lol cant beleive someone complaining about healthcare worse then the NHS, experiencing it, thats hard to imagine haha.
Have you considered you might have gotten tolerant? then benefits can decline and side effects increase, try the addition of memantine, if the health care there is as horrific as in the uk i gues you cant ask a doc for it, good news its cheap to order online.
If you find that funny then let me tell you that it was in an NHS's hospital (Mill View in Sussex) where after recovering from anaesthesia I developed palpitation and the nurse forced me to take Effexor (An SNRI) in return for a promise to call the doctor, which wouldn't have mattered so much if she had kept her promise. But she didn't and it got so bad that it was like bombs exploding in my chest. After 20 minutes I literally crawled out of my room to find the ward's lights turned off with no one anywhere to be seen (except a light from under the door of a TV room on the other side of the corridor). I some how survived and when palpitation finally calmed down I left the hospital. The next day I returned and after I had an ECG done, I was dismissed in a hurry from the hospital. When I saw my GP a week later, I found out that I had developed a heart murmur which in the end led to the replacement of my aortic valve. Years of complaints against the hospital led nowhere because they claimed that they had lost my files.
Then I was put on Olanzapine and kept on it for five years despite massive deterioration of symptoms, including having been found in a coma in my bedroom because I couldn't leave the house to buy food. Finally I stopped taking it on my own accord after I read an article about its potential paradoxical effects on US's institute of health web site, something that the NHS still denies. I have a dozen examples like that and this is not including other peoples tragedies I have witnessed myself.
Sometimes a bad health service is worse than no health service. At least they can't do more damage and one hopefully dies in ignorance. This is why regardless of where I am, I try not to just rely on what the doctors say and double check everything myself as much as I can.
Thanks for memantine feed back. Is there any historical evidence of the development of tolerance as described by you? Usually tolerance means requiring a higher dose for the same effects. I can manage the side effects by taking beta blockers that don't cross the blood brain membrane. Furthermore it seems odd to develop tolerance after over 2 years and in such specific fashion.
I was hoping for some sort of diagnostic hint that I could confirm through blood test.
I have been looking into ways to expose the NHS, so personal anecdotes are more then welcome, the nhs losing your files is not uncommon, had that with 111 when i needed my clonazepam or i could develop a seizure, they never called back and returning calls dismissing me saying they would chase is up, also walk in clinics and the hospital refuse to give me my medication as withdrawal could lead to a seizure and is a medical emergency, they just tell me to see my gp after the weekend or once tolled to walk to my surgery with a risk of a seizure and it being far away.
I tought about contacting the sun for publishing a article but im unsure how you make it credible enough when everyone in the UK things the nhs provides the best healthcare in the world? please redirect me to other accounts of horrible healthcare and id like to hear more about what happened to you, even maybe ideas how i can expose the NHS for what it is
Unfortunately I was suffering from depression at the time and as usually is the case with mental patients people find it easier to ignore their complaints.
But I tried, I wrote to Channel 4 and the Guardian and sent them all sorts of evidence but no one got back to me. I also posted my complaint to PAL but they actually censured my post deleting the sections that indicated neglect on the part of the NHS run hospital.
I complained to the head of psychiatric department of the NHS Trust who claimed that because my complaint was 13 months old (not true as I had complained in writing to the hospital earlier), i.e. more than 12 months, it could not be investigated which again is not true because the 12 months limit does not apply to cases where cognition is involved.
Finally I took my complaint to the health Ombudsman who are really just a desk to an empty shell except for a team of SS type ex-insurance loss adjusters not even particularly well trained in wiggling out of responsibilities but as they are answerable to no one they even collude with the Trusts in their cover ups. Anyway I was way too broken down mentally and emotionally to fight on. In the end they agreed that I shouldn't have been kept on Olanzapine without regular reviews for all that time (specially that I kept asking for referrals that were ignored) but then they claimed that the Trust was not responsible becaue even if they had reviewed my medication there wouldn't have been any reason for changing it because according to the NHS, Olanzapine does not cause paradoxical reactions (none sense; in fact that all CNS medications could potentially cause Paradoxical reactions).
To be honest I think the complaints that get anywhere and/or get reported in the media must have had a personal connection with some influential in the system along the way somewhere. In reality most of the time the systems gets away with it. What we see on the TV are just window dressing unintentionally making fools living in some places in the world that every one gets justice in places like UK which is probably why they even risk drowning to get there.
Here is another incident which would have most probably ended up in my death had it not been for my own research and insistence:
As I mentioned Olanzapine massively worsened my depression (Now I understand why schizophrenics repeatedly come off their mediations). So my sister took me to a private psychiatrist who instead of recognising the problem prescribed an MAOI type anti-depressant on top of the Olanzapine whose potential side effects and interactions with certain types of food and other medication including synthetic opiods could lead Serotonin Syndrome (a potentially fatal condition, even in a hospital). One night a week or so after starting on this stuff I developed a frightening headache and my BP was something like 240/120. So I called my GP who told me to call 999. When they arrived, my symptoms were so bad that I was taken back to hospital with the sirens going. They lowered my blood pressure but I still had the headache. So I asked the doctor to give me something for the pain. When this junior doctor came back with a syringe in his hand I asked him what was he going to inject me with, he replied Demerol! I tried explained to him but he wouldn't accept it and was insisting that it was OK. So, I told him that I would rather have the headache. When he went away, I called a nurse and told her that I wanted to see the senior doctor on duty. Fortunately he confirmed that I was right and he explained that since they don't prescribe MAOIs in the NHS any more, junior doctors were unlikely to have come across it. Now I don't know if what he was saying is true but if it is then it is crazy. It was lucky that I wasn't injected with demerol earlier without my own knowledge. If I had died, I doubt very much that my family would have been told the truth. So, I wonder how many people on MAIO (probably prescribed outside UK) have actually died in this way and no one has ever found out about them.
Anyway, as mentioned the good thing is that the doctors here are not as cocky as the ones it UK and they prescribe you what ever you asked them (within reason). So, I got my prescription for Memantine (hydrochrolride); 10mg RX. But I wanted to ask you what kind of dose I should start on and how long will it take to notice any effects.
Thanks again for all your input.
Edited by Babak Kamali, 01 March 2016 - 10:42 AM.
