Doctor won't give me diazepam ..aibu?

[lucyhar]

I've been getting diazepam off my doctor for around 4 years now for when I have to travel by plane.
I normally get 7 tablets a year.
My doctor has retired now and I'm travelling to Australia in may to see my aunt and uncle.
I've just got out of the doctors (new doc) and he refused any.
Now I understand people get addictive but I get 7 tablets a year!
I have a massive fear of flying,I've tried CBT,hypnotherapy,kalms,I did a fear of flying course and nothing.
Before I was prescribed diazepam I didn't go on holiday for 7 years.
They gave me my life back (without being dramatic)
Aibu to speak to the practice manager?

@sheffmum1 temazepam is a sleeping pill....what did you think it would do!

Why do you think you have the right to complain that the NHS won’t pay for your fear of flying? the NHS is set up so that people get basic healthcare - not so they can get on a plane to go on holiday!!! I have lived abroad in several different countries over the last 11 years and have seen the actual price of drugs on my insurance claim bills (eg. Over 50 quid for a course of antibiotics) I’m not surprised the NHS is going under when people think they are entitled for help to get on a plane.

@Comeonchameleon. CBT can be used for fear of flying. It helps phobias and anxiety. People have anxiety and phobias for all sorts of reasons. I too have anxiety when flying and have found CBT has helped me greatly when flying.

Just go to a private gp much cheaper than having to cancel your holiday

Lots of medication is used off label you were very fortunate to have an understanding gp.
Go back and explain further

LB101 thats unlike you...

I think it’s hilarious that posters are laughing that anyone on here who says they are a GP are lying. If you think we are lying, report to MN instead of troll hunting.

To be honest I don’t know why anyone would choose to be a GP now. It’s absolutely shit. We have less and less control over our practice, practices are shutting down in droves (just this week the practice I’m registered at announced it is closing), we are treated as the whipping boy for all the NHS problems by secondary care, the Fail and the general public, we constantly abused and harassed in work (I was told blithely by a patient yesterday that they wanted to punch me in the face and that I was a motherfucking cunt... all because I enquired about their past medical history) and people hate us because we supposedly earn bucket loads, trust me we don’t, there are charities now set up for Doctors who are struggling financially and also a health service specifically for GPs struggling with mental health because the amount of GPs developing serious anxiety, depression, burn out etc etc is skyrocketing as are medic suicide rates.

Of course no doubt posters may respond to my post telling me that I’m a liar, don’t care about my patients, have a terrible attitude etc etc etc. Fine, I really don’t care what some randoms say. I’m a bloody awesome GP, my patients love me, I prescribe appropriately and I care very much about my job and that I do it right so I don’t lose my job and the roof over my children’s heads.

Ps. fazackerley if you live where I think you do then you should know our city has a MASSIVE drug problem and diazepam is one of many drugs that are abused here. There are multiple reasons why they are no longer given out like smarties!

Geez I was on a long-haul overnight last August. My son has autism and we were sat a row behind the side bulkhead, a 777 so three seats across. There was a man, his wife and their adult son sat in that row. The man and his son proceed to get leathered and I think they had taken something before they go on because they weren't just acting drunk but like they had used. They were en route to Geneva via London. The woman was in the window seat and when I apologised that my son might shift about she just waved me off, saying she'd 'dropped Valium and Xanax' got a pillow and crashed for the rest of the flight. No one blinked an eye. Everyone got off and I saw them all in the queues for immigration and then security for those connecting on. Nary a problem.

if you live where I think you do then you should know our city has a MASSIVE drug problem and diazepam is one of many drugs that are abused here.

That's because street dealers are manufacturing them in great numbers to sell to heroin and opiate users and dealers to prolong and intensify their fix, not because people are going along to the GP to get a few lose dose tabs to fly.

streetblues

They do the same with anti-seizure drugs and increasingly with mitrazapine, which appears to be the new drug of choice for GPs to prescribe to people coming in with insomnia of anxiety, panic attack and depression.

Just read the link! Habitual users are more likely to be in homeless accommodation won't even have a registered GP and are probably 90% of the time not benzheids but opiate addicts. They are not going to see a GP for tabs, they are buying street blues created from places that are turning out hundreds of thousands of them that sell for pennies.

Mirtazapine is 3rd line.

aethelgifu it’s not just due to that otherwise I wouldn’t constantly have people with drug addictions go to great lengths to try and blag diazzies etc out of me but of course, I’m wrong because I’m masquerading as a GP on here

Those patients absolutely do go to GPs in their droves.

Yeah, I'm making all this up, too. The droves I see are habitual users of opiate who don't even have a GP. They buy street blues because any GP wouldn't give them blues in a million years and they know it. Why on Earth would a habitual user bother with a GP whom they know isn't going to give them anything when their dealer is offering it for an extra quid on top of their bag?

Damn.. I’m wondering if I’ll be able to get them this year .
I have grown increasingly fearful of flying but it’s more that I’m not in control.
If I can’t get diazepam from my gp ( he gave me 6 in 2017) then I’ll just have to ask if I can sit in the cockpit so I can see where we’re going

I’ll read the link but I will also refer to my extra training specifically in drug prescribing run by the RCGP, my 10 years experience working with street homeless and drug dependant patients and also recently taking over in a practice where 90% of the population aged 50 and over (who are just normal people, no unique needs such as homelessness) have been left on long term diazepam for years by ‘understanding’ (lazy) GPs.

If it was so straightforward with anything like this then GPs wouldn’t exists and you could get a bottle of diazepam in Tesco with your weekly shop.

Because unfortunately there are plenty of old school GPs or lazy GPs or incompetent GPs who will give them out for an easy life.

7 tablets will cost pennies ...not going to be a financial problem.

My daughter has the same problem with flying 2mg just relaxes her enough to get on the flight,wont do any harm

This isn't the GPS fault it's the system that's fucking stupid.

On top of the fact that the dealer is far more accessible. It can takes weeks to get a GP appointment. A hardened user isn't going to bother when 1 or 2 numbers on their mobile or someone else's after they've successfully boosted will get them blues plus their other gear in minutes.

Although I do reject the insinuation that I'm a drug addict. I've had raised eyebrows before because I have tramadol, dihydrocodeine, cocodamol, morphine, Concerta and diazepam on my semi regular prescriptions. I've been questioned about them by GPs that don't know my medical history. It's quite frustrating.

Someone did once offer me £100 for a tramadol because they saw me taking one. I declined obviously.

Very true, Seline. As for those older people addicted to blues these 'lazy and incompetent' who GPs were giving out but won't anymore well, business in blues is booming here, hence the demand and rise in production. Habitual users are generally scoring them to prolong or intensify an opiate fix, dealers are scoring them to cut their product and as reported a lot of time it's actually etizolam as that what it's currently most accessible to mass producers, but benzheads aren't just going to stop using them because the GP says no. They're going to find a dealer.

That's just worlds away from someone who asks for a few low dose tabs to fly every few years and it's astonishing that anyone educated cannot discern the difference.

www.themdu.com/guidance-and-advice/latest-updates-and-advice/prescribing-benzodiazepines-and-other-addictive-drugs

The interesting thing about his article is that the MDU have helped their members who've had complaints about prescribing and also NOT prescribing benzodiazepines .