Posted on 02/13/2017 10:12:01 AM PST by MarvinStinson
Edited on 02/13/2017 10:15:34 AM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]
The number of retirement-age Americans taking at least three psychiatric drugs more than doubled between 2004 and 2013, even though almost half of them had no mental health diagnosis on record, researchers reported on Monday.
The new analysis, based on data from doctors
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Insomnia is considered a psychiatric diagnosis so sleep meds could considered psychiatric. Chronic pain, I don’t believe is a DSM V diagnosis so I’m not sure why they would include them.
I know few people over 65 without some sort of ache or pain. If you considered chronic pain a psych condition, a prescription for Relefen would count.
An NSAID, some Lunesta to be used as needed and a script for Prozac would be 3 prescriptions. If they considered non prescriptions, somebody that takes Tylenol as needed, an Advil when the joints flair up and some Benadryl for sleep would be considered to be on 3 psych meds. Kind of weird if you ask me.
Ultram was marketed to docs as a non-addictive narcotic option for years.
Somebody screwed the pooch.
Renegade doctors trying to disqualify folks from owning firearms by prescribing drugs that cause more problems than they solve - in folks with some really serious problems??
Maybe they fried their brains in the 60s and are now running on the frayed ends of sanity because of it.
A Obama/Democrat goal through the “unaffordable care act,” with all its computerized requirements and revised paperwork questions for seniors, made it clear that the prescription by doctors of such medications would then be used to regulate ownership of guns to those populations. Such a goal was evident in the questions required to be answered.
I recall a few years ago when the pharma meds weren’t really helping & talking with my physician about how bad I was feeling. She spent the rest of our time together asking me if I had taken X, Y & Z, etc. She was so convinced there was a medicine on her list that must surely treat my depression.
So thankful I stopped taking that pharma crap & replaced it with cannabis in Feb 2015. I pray when I get into my 6th decade & beyond I won’t come down with a malady related to all those year of anti-depressants & Ativan.
Synthetic morphine with a serotonin re-uptake inhibitor built right in, marketed as “non-addictive.(?) Thats why they tell you not to stop taking it all at once, because you are obviously NOT addicted to it!!
Yep.
I know more about opiate addiction coupled with serotonin syndrome than I ever really cared to.
I DO NOT LIKE THEE, DR. FELL.
THE REASON WHY I CANNOT TELL.
BUT THIS I KNOW AND KNOW FULL WELL
I DO NOT LIKE THEE, DR. FELL.
THAT is one part of the problem, another is unscrupulous doctors who prescribe unnecessary drugs, and receive kickbacks from big Pharma. Tapping into the Medicare Part D (drug) pot is very lucrative and very easy to get away with.
Am I misinformed?
I have an exotic cocktail of moonshine, red wine, and Stella Artois but not at the same time. Feel quite happy.
Pfffft, that's nothing compared to Neurotin (gabapentin) & Lyrica (pregabalin). Doctors refuse to prescribe effective pain control (opioids) to control chronic pain (which makes a big assumption that everyone's an addict or will succumb to addiction -- remember the old Reefer Madness genre movies?) when taking opioids as prescribed not mixing with alcohol, etc., for the "highs". Anyway, Neurotin and Lyrica have become the go-to drugs to prescribe for chronic pain. Very lucrative. Problem is....if taken at dangerously high enough dosages (for a "high"), gabapentin and pregabalin are being abused by a certain population. You won't much in the U.S. press or medical journals, but make no mistake, they are being taken for a "buzz". So far, W. Virginia is the only state that has publicized the fact that deaths from gabapentin has increased in the State from 3 in 2010 to 109 in 2015. However, if you research medical articles in Europe, the abuse of Neurotin & especially Lyrica is rampant. It's being sold & used in the underground markets for a "buzz". It's becoming quite a scourge over there. I think the same holds true in the U.S. I don't know if the pharm companies are sitting on the data and not publishing it, or what. The U.S. medical community swears up and down all day that it they are NOT narcotics, are safe & aren't addictive because they're not hitting the opioid receptors each of us are born with. This is crap. It is being used for a "buzz"...sort of like the old Quaaludes, I imagine. But, that's okay simply because it doesn't hit opioid receptors.
It's like I've said for years. People who want to get high, will get high. Name your poison...alcohol, peyote, mushrooms, sniffing glue, paint, liking the back of a toad, meth...whatever. As a society, we CANNOT protect people from themselves. The FDA throws the babies out with the bathwater. Here's the article from West Virginia (for the others, just read European medical journals and articles: http://wvpublic.org/post/gabapentin-contributes-spike-overdose-deaths-w-va
My 84 year-old aunt is doing Ativan for no real apparent reason except that she is probably addicted. They gave it to her when she was fixing to get ready to think about quitting smoking. We did finally get her off “Well-A-Bootrin”.
She quit smoking 3 years ago when she broke her hip.
Crap. Licking (not liking) the back of a toad. Multiple grammar errors in my post, but I’m writing in a hurry cause I’m not supposed to be online right now. Like everybody doesn’t do it during work hours!
It almost seems that medical marijuana would be a healthier alternative.
There are OTC supplements to try before going that route. St. John’s Wort is one. SAM-e is another. I’ve gotten tremendous benefit from SAM-e personally. It’s clinically tested and shown to be effective in improving mood and helping lift depression.
Well we all know it’s better to walk around in blinding pain on 2 hours sleep than to suffer dizziness. As far as ‘confusion’ I know from my own experience that chronic insomnia leaves one sharp as a tack.
What dosage of SAM-e did you end up talking? I was going to have to take 1600 mg/day to get adequate benefit and that is expensive even at Costco. Taking Effexor XR (venlafaxine) now.
One nice attribute of SAM-e I noted was the complete absence of discontinuation effects. Effexor, OTOH, can be brutal. In fact, I am starting to experience them right now after skipping doses for two days as I had a winter bug. In the past I have successfully tapered off Effexor, but that was a four-month titration. This is the XR version; immediate release is even worse.
I know we have discussed similar in the past; glad you are doing well on Sammy.
Breaking a hip for (older) seniors is usually the beginning of the end. Fortunately, your aunt seems to be the exception rather than the rule.
My wife almost went to jail when the aunt broke her hip. They wanted to nail her for Elder Abuse because the aunt only weighed 79 lbs. We had to ‘splain them that she was 82, lives by herself and has dementia.
And yes, she still drives.
She’s an exact likeness of Granny from the Beverly Hillbillies, including the mountain dialect.
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