I went to my primary care today. He didn't yell at me, however he told me If I remained on Klonopin I would not survive med school. He also showed me two different prescription pads, one for normal drugs like cough medicine, and another for narcotics that's monitored by the FDA and controlled by the DEA. He claimed that the FDA monitors patients who use control substances and will cut them off if they find out that are they getting prescriptions all over the place. He mentioned that the DEA will come to the Physicians location and ask questions and if prescribing wasn't warranted they can have your medical license suspended. He told me to leave my Psychiatrist alone because she started getting antsy over increasing dosages. Is all this stuff true or was he just trying to get me to stop using the meds?
A few things.
One, it isn't impossible to survive med school on Klonopin. I have a lot of classmates that are on benzos, antidepressants, narcotics, you name it (the ones I know are legitimate, but I'm sure there are abusers out there, too). The problem is that they do make you sleepy and they do slow your thinking, and you can't afford that, and it becomes a balancing act. Your PCP is, in a way, correct, in that you will have to learn to deal with your symptoms without them. For example, it's Friday afternoon and you've got 30+ hours of material to get through for the exam Monday morning. You need to be awake, alert, and using your full mental capacities all day for the whole weekend, and you'd better believe there will be a source of anxiety hanging over your head the whole time.
If what you say is true about having your psychiatrist raise your doses repeatedly, it's not at all surprising that she freaked out. Benzos are amazing, in that they tame anxiety like nothing else, but they're awful in that they make your baseline anxiety without them worse and worse. Addiction Medicine people I've talked to have told me that benzos are hands down the hardest drugs to get off of. Again, you've got to learn to handle your symptoms without the meds, because otherwise you're going to continue building a tolerance and require doses that are going to make any doctor nervous. You may also find yourself using more than you're prescribed, and that NEVER goes over well when you're trying to get more at the end of the month, either with your PCP, your psychiatrist, or at the ER/Urgent care. Not saying you have to get completely off them, but you need to be able to say to your body, "okay, I hear what you want, and right now we can't do that. I will give you some meds in x hours when I'm done with this section." That's an oversimplification, but that's the idea. You need to tough it out, because if you can't handle that stress, then you can't handle being a medical student or physician.
I don't know your situation, and I apologize if this is a little much, but it seems like you're worrying about having trouble with things (e.g. getting prescriptions from multiple providers) that are used to monitor for patterns of abuse. If you're not actually in danger of triggering any of those, then relax. If you are engaging in those types of behaviors... be careful. Use it as a warning sign for yourself, and decide if it makes sense to seek help. Visiting a Narcotics Anonymous meeting may be helpful, if only to listen to their stories and see if any of them resonate with you. Whatever happens, just remember that nothing will torpedo your career at this stage more easily than substance abuse, so don't give anyone so much as a reason to suspect that this might be a problem.
Good luck to you, OP.
