Too many autistics are bieng prescribed too many drugs

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Today I ate salmon, broccoli, spinach, and yogurt.
Your post makes me feel even better about it.

I tend to stay as far away from Big Pharma as I possibly can.
I tend to rely on things like organic apple cider vinegar, Epsom salts, and aspirin ...
as well as my favorite tasty mood boosters, tea and chocolate.

Am very glad I was not diagnosed early in life.
Life has been a struggle in many ways,
but I escaped being slapped with a label that required medication.

Last edited by the_phoenix on 21 Apr 2017, 8:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.

"Have you seen the ads on American TV networks? Every other ad is for some stupid kind of drug."

This is true. I'd have patients come in and ask me to get the doctor to order a certain drug and these would be drugs that I never heard of. I'd have to take out my phone and look up the name to see what the drug was even for. I was wondering how in the hell do these people know about all of these drugs when I haven't heard about them? I found out when I got my cable reinstalled - they saw them on all of the drug commercials! Duh. The drug companies run all of these damn commercials only giving half of the information on the drugs (because a lot of the times the patient's condition doesn't warrant for them), but at the end of the commercials they always say to ask your doctor.

Such things do effect the human body, no doubt. But that turmeric and fish oil effect body functioning is evidence that such things have an impact, but not evidence that psychiatric medications don't. To me both are examples of using available resources to maximize human performance.

Just because you can take an aspirin to help your heart, doesn't mean you don't need a bypass as well.

All these treatments complement each other.

But this nonsense of controlling your body with your mind bugs me. It's like faith healing and it suggests that illness is evidence of moral weakness. Talk about kicking someone when they are down. Like saying to someone who takes nitroglycerin that it is too bad they failed and had to resort to it.

You can have my medications when you pry them from my cold, dead hands.....

I have personally found that prescribed medications and vitamins have improved my processing difficulties somewhat. Whilst I am still a complete screw up, I do believe a combination of drugs and an elimination diet have been quite beneficial to me. When I am unmedicated and eat copious amounts of gluten and sugar I find that my mind is even more cloudy than usual. I am hopeful that the long term benefits from such changes to my lifestyle will help me in my bid to sort my life out. If I continue in my set ways as an unhinged hermit, I risk losing my only friend and potentially any form of accommodation. Unfortunately no one seems to grasp how difficult it is for me to be a productive member of society. They interpret my so-called "problems" as immaturity and laziness.

This is why I'm anti pharmaceuticals ... Before I was diagnosed with autism, as a kid they thought I had ADD and they were giving me addiral(I don't know if I spelled that correctly) and all that ever did was decrease my appetite. Later on they tried to put me on concerta which made my stomach hurt and then once I spent 4 years of high school on the honor roll after working my way out of special ed then noone could say that I didn't "pay attention" anymore

There also seems to be so much acceptance around this pill culture now. Doctors are just so used to prescribing a pill for everything, in my experience they don't consider how to actually resolve the cause of the problem - simply treat the symptoms. When I was ill the amount of times I heard "management" was maddening. I wanted a cure, not a lifetime regimen of drugs. Pain increased until even I could feel it (am partially insensitive) and their "management" became oxycodone and then morphine. It ended up me who pushed them into the surgery that cured the illness. No management needed.
Also oddly, people are very surprised when you refuse pills. After major abdominal surgery, they had me all hooked up for a morphine drip, but I refused. They called the surgeon in to lecture me, then a medical student in to study me, all because I refused painkillers. As if being in pain after surgery was unnatural, or unacceptable.
As noted above it's not only an issue for autistics - elderly people also seem to be drowned in a truckload of medications, many of which aren't even necessary. I was talking to a relative who is on all these "preventative" medications just because of her age, when she has absolutely no problems with that aspect of her health.
Medications are definitely necessary in some instances. But over-prescribing is real, and the whole culture in the western countries seems to be that you have any problem, you get a pill, and to refuse and ask what else they can do is some kind of taboo.

I am in this "management" position right now and it is unpleasant. I went to a spinal surgeon about my back and he said he would perform a spinal fusion but could not guarantee any positive results and there was the possibility of making it worse, so I did not have the surgery. But the pain remains I do take gabapentin, which helps.

As for curing mental illness ... that would be awesome, but it hasn't happened yet. So again, I have to manage my metal challenges with constant mindfulness and medication.

Dependence on pharmaceutical medications is a reality for me. I don't choose this and I don't have a weak character. I am mentally ill. It's really not that scary.

Wanna bet?

I ended up on the antidepressant train when my GP put me on Prozac back when I worked at the Pentagon. Prozac began to be a problem when I nearly decapitated a full-bird col. because he looked at me the wrong way. But instead of weaning me off Prozac, the twerp I had for a GP (who thought he was God's gift to mankind only because he got his MD from Temple University School of Medicine (and if you think Temple Med School Graduates have big egos, try Hershey Med School at Penn State)) cold Turkey'ed me from Prozac and immediately put me on Effexor XR. I wasn't as angry, but Effexor XR wrecked my voice and I had tinnitus the entire time I was taking that little poison pill. This same twerp (and this GP definitely had an ego) cold turkey'ed me off Effexor XR and put me on amitripthaline(sp). By this time, I was out of the Pentagon, and being accused of abusing drugs by my mom, my brothers, and almost everyone I knew.

After another round on Celexa, BusPar and Viibryd, I managed to get off that merry go round, and stayed off it for 6 years. I've done a lot better on fish oil, niacin, ginkgo biloba, garlic tablets, zinc, vitamin c and chamonile tea, thank you very much. The only meds I'm stuck with are Novolin-R, Levemir, metformin, atenolol, lorsartan, hctz, and astelin spray, which, except for the nasty bittersweet taste of astelin (I gag every time I spray that stuff up my nostrils), I can tolerate.

I don't think so. I am prescribed klonopin and gabapentin and before I got those my life was hell because of AS. Keep in mind, drugs that aren't thoroughly researched are called "research chemicals" and can't be prescribed to people. I know people like to talk about the big pharma boogieman, but almost all commonly prescribed drugs are pretty well researched. I kind of instantly tune out when I am talking to people about prescription drugs and they say "they are using people as lab rats".

As long as you don't abuse your prescriptions, you will be fine.

Insults?I maybe blunt with facts as i see it,but there are no insults,nor intended either.

As for proselytizing?Sorry if i come across that way,but largely,i've been a lab rat for 48yrs and i'm only offering from experience/s,personally and from my pov.

It's unfortunate,that profit reigns over what works naturally.

A good way to stop beating your wife is to beat your dick instead. Its 100% effective.

But seriously, a medication that would actually work well for Autistics would be Marijuana. I'm not even kidding, if I smoke small amounts of weed I am way more sociable and anxiety-free. I wish you could get a weed card for autism. Would help so many people.

Calling people weak minded is a base attack. Perhaps it appeals to you as it is a slightly amusing short cut to your argument which is that people who use pharmaceuticals are weak.

The people, who you are forced to interact-with, to give you the pills, can never do their job correctly, so far as I can tell.

We're saying this stuff is good and necessary and always safe, but you can't have it, at will. But, you can't live without it.

This is called regulatory capture and circular reasoning.