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Q: Trying to Locate Help in the Netherlands - Suggestions?
Dear Dr. Phelps:
I am an American woman whose been living in The Netherlands (Rotterdam area) for
nearly ten years. Before I moved here I had been taking a low dose of
perphenazine with good results. I was getting my life together after years of
chaos. Things were working out and coming into place for me. Since living here,
and going off the medication, my life has returned to chaos, with long bouts of
severe depression, utter confusion, paralysis, anxiety, irritability. I have
tried to treat myself, and I have tried for years to find help within the
psychiatric community here, but no one will help me. I just don't know what to
do. There don't seem to be any professionals here who are capable of seeing what
my problems are. They won't even give me drugs. When I told the psychiatrist I
met with here that I'd been on an anti-psychotic drug in the states, he found it
absurd, and told me that I wasn't psychotic. It seems to me that they're living
in the dark ages here in terms of treatment options for people with BiPolar 2. I don't want to waste anymore years of my life,
and I am suffering terribly with long bouts of very strong suicidal urges.
Despite all my effort at trying to get help, I have gotten none. Do you have any
idea where I might be able to find help in The Netherlands? I have tried finding
options on the Internet, and have tried the traditional lines of "support"
available to no avail. Perhaps you have a suggestion? I am a mother of two. My
situation is acute.
Thank you.
Lila
Dear Lila --
Yipes, it sounds terrible. The irony is that you had found a nifty solution
prior to all this. I know nothing about the system in the Netherlands. So I'm
afraid I can't make any recommendations on how to find help there.
Not thinking that this is any magic solution, I wonder if my little
essay explaining how
antipsychotics are used in bipolar disorder
-- routinely, not as antipsychotics but as anti-manic and mood-stabilizing tools
-- might be of use were due to wave it around in front of some primary care
doctor over there.
Beyond that, you will still need some sort of medical supervision
even if you were to try to obtain perphenazine over the Internet, because you
need someone to help monitor for tardive dyskinesia. So in the long run, you
should definitely not try to manage this on your own.
Sorry not to be of more use. Good luck with that.
Dr. Phelps
Published May, 2008
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