Dr. Sober Companion

Archive for the ‘medication’ Category

I don’t even know where to begin to look. I work part-time, still live at home, don’t have health insurance or a family doctor, but I desperately need medication for social anxiety. I get nervous just walking down the street, for example, or talking to a cashier. I’ve tried herbs from the grocery store like Valerian Root, they haven’t helped.

How do I go about finding an inexpensive medication, or getting a doctor to write me a prescription for one?

Thank you.

Imo, you are much better off getting self-help books from the library or looking up self-help advice online on how to deal with shyness than you are getting medications. antidepressants turn out they were approved by the FDA under false pretenses (google antidepressants placebo kirsch). the drug companies jiggered the data and suppressed the studies that showed bad results in order to get 2 studies showing their drugs worked a bit better than a sugar pill. benzos are really addictive and only work for a few weeks or months, and you get ever-increasing tolerance to them & will have to go thru withdrawal when they finally stop working. or else start abusing them. I’ll give you my story, for what it’s worth.

Social anxiety is really just shyness. The term social anxiety disorder used to be reserved for people with the most severe problems. After the drug companies marketed their antidepressants for this problem, the definition expanded, so now people who are just shy are taking pills for something folks used to LEARN how to deal with.

My teachers thought I was mentally retarded in first grade, and again in 4th grade, because I never spoke. So you can conclude I was pretty darned shy.

Here’s what I did to overcome shyness. I did a couple of plays in junior high school, debate and speech in high school, lectored at my very large catholic church in college, and ran a club of 200 people where I regularly had to get up in front of about 50 people at monthly meetings. I coached debate. I went to graduate school and was a TA for labs of about 20 students. I faked it until I made it – people can’t tell I’m shy anymore, and in fact, I am much less shy.

So find some activities where you have to FORCE yourself to speak up, and then DO it, no matter how afraid you are. Truth is, most people are terrified of speaking up in groups. I was a high school debate coach – most of those kids of mine were terrified!! Also do some confidence building things. For me, a HUGE confidence builder was camping out under the stars in Minnesota in January – it was 20 below zero F. I froze my buns off & didn’t get a lot of sleep, but hey! I did it! I feel like if I could do that, i could do anything. Competitive extracurriculars are big confidence builders too.

"social anxiety" is a kind of phobia – and there are 2 ways to deal with a phobia – gradual desensitization, where you gradually expose yourself to more and more intense situations, but start off easy, or "flooding" where you jump right in with both feet, which is what I did. You can only be terrified for an hour or two, then you run out of adrenaline and calm down quite a bit.

all the best to you! You have to screw up your courage and face your fear – that is what a phobia is, when a person avoids the situation or object that they are afraid of. COURAGE – that’s the ticket, and then it will get easier as you keep practicing. It’s ok to be afraid.

My boyfriend was diagnosed with mono today. We are planning on going to the beach in two weeks, and I don’t want to have symptoms the whole week. Is there any medication/steroids/etc that I can take to try and prevent being sick all week at the beach? HELP!

no there is no preventive anti-viral medication. but what most people don’t realize is that once you get mononucleosis (Epstein Barr disease) you can never get it again because your body will already have antibodies against it. you should not use antibiotics to prevent it either, that does not work. Mononucleosis has an incubation period of 5-6 weeks, so you would not be able to experience the symptoms anyways.

My daughter is having some problems with getting enough sleep. I check on her every night and she is always asleep but in the evening she always complains that she is tired. I remember in a psychology class that I took in college that she may not be getting deep sleep at night. What would be a safe household medication that I could give her that would give her that deep sleep?
Also she refuses to take medicine in pill form or any medicine unless she is really sick and i would rather not fight with her. Preferably something I could give her discretely.

i am not recommending that you medicate your child, but try benadryl.

maybe her diet is not sufficient and maybe she is not getting enough exercise during the day. try cutting junk food out of her diet (sugar crashes cause extra tiredness in the evening) and go for walks around the neighborhood or something.

I’m getting a tooth extracted next week and was wondering what pain medication is safe to take while breastfeeding. Thank you.

Both x-rays and novocaine (and other drugs used for local anesthesia, such as bupivacaine and lidocaine) are considered to be compatible with breastfeeding.

Most medications used for oral and IV sedation are considered compatible with breastfeeding.

Nitrous oxide (laughing gas) sedation is also considered to be compatible with breastfeeding. It is virtually insoluble in the bloodstream, which means it goes from your brain to your lungs to the room air immediately after you stop breathing it in. Per Hale, "it is rapidly eliminated from the body due to rapid exchange with nitrogen via the pulmonary alveoli (within minutes). A rapid recovery generally occurs within 3-5 minutes… Ingestion of nitrous oxide orally via milk is unlikely." See Conscious Sedation for more information.

