Have you ever been told that you have to take pills or a treatment for the rest of your life?
How did it make you feel?
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Yes. Well, more or less. I will probably be on some kind of meds my whole life for my Bipolar Disorder. However, that’s not for sure. One never knows what advances in treatment will happen in the future. How did it make me feel? Relieved that there was finally something that would help me. Even if it did involve taking pills forever. It sure can be a pain in the ass though.
((((Hugs))) @yankeetooter.
Yeah, about 11 years ago, was put on blood pressure meds for life. I just felt glad that there was a medicine available for it, cause I’d probably be dead by now if there wasn’t.
I was told this mistakenly when I was a teenager and I am STILL mad about it even though it was almost 25 years ago. I’ve spoken to many other people around my age who had similar problems with the mental health industry in the mid-late 1980s so I’m not alone.
My parents were fed up with my sullen teen behavior and took me to a psychiatrist. He diagnosed me with a pretty serious disorder and gave me these really strong pills that had terrible side effects. I’d black out and come to not knowing where I was or what I’d done for the past hour. My breasts started leaking milk for some reason. I had constant headaches.
I’d beg to get off this medication but he said I had to be on it the rest of my life. He also said I was making up the side affects. My parents also refused to believe me either and forced me to take the medication until I left home.
I refused to get any help for severe depression that I either always had or it came on in my early 20s. I was terrified I’d get rediagnosed with that horrible disorder and be forced to take the medication again. I finally picked out a shrink that told me I could refuse the medication if I wanted to.
I’ve been in and out of counselling for over 20 years now. NOBODY has ever given me the diagnosis the first guy gave me. One guy said that even if I did have that disorder, the medication he gave me was more than overkill for it and nobody should have been prescribing it for anyone on an outpatient basis. It was too strong and should only be used as a last resort.
I’m on a low level antidepressant which is just fine for me. I was NOT told I’d need it for the rest of my life, but that might be the case.
That’s probably way more than you wanted or needed to know. But I’ll still say—if the medication has bad side effects or is something that for whatever reason you don’t feel you should be taking—always get a second opinion.
If the drug has little or no side effects—ehh who cares? I mean, there are diabetics who need insulin for the rest of their lives and they do just fine.
In 1994 I was put on blood pressure meds “for life” that I was then able to step down and stop in 2002. I have more recently been on Synthroid that I will likely be on for life. I’m glad there are meds to improve the quality of life.
Yeah.. I should mention.. And it’s probably relevant that I was smoking large quantities of weed and dropping acid almost daily—and I refused to tell this guy because I didn’t trust him at all. So who knows WHAT he deduced of my mental state. But you’d think he’d order me to take a drug test before he brought out the big guns.
I hate shrinks. I tried to find a counselor for my daughter to talk to. Just someone she could talk to. Went through 3 different ones. Each one gave her a different “diagnosis” after only 15 minutes of talking to her. One said “Depression. Take pills.” The other said, “ADD. Take pills.” The other said, “ADHD. Take pills.” I was just looking for a counselor, and I didn’t trust their snap diagnoses.
I’ve had to use an asthma inhaler since about 7 years old. I now have to take vitamin b12 shots twice a month, which is much worse than a pill. I have pernicious anemia.
A couple of years back, I was told I needed to take fluticasone daily for the rest of my life.
This med is used to reduce asthma.
I have stopped since, though. I feel the asthma that I had was triggered an earlier visit to Beijing. So far I am happy to say that my asthma hasn’t returned. Maybe when I need to be in Beijing again…
yes, baby aspirin. Doc says genetics warrant it.
Yes, several times with regard to meds. I’m always uncomfortable with the idea at first but then quickly get used to it.
Digoxin. Been on it pretty much my entire life, will probably be on it my entire life.
Yes, just becomes part of a lame existence, you get used to it and think nothing of it eventually.
@Dutchess_III You must have taken her to psychiatrists. Therapist can’t prescribe pills and should not be giving out diagnoses either.
@Dutchess_III: In the most recent DSM, ADD and ADHD are synonymous, although @anniereborn brings up a good point – they were probably not therapists if they were prescribing meds.
ADD is Attention Deficit Disorder. ADHD is Attention Deficit Disorder combined with hyperactivity. It’s the worst! ADHD means you have a kid who can’t pay attention and can’t sit still. My grandson was recently diagnosed with ADD. He is not hyperactive in the least.
It’s been so long I’m not sure how I even found who I found. I think the first time I went through Social Services.
Later, after I got insurance, I found my own, and he confirmed what you guys are saying. They didn’t have the right to prescribe meds. It just bugged me to no end that they just wanted to “diagnose” her with the illnesses of the week, and not just talk to her.
Yes, I have pretty much accepted it as a fact of life since none of my medications do anything worse to me than the disease they control does.
The hardest for me to accept was when I was 17 and my IBD got severe enough to require me to go on the medication that was pretty much the end of the line in terms of medical technology for treating IBD (barring surgery). While usually the most effective medication, most people try to avoid needing it because it harms your immune system, has to be received intravenously at the hospital every 6 weeks, and has lots of possible side effects.
The worst thing about going on this medication for me was that it felt like a huge commitment. Because the medication was based on mouse proteins, people were frequently mildly allergic to it, and in fact you have to take Benedryl at the hospital before your infusion every time. Because of this, you cannot “take a break” from this medication. If you do, your body will build up antibodies to it and you become allergic to it and can never use it again.
