American Medical Association Went Woke

Off Topic Politics and World Issues
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Uh, what?

Apparently, it doesn’t count if your not on the left. That’s the price you pay for personal anecdotes. Which I don’t normally share unless asked, but I was asked. The difference between now and then is there was no fear. Everybody knew where everyone else stood. Now you have to be afraid someone my dig up something you said 20 years ago and get you fired and doxed. And just because they don’t like they way you think. Fortunately, I have always kept a low internet presence and no social media.

Doesn’t really matters what it means to you. Getting along starts with leaving people alone to live their own lives and not trying to force conformity of language and thought.

That’s not what it does though. It just blocks the drug. The naloxone blocks the action of the opiate, not just parts of it. It’s supposed to technically be inert in suboxone, it’s just there to prevent misuse. But it ends up blocking the some of the buprenorphine requiring higher more frequent dosing. Headaches is the biggest side effect of long term use. Diarrhea is a close second. Again, talking about use for a year or more, not short term use.

It appears that naloxone does seem to block benzo effects too. I am not aware of ‘new’ benzo’s, though may exist.

That’s perfectly normal if you took them as directed instead of as needed. And you may have needed them, no judgement from me. But if you have taken them for longer than a week, having a couple of sleepless nights, or maybe even a little night time anxiety is normal. Tapering probably would have made it easier. But if the issues only last a couple of days, I don’t think that’s too big a deal. Anxiety is a bitch and it can be crippling. And when you come off opiates, anxiety is mindbogglingly high. That’s why it’s prescribed.

For some people, smoking is the hardest. But I don’t judge folks. Smoke 'em if you got them. I like the smell. Reminds me of my youth.

Stay the hell away from Bupropion. It’s the worst drug on the market, IMO. It has been known to alter peoples behavior permanently. I was prescribed it for a different reason and it took me a year to get over the side effects. They are harsh. Severe anxiety and sleeplessness and rage are normal side effects. It should be off the market, if it’s not. I have several anecdotes of people who took it to quit smoking and they lost their ever-loving minds.
I am a pretty mellow dude and I found myself getting really angry at the slightest aggravation. I knew something was wrong with me. My doctor didn’t know what was up. I told him about the issues I was having and he gave me xanax. I finally did some research and the ‘common’ side effects read like my story. I never took it again after that day. The sleeplessness and anger abated fairly quickly, but the anxiety lasted for over a year. It may that I was also going through a lot of shit at the time, but the anxiety was so bad I felt crippled, like afraid of everything. I just wanted to hide so nothing could get me, but I was so wired up I had to do something all the time. After getting off, did I realize how bad I actually felt on it. It did cut cravings though.
I’d say your better off just smoking. It’s not worth feeling like that. One day, I just decided to stop, got the patch and was done. You’ll know when you are ready.

RUN! Don’t do it man. Sure maybe my side effects were just me, but I have heard my story in others more often than not. So those side effects maybe more common than they are not. You’re better off just smoking until you truly done. Or you can vape, or you can dip. Bupropion is an awful drug, it fucks with the brain too much.

I cannot think of a more offensive term for people drummed up by uppity white liberals than latinx. I prefer spic to that. I prefer any other racial slur to that. What are the common slurs for Cubanos anyway? I prefer to be just a person than any other label, really.

It chills ‘cravings’ it won’t stop you from wanting what you want. You just won’t have visions of dancing cigarettes in your head.
I’d say if you want to quit, really want to quit, then get a vape and gradually move the nicotine level down to zero. Then it’s just a matter of breaking the puff, hand to mouth habit. And no, vapes are no where near as bad as cigarettes. It doesn’t stuff up your sinuses, it doesn’t make your lungs feel heavy, etc. They aren’t perfectly healthy, but its the best alternative to smoking I know of. That’s just my opinion though.
If you use bupropion, you’ll turn into a dick and nobody will like you.

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Its an NDRI, if I can take methylphenidate chances are I can take bupropion.

However I’m not addicted to smoking ciggies, I have no use for a drug like bupropion.

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Maybe. But I wouldn’t take the chance. There is a high price for being wrong in this instance.

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I’ve taken 450 mg of extended-release bupropion for years for bipolar depression. It’s been life-changing for me.

