"I have never felt so angry with care given to me"

End of last year, I Was assigned a mental care nurse after 18 months into being prescribed antidepressants. On 2 occasions I was questioned about why I was on 2 types of antidepressants as this seemed unusual and when made steps to dose down and discontinue one of them was not given the support when describing “withdrawal” symptoms.  Those feelings were dismissed as that was unusual considering the length of time I had been stepping the dose down. So after a week off work, excruciating headaches and other symptoms that I can only describe as worrying or even unpleasant the imaginary symptoms that I had started to ease off and I was able to go back to work.

I’m not a medical expert neither am I a physician or have any relevant qualifications in practicing medicine, I do know that from a clinical trial population, this only gives you a snap shot of how the drugs would be expected to behave in a patient population based on risk, probability and lots of percentages. So how I feel may not be conclusive with the rest of the general patient population taking that particular drug at that particular dose. So to dismiss a patients obvious discomfort, based on what you read off the drug pamphlet or Wikipedia would be what I would consider negligent. As I said, I do not possess a medical degree or indeed anything related to pharmaceutical prescription or drugs, mental health or nursing, I do, however manufacture pharmaceuticals, have worked in the clinical trial industry and have a certain degree of intelligence to know when someone is reading info found off every antidepressant website known to man.

On a similar matter, having sufficient drugs to treat the symptoms also relies on careful planning of prescription drugs to meet my need so with being given a 1 month supply, putting in a request for a repeat prescription a week before you run out would not be considered cause for concern but what would be a concern is running out of said drug based on the assumptions made from pharmacists and mental health nurses who assume that you are overdosing yourself. Based on an average 5 day turnaround from repeat prescription being submitted to actual receipt of new prescription, 7 days would seem accurate. I do not appreciate the half dozen phone calls from the pharmacist and nurse essentially to determine if I am taking the piss.

I have never felt so angry with care given to me since I was a teenager when presenting a potential back injury and a suspected broken rib was asked “do you still smoke? ”. About as relevant as being asked why I was on 2 different antidepressants that I didn’t ask for nor do I have the power to write it prescribe myself. No follow up, no actual interest. No actual care.