The doctor who gave up drugs

[Itscurtainsforyou]

Did anyone watch this tonight?
I caught the last 40 mins (at the gym ) except for the closing minutes.

Basically saying that antibiotics, painkillers, antidepressants (among other things) are over-prescribed, do they work and what alternatives there might be.

Stormtreader
Its definitely a good idea for those people who have been stuck on a "take these pills and go away" cycle for years, but look at the effort he has to put in to help each individual person - house visits, personalised investigation and treatment plans, in-person support and skype calls to keep them motivated. Theres no way we have the resources to do that for every person now we havent been doing it for so long, theres just too many people.

It's resource intensive because it's not standard practice and the current infrastructure does not support such an approach. If healthcare was revolutionised to become more proactive and less reactive, the costs and resources required would dramatically decrease. If non drug treatments work for an illness, then they can be part of a long-term solution to managing future occurrences. Drugs often seem to provide a piecemeal and sometimes superficial approach (plus side effects).

The programme focused on the cold water/swimming treatment for the woman who had been on ADs for 8 years - no doubt she was given other support, not featured, whilst her dosage decreased.

I thought the presenter doctor was actually quite cautious in his thoughts on antibiotics - he indicated that there is a clear need for them sometimes (and stated that in some situations, doing without them might prove fatal).

Given the problem of antibiotic resistence and the sheer cost of wasted medicines in the UK (? a few hundred million), it makes sense to have a more considered approach to the prescription of drugs. It feels like there's a real expectation, from some doctors as well as some patients, that a prescription is almost a required part of a consultation. That said, I think attitudes to medication vary on an inidividual level - from those who want to take a pill for everything, to those who avoid taking a pill for anything.

fascicle If healthcare was revolutionised to become more proactive and less reactive, the costs and resources required would dramatically decrease. If non drug treatments work for an illness, then they can be part of a long-term solution to managing future occurrences.

I've often though wrt mental health services that it would be a huge investment to sort it out but after x number of years the cost would actually go down (and in other areas too eg. policing). There'd be a bit of a backlog and sadly some patients (a lot?) for whom it is too late who will need support for the rest of their lives (a bit like those so institutionalised in the old asylums they could never cope in the community), but in future dealing with things effectively would mean people being helped before the problem gets worse (and more costly to treat), fewer "revolving door" patients etc.

WRT antibiotic resistance, I thought intensive livestock farming was the biggest factor?

"It's resource intensive because it's not standard practice and the current infrastructure does not support such an approach. If healthcare was revolutionised to become more proactive and less reactive, the costs and resources required would dramatically decrease. If non drug treatments work for an illness, then they can be part of a long-term solution to managing future occurrences. Drugs often seem to provide a piecemeal and sometimes superficial approach (plus side effects)."

Yes, absolutely, it would help all patients a lot I think. Unfortunately there would be increased costs involved in setting this up and getting it going, and I'm not sure that startup money is available.

It's very difficult to get any government to agree to spend more money now on something that probably wont start seeing results until after the next election when they might not be in power any more - they dont want to hand a huge victory to a future government, hence only funding short-term wins.

I can't work out whether you're in favour of psychiatric drugs or not shurely! Personally I don't think it's a quick fix because it's not a fix. But from services POV it's easier/cheaper than therapy. And it's a hell of a lot easier than changing the society that makes people ill in the first place...

I'm neither in favour or against. I think they're right for some people, some of the time. Just like drugs for any other condition. It's about the balance of risk. For some people, counselling and talking therapies have very little impact and their symptoms are only brought under control through taking medication.

I also think there is a failure to recognise that 'over-prescription' of antidepressants could also be partially explained by more widespread diagnosis of conditions that would formerly have been brushed under the carpet. There's a tendency to hark back to the good ol days when people had their families around them, didn't have so many societal pressures etc. However, what that forgets is that there were many people who were immensely ill and for reasons of stigma and poor understanding were just left to rot.

