Dopers Mis-Prescribed - What to do?

A recent thread brought up the plight of a doper who had been prescribed two different medications by a doctor and started experiencing debilitating side effects.

I, too, was once the victim of prescribing by a doctor who mistakenly gave me two medications that had extremely debilitating results for me.

My paniced reaction to the situation was to advise the other doper to not trust doctors and get a PDR. My post was made in haste, and was not well-thought-out; consequently it may have presented a course of action other than I intended, and certainly not in the best interest of anyone concerned.

Since that thread has subsequently been closed I want to use this venue to clarify my meaning and clear up any misconceptions I may have engendered.

Doctors are human, and they can, and do, make mistakes. However, they have training that the average doper lacks, and a layman using the Physician’s Desk Reference as a primary source of information is wrong.

If one is having trouble that is suspected to be from prescribed medications or from an interactions between medications, first, and immediately, the prescribing physician should be alerted.

However, if the initial physician is not providing satisfactory answers, it is within your right to get a second opinion from another physician, and it is within your rights to do your own research on medication interactions in the PDR and bring it to the attention of your primary and/or secondary physician for consideration.

I did not mean that the PDR should be used for self-determining appropriate medications. Never, under any circumstances (unless you are a qualified physician with prescriptive authority) stop taking a prescribed medication or start taking another medication without express instructions from a physician.

I hope this clears up what was an unfortunate misstatement by me in that thread.

Apologetically,

SnakeSpirit

I’m assuming you’re referring to my recent plight with Serotonin Syndrome. Ugh. What a nightmare. I thought I was going to die.
You do have a point about doctors being human and making mistakes. I think a lot of people think of doctors as being super humans who are never wrong. HOWEVER, let me clarify my experience. It was my fault as much as it was my doctor’s. She had prescribed a 2.5mg tablet of zomig as needed several months ago, and told me that 2 in a 24 hour period was ok if the pain was troublesome. Later, she increased the dose to a 5mg tablet, but never told me anything about multiple doses.
Sunday night, I took it upon myself to take two 5mg tablets a few hours apart from each other. Monday morning when I woke up, I took my 40 mg of prozac and went to work. The serotonin syndrome hit me just after lunchtime.
I’ve since seen my doctor and discussed how to prevent this from EVER happening again.

As far as taking the PDR into your own hands, I think it’s part of a good idea. It’s important to really educate yourself about your health problems, your meds, and their interactions. However, it’s equally important to discuss things at length with your doctor so that you REALLY understand one another.

On a slight tangent, if you are in the market for a PDR consider your physician/gynecologist/veterinarian. I buy a new one each year and happily give away the “old” copy.