Psychiatrist for second opinion only?

[mermaidcafe.livejournal.com]

A couple weeks ago, I had a really strange reaction to a dosage change in an antidepressant, and I'm still suffering the effects of it. My doctor doesn't know why this happened or how to fix it. I don't know if this is something that a good doctor *should* know how to deal with or if I really am in a peculiar situation and my doctor's doing the right thing.

I'd like to find a psychiatrist/psychopharmacologist that will just listen to this particular situation and give a second opinion. I don't want to change doctors unless it turns out that another doctor is better equipped to deal with this situation, so, understandably, I'd rather avoid the intake process with another physician. I don't know if this conflicts with medical ethics or not, but I figured it was worth a try. Does anybody have ideas on how I can run what's happening by another pdoc? Even if somebody here happens to be one or be friends with one, that would be a huge help and for legal purposes, I would realize it's not actually medical advice.

Thanks for any ideas.

(btw--any chance of a mental health tag getting added?)

Comments

Re: Of course he does not how to "fix" it....

[mermaidcafe.livejournal.com]

*She* might if it's a common problem of mixing certain meds or certain doses. You're right; most of it is just pharma roulette, but there might be doctors who've seen this enough times before to make suggestions based on anecdotal evidence.

It's a combinatorial problem in part, but there are so many other contributing factors that have to be taken into consideration. Not just the dosages and release forms of the meds, but other things. If you change the dose of a drug that works on a certain neurotransmitter, then sometimes you can wipe norepinephrine out of your body for a while. That's a problem that's not fixed by changing the combinations. And there are still more problems--the difference between generics and name-brand can be big enough to have an effect, and even different generic manufacturers of the same drug can vary wildly (some can release too slow or too fast, for example). Some drugs interact with other supplements.

So there's the big picture, which a knowledgeable doctor will be able to see and consider. Thankfully, since any knowledgeable patient would head for the exit if any doctor said "let's combine these 2! ok, now try these 7!" and tried divorcing them from context.