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I was talking about Chantix.

https://www.fda.gov/safety/recalls-market-withdrawals-safety-alerts/pfizer-expands-voluntary-nationwide-recall-include-all-lots-chantixr-varenicline-tablets-due-n

Bupropion did nothing for me other than make me smoke more lol. Didn’t get any other side effects from it.

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And methylphenidate can cause stimulant psychosis

This is what I was getting at earlier with naloxone… most medications can have devastating consequences, but for the most part such consequences are rare.

You weigh it up on a cost/risk assessment.

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Bi-polar is very different than depression or smoking cessation. And I am happy it’s helping you. For your case, I totally concede its can be a life saving drug. I haven’t investigated the side effects of bupropion on more serious issues like bi-polar. Most people who do not have issues like bi-polar would do very poorly on lithium too. So I can accept that it is a life saving drug for some people. I just don’t think it should be prescribed for mild depression or smoking cessation. It will have a very different reaction in our brains than in the brains of people with more serious chemical imbalances.

I believe it’s in a similar category, but I will have to research it first. Dude, your not going to quit until your damned determined to do so. I wouldn’t take these drugs for that. The cure can be worse than the disease, even if effective.

That’s the bottom line. Really, each person is different. I have my opinions and if I think a drug is bad or dangerous, I do think it’s important to let people know so they can make more informed decisions. But ultimately, it’s between you and your doctor, obviously. And what may wreak havoc in one person, saves another persons ass.

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Chantix isn’t a cure all. It makes smoking a very unpleasant experience… but you’ll still crave cigarettes.

It’s like an addict taking methadone or buprenorphine… if they still want to get high, they can and will.

If theres a will there’s a way.

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I just think one should not turn to drugs for something like cigarettes unless you have emphysema or lung cancer and it’s imperative you quit right away. It’s like using a sledge hammer to hang a picture. But, to each his own. That is just my opinion, not a medical diagnosis or anything more than an opinion. If he want’s to main-line chantix he is free to do so. My opinion is to quit when your actually ready and don’t yo-yo in and out of quitting.

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The sole purpose of Chantix is to make smoking unpleasant from what my friends who have tried it and quit successfully told me. Nothing else.

These are dudes from CHINA where smoking isn’t taboo and they were the 2 packs a day kind of chain smokers. Old people use those pipes that are 1m long lol and their “fillial” kids or grandkids place the tabacco in them and hand it to them when they come home in the evening.

Locally produced cigarettes, some of which are exported to where I live but cost 3 times the price and my government would NEVER let them be sold locally if they didn’t meet the standard of the regular brands like Marlboro, cost less than $2-4 USD (EDITED: I calculated the prices in MY local currency) which is fucking cheap when taking PPP into account (foreign brands like Marlboro cost $15 USD, which is almost double the price where I live) and there are even ones that cost less than a dollar if you aren’t afraid of the toxic shit in them that may kill you after a couple of days if you get are unlucky enough to get a pack from a batch with too much of said toxic shit (not making this up. It’s been in the news) and you can smoke in places like restaurants, clubs and shopping malls in some cities because the fucking smog will kill you first lol.

These cities are usually manufacturing oriented and people don’t even bother to wash their cars because there’s so much dust on the roads. I get an IMMEDIATE asthma attack when I exit the plane on arrival.

There is no off label use for anything or at least no one has figured out any from what I’ve been told by my GP friend.

This is why I brought up my experience with alcohol. Since drinking does not give me any pleasure, I gradually began to hate it and I just stopped immediately when I didn’t have to entertain clients myself. I figured this drug would do something similar.

If I’m really addicted to nicotine, which I don’t think so since nicotine gum at 4mg does balls for me and I managed to cut down my number by around half by using a vicks inhaler (LMFAO) after ditching the gum whenever I feel the urge to smoke, I can easily get other, more potent forms of nicotine replacement like patches or inhalers prescribed. For some reason, the nicotine gum gave me an ulcer-like pain at the tip of my tongue. I’m pretty sure it’s the gum because I don’t get any pain even when I smoke 11/2 packs a day.

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Hey dt, it’s just my opinion. You do what makes sense for you. My opinion is there if you care what I think about it. But if you don’t, then you don’t. Either way, you are the final arbiter of your health, body and medical decisions. You’ll have no judgement from me, either way.

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Damn… that’s a really heavy habit…

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I’m not sure how you thought I was debating you lol. I really wasn’t.

