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Culture War Roundup for the week of May 20, 2024

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Excellent! Using the knowledge we just discussed, which PRNs would you administer to yourself for that aggression???

Haloperidol 😌

Then again, maybe I have PTSD from exams, and therapy (CBT, if memory serves) is first line in the UK.

B-52 is the medical slang for that PRN regimen, don't see people abusing it (if that's what you meant by that comment).

Ah, the innocence. While I'm more familiar with the bomber aircraft with that designation, you really need to visit /r/drugs, sort by top all time, and just see the RIDICULOUS things people do with or on benadryl. Who thought people could get addicted to a bad time?

Medical beer works great! We need to bring it back.

Especially for us doctors. Sadly, the glory days of the NHS when doctors smoked cigars in their chambers and they had a bar in the doctor's mess were over before I was born.

On paper you have a risk of increased adversed events (most notably respiratory depression) when those two agents are mingled.

What ChatGPT won't tell you is that is likely not real and just a recommendation generated by an abundance of caution. Origin was probably adverse events in people with comorbid substance use, including alcohol.

Hmm.. A lack of evidence based practice? In medicine? Never imagined that was a thing.

I'd be rather surprised to see respiratory depression on that combination, unless they were the kind more fit for the ICU, but I'm just a baby doctor and I'm here to learn.

Ah, the innocence. While I'm more familiar with the bomber aircraft with that designation, you really need to visit /r/drugs, sort by top all time, and just see the RIDICULOUS things people do with or on benadryl. Who thought people could get addicted to a bad time?

Oh yeah Benadryl use? Absolutely, with Haldol? That I haven't seen. You see a lot of Benadryl abuse in a correctional setting in the U.S. And really abuse of anything. Apparently Oxybutynin is popular in the women's prisons. And licking pesticides off the walls is popular whenever the prison successfully cracks down on drug imports. If it's at all anticholinergic life, uh finds a way.

Zyprexa is decently sedating. Benzos are sedating. That's probably it. You get a bad outcome and then it generates a black box warning or whatever and we get stuck with it (see: SSRIs increasing suicide risk).

While I usually like to complain about the lack of EBM in this case it's probably just defensive medicine. Be curious to see if they teach it in the U.K. which obviously has a different regulatory environment.

I expect it's somewhat less litigious than the US, though of course it still keeps people up at night.

I've read that the SSRI and increased suicide risk is a real phenomenon, when they start working enough to overcome the lethargy and apathy, which lets users finally find the energy to apply those lovely suicidal thoughts lurking in their heads. Not that I've seen that stop anyone prescribing them, there's nothing better for the majority. Maybe jump to ECT if the depression is severe enough/psychotic?

Check it out. Totally is a debate as to if it's real or not (although the FDA and mainstream thought leans on yes with qualification) HOWEVER, IIRC it's just for Peds (so the common apathy narrative is less applicable), it seems small, and it's just a risk for SI not completion.

Standard of care is still to counsel for everybody just in case.