I have just been to my local car dealer; and they had an Oxford wagon from 1991, a CDC coupe from 1994, and all look, what shall I say, outdated.
Yes, that is the right word.
I have been a customer at this dealership for years and Mike, the salesman, told me it is 2007, so I shouldn't expect too much from those models. He also had a state of the art machine, a Canadian Sports Utility Vehicle or SUV, from a Premium Car manufacturer, he said. Much better than all the rest. Easy to use, best car there is. When I asked him why NICE has now launched their Guideliner, he had to laugh. He said, look, it was cheap to build, as it is basically an Oxford wagon, from 1991, with one safety feature.
No customer will buy it, unless he is a doctor.
6 comments:
Thank you for your comment on my blog and the link to the article I had never seen before. It did tend to blame the victim a bit and understate the problem, but there are so few articles on the subject it was worth reading nonetheless.
I really don't believe I am as rare a case as they make out to have nephrogenic D.I. for 20 years and kidney failure for the last several years and my toxicity was not the result of any suicide attempt but doctor incompetence in one instance and forced drugging in the earlier instance I never knew about until I got my records many years later.
Since I have been open about my situation I have heard from many people with both D.I. and kidney failure from taking lithium as prescribed and heard about others.
But still no black box warning on lithium. http://hymes.wordpress.com
oops, I forgot my google account doesn't have my real name. I am not Suzanne Ford, I am Alison Hymes.
Dear Alison,
I do not know why there is no warning or so on lithium. If in doubt, blame the patient. That is always the easy way out. If you'll read a few of my blogs in the next couple of weeks or so, you will see that the same happens with ME. The psychologists who don't know how to diagnose it, will use their CBT, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. If it works they are the heroes and if it doesn't they blame the patient.
I'm not a psychiatrist but I did psychiatry for a while in hospital and I had several patients on Lithium. They were coming in regularly just for a check up and to have a bloodtest to check their Lithiumlevel and Kidneys (urea and electrolytes). And this was many years ago. I have changed over to general practice and I would have to start searching the net to see how big a problem it is. If you have a good psychiatrist for example he should be able to answer that question or you could try Google or PubMed. I'll try to have a look as wel in the next week or so, depending on my brain and energy level.
All the best.
Dr Speedy.
Dear Alison,
I had a look for you on line about kidney damage and lithium. I hope this is of any help, I found it on:
http://www.nami.org/Template.cfm?Section=About_Medications&Template=/TaggedPage/TaggedPageDisplay.cfm&TPLID=51&ContentID=20820
The site of: the National Alliance on Mental Illness
The following came from their normal site:
Are there any risks for taking this medication for long periods of time?
With long-term use of lithium, hypothyroidism can occur; however, it can be treated with thyroid supplementation. Kidney damage may also occur, but it is rare. In order to minimize risk, your healthcare provider will periodically measure kidney function and lithium levels with a simple blood test.
What other drugs may interact with this medication?
There is quite a long list of other medication that can reduce or increase your lithium level and obviously if it increases your lithium level it is a lot easier to get Kidney damage.
So have a look and see if you were taking any of the drugs mentioned together with your Lithium.
All the best,
Dr Speedy.
My doctors did not check my kidney function at all over 12 years of taking it, nor was I ever warned not to use ibuprofen, in fact a psychopharmacologist at a major hospital with high status told me to use ibuprofen for migraines instead of the migraine medication I had been using. I was also told to ignore the side effects that were in retrospect clearly nephrogengic D.I. and possibly a serotonin reaction as well because better dead than crazy in their minds.
Being made toxic in a hospital and not being told about it ever didn't help, than several years later getting toxic and my psychiatrist telling me to stay on the lithium despite being toxic, because again, better dead than crazy, finished me off kidney wise. I spent a week in the ICU after being sent home from another hospital told my vomiting was all in my head and then another 7 weeks on a medical floor in total over 3 months.
I was tested for AIDS twice with no risk factors because they wouldn't even believe my parents that I had no risk factor, psych. patients clearly being loose women who lie, and always str8 for some reason, I was not dialysized because they couldn't believe it was the lithium causing my near fatal illness until the prestigious AIDS doctor called into my case because of the thought I had AIDS set them straight. Even after that a new resident tried to tell my mother I was obviously bulimic despite not being able to take in or keep down any food at all.
I know what caused my kidney failure, doctor ignorance, prejudice and apathy as to what happened to someone with a psych. label which after all that turned out to be the wrong label.
I'm not even bipolar.
Dear Alison,
I'm sorry about all your problems.
If in doubt, blame the patient.
I had an AIDS test for the same reason as you, no risks etc.
Psych people, as you call it, and patients with ME are not to be believed. That is the view of many doctors who give the medical profession a bad name. Sad but true.
Not checking lithium levels for 12 years is very bad practise.
I hope you have now found a better doctor.
All the best,
Dr Speedy.
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