What very rarely features in discussions about the supposed 'over-treatment' of mental health conditions is the fact that untreated poor mental health of whatever origin is an independent risk factor in mortality and other serious illnesses such as cancer and heart disease. It's not just a question of drugs being a 'quick fix', they are often the most rational and practically affordable way of mitigating these risks, as well as treating the underlying condition.

Society cannot always be blamed for making people ill. It's a misconception that most psychiatric conditions are somehow environmental. Many are, and will remit naturally if conditions improve. Some are not and changing environmental factors will do little to no good.

So that's my take on things!

Did anyone see last night's installment?

It was great to see the Kung Fu master working with Crystal, and how positive she seemed after a few weeks. But again, you can't help but think that most people with chronic pain aren't going to have access to such a knowledgeable master as she did...

The drug company stuff is pretty scary. OK so he got a bit het up over the sandwiches, but he really does have a point. Especially with all the stories coming out if the US about these companies hiking up the prices of some drugs by 1000s of percent in a single year.

I only caught the end so will watch on I player over the wkd.

I was interested in the walking group. I have diabetes & they keep threatening me with statins/blood pressure tablets. I've just bought a Fitbit to encourage me to walk more (so far so good) so was pleased to see people's numbers improved after walking - hopefully I'll find the same 

I watched it last night. I found the Depression scale questionnaire bit the most 'revealing'. My DD took that at aged 11 (and an Anxiety one as that's why she was being assessed) and she was watching it and it shocked her. Dr. Chris came out as 'possibly depressed' on the online version, but he said he was def not in any way suffering from depression.

Just watched episode two on I player and thought it was very good. I fully endorse what he is trying to do as I got myself addicted to pain killers and did they mess my bowel up.
Took me nearly two years to sort that one out.
Until I had a large back tooth extracted at the beginning of September I'd had no pain killers at all for four years. When the anaesthetic wore off , I was on the ceiling with pain ( and yes, there were tears . That tooth came out in bits and the bruise on my jaw and neck was 5 ins long) and my son dashed to tesco to get me some soluble Panadol as despite all the painkillers in the house, I couldn't open my mouth far enough to get one in nor dare I even swallow because of the pain in the muscles in my throat.
I had severe pain for about four days , going down to moderate for a week and mild to almost none for the last week. I managed on 14 Panadol spread over that first week as I wasn't going back to that addiction again

So for crystal to do what she did was really amazing. My cousin was on a bag full of painkillers for neck , back and knee pain which again were pretty ineffective. I wish he could have had that kind of support and help.

I didn't see the antibiotic one but I've had none of those for four years either.

The poster who gave her husband a strep sil. Here's my marvellous medicine for all throat, cold infections

A white ( not red) onion in the blender with 10 cloves of garlic
Then add a jar of honey ( manuaka if you can run to that , but organic and good quality should do)
Then add half jar of organic cider vinegar with the mother in is best

Have a dessert spoon full every hour when you are acute.

My dh started with the sniffles in the winter. I made him up a jar. He took 5 dessert spoons straight off and believe me...it stopped in its tracks.

If you have earache..roast the middle of a white onion in the oven and when it's cooled enough, pop it in the offending ear. Works like a charm.myou can keep it in overnight.

Yes the depression questionnaire was interesting. As a depressed person who's filled it in many times, it did actually make me assume everyone else must be much happier/more content than I thought! I'm still a bit unsure how he came out moderately depressed though. They should, at the very least change the wording some of the questions eg. the tiredness one should ask if youve felt lethargic for no reason. Or something like that. He must have known if he was tired due to eg. working long hours/not going to bed early enough. (As an aside, I wonder how many people are just tired because we are expected to need 7hrs sleep a night and an awful lot of people need more?) He made a good point about having some positive questions though.

IME health professionals have always said or indicated that they use the questionnaire in context; not as the sole means of diagnosis. I guess this will vary according to the individual health professional though.

I have never ever had that questionnaire administered in a medical consultation. Most GPs (you would hope) would do more than just score you on the basis of a screening questionnaire...

I've still to watch the second programme.

But generally, any polemic is going to be inaccurate. Nature of the beast and all that ...

