I’m not one of the people who claim doctors are in business to keep you sick so they can keep throwing new drugs and treatments at you… but I do think they’re dumb when it comes to prescriptions.
How? Because for those of us who have chronic health problems or recurring issues with illness, we frequently become intimately familiar with what does and doesn’t work, what medications they are prescribed for what symptoms, and what their reactions to those meds are. All of this information is frequently tossed out by doctors, especially when you have to change primary care physicians. A lot of them just take what you have to say as anecdotal at best, and do what they’re going to do. Then you get to come back after you do it their way and are still ill or suffering, explain it to them all over again so they can prescribe something else. Sometimes you’ll have to repeat this two or three times before they finally give you the drugs that you knew would have worked the first time.
Now, if they’re tinkering because there are other side effects at work, or because some new medication has come on the scene, that’s fine. That makes sense. But when they’re prescribing very basic painkillers or antibiotics which haven’t changed significantly in years, why?
Had this experience recently. They insisted on giving me some antibiotic ending in -mycin. I forget which one. They further insisted on giving me Norco. I asked if there was a reason they didn’t give me plain old penicillin or amoxicillin, they said they preferred to try the mycin types first. Informed them that Norco tends to make me violently nauseous and screw up my sleep schedule, they offered to switch it to Oxycodone or paracematol, both of which I noted also cause nausea. They basically said, “play through the pain.” (Further, we started at jumped-up Tylenol, then went straight to Oxy? Jesus, no wonder there’s an opiate problem…).
What happens? Two days later, the infection’s not going away, the pain is getting worse, and I’ve been vomiting and suffering diarrhea non-stop. More than most of you wanted to know, I’m sure, but oh well. I’m cranky and would rather be working or playing Bayonetta 2.
So I call to inform the doctor of this, know what he does? Gives me a prescription for amoxicillin and Vicodin. You know. The things I told him he should probably prescribe in the first place. End result? I’m tired as hell (mixing paracematol and Vicodin and two kinds of antibiotic’ll do that to you), but I feel a whole lot better. After I sleep around the clock and fully migrate to the other meds, I may even feel human again.
Moral of the story? Doctors are dumb sometimes. But I’m still glad we have them because otherwise, I’d be a wheezing pile of psychotic rage and depression unable to leave the bedroom most days. Anyway. Until next time, folks.
Insomniac Nightmares 
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