Doctors & diazepam

[EmeraldRoulette]

Hi
I suppose I'm addressing the people who know me well from this board

I have a horrendous amount of dental work coming up and it's made me really anxious

I asked the doctor if I could have some diazepam for a week or so to help out with it

Of course the answer was no

I don't know how anyone is getting diazepam out of the doctor any more. I've had other people talk to me about this IRL and they've all said it was impossible to get -including someone who suffered three bereavements in a year.

And I think she felt forced into saying it, but the doctor did say that there are so many legal issues attached to it now, no one wants to take responsibility for prescribing it

I don't understand how we got to this point

Anyway, she pulled out the usual crap that doctors have to say, you know about CBT and long-term medication, blah blah blahI understand they have legal obligations to say it

But talking to me like I don't have decades of experience of meds is kind of nuts. I actually had to say to her "please may I speak, Dr".

And at the end of her nonsensical information spiel, I said to her "what do you think patients do when they can't get some diazepam?" (I think in many cases the answer is drink alcohol or abuse other drugs)

And she talked a lot about holistic well-being and blah blah

And I said to her "goodness, aren't you the optimist"

And she said "well I have to be optimistic, I'm not going to tell you that it's hopeless am I?"

Or words for that effect.

I appreciate I'm not in a great mental space right now so it's not normally amusing to me, but I had to find some amusement somewhere. It felt like a strange achievement to have a doctor actually say "no one wants to take the responsibility legally". She could've saved 15 minutes and just said that in the first place.

but honestly, all this distress to me and I suspect to her - just because they won't subscribe short term benzos any more

I'm just posting this because some of you will know what I

How much of the mental health crisis is due to the classic useful pills being unavailable I wonder.

I've used it a few times for travel and the dentist and never had a problem, but it's been a while so maybe things have changed.
I think I'd see a private gp if my usual nhs one refused me. You could try that?

(Have also had years of therapy but I'm autistic so it doesn't really work)

You can get it from certain private doctors online. Costs about £90 for the script and shipping.

@bedfrog thank you for replying

Yeah, it's an ongoing thing - doctors have refused to prescribe it for awhile now

I moved house and before I signed off from my old doctor, they gave me a prescription that I dispensed in the area I live in now

The chemist here was absolutely horrified and questioned me heavily

I kind of knew that was the last prescription I would get, but it is so depressing.

like they would really rather you go through the whole rigmarole and unpleasantness of long-term medication than just to give you something to help you out short term

In the early days, the objection to diazepam was that heroin addicts were abusing it

Then it moved onto the street value and that you could be selling it to anybody

Then it moved onto "too high risk of addiction". All that's going to happen is I'm going to have drink alcohol like it's lockdown again - I'm not a drinker!

I never discussed my mental health issues at work, but I have sat in on a couple of discussions about the desperate measures people take when they can't get hold of diazepam and it's really sad. Workplace are full of people who need a bit of help to manage the situation.

That's actually why I asked the doctor what they think patients do if they can't get it

But in reality, the doctor probably knows that patients resort to all sorts, but if no one will take the legal responsibility, that's the end of it

She could've said that in the first minute of the call and saved us both 15 minutes

Re-private, I actually know someone who has a private doctor he was very confident that the private doctor would prescribe it for me. Until he asked him! Then he discovered that things have changed a lot! but I'm grateful to him because he saved me probably about £90 in a private charge.

I think I was lucky to get it from my old doctor in 2023 to be honest.

I think, if you can find a doctor who isn't up-to-date with all the guidelines and stuff, maybe then you'd get it.

Hello, we cross posted

Tried that, luckily my friend saved me the 90 quid because that was a no.

I can call my NHS GP (don't even need to go in) and get a week's worth. I have a history of back issues though, and I only ask for it when in spasm. I always end up using any left over to help with my PMDD as well, bloody marvellous stuff.

Just see a different gp. I get given diazepam no issues

@youalright it was a phone call

I've actually never seen my doctor in this area so I can't imagine that making a second appointment to try and push them into it is going to help. And it would be very unfair, I think.

@bignewprinz she did say that they would only give it for physical issues, I was given it when I had a spinal injury as well.