I was terrified because I knew A.) this was the last medical option before surgery, so I was pretty stuck with it B.) if it worked for me, awesome, I’d stay on it for the foreseeable future, but my life would be limited in lots of new ways. Making the commitment to be able to access a hospital at least every 6 weeks meant that I wouldn’t be entertaining any notions of doing a study abroad in college. The medication is untested during pregnancy, so if I were still on it later in life and wanted to have kids, I’d have to make the decision to either stop the medication and never be able to go back on it again, or take a chance with my pregnancy, or just forego having kids. The whole thing was very frightening and made me feel like my independence had become far more limited.
Luckily, or unluckily, that medication stopped being effective on me after 2 years on it, so I was never faced with any difficult decisions. I stopped it and got surgery. Now all my medications come in pill form which is much easier to swallow (pun totally intended).
@Mariah Just want to say that you are an amazing person!!
@janbb Awww, thank you. You are too, Jan.
OK, well, the doctor diagnosed my grandson with ADD a few days ago. Guess he didn’t get the memo.
Medical doctor, or psychiatrist? MD’s really shouldn’t be diagnosing mental/behavioral disorders. I mean they can, legally, but they shouldn’t as it’s not their field of expertise. It’d be about like a gastroenterologist diagnosing a heart condition.
@Darth_Algar: My thoughts exactly. Sounds to me like the doctor is a bit behind the times.
Well, they took him to Wichita instead of his local MD, which means he’s a specialist of some kind.
I really don’t see how you can lump ADD and ADHD together. They are similar, but not exactly the same. It’s like saying the flu and a cold are the same thing, because when you have the flu you have some of the same symptoms as a cold.
I’ll find out what meds they prescribed for him.
He could be a specialist and still be behind the times.
Or someone in the CDC is a ding bat. It makes absolutely no sense.
From the guy from Duke University: “If you are looking for information on Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) please be aware that much of what is discussed below should also be relevant. Technically, the term ADD is no longer used. Instead, children who have the inattentive symptoms of ADHD but who do not show hyperactive/impulsive symptoms are now diagnosed with ADHD, Predominantly Inattentive Type rather than with ADD. These terms mean pretty much the same thing but the latter is no longer technically correct.)”
So what? I don’t care what words are in fashion. ADD and ADHD are two different animals. they share ADD, but when you add hyperactivity to it, it’s a whole new ball game. Why label a kid as ADHD when they don’t have the H? I assume the prescribe different meds too. Or do they prescribe anti-hyperactivty meds to kids who aren’t hyper just because the CDC wants to change words?
@Dutchess_III: They’re saying that ADD and ADHD are not two different animals. I’m sorry that what the CDC decided upsets you, but arguing with me or Fluther is not going to get you anywhere.
They are for the parents. So, do they prescribe the same meds for both of them, including anit-hyperactivity drugs?
I would think that what is prescribed would depend on each individual’s needs and issues. As you know, what works for some people may not work for others.
I’m going with my common sense, on this one. If I tell folks my grandson has ADHD they’ll imagine a kid out of control, and he’s not.
Well, I suppose I could tell them (ahem) “He has Predominantly Inattentive Presentation.” Yes. That makes me sound important.
ADD and ADHD ARE the same thing. They have the same root causes. There are just two different ways the disorder manifests in people.Boys generally are hyperactive and girls generally are inattentive. They realized girls and boys react differently to the same problem in the brain, basically. There’s more to it than that, but that’s the gist of it.
Just like some people have coldlike symptoms with the flu and some people barf. It’s still the flu. It’s not like the cold and the flu.
You don’t have to go into nitty gritty details and explain anything.
But for casual purposes, like in conversation, I’ll continue to specify ADD / ADHD so I don’t have to do a whole lot of explaining.
The way I read it, there’s no longer such thing as ADD. It’s ADHD. There’s no longer a diagnosis of ADD.
She can call it that, though. Most of the people she talks to won’t know any better.
It’s just the scoffing at the diagnoses that I think it’s important to know that I think is important to address. Names change over the years as doctors understand the brain and the mind better. That’s all there is to it.
When I was a kid, people didn’t think girls could get ADHD, so they diagnosed me as being an “alpha child”. Years later they changed the diagnosis to ADD and then to ADHD Inattentive. I don’t scoff at the doctors and say they keep diagnosing me with different things. It’s all the same thing—just different names for it over time.
I don’t care! I’ll continue to use the terms for clarity. It’s not like I have to write a medical paper about it.
It’s like, “I had walking pneumonia.” But what I should say is ” I had an atypical pneumonia caused by Mycoplasma pneumoniae,” because technically that’s what walking pneumonia is.
@keobooks: Yes, the names change over time. I just think to use a term that’s no longer used makes one sound silly, like if we sent someone to the “mental hygiene department” for treatment. These are quaint terms from yesteryear (which is what “ADD” is becoming).
Yeah, but it’s not as bad as calling someone with Down Syndrome “mongoloid” or something.
I mean that earnestly, not sarcastically, btw. I mean she’s not being offensive or insensitive using an out of date term. It’s just an out of date term very similar to the new term. It’s not going to hurt anyone’s feelings or belittle anyone. If somehow ADD had the same connotation as “imbicile” or “pinhead” I’d say DON’T USE THAT TERM ANYMORE! But this is mostly harmless.
I still hear it used all the time—so it’s not THAT out of date. Most people not in medical or educational fields use ADD to mean ADHD inattentive. It’s not eyerollingly annoying or anything.
Here is what Rarebear says about it: ” Psychiatrists researchers need to make themselves relevant so they change diagnosis names. ” LOL!
IMO, it would make more sense to call them both ADD rather than both ADHD.
It would make even more sense to leave them just the way they are, so that’s not going to happen.
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