My advice to all moderately intelligent patients is to have one (or multiple) doctors that you use for their expertise and another doctor that you go to to get then to scribble on those ridiculous pieces of paper. The latter you lie to as necessary if it helps you jump through the hoops more efficiently
Lying to doctors is in general a very bad idea. Lying to them about what drugs you are taking is dangerous. Part of their job is so know what drugs will interact with what other drugs or diseases. Lying to doctors makes them much less likely to be able to do that well.
You could always just tell the truth to your pharmacist. Short of concerns about abortion or birth control, they’re much less likely to impose their moral judgments on you, and collect next to nothing in the way of economic rents.
You don’t have to outright lie, just emphasize different symptoms. For instance, on a diagnostic questionnaire for ADHD, depression, or autism, I could score very high or very low and remain completely honest, just by interpreting the questions in slightly different ways.
Agree, and I expect many people do this unconsciously, primed by whatever their own thoughts are on the subject or what condition they have been primed to consider.
Another way I have ‘not lied’ to doctors is to go to a new doctor and say that I had run out of my existing supply and needed a new prescription. This is true, in as much as I originally got my drugs online, outside of the control of the establishment, passing through customs courtesy of lead lined envelopes. Having confirmed the usefulness of the substance it was then worth jumping through hoops to get a cheaper and hassle free source.
Another way I have ‘not lied’ to doctors is to go to a new doctor and say that I had run out of my existing supply and needed a new prescription.
I would imagine many doctors are on to this, though, especially for drugs like Adderall that people frequently sell on the black market. Does this often work?
I would imagine many doctors are on to this, though, especially for drugs like Adderall that people frequently sell on the black market. Does this often work?
It hasn’t failed me yet. But this relies on a specialized kind of social influence that I somehow seem to be very good at.
In any case getting what you want out of a doctor doesn’t seem to all that difficult (and, barring actual safety risks, nor should it!) The main reason I use an “I need a repeat” approach is that doctors tend to have their own ‘default’ preference they like out of the various options and they sometimes get all insecure and consider it a social challenge if you want a different drug. Say, vyvanse rather than Ritalin or escitalopram rather than fluoxetine (or, god forbid, venlafaxine!). It is just so much easier to frame the request as ‘resupply’ rather than ‘diagnosis’. Especially when the doctor clearly does not understand what the difference is between the drugs or what the modern research suggests. You need a way to get the right outcome without stepping on the poor old guy’s toes.
Another useful and harmless lie is “My sister has been using Tianeptine and it really worked for her. She’s the one who convinced me that I should consider treatement, etc” Throw in the body language of someone who is wary of the whole process and hesitant to concede that they need treatment. For some reason this works better than “Don’t give me SSRIs. SSRIs suck balls for depression with anxiety. Except stuff like venlafaxine that seriously mess you up with ‘discontinuation syndrome’ when you try to come off them. Tianeptine is way better, especially for the anxiety side of things and not only that, it has a much better side effect profile.”
I would imagine many doctors are on to this, though, especially for drugs like Adderall that people frequently sell on the black market. Does this often work?
It hasn’t failed me yet. But this relies on a specialized kind of social influence that I somehow seem to be very good at.
In any case getting what you want out of a doctor doesn’t seem to all that difficult (and, barring actual safety risks, nor should it!) The main reason I use an “I need a repeat” approach is that doctors tend to have their own ‘default’ preference they like out of the various options and they sometimes get all insecure and consider it a social challenge if you want a different drug. Say, vyvanse rather than Ritalin or escitalopram rather than fluoxetine (or, god forbid, venlafaxine!). It is just so much easier to frame the request as ‘resupply’ rather than ‘diagnosis’. Especially when the doctor clearly does not understand what the difference is or what the modern research suggests and you need a way to get the right outcome without stepping on the poor old guy’s toes.
Another useful and harmless lie is “My sister has been using Tianeptine and it really worked for her. She’s the one who convinced me that I should consider treatement, etc” Throw in the body language of someone who is wary of the whole process and hesitant to concede that they need treatment. For some reason this works better than “Don’t give me SSRIs. SSRIs suck balls for depression with anxiety. Except stuff like venlafaxine that seriously mess you up with ‘discontinuation syndrome’ when you try to come off them. Tianeptine is way better, especially for the anxiety side of things and not only that has a much better side effect profile.”
Lying to doctors is in general a very bad idea. Lying to them about what drugs you are taking is dangerous. Part of their job is so know what drugs will interact with what other drugs or diseases. Lying to doctors makes them much less likely to be able to do that well.
I have made it clear that I do not share your faith in the medical priesthood. Adding to what Mass Driver has already said I will suggest that pharmacists are also a whole lot better (on average) than doctors at avoiding potentially dangerous drug combinations.