I said I HAD ALREADY TRIED BUPROPION several years ago and it didn’t work. I wasn’t going to start taking it lol. It made me smoke MORE.

I also said I don’t like taking any drugs that only work while you’re on them like mirtazapine and benzos for sleep and, in the case of mirtazapine which is a tricyclic anti-depressant that was used off label to help me sleep since I do not have clinical mental illness, there’s no psychological or behavioural modifications while you’re on drugs like these that can be made to prevent any mental issues from starting again or used as maintenance for mental issues that would get much worse without them.

For example, I have a schizophrenic relative who NEEDS drugs like these just to control his condition or he’d do some really fucking crazy shit and he’s, from what psychiatrists have told me, one out of very few schizophrenics who are VIOLENT. Psychological therapy from psychologists in China do nothing for him but I’m thinking of bringing him over here to try some of them who work in private psychiatrically clinics out since psychotherapy has not been recognized as any effective form of treatment in my part of the world until recently and psychologists in his province are mostly just there to make patients do questionnaires and paid peanut but more people have studied it where I LIVE over the past 2 decades for some reason so we have some recognized and popular ones whom medical professionals would refer patients to. It still isn’t taken seriously in his province in China and there’s not much of a talent pool there since they still get paid peanuts in government hospitals and no one is going to go to one in private practice.

Even where I live, we’re probably behind you guys in the West by around a decade when it comes to psychotherapists because of demand and social norms and I was planning to take him to the US for this just before COVID started. Given the shitstorm that would ensue due to so many different covid restrictions and the fact that we’re from different countries, it’s not gonna happen any time soon.

Anyway, my point is life-long drug therapy would be suitable for him and others with actual mental illnesses since I don’t think psychotherapy will be able to “cure” them but I think it serve as a good complement in case someone like my relative goes nuts while on medication. The dude hears voices from the sound people wearing SLIPPERS in the house that tell him the person wearing them is going to harm him so he started attacking them and it’d hard to even find out the reason for his attacks since he wouldn’t say why. No other footwear or bare feet. Just slippers

I only use mirtazapine when I start getting shit like sleep paralysis, which can happen 2-3 times when I’m trying to sleep or not being able to fall into deep sleep and keep becoming lucid in my dreams since I’m even more tired the next day when the latter happens.

I have NEVER used benzos after I experienced the withdrawals which I wrote about twice above.

Finally I said that I am one of the few (I believe it’s the same for @unreal24278 ) who do not respond to alcohol when it comes to getting any pleasurable feelings of any kind and even began to HATE it.

I stopped drinking almost immediately when I got close to some of my major China clients and didn’t have to entertain new ones myself so I thought Chantix would work in a similar way. To describe how it used to work there, these potential clients would meet you in clubs and make you drink shit like red wine mixed with sugar or chug a concoction of various hard liquors from a beer glass just to “test your strength” because you’re supposedly weak if you can’t tolerate shit like that lol. I think they really just liked fucking with people.

You can get locally produced brands (the legit ones which are sold where I live at the same price as Marlboro and my government would never allow anything without the stringent quality control of the major brands in) for like $3-5 USD while the imported brands like Marlboro costs around $15USD. Shit, you can even get the shitty ones at under a dollar if you’re not afraid of dying after a couple sticks lol. It’s been reported in the news a few times over the years.

In fact, the guy who told me about the drug was one of my clients who’s now close to me and we talk about non-business stuff online occasionally. He said he gradually began to dislike smoking and I had the chance to tell him “now you know how I felt when you fuckers were doing making me drink” lol. These fuckers were the kind of 11/2 to 2 pack a day smokers since smoking has never been a big deal until recently in China and the fucking smog in their provinces which are manufacturing oriented would probably kill them first.

But either way, it doesn’t matter since it’s been taken off the market.

Not often at all. It’s usuall one pack or less a day. This was only during times when I literally had to work 20hr days like when I did overnight shoots for certain media or tentage and equipment set ups for events which could only be done after hours at shopping malls and I ended up just sleeping in my car because we usually finished at around 5am. The subcontractors and some employees I needed on site could go home and sleep while I had to clean myself up at the 24hr gym and meet the clients lol. That was a pretty long time ago and the only way you can make me oversee this shit personally TODAY at this kind of timings is if I really like the stuff that’s being shot or an event is so large and expensive I can’t afford to have any fuckups.

