Reason #99 Why Patients Need to be in Charge

A friend of mine was recently at a new psychiatrist's office, being put through an extensive intake process by a therapist. This was a prelude to seeing the real M.D. a week or so later. My friend, a bipolar, asked about being on a mood stabilizer. She'd been misdiagnosed as depressive (not such an unusual situation), been diagnosed bipolar a few years ago by a doctor who stuffed her so full of Seroquel that day to-day functioning was dicey and, at time, damn near impossible. Seroquel has been trumpted by some docs in recent years as "the new mood stabilizer" for bipolar disorder. Not that they've made that case with science, mind you. Regular readers know my thoughts on Seroquel and the emerging practice of using atypical antipsychotics as a monotherapy to replace Lithium, Depakote, Lamictal, etc. (I have less problem with using APs as adjunctive treatments.) The therapist said to my friend, "Seroquel is a mood stabilizer" before my friend could get out of her mouth how rotten the med had been for her.

When are "caregivers" in the mental health world going to let patients--especially those who have been in the game many years and have been on many different flawed meds--tell the caregivers what's up before touting the latest "it" drug?