Dear All:

There was a time in this great county when you could make a trip to your physician with certain symptoms and be sure he or she would be able to diagnose and then prescribe the proper medication according to the severity of the symptoms, if a prescription was truly needed. Many times today, a medication is prescribed to only silence the complaints of the patient due to a huge patient load, or before a thorough investigation of the patients symptoms and/or needs are completed.

I will not belabor a point which I think is long overdue to be addressed in America; that of doctors who are too busy running their "businesses", pharmacy reps who are too busy pushing expensive "just released" meds to pharmacists and pharmacy lobbyists whose only job it is is to make their interests' money. I mention these only to raise awareness. All these factors must be considered the next time you are standing at that counter in the pharmacy with a little piece of paper in your hand. Although there are many truly wonderful physicians, there are also the others.

The most important question you need to ask yourself is: Are ALL of the side effects reported in the disclaimer I get with my prescription? And the only way to truly know if that is the case is to do a little research of your own.

The term "self-diagnosing" is a repugnant term among physicians. This term means that the patient has already done some research, has come up with what is wrong with him/her and has only made the trip to the Doctor's office to confirm the self-diagnosis, ask for additional testing and/or procure a prescription for said malady.

I have no doubt that some of these self-diagnoses are incorrect. We must err on the side of caution, but be well armed!!!!! We must carry information we garner from websites, books, family members and even television and radio shows to the doctor's office with us and question until we get satisfactory answers.

I am the victim of a physician dismissively  prescribing the "drug of choice" for symptoms of anxiety, although the symptoms I described to him that day were that of what I had read about and known to be from past experiences of depression.

After listening to just a few of my symptoms, I was interrupted mid-sentence by my doctor asking, "Do you have any stomach trouble?". Thinking this a rather strange response  to the symptoms I was reporting, I casually responded, "Well, no."
"I am going to give you Paxil,(which I can only assume I could not have taken if I did have stomach problems) take it whenever it is best for you, morning or evening, come back to see me in 3 months.", after which he abruptly left the room, returning with a prescription, a wave of the hand and a "see you in three months".

Stunned, I didn't even know what Paxil was. I had seen the slick ads on tv and assumed it was an anti-depressant, since I had told him I had taken anti-depressants before. Yearning for relief from my problems (which there really is no medication for, only time and God's mercy), I ran to the pharmacy, filled the prescription and began taking the pills immediately.

A week later, things seemed "clearer". I assumed it was the medication working. Three months later, other very troublesome side effects began appearing in my life and the wonder drug that had made my world so much brighter, was beginning to lose it's appeal and present other problems.

I am writing this letter to those of you considering taking Paxil or any other anti-anxiety drug or anti-depressant. I beg you to type any of the drug names into a search engine and read the sites that talk about the side effects. I lost 4 months of my life and after almost a year since taking this drug, am still suffering from some what I consider to be long term effects, problems that did not exist before I took this drug. Those of you with the simple condition called hypoglycemia should be especially warned, since these drugs alter the hormones that produce glycogen and glucose in the body.

Christians should be "wise as serpents yet harmless as doves". Do not let another person, even though they have more education than you, make the choices for your life. In Psalms 108:12, David cries out to God and says, "Give us help from trouble; FOR VAIN IS THE HELP OF MAN." (Emphasis mine) So very many times in the Psalms, we see where God is the only help and answer for our problems.

Medication is a necessary and vital part of many lives and many are alive today because of it. I am not arguing that. My plea is for Christians to run to God for answers to the problems of their lives, not medication, especially the mind altering type.

If this letter addresses your situation, I encourage you to read "How to Escape the Black Hole of Depression", "God's Timing, Not Ours or the evils of anti-anxiety medications" and "Depression, Blood Sugar and King Saul", soon to be released.

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