I’m now down to half a pack using a Vicks inhaler whenever I feel the urge to smoke. I don’t think there’s any science or even personal anecdotes that shows this works but it works FOR ME so I’ll just keep doing it.

I was just saying I didn’t have the same pain/injury on my tongue as what I got from the nicotine gum as when I smoked that amount so I had to ditch the gum. I don’t think patches will do shit since this doesn’t seem to be an addiction to nicotine alone and they don’t allow nicotine inhalers here.

It’s pretty hard since I’m working from home and I can smoke anywhere unlike when I was in my office but half a pack is quite a significant improvement since I’ve been smoking for almost 30 YEARS. Started when I was 13, cigarettes from even the major brands were dirt cheap and large billboards of Tom Selleck (The Marlboro) and other cigarette brands were all over the pace lol.

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I frequently see amitriptyline being prescribed for insomnia and/or neuropathic pain.

I’m not sure how effective it is for either indication. Neuropathic pain seems to be very hit or miss, insomnia it seems to work for some… but it is quite sedating and elicits a hangover effect.

Benzodiazepines (provided they aren’t short acting) do the same. Only sleeping med I’ve ever taken that didn’t give a hangover was zolpidem.

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I’ve tried it and it works better than mirtazapine but my brain gets foggy when I wake up and throughout the morning so I don’t use it anymore.

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lol… I thought, you thought, I was debating you…

Probably because it amped up your anxiety and anxiety causes one to smoke.

My cousin is bat shit crazy. Thankfully, that lineage came from his father’s side, not mine. He’s not violent either, but he steals everything that’s not nailed down and lies constantly. And somehow, he has managed to globe trot around the world and nobody seems to know how. And at first glance, he doesn’t seem crazy. But it makes itself clear pretty quickly if you spend time around him. My other cousin, his brother, beat the shit out of him when he tried to steal more shit from my aunt. It was an old fashion, front yard beatdown… lol. He refuses, absolutely refuses to take his meds.

No absolutely not. It’s not curable. There is some psychotherapy that may help him manage it, but he has to be willing to admit and own the problem, which is the one thing most legit schizophrenic’s won’t do. And even if they do, it’s a 20/ 80 shot it will take at all. The meds are the most important.

It might. I don’t know much about it. I don’t understand it’s mechanism of action. Bupropion left such a mark, I am skittish about anything remotely close to it.

Whoa man… For those that haven’t experienced super lucid dreams, dreams indistinguishable from reality, they have no idea what that is like. I had a dream so lucid, even in my dream I thought I might be dreaming, but I was touching things and looking closely at things in my dream and thought that it was real and wasn’t dreaming in my dream. The other night, I woke up sitting bolt-upright screaming a string of foul language at somebody in my dream trying to do me harm. But I don’t get them all the time, thank God. The bad part is all my dreams that I remember, are all nightmares. I don’t have pleasant happy dreams, ever. I have a guess as to why, but I don’t know truly why.
Smoking is a habit that has to be replaced, it doesn’t go away and not be replaced. And the desire to smoke never ends, but the temptation to actually do it does wane. But like I said, you’ll get no judgement from me. I grew up around it. I lived in the generation where people smoked in the car with the windows up. Get two or three people smoking in the car and your getting fogged out. The grocery store used to have ash trays at either end of every isle. And that was still in the late 80’s.

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I’m somehow not capable of experiencing anxiety at any appreciable level because of both nature and nurture. For the latter, my dad would slap me every time I got anxious, which was rare lol.

I remember it didn’t do much for me mentally other than giving me the urge to do more stuff, like a VERY mild form of Ritalin after about a week. So I did more stuff and smoked more. I think it’s the dopamine enhancement part after reading about Ritalin.

I may have written about this before but fuck it: I was actually prescribed Ritalin a while back because I was getting overwhelmed and mentally fatigued by both having to deal with clients when it comes to deadlines and shit like event setups and my own internal processes because of all the fucking changes EVERY OTHER FUCKING DAY for COVID rules and and it actually made me more calm (???) while increasing my mental focus but HIGHLY increased the urge to smoke.

What it really did for me other than calmness and the ability to get a little more excited (in a good way) about doing stuff that was burning me out was give me more self-awareness and I realized I have a tendancy to multitask but if I did one or 2 things at a time instead, I would get the same or better results and finish them within the same timeframe as when I multitask so all I had to do was make some behaviorial changes and I’m in a better state of mind now. I stopped taking Ritalin because I don’t think I need it and didn’t want to be dependant on it.

