the GP will admit that there is almost no counseling available under NHS in our area, at least, even for people who might benefit from it. (All the cognitive-behavioral therapy in the world is unlikely to help me control more severe anxiety, and hasn't so far; it just seems to be the way I'm wired.) The prescribing paranoia has become severe enough that this was the second doctor I've run across who expressed serious concern about my taking a non-benzodiazepine, described thus in its monograph: "In human and animal studies, buspirone has shown no potential for abuse or diversion and there is no evidence that it causes tolerance, or either physical or psychological dependence." That is why the stuff is popularly prescribed, even though I've yet to run across anyone who's felt like it helped them. Nonetheless, two doctors I've seen here have acted as if I were regularly taking high doses of Demerol, if not a cocktail of crack and meth. The other antianxiety med I have been prescribed for years is not even covered by NHS, and the only reason I'm still able to take that on the rare occasion I need it is that the doctors want to taper me off it.
Nope, I didn't mean to get off on that rant. I'm just somewhere between bemused and royally irked. It's not a big problem for me right now, but if I start sliding back into more anxiety symptoms past the point of other control, it will be. Mostly, I can't help thinking of all the people here who are being hurt by this bandwagon--not to mention being driven toward self-medication (and I am already surprised at the number of people who seem to consume large quantities of alcohol regularly here). Anxious people rarely create any sort of public fuss, but are more likely to stay indoors and have a poor quality of life. Being near-invisible, it's among the easiest problems just not to treat, as the NHS has found. People aren't going to die, they're just going to be miserable. Bah. The GP chose just to carp at me over not being able to make it into the office over the winter, when I was depressed and the anxiety went out of control. It looks like my best bet at this point is either to try going private and hope that helps, or as a last resort to make periodic visits to my doctor in the US.
Another minor annoyance with prescribing is on my mind, since I need to go to the GP's and then to the chemist's this afternoon: it seems horribly inefficient, bordering on nonsensical, to make patients obtain a fresh prescription for routine medications every month. The system in which permissible refills are indicated on the original prescription takes work off everyone involved. Not only is it inconvenient to need to make two trips a month to the doctor's--one to drop off the prescription request, another to pick up the scripts--I hate to think of all the already-overworked doctors' time spent issuing prescriptions every month. Indicating refills in the first place doesn't even transfer much work to the pharmacist.
Most of all, I have to say that I'm getting thoroughly fed up with people deciding that I must have a serious problem which requires medication, just because I am wired a bit differently. (Thom Hartmann's left-handedness analogy comes to mind, not to mention the being other than heterosexual one he probably didn't use on purpose.) Intolerance seems to be the main "real" problem here. The increased stigma here irks me even more, since they wouldn't have any idea whatsoever that I had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder if I hadn't been open about it in the first place. When you are assumed not to know what you're doing so that they won't even let you donate blood, that is some pretty serious stigma, and I am just not accustomed to that. (Making people think there's something wrong with them to the drug companies' profit, I'm all too familiar with.) For that matter, I have read that a proportion of us "ADD", Hunter-wired people are wrongly diagnosed with bipolar disorder, particularly women--and suspect that the urge to pathologise normal behavior some people don't like is strongly in play there.
I just found out about an excellent example of this recently. The school system I had fits with first decided that my cousin Nick's son was mentally impaired (a notion of which anyone half-reasonable would be disabused, after spending five minutes with the kid), but now they've changed their mind and decided he had severe ADHD, and is not to be allowed back into the classroom without medication. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the child; he's just extremely bright and active. In another echo of my school days, they have also decided that he needs tons of speech therapy, which does not help at all with the locally-prevalent slow-maturing palate*; it just made me feel like crap, being told that I obviously wasn't trying hard enough. I'm not suggesting that medical intervention isn't appropriate in some cases, but this is not one of them. The child is not the problem here. Thank goodness, his grandmother looked into transferring him to a neighboring school district, sick of dealing with the crap. It is a matter of local culture as much as genetics, and that school system is openly hostile toward local people.
Yep, I'm feeling a bit cranky today. *g*
With any luck, the AC will filter out some of the pollen, too. This morning, I woke up again with gummy, itchy eyes and barely able to breathe, though I suspect half of it was from the Amazing Shedding Smoke sleeping on my pillow. I'm guessing the horrendous amount of shed fur is just a whole body effect of thinning hair on her tummy, since we postponed a vet's visit a bit long, and kittens are well on the way. She seems healthy and happy enough otherwise. I do feel rather bad about not getting her to the vet before it became an issue, but can't be sorry about expecting kittens.
* Perhaps his accent is the problem. The speech therapist they sent me to spent an inordinate amount of time trying to change mine, because--as she explained to my mother--I sounded like I was from West Virginia (sneer, sneer). Erm, yes, and with good reason. Anyone who considers that a bona fide language problem probably should not take a job within 30 miles of the WV state line. I'd imagine some of the stupid hillbilly taxpayers would have been interested in that use of their money. OTOH, that admission did get me out of unnecessary speech therapy.