I also wouldn't tell a lie in order to get it

perhaps I'm the idiot here, but I just wouldn't

anyone who has suffered with depression and anxiety will know how awful it is dealing with the doctor, the doctor often makes things even worse than they actually are

So I was actually really desperate in order to call the GP

I'm actually in floods of tears as I type this

wish I'd never bothered with the GP really

I know a place that will almost certainly prescribe it, they ask for ID online to check against your address though. You wouldn’t get charged if they refuse.
Feel free to PM if you’d like the name.

I was prescribed it without any issues last week for some acute anxiety attacks I was having related to an unexpected event. Only given enough for the week though which is what I would expect. Any longer than that I would have thought a different medication to be more appropriate.

I think it probably depends on which GP you speak to.

Not helping you I know, but I'm not in UK, and my dentist can prescribe antibiotics, pain meds, and diazepam or equivalent, they also use twilight sleep sedation, which although expensive is worth every single penny for difficult dental work.

Can your dentist prescribe for the work you are having done. That's provable and genuine surely?

@maftaz the dentist can prescribe something for the procedure

Nothing before, nothing after

That's totally fair. I think anything outside of the procedure is the responsibility of the GP.

@Paquitavariation i'm glad you got it 💐

@EmeraldRoulette Yes, I see what you mean about prescribing for the procedure only.

Not being funny, but lighthearted, maybe you'll have to score some from a dealer at this rate. 😊

On a more serious note, I wonder if your dentist would (or could/should) write a letter informing the GP that in his opinion, and due to your anxiety before and after the procedure (s) that prescribing diazepam for X days would be highly advised. Or something along those lines. One medic to another.

i'm more sharing it here because it's so frustrating

And being lectured at by a doctor about coping mechanisms, the value of long-term medication, etc the fact that nobody has a stressfree life... I mean yeah. I know all of these things.

I realise she won't have bothered to look at my record before but do these people really think that decades of treatment was easy to stop? Or that I didn't really think about it?

bizarre. And of course there was the CBT chat and all the other pointless stuff.

It feels like they have a choice of making this less problematic or making it more problematic and they choose the latter.

I would imagine there's probably quite a lot of people like me, who sign off from the doctors because it's causing more problems, quite often it hinders more than it helps

I suppose I've been lucky I haven't had to deal with it for nearly three years though.

I'm actually dealing with two dentists at the moment due to the complexity of the problems

They are really decent, sympathetic people, but they do not want to go near dealing with the GP. Can't say I blame them. They did both say to me "you will absolutely not get it prescribed for this, GPs don't prescribe it"

I also tried to get a short term prescription for some recently to cover me during long haul travel which I was having major anxiety with. I thought it would be easy to get a small number of tablets as I had some last time I traveled long haul 10 years ago - nothing at all since then. I put my request in online and had a messsge from my doctor saying they don’t prescribe them for things like travel anymore. I was really surprised, given I don’t think I’ve had so much as an antibiotic in the past 10 years so I’m hardly abusing them.

The stupidity of it all is that I got a friend to enquire about getting me some black market ones, which she was easily able to do. I didn’t actually get any from her in the end, but I’d imagine a lot of people are buying them in similar ways and who knows what’s in them. Like you say, desperate people will find ways to self medicate and it does not seem sensible to have a flat out ban in these sorts of circumstances.

@MillyMollyMiley you are absolutely right - people will just look for alternatives or dodgy suppliers

I'm feeling a bit better this morning. It's amazing how speaking to your GP can make you feel 100 times worse when it's a mental health issue.

I don't even actually think that there is an issue! If they were willing to prescribe a seven of these, it would be job done

I have listened back to the call twice - because sometimes I can't quite compute the level of gaslighting that you get out of an NHS GP. It is absolutely full of nonsense about nice walks, time with friends, CBT, SSRI and how they work (like she thinks I don't know) and I didn't say this to you guys yesterday but I did actually agree to a prescription of SSRI.