A mother who has wisdom tooth surgery should not need to interrupt breastfeeding at all (except during the surgery, of course). To minimize baby’s exposure (and increase mom’s comfort), mom can nurse just before she goes in for the procedure. There is no need to wait on breastfeeding afterwards or to pump and dump — mom can nurse as soon as she feels alert enough to hold baby. See Breastfeeding when mom has surgery for more information on breastfeeding and general anesthesia.

There are many pain medications compatible with breastfeeding. See Pain medications and breastfeeding

After a loved ones of theirs dies? This is of course hypothetical since no such medication exists yet, but consider this for the sake of argument. And let’s suppose this medication has zero side effects.

Would you take such medication. If not, is there any case where this would be acceptable?

The question is ‘Is it moral’ but it doesn’t seem to me to be a moral question. This is probably because I’m an atheist. I could see that a Christian might find such a medication immoral in that suffering on earth seems to be part of the Christian experience and can even be taken as part of learning.
We regularly take pills to relieve physical pain and others to change our state of mind. I take antidepressants which balance up my mood swings and I have a friend who does the same. We often say to each other ‘Hey! How’s things in happy land?’, recognising that the drugs keep us relatively care free but possibly living in a semi-mythical world. I see the medication as simply balancing up the chemicals in my brain.
But I’m sure you can see the problem with grief. You can only postpone it by medication and the experience of grief can be seen as a form of suffering that is valuable to us So medication would only delay it and would prevent our growth.
A dear friend of mine died a year ago. I still can’t believe he has gone. The great sadness I felt reminded me of how important he is to me and I still think about him all the time. I wouldn’t want to be without those thoughts.

My 19 year old cat is on long-term medication prescribed by the vet. However, I have seen the same medication on internet stores and they charge much less than the vet, for example, something I pay £44 per month for at the vet is only £20 – £24 per month on the internet.

But I’ve also heard that sometimes the medication for sale on the internet is not the real thing so may not have the required effect or may even be dangerous.

How can I know which sites are reputable and sell the genuine medicine, and which ones do not?

The one I use is Viovet. It requires prescriptions for those medicines that you would normally buy from your vet, has a vet in charge and is a large animal pharmacy. I buy my flea and worming treatment from them and even with my vet charging £10 for a prescription, it is still cheaper. I usually email the prescription to them and the order arrives a couple of days later.

Hi, my columbian tetra has a small fungal infection at the start of it’s tail. I used Pimafix as suggested by my local aquarium shop. BUT my sump foamed up that much that it is all over the room and I’m still mopping it up.
Could you please suggest another medication, perhaps tablets or powder that wont look like I poured bubble bath into my sump. FYI, it’s a freshwater community tank, no real plants.
Thanks.

Hi. FYI Pimafix and Melafix will cause foaming if you put them into a tank or sump that has a high flow of surface movement or bubbles in some way, it’s not the best medication to use if you have a sump, as you found out.

I would suggest Maracyn, Fungus Cure, Methyl Blue, but be careful when using the treatments with coloring they may stain your silicone and other items in your tank.

This medication would normally be used to purge harmful chemicals and toxins mistakenly ingested. I realize that under certain circumstances, it would be ill-advised to throw up poisonous substances. However, what is the name of this medication for future reference and can it be purchased "over the counter"?

Ipecac is derived from the root of a plant in the amazon. It is used to induce vomiting, and is sold in pretty much every drug store. Usually its a syrup type liquid.

I am going to the dentist today because one of my crowns cracked, and I was wondering what medication I might receive. This is not for abuse purposes, I just wanted to know so I could make sure it can coincide with my other medications.

IBUPROFEN 3-4 EVERY 4-6 HOURS AFTER EXTRACTION WILL GREATLY AID TO PREVENT PAIN AND SWELLING.

I’ve been interested in the cost of narcolepsy medication, and just treatment of narcolepsy in general. I’m pretty clueless as to how someone could get medication for the condition. Is it purely prescription based? How much are prescriptions costing you? Do free-clinics give out prescriptions or do you have to pay for medical insurance to go see a doctor for diagnosis and prescription? Are there any over-the-counter drugs available for narcolepsy?

I’m interested because I’m doing a study for a short documentary on narcolepsy.

You can easily check your minimal health care rates in internet, for example here – health-quotes.isgreat.org