And for some reason I am always very suspicious of doctors who branch out into television and make themselves stars. If they're doing that, they aren't spending their time reading research papers ..... I have friends who are very well respected scientists who are horrified by the published work of some quite famous sleb medics.

I spent a while in psych hospital where obviously everyone is dosed up to the max. Even so they stressed the importance of spending at least 5 minutes a day each doing 3 different things - conversation, exercise and brain exercise (crosswords etc).

I ended up spending 5ish years on a complete cocktail, way past the point I felt I actually needed them. You end up in a vicious cycle of the psychiatrist telling you that the fact you are stable proves that you need the drugs you're taking - I ended up self-weaning as i was sick of taking them.

I also suffer from chronic migraines though and there's no way I could go drug-free for those.

Dowser I think that was me who mentioned the strepsil. Thanks for the recipe, I'll try that. The problem with him is that he won't even take a non-druggy treatment, he's just contrary. However I like to keep a stock of cures on hand. There's a great cayan pepper/cider vinegar/honey recipe for if a cough gets into your chest, iykwim. It's rank but works like a charm.

Found the statins bit interesting, I thought that was the thing that once you were put on you were on for life? Might be getting it mixed up with something else though. And of course walking is important but it's hardly a complete cure, surely most people walk for around 20 minutes/half an hour most days anyway?

I'm afraid I'm very dubious of doctors giving a shit where mh are concerned. I once went to one saying that I was ok to work, etc, but I felt like some counselling would be useful as I thought I had suffered from some depression. The first words he said was to ask if I wanted to be signed off work. I repeated that I just wanted to be referred to counselling if possible (I knew that it was certain events and not dealing with them that had brought me rather low) I had one session which helped put a lot of things into perspective but I've been distrustful of doctors ever since. I just think that he would have quite easily signed me off work and given me script and that would have been the worse thing in the world for me right then.

I am lucky with my doc who genuinely does give a shit about mental health. But I accept he may be in the minority.

Certainly my GP has never offered to sign me off work inappropriately. He did once and it was absolutely the right thing. It probably prevented me from going into a horrible spiral and being off for much longer in the long-run. It was good, preventive medicine. But I appreciate that one case does not = evidence.

I've heard cayenne pepper is good for several infections...ill merrily munch on garlic but run a mile from chilli or cayenne..

I need to woman up and give it a go.

I think cayenne pepper/ garlic/ manuka honey are fantastic for sorting out a vague sense of unease or a bit of red skin. Or the common cold.

Mental illness, migraines as PP said, and potentially rampant bacterial infections .... not so much.

While I do sincerely agree that drugs are over-prescribed and we are beholden to Big Pharma , it is equally wrong to think all ills can be dealt with by using herbal remedies and a hay poultice. Some things just need nuking, big style.

Shurelyshomemistake
And for some reason I am always very suspicious of doctors who branch out into television and make themselves stars. If they're doing that, they aren't spending their time reading research papers .....

Their motivation might include educating the public (and fellow professionals). To be fair, the presenter is currently doing a PHD in virology at UCL - he can't be a stranger to research.

Interesting to read that Sarah, who featured in the programme, is apparently off ADs altogether.

I thought Crystal's progression with the help of Kung Fu classes was pretty amazing. The difference in the way she was able to move at the end was incredible. The advice on pain given by the Kung Fu master, Dennis, made a lot of sense.

It would be marvellous if our health service could build in more drug free treatment options, but I think all sorts of things would have to change to support that.

I wish the NHS could pay for my weekly class (that inspires me to get fitter in general, finally managing to exercise regularly again) as I am scraping the money together (am on benefits due to ill health). Better than being willing to prescribe ADs.

They do have an "exercise on prescription" service but it's very specific. And leisure centres closing all over the place. It's taken me ages to find a form of exercise that doesn't leave me weeping, which running and things seem to do! (I do sometimes have a lovely releasing type cry afterwards though).

Walking groups are such a good idea though - because they have the sociable aspect as well as getting into nature (even if it's just the park).