I don't want to go back on them, and of course they make teeth grinding much worse

However, I did have the presence of mind to wheedle her around to one I've never tried before. There was method in my madness at the time I suggested it. I now can't quite remember what it was. I think it was the hope that it's faster acting and a bit more sedating and might not have teeth grinding issues.

So I suggested sertraline

I have had some times over the years where just one or two pills have made me feel better. I've also had times where adjusting has been absolutely hellish so in reality I'm not going to try anything because I know what that experience is like coming on and off SSRIs

But from the way she was talking, I don't think she was allowed to just say "sorry we don't prescribe those anymore". At the end of the call she said "finally we have a plan" and I think she was probably relieved about that.

The fact that I burst into tears on the call probably didn't help

No one should have to think about how they handle a GP call.

Anyway, I haven't spoken to them throughout 2024 and 2025, so fingers crossed, I don't have to speak to them about anything mental health related again.

something else I find strange, she said to me "it sounds like you have good social support". until recently I didn't have any at all. I didn't mention anybody during the call. And all I wanted was some diazepam for dental anxiety. So how did social support even come up?

Do you know this is an addictive medication? It's also prescription only, so a GP has to agree to it.

It's like saying: 'I can't believe the GP won't just give me a bottle of morphine just because I fancy it.' saying 'well I'll just use alcohol or other drugs then' doesn't strengthen your case.

Get help and stop using addictive drugs to cope.

@Preppyprepper i'm going to assume you're just a troublemaker and don't know my background

Many of the lovely people here do know my background

But I won't engage further as I suspect you're just here to cause trouble.

This poster clearly doesn’t understand what is like to have years of therapy that doesn’t work (at a huge expense), be prescribed SSRIs that have frankly scary side effects and no, exercise and a ‘hot bath’ won’t cut it.

Ignore them.

OP, I know you said no to street ones, very sensible.

How about, going to a country with more lenient prescribing rules, and getting an emergency supply from a doctor abroad.

Yeah, and it's so nice to be free of the crap

I did think long and hard before contacting the doctor because I just did not want to go down that road

Hopefully, they won't do any kind of follow-up

I definitely wouldn't go abroad. It's not that important. Maybe some people feel I posted here out of desperation. I didn't. I just wanted to rant. When I started having this problem, I used to feel much better after speaking to the doctor. Even just a conversation with the doctor would be helpful. Now I think it's probably quite normal to feel worse.

i'm well aware that nobody knows what to do with somebody who is experiencing that kind of "can't stay in your skin"anxiety, and the social support I have is quite superficial, so I can't talk to anyone about it in real life.

Everyone on this board was absolutely brilliant with my mental health over the years so I thought I'd post here. I really appreciate the support.

One thing that came out in the work conversation, that I didn't contribute to, was that people really do feel desperate and they will fall down a lot of horrible paths to get hold of this medication. As one former colleague said "I feel as if I started out NOT being an addict, but because I wasn't allowed to keep a couple in the cupboard for emergencies, I became one".

She ended up having to take antipsychotics just to get to work every day but like me, she is off everything now. I think a lot of people hit a point where they just don't want to engage

That might be part of the strategy. They do just want you to go away. I would understand if I was taking up a lot of their time, but I've never been to this surgery and I joined in 2023.

and she could've just said no and spared me 15 minutes of gaslighting.

Thank you again for the support.

I'm drawing a line under this now - for today anyway. I realise a lot of people might want to discuss this problem but do be careful what you post everyone. I've seen posts about this being deleted before.

Much love to all x

I got a prescription for it from my dentist ..one solitary 2mg pill.

My private dentist was pretty generous. He gave about 14 x 10mg tablets. But I did have like 13-14 major composites that needed doing and I was pretty terrified. So that was for several appointments.

I would hope dentist is more likely than GP to give it.

My GP only ever gives like maybe 4 x 5mg if I'm lucky. That's when I'm having a full on panic attack. In fact he's left now so the new one might be even tighter. But I have only ever asked about 5 times in my life.

The sad thing is the more you ask, the less you get.

Same with my gp, although they will give me buckets of codeine and push it onto me frequently

My dentist prescribed diazepam 10mg. Her first offer was lower and I had to negotiate. I had just had a panic attack for the hygienist so they relented.