Thread: should doctors precribe "old" style drugs if patient gets on with them better

If a patient prefers to take, say diazepam or say for pain morphine sulphate, although these drugs are addictive and there is newer drugs, especially for anxiety where diazepam and other benzos fit in, should the doctor let the patient have it or refuse this treatment and give them the newer drugs wich have alot more side effects but are less addictve, and, and this is one of the reasons mainly doctors prefer to not prescribe these drugs anymore, because if they get into the wrong hands they can be misused, although the doctors can write prescriptions for daily pickup of any medication, or stutter a months prescription into weekly pickups, avoiding any chance of misuse, but doing this basicly says that the doctor thinks you may become a drug addict and start hanging around bus stations trying to sell your meds for crystal meth!!! .
seriously thoa what do you think?? is there any GP's here that can give a decent answer to this. i beleive if a paitent dosent have side effects on the diazepam or the morphine sulphate/oramorth, then why prescribe newer drugs that do give them side effects but arent addcitve, or in pain medication terms "less addictive" such as tramadol or codeine.
I have used anxiety and pain as a demo here but it can be in lots of diferent medicines i guess.

I think all medications should be prescribed by unqualified people.
People should be able to self-diagnose and self-medicate.
If someone has a problem they can just google the cure - who needs doctors anyway.

i agree in principal. especially nowadays with google and wikipedia. before i take any medicince the doc has prescribed me i google it. because sometimes the doc dosent know everytrhing about the drug. for instance propanolol is a opiate blocker. so if your taking propanolol for blood flow/beta blocker/panic attacks etc and alos a morphine or codeine based drug for pain say for angina or something then you'll start to feel the pain again quiucker than you would of done so you will no dought take more of the pain medicine thinking you need more of it,when actually you dont. and eventually you will have a much greater opiate addiction wich unless you put 2 and 2 together you will never know. the doctor will keep prescribing stronger and stronger pain killers thinking your pain must be getting worse and overriding the painkillers. i know this for a fact as i was on a strong opiate painkiller a few years ago and i developed panic attacks, ive always had anxiety as part of my asberges and other key features in my life i believe result in the forementioned, however as i was saying the doctor would not prescribe a benzo-diazepam to calm the anxiety and panic attacks although this has since prooved to be exactly what i need. he prescribed propanalol and zopiclone(to help me sleep thorugh anxious nights) luckily after i started getting the pain back worse than before i googled propanalol and zopiclone and found out that zopiclone wasent the problem it was propanalol all along, it is used in methadone/heroin detox's/rehab because of its blocking effect and it pushes opiates out of the body is one of its many side effects. a good side effect if your a illegal drug addict, but not good if you are on pain medication and you need the pain medicaton to stop you being in severe pain!!
I have thought about this today because as ive moved back to a town along from the one i have been i had to sign up with a new doc surgery and guess who the doctor is, Dr boyle, the same doctor who prescribed the propanalol before!!! here we go again...lol

Originally Posted by RedPanda

I think all medications should be prescribed by unqualified people.
People should be able to self-diagnose and self-medicate.
If someone has a problem they can just google the cure - who needs doctors anyway.

I think that these are some of the most ridiculously stupid statements ever made about medicine on this forum.

Maybe graemedon needs some ferrous sulphate tablets as he seems to be suffering from a lack of irony

more ridicluous than you saying you need to self medicate and self diagnose ????? i just wrote a massive reply but i relised your probably being sarcastic about the doctors thing you wrote and if so then this site i thought is not for sarcastic comments making me feel stupid. when im not attall. my point is a very good one. and unlike some people on here i have actually been thrugh this with the doctors and thats what my point was. some doctors dont have a clue. most do, but some really dont.

Originally Posted by RedPanda

Originally Posted by RedPanda

I think all medications should be prescribed by unqualified people.
People should be able to self-diagnose and self-medicate.
If someone has a problem they can just google the cure - who needs doctors anyway.

I think that these are some of the most ridiculously stupid statements ever made about medicine on this forum.

if we didnt have doctors countless people would die, if we prescribed ourselves there would be too much misuse and if we self diagnosed then it wouldnt always be right, but docotrs should listen to your own opinions and what medicine you want, if he has a good reason not to give it you then fine he is qaulified but if not then why not.

Being a doctor who prescribes old style drugs as well as new ones, I don't arbitrarily deny a certain medication because it is new or old. Depending on the situation, any given drug might be appropriate for a given patient. For instance, thalidomide, that nasty drug that caused a generation of 'flipper limb' babies, still has one good use - the treatment of lepromatous leprosy. For that reason only, and the fact no other medications do as well, thalidomide is still made and prescribed. Several drugs have similar considerations.

I tend not to jump to brand new drugs right away if there is an old style drug with a decent side effect profile available. Testing for safety and efficacy is done prior to a drug being approved by the FDA, but still it is at best tested in only a few hundred people. Once a drug is approved for use, it will be prescribed to thousands. A low frequency side effect may not show up until a medication has been used for a few years. One such drug was flecainide, a drug for paroxysmal atrial fibrillation. It seemed during the studies to be fairly safe compared to existing drugs for the same purpose and effective, but when doctors started prescribing it they noted several patients having more episodes of the abnormal heart rhythm. This led doctors to use flecainide for those situations where other medications wouldn't help, rather than prescribing it as a first choice.

FWIW,
Clarissa

Originally Posted by graemedon

if we didnt have doctors countless people would die, if we prescribed ourselves there would be too much misuse and if we self diagnosed then it wouldnt always be right, but docotrs should listen to your own opinions and what medicine you want, if he has a good reason not to give it you then fine he is qaulified but if not then why not.

That seems a lot more reasonable than your opening post.

I would always research every condition I have and every treatment I receive.
And most doctors are happy to answer questions on your treatment.
If your doctor won't answer questions - find a different doctor.

If you live in the UK: If any condition was serious, I would ask to see a specialist.
GP's are exactly that: General Practitioners. They have to be a jack-of-all-trades but master of none.