Superb Advice
Thanks to advocate Fran Hazam for forwarding Dr. Lloyd I. Sederer’s article “Can You Trust Your Psychiatrist” from HuffPost. Citing influence from Big Pharma — and basically explaining the way the influence filters down to you — Sederer breaks down what you need to do to ensure the best care:
First, be an informed consumer. Just like with a car or washing machine you can learn about medications and other treatments for mental health problems. Turn to websites like your state mental health agency or the National Institute for Mental Health, the National Mental Health Association and the National Alliance for Mental Illness. Google key words about what you want to know, as you would for breast or prostate cancer, diabetes, and heart disease. Ask others who have successfully navigated the mental health care system and taken medications. As has been said, caveat emptor — let the buyer beware — and be prepared.
Second, ask questions of your doctor and other health professionals. Rather than being a marketing arm of the pharmaceutical companies, be a prudent buyer. Don’t be shy — you are your best advocate. When you visit your doctor ask two questions: why are you suggesting this treatment for me and what alternatives do I have? When in doubt get a second opinion: any doctor who does not welcome a second opinion is not worth keeping.
Finally, recognize that medications for mental disorders often help but generally are not sufficient. Great reliance on medications has fostered inattention to individual and family therapy and skill building programs.
Emphases mine. For the rest of the article, click here.
liz | 10:39 AM | BIG PHARMA, criminal justice system, politics
It’s notable how many of these things are impossible for people who lack the education, language skills, information access, ability to stand up to authorities like doctors, and access to multi-modal treatment options. No wonder low-income folks and immigrants are so poorly served by the mental health system.
What good advice! As a (former) surgeon with major psychiatric illness (primarily bipolar disorder, but also some other stuff), you would think I’d know enough to avoid taking medications that were both unhelpful and unhealthy. But I decided (naively) to trust my psychiatrist and not be my own doctor. Years later, I see that she followed the pharmaceutical industry’s suggestions with great diligence, to my detriment. I should have been far more cautious, asked more questions, and taken less medication. So I hope those who are just getting started (or ready to make changes) in the psych-medication realm will heed your words. Maybe they can avoid what happened to me: slow recovery and terrible side effects. Thank you.
NAMI and MHA both accept money from big Pharma so I would not suggest them as independent sources of information about drugs. Also you don’t mention all the folks who are coerced or forced into taking drugs by law and who have no chance to make a choice. Coming to PA soon if you don’t fight it.
The advice clearly makes a great deal of sense and could be very helpful to someone in the condition to make sense of it. However, when one is in the throes of either a manic or depressive episode the ability to make sense is often diminished and control of one’s actions, fortunately and/or unfortunately, ends up being given over, hopefully, temporarily, to the medical community. Sometimes that saves a life; sometimes an inordinate amount of time is given over to side effects. Navigating bipolar illness is a complicated task for the person who has it as well as family and friends.
We can’t trust anyone and you wonder why we’re paranoid. I can’t even tell if people are trying to fix us or eradicate us to tell you the truth. I don’t even feel like I need to be fixed and I don’t know what is so great about being normal anyway. You are all hypocrites.
Atypical Antipsychotics « WillSpirit Says:
[...] on HuffPost by Dr. LLoyd I. Sederer. My thanks to Liz Spikol for her The Trouble With Spikol blog post summarizing the [...]
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