I make that conclusion partly based on what I discovered while working in medical education. You know, trying to teach evidence based practices to a bunch of middle aged men (for example) who happened to have done a medical degree 25 years ago and since then have been too busy to significantly educate themselves beyond what they read in the edu-tisements from the pharmaceuticals. But if you prefer anecdotal evidence I have personally had to tell a doctor “No, you can’t give me that, I will get Seratonin Syndrome and I will die.) My pharmacology professor also deal with a doctor who was trying to medicate his daughter with a drug that was known to interfere with his daughter’s medical condition. He had to warn the doctor “No. No, it’s NOT safe. If you do not change this prescription I will sue you. By the way, I have a PhD in Pharmacology.”
Doctors are just people. If you want to ensure your optimal health, and your safety you need to take personal responsibility for your own medical treatments. As I originally suggested this will involve finding competent experts you can trust (and even doctors go to other doctors). But it doesn’t mean you are best off submitting to whatever treatment has managed to make (or buy) its way into being the default mainstream practice.
Seeing doctors is primarily about a ritual affiliation with high status people, not about optimal health. When it comes to everyday things like treating infections and identifying common maladies I will take a doctor at his or her word. It is something they deal with every day and deal with well. But when it comes to any psychological condition or any condition that is uncommon you need to both shop around and to do your own research. It is often easy to find correct contrarians. Usually this is either because a) Medical practice has not caught up with research, b) optimal treatment is not in patent, c) formalized traditions (eg. performance metrics) make the payoff for doctors different from optimally treating patients or d) the “nobody ever got fired for buying IBM” effect.
The anecdotes with finding situations where doctors make serious errors could be well counter-balanced with the cases where a misguided patient’s research effort turned up a solution that has an equally bad effect. It’s not at all clear that on the net, serious personal research into a case by a non-doctor is better than a decision of an average doctor. Especially considering that in the more important cases (assuming you recognize the importance), you can ask several doctors independently.
You seem to be assuming a degree of knowledge about medicine that most humans do not have the time, ability or resources to obtain. You also seem to be attacking a strawman argument. I haven’t argued that “you are best off submitting to whatever treatment has managed to make (or buy) its way into being the default mainstream practice” but rather that actively lying to doctors is a bad idea. And I’d extend that to any other common profession that involves expertise. Lying to your lawyer? Bad idea? Lying to your car mechanic? Bad idea. This isn’t an argument related to the apparently high status of doctors. But simply put, most of us do not have the resources to investigate every single detail (just as we can’t all be competent lawyers or car mechanics or plumbers), and actively lying to those people will frequently create problems.
Lying to doctors is in general a very bad idea. Lying to them about what drugs you are taking is dangerous. Part of their job is so know what drugs will interact with what other drugs or diseases. Lying to doctors makes them much less likely to be able to do that well.
Accurate Assessment is what the first few doctors are for; the doctor you lie to is explicitly only there for the sake of getting drugs.
You could always just tell the truth to your pharmacist. Short of concerns about abortion or birth control, they’re much less likely to impose their moral judgments on you, and collect next to nothing in the way of economic rents.
You don’t have to outright lie, just emphasize different symptoms. For instance, on a diagnostic questionnaire for ADHD, depression, or autism, I could score very high or very low and remain completely honest, just by interpreting the questions in slightly different ways.
Agree, and I expect many people do this unconsciously, primed by whatever their own thoughts are on the subject or what condition they have been primed to consider.
Another way I have ‘not lied’ to doctors is to go to a new doctor and say that I had run out of my existing supply and needed a new prescription. This is true, in as much as I originally got my drugs online, outside of the control of the establishment, passing through customs courtesy of lead lined envelopes. Having confirmed the usefulness of the substance it was then worth jumping through hoops to get a cheaper and hassle free source.
I would imagine many doctors are on to this, though, especially for drugs like Adderall that people frequently sell on the black market. Does this often work?
It hasn’t failed me yet. But this relies on a specialized kind of social influence that I somehow seem to be very good at.
In any case getting what you want out of a doctor doesn’t seem to all that difficult (and, barring actual safety risks, nor should it!) The main reason I use an “I need a repeat” approach is that doctors tend to have their own ‘default’ preference they like out of the various options and they sometimes get all insecure and consider it a social challenge if you want a different drug. Say, vyvanse rather than Ritalin or escitalopram rather than fluoxetine (or, god forbid, venlafaxine!). It is just so much easier to frame the request as ‘resupply’ rather than ‘diagnosis’. Especially when the doctor clearly does not understand what the difference is between the drugs or what the modern research suggests. You need a way to get the right outcome without stepping on the poor old guy’s toes.
