@Leeny @hckynut
All I can say is that I would not put my complete trust in these doctors. I've been given some very bad advice, and had some very bad experiences with psychiatrists over the years.
I had a psychiatrist when I was fifteen who worked with adolescent patients with eating disorders in a hospital setting. But I saw her in her office, outside of the hospital, for depression and anxiety. She saw me regularly. During my sessions, I told her how much trouble I had eating and that it was an ongoing problem. She watched me lose 25% of my body weight inside of 3 or 4 months, and she didn't even bother to do an assessment. She did nothing. In fact, she did worse than nothing; she told my mother that I didn't have an eating disorder. My primary care physician said it wasn't a physical problem and he also said it wasn't an eating disorder either (?!?!). Based on their opinions, my mother gave up looking for answers for me. So I suffered and suffered until I finally gave my mother an ultimatum. I calmly told her that I could not deal with the near-constant nausea, the leg pains, the weakness, the heart palpitations, etc. (I was born with a heart problem, so my doctors' neglect was even more dangerous than it would be for most). Then I told her that if she didn't get me help right then, I was going to take my own life. I knew it was the only way I could get help short of calling the authorities, and to be honest, I was almost ready to take that step. She looked in the phone book, got on the phone, and within 20 minutes, I had an appointment set up to be assessed for an eating disorder at a clinic. This could've been done by my psychiatrist, but she didn't do it (or give me a referral). I was diagnosed with an eating disorder and got help, but it wasn't because of my psychiatrist.
After that I changed psychiatrists. This one--when I asked for a referral for a counselor--refused to give me one and insisted that medication was all I needed. I needed to continue counseling for my eating disorder and anxiety, but she felt that drugging me was sufficient, and I think she had a high opinion of herself and thought that she was enough of a counselor to meet my needs. She wasn't.
Along the way I've had several psychiatrists who pretended to be counselors (even one who thought that yelling at me was good counseling), but most of them are not qualified to do it, as many are just M.D.s and have little education in counseling, but it doesn't stop them from pretending they know more than they do.
My current psychiatrist wanted me to come off of Cymbalta over a span of 10 days. But even the FDA warns against a fast withdrawal from this medication. Before that, he wanted to put me on either Abilify or Risperdal, but when I asked questions about the side effects, he casually told me that if I didn't like the side effects I could stop the medication. I pressed him for more info, and didn't get any, so I went online and found out what the potential side effects are. The info I gathered helped me reach the decision that these types of medications are something I do not want to try if I can avoid them. I'm also glad I didn't blindly trust him because if he didn't even know that you're not supposed to come off of Cymbalta in only 10 days, then how can I possibly have blind confidence in his judgment regarding other medications?
So I've learned from experience that you cannot take your psychiatrist's advice as gospel. There will be times when you must do extra research in order to ensure good care. I've found this to be the case for a lot of things in life, so I'm not saying it's just psychiatrists. I'm just saying that we have to be our own advocates, because these people don't always care or know what they're doing.
"Heartburn Can Cause Cancer" -- www.ecan.org
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