[lbo-talk] hmm, and I thought it was talk therapy that was ineffec tive!

B. docile_body at yahoo.com
Fri Jan 18 08:37:11 PST 2008


Antihistamines are still the way I've found (personally) doctors like to treat insomnia. 75 mg of Benadryl at night, etc. Ambien if you're rich and white. Or if you're Courtney Love. :)

Benzodiazapines (Valium derivates like Xanax, Ativan, Klonopin, etc.) I don't see prescribed except for also higher income folks. Lower income folks in the USA get beta-blockers like Porpranalol, historically prescribed to reduce "stage fright" but which personally have only made me sleepy and tired. There is a Puritanical drug regime system in the US that basically is of the "patients just need a swift kick in the ass" philosophy that avoids drugs that produce immediate, good-feelin' effects at all costs. This at the same time many depressives or other folks are told they should expect to take anti-depressants their whole lives to manage their illness -- in other words, they should expect to be dependent on these drugs, while they say dependency is bad.

Dependency in one case is not bad, just a medically-calculated outcome that can be dealt with along the line, further on. But dependency in another case -- well, that's horrid.

-B.

joseph noonan wrote:

"That certainly sounds like Prozac, not Valium, which has become rather (in)famous for taking a depressed person and turning the suicidal. I still think it is weird way of treating insomnia when there are perfectly good sleeping pills w/o any such side effects . . ."



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