My doc friend fucking mocked me because the dose I was prescribed is normally prescribed to primary school kids LMAO. The extended delivery type of pill was fascinating, though. One side, I’m assuming, was powder since I couldn’t see what was in it while the other side that was transparent had lots of small, metallic looking balls which probably take longer to dissolve. It lasted around 8 hours.

It’s the same for my schizo relative when he’s on his meds.

The first time I met him was when during one of the times he went off his meds and my wife requested that I go over and help. When I first met him, he had a thick layer of snot running down his nose that he apparently didn’t notice or just didn’t care. At that time, all I had to do was to talk to him and tell him interesting stuff about my country and how good this kind of medication is and promised to take him to my country for a consultation if the meds don’t work. I did what I promised when he went off his meds the next time and the psychiatrist gave him something similar to what he was taking in China and wrote a letter and prescription for his docs there.

From what I’ve picked up from talking to psychiatrists in 2 countries in my part of world, mental illness is still not very well understood and all they can do is try different drugs from a class of drugs that are suitable for a condition after they’ve made a diagnosis and it may take several tries to find one that suits the individual patient so I think that can be REALLY frustrating but it’s reasonable BECAUSE at least mental illness is NOW more recognized and accepted, which means there will be more incentives for pharmaceuticals to spend more on R&D for better, more effective drugs produced and a larger talent pool for mental health professionals because of increased demand.

From what psychiatrists have told me, there’s a spectrum like autism vs asperges. And he’s the violent type even though only a tiny percentage of schizophrenics are violent. So, yeah, you’re probably right for his case but I’d rather have him see a certified psychologist as a complement to his normal psychiatrist stuff and meds or, like I wrote above, his mother may do something stupid like send him to some Traditional Chinese Medicine practitioner or one of those fucking qigong masters when he has phases like what I also wrote about above where he could hear voices from the sound made from someone walking in the house in slippers.

The problem with all these TCM hacks in every fucking Asian country is that they ALWAYS say shit like “Western medicine is so quick to give you drugs or cut you open while TCM treats the entire patient, not just symptoms”.

FUCK THEM.

Doesn’t matter now anyway lol. Pfizer themselves voluntarily recalled it so I don’t think there will be anything similar by the time I set for myself to at least limit my smoking to 5 sticks a day.

I’ll comment on the lucid dream part later since I get that shit A LOT and you seem to have more experience than anyone I’ve known lol.

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That’s a gift. You don’t want to, ever. You’d make a good soldier if you can not be afraid or are in capable of panic. It also tends to amp up anger, worse than any 'riod rage.

Not well understood at all. The misconceptions are mind boggling, though I still wouldn’t date a bi-polar chick. Yikes…

A little. I still find too many folks who believe you can have a disease of an organ or the body as a whole and accept those conditions can range from mild to severe but exempt the brain. As if it is not an organ. There is a long way to go. Better treatment is really the best antidote and progress is being made, albeit slow. Its just not as sexy as toenail fungus.

True, my cousin is on the right side of the distribution. At least one standard deviation over. But, he still know right from wrong and he still knows how to function when it suits him. So it’s not complete. Ego is a huge and vastly overlooked part of this. We’re all kind of rooting for him to go to jail for something not too serious so he can get the help he needs because he won’t take responsibility for himself.

Can’t agree more. Eastern medicine get romanticized here, like they just know shit we don’t. I am not sure what bear bile will actually do for you, but sure go ahead. It’s not magic though. It’s trial and error, just like everything else.

Law suits are probably the reason. I know of many people who had really bad reactions to buprpion.

Yeah, wow. When I have them, I remember them. It is creepy that they are indistinguishable from reality when you are in it. It’s wild.

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Ummm…I dated a bipolar chick in college. Awful relationship. Neither of us was diagnosed yet, so completely unmedicated plus living the college life which is not helpful. I stayed in that relationship WAY too long soley because the sex was insane, particularly when we were both manic.

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I get it. I dodge a screaming bullet with a chick because she told me she was bi-polar. And then she started acting like it too. There is nothing like having a girl stand over you and yell to you that she’s ‘the best thing that ever happened to me’. Hello, red flag. She wanted to do crazy fun sex things, but I chose to run like hell… Just wasn’t worth the crazy.