It's been refreshing, though, being able to tolerate the heat this well. I was blaming the lack of perspiration/overheating on one medication, but general temperature regulation has been less of a problem since I stopped taking another (buspirone). It didn't seem to be doing much good, anyway, but I kept taking it before on the basis that it didn't seem to be doing any harm, and it might be doing some subtle good. The substitute pshrink I saw last time felt a need to mess with my medication, and I decided that stopping taking the BuSpar was a reasonable way to pacify him. He is not the only one who has expressed concern about it; the GP acted like it was a miracle I could walk around, not to mention the raving junkie potential. The NHS mandate to cut down on (ostensibly unnecessary) prescribing of any sort of antianxiety medication has gone too far in its effects. Part of it, I think, is because the number of benzodiazepine scripts written is being figured into GP surgery ratings, providing an incentive not to prescribe at all. (My goofy GP claimed to have 2400 patients, none of whom were on medication for anxiety. If this is the case, some of them could probably benefit from it.) They are interpreting this such that people who get so that they have trouble going out of the house are supposed to bootstrap their way through, as even the GP will admit that there is almost no counseling available under NHS in our area, at least, even for people who might benefit from it. (All the cognitive-behavioral therapy in the world is unlikely to help me control more severe anxiety, and hasn't so far; it just seems to be the way I'm wired.) The prescribing paranoia has become severe enough that this was the second doctor I've run across who expressed serious concern about my taking a non-benzodiazepine, described thus in its monograph: "In human and animal studies, buspirone has shown no potential for abuse or diversion and there is no evidence that it causes tolerance, or either physical or psychological dependence." That is why the stuff is popularly prescribed, even though I've yet to run across anyone who's felt like it helped them. Nonetheless, two doctors I've seen here have acted as if I were regularly taking high doses of Demerol, if not a cocktail of crack and meth. The other antianxiety med I have been prescribed for years is not even covered by NHS, and the only reason I'm still able to take that on the rare occasion I need it is that the doctors want to taper me off it.
Nope, I didn't mean to get off on that rant. I'm just somewhere between bemused and royally irked. It's not a big problem for me right now, but if I start sliding back into more anxiety symptoms past the point of other control, it will be. Mostly, I can't help thinking of all the people here who are being hurt by this bandwagon--not to mention being driven toward self-medication (and I am already surprised at the number of people who seem to consume large quantities of alcohol regularly here). Anxious people rarely create any sort of public fuss, but are more likely to stay indoors and have a poor quality of life. Being near-invisible, it's among the easiest problems just not to treat, as the NHS has found. People aren't going to die, they're just going to be miserable. Bah. The GP chose just to carp at me over not being able to make it into the office over the winter, when I was depressed and the anxiety went out of control. It looks like my best bet at this point is either to try going private and hope that helps, or as a last resort to make periodic visits to my doctor in the US.
Another minor annoyance with prescribing is on my mind, since I need to go to the GP's and then to the chemist's this afternoon: it seems horribly inefficient, bordering on nonsensical, to make patients obtain a fresh prescription for routine medications every month. The system in which permissible refills are indicated on the original prescription takes work off everyone involved. Not only is it inconvenient to need to make two trips a month to the doctor's--one to drop off the prescription request, another to pick up the scripts--I hate to think of all the already-overworked doctors' time spent issuing prescriptions every month. Indicating refills in the first place doesn't even transfer much work to the pharmacist.
Most of all, I have to say that I'm getting thoroughly fed up with people deciding that I must have a serious problem which requires medication, just because I am wired a bit differently. (Thom Hartmann's left-handedness analogy comes to mind, not to mention the being other than heterosexual one he probably didn't use on purpose.) Intolerance seems to be the main "real" problem here. The increased stigma here irks me even more, since they wouldn't have any idea whatsoever that I had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder if I hadn't been open about it in the first place. When you are assumed not to know what you're doing so that they won't even let you donate blood, that is some pretty serious stigma, and I am just not accustomed to that. (Making people think there's something wrong with them to the drug companies' profit, I'm all too familiar with.) For that matter, I have read that a proportion of us "ADD", Hunter-wired people are wrongly diagnosed with bipolar disorder, particularly women--and suspect that the urge to pathologise normal behavior some people don't like is strongly in play there.
I just found out about an excellent example of this recently. The school system I had fits with first decided that my cousin Nick's son was mentally impaired (a notion of which anyone half-reasonable would be disabused, after spending five minutes with the kid), but now they've changed their mind and decided he had severe ADHD, and is not to be allowed back into the classroom without medication. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the child; he's just extremely bright and active. In another echo of my school days, they have also decided that he needs tons of speech therapy, which does not help at all with the locally-prevalent slow-maturing palate*; it just made me feel like crap, being told that I obviously wasn't trying hard enough. I'm not suggesting that medical intervention isn't appropriate in some cases, but this is not one of them. The child is not the problem here. Thank goodness, his grandmother looked into transferring him to a neighboring school district, sick of dealing with the crap. It is a matter of local culture as much as genetics, and that school system is openly hostile toward local people.
Yep, I'm feeling a bit cranky today. *g*
With any luck, the AC will filter out some of the pollen, too. This morning, I woke up again with gummy, itchy eyes and barely able to breathe, though I suspect half of it was from the Amazing Shedding Smoke sleeping on my pillow. I'm guessing the horrendous amount of shed fur is just a whole body effect of thinning hair on her tummy, since we postponed a vet's visit a bit long, and kittens are well on the way. She seems healthy and happy enough otherwise. I do feel rather bad about not getting her to the vet before it became an issue, but can't be sorry about expecting kittens.
* Perhaps his accent is the problem. The speech therapist they sent me to spent an inordinate amount of time trying to change mine, because--as she explained to my mother--I sounded like I was from West Virginia (sneer, sneer). Erm, yes, and with good reason. Anyone who considers that a bona fide language problem probably should not take a job within 30 miles of the WV state line. I'd imagine some of the stupid hillbilly taxpayers would have been interested in that use of their money. OTOH, that admission did get me out of unnecessary speech therapy.