Another useful and harmless lie is “My sister has been using Tianeptine and it really worked for her. She’s the one who convinced me that I should consider treatement, etc” Throw in the body language of someone who is wary of the whole process and hesitant to concede that they need treatment. For some reason this works better than “Don’t give me SSRIs. SSRIs suck balls for depression with anxiety. Except stuff like venlafaxine that seriously mess you up with ‘discontinuation syndrome’ when you try to come off them. Tianeptine is way better, especially for the anxiety side of things and not only that, it has a much better side effect profile.”
It hasn’t failed me yet. But this relies on a specialized kind of social influence that I somehow seem to be very good at.
In any case getting what you want out of a doctor doesn’t seem to all that difficult (and, barring actual safety risks, nor should it!) The main reason I use an “I need a repeat” approach is that doctors tend to have their own ‘default’ preference they like out of the various options and they sometimes get all insecure and consider it a social challenge if you want a different drug. Say, vyvanse rather than Ritalin or escitalopram rather than fluoxetine (or, god forbid, venlafaxine!). It is just so much easier to frame the request as ‘resupply’ rather than ‘diagnosis’. Especially when the doctor clearly does not understand what the difference is or what the modern research suggests and you need a way to get the right outcome without stepping on the poor old guy’s toes.
Another useful and harmless lie is “My sister has been using Tianeptine and it really worked for her. She’s the one who convinced me that I should consider treatement, etc” Throw in the body language of someone who is wary of the whole process and hesitant to concede that they need treatment. For some reason this works better than “Don’t give me SSRIs. SSRIs suck balls for depression with anxiety. Except stuff like venlafaxine that seriously mess you up with ‘discontinuation syndrome’ when you try to come off them. Tianeptine is way better, especially for the anxiety side of things and not only that has a much better side effect profile.”
I have made it clear that I do not share your faith in the medical priesthood. Adding to what Mass Driver has already said I will suggest that pharmacists are also a whole lot better (on average) than doctors at avoiding potentially dangerous drug combinations.
I make that conclusion partly based on what I discovered while working in medical education. You know, trying to teach evidence based practices to a bunch of middle aged men (for example) who happened to have done a medical degree 25 years ago and since then have been too busy to significantly educate themselves beyond what they read in the edu-tisements from the pharmaceuticals. But if you prefer anecdotal evidence I have personally had to tell a doctor “No, you can’t give me that, I will get Seratonin Syndrome and I will die.) My pharmacology professor also deal with a doctor who was trying to medicate his daughter with a drug that was known to interfere with his daughter’s medical condition. He had to warn the doctor “No. No, it’s NOT safe. If you do not change this prescription I will sue you. By the way, I have a PhD in Pharmacology.”
Doctors are just people. If you want to ensure your optimal health, and your safety you need to take personal responsibility for your own medical treatments. As I originally suggested this will involve finding competent experts you can trust (and even doctors go to other doctors). But it doesn’t mean you are best off submitting to whatever treatment has managed to make (or buy) its way into being the default mainstream practice.
Seeing doctors is primarily about a ritual affiliation with high status people, not about optimal health. When it comes to everyday things like treating infections and identifying common maladies I will take a doctor at his or her word. It is something they deal with every day and deal with well. But when it comes to any psychological condition or any condition that is uncommon you need to both shop around and to do your own research. It is often easy to find correct contrarians. Usually this is either because a) Medical practice has not caught up with research, b) optimal treatment is not in patent, c) formalized traditions (eg. performance metrics) make the payoff for doctors different from optimally treating patients or d) the “nobody ever got fired for buying IBM” effect.
The anecdotes with finding situations where doctors make serious errors could be well counter-balanced with the cases where a misguided patient’s research effort turned up a solution that has an equally bad effect. It’s not at all clear that on the net, serious personal research into a case by a non-doctor is better than a decision of an average doctor. Especially considering that in the more important cases (assuming you recognize the importance), you can ask several doctors independently.
You seem to be assuming a degree of knowledge about medicine that most humans do not have the time, ability or resources to obtain. You also seem to be attacking a strawman argument. I haven’t argued that “you are best off submitting to whatever treatment has managed to make (or buy) its way into being the default mainstream practice” but rather that actively lying to doctors is a bad idea. And I’d extend that to any other common profession that involves expertise. Lying to your lawyer? Bad idea? Lying to your car mechanic? Bad idea. This isn’t an argument related to the apparently high status of doctors. But simply put, most of us do not have the resources to investigate every single detail (just as we can’t all be competent lawyers or car mechanics or plumbers), and actively lying to those people will frequently create problems.
Please refer the correct interpretation, as made by Larks earlier.
I suggest, instead that I my response was sufficiently wide ranging as to ensure that some parts of it were simply not a direct reply to you.
Please refer the correct interpretation of my claim , as made by Larks earlier.
Please refer the correct interpretation, as made by Larks earlier.
I suggest, instead that I my response was sufficiently wide ranging as to ensure that some parts of it were simply not a direct reply to you.
Please refer the correct interpretation of my claim , as made by Larks earlier.