As a state licensed clinical mental health counselor, I worked with psychiatrists and have a little insight into their dispensing of psychotropic medications.
If I diagnosed a patient with depression, the psychiatrist would read my notes and make a fifteen minute decision of an anti-psychotic med.
Usually, these psychiatrists have a drug that they prescribe to all patients diagnosed with a major depression.
They usually prescribe the same drug to multiple patients and it really isn't because they are ignorant of other drugs marketed for similar diagnosis.
In my professional opinion, they are wise to maintain a working knowledge of the possible side effects of these highly dangerous drugs.
Knowing a lot about one drug when prescribing it is better than knowing a little bit of many drugs when prescribing them.
The drug that I would like to talk about is amantadine.
That drug is also being prescribed to patients with Parkinson's.
Basically, little is known about the reason why amantadine is useful in Parkinson's except that it mitigates the negative effects of other drugs prescribed for Parkinson's .
Again, the belief is that it contacts with nerve endings to the brain releasing dopamine, the brain chemical that controls our moods.
Its actions on those nerve endings is like milking a cow.
Once the milk or dopamine is released, it becomes available to nerve receivers.
This affords the prescribed anticholinergic drugs that are necessary in controlling Parkinson's to be carried into the nerves serving the brain.
In other words the released dopamine that makes us pleasant humans is carried into the brain along with the necessary Parkinson's drugs.
The reasoning is that without the amantadine, the patient might pass out when taking his Parkinson's anticholinergic drugs.
All drugs have an initial breaking in point.
With amantadine effects are reported within one week.
However, continued dosing with amantadine diminishes the benefits and it is my opinion that to continue to prescribe amantadine when visible negative physical reactions are evident is akin to malpractice.
The problem with amantadine is that to abruptly end its dispensing can cause trauma to the brain.
So, if after years of being on the drug and the patient develops a tight network of purple veins that look as if leprosy has set in, the patient can not simply stop the drug that is causing that problem.
It is my belief that livedo reticularis does not manifest in the total absorption of both legs and in the encroaching to hips condition that I have personally seen.
Reports indicate that discontinuing amantadine will eliminate the purple discoloration of the skin.
However, other reports indicate that once the skin has turned purple, it will not return back to its original state even with the discontinuation of the causing agent.
It is my contention that a gross mottling of the skin by a known agent that is permitted to be continued at the risk of causing the patient to not only live with the discoloration, rigidity of skin, and at risk for infections is akin to malpractice.
If the discontinuation of amantadine causes the Parkinson victim to suffer shock then it is my contention that the proper medications for that patient's disease were not prescribed.
Amantadine is used to treat the flu.
Amantadine is used to treat depression.
Amantadine is used with a combination of drugs for Parkinson's.
Maybe we should dispense amantadine at the drugstore.
Amantadine does not treat Parkinson's.
It is prescribed to assist the ingestion of Parkinson's alleviating drugs by the central nervous system.
If it is producing symptoms that can prove fatal to the patient, I would like to know why it is not weaned from the patient and a substitute drug initiated.