{"id":1807,"date":"2012-05-01T22:04:42","date_gmt":"2012-05-02T05:04:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/?p=1807"},"modified":"2012-05-01T15:05:41","modified_gmt":"2012-05-01T22:05:41","slug":"certain-illnesses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/2012\/05\/01\/certain-illnesses\/","title":{"rendered":"Certain Illnesses"},"content":{"rendered":"

As I was walking into the pharmacy today to drop off a new prescription form, I wondered at the shame some people have regarding certain illnesses. I just visited my doctor again today, a follow up on a visit I had at the beginning of April when I talked to my doctor about my dysthymia, a type of low-level depression. He prescribed the generic version of Wellbutrin, an anti-depressant. The initial dosage was for 150 mg a day; after today\u2019s visit, since I had not experienced any of the possible side effects from that medication, he upped my daily dosage to 300 mg\u2014and hence the need for the new prescription. <\/p>\n

For many, the thought of taking medication for mental illness is embarrassing in ways that taking medication for high blood pressure or allergies is not. And I also take medications for both high blood pressure and severe allergies. But the reaction people have to news reports about an individual when it is announced \u201che was on anti-depressants,\u201d is different than if he was on anti-histamines. That someone takes Allegra regularly matters not to the news, unlike if he\u2019s on Wellbutrin.<\/p>\n

Given that medication can help something like dysthymia as much as medication can help my sneezing at pollen or my high-blood pressure, it seems rather obvious that there\u2019s not a fundamental difference between mental illness and physical illness. The distinction is artificial. After all, the brain is as much a physical thing as one\u2019s heart. Medicine can help both. It\u2019s ALL physical illness. That\u2019s why my medical doctor has no qualms about prescribing Wellbutrin for me.<\/p>\n

I wonder how long it will be before the general attitude toward certain sorts of illnesses changes.<\/p>\n

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As I was walking into the pharmacy today to drop off a new prescription form, I wondered at the shame some people have regarding certain illnesses. I just visited my doctor again today, a follow up on a visit I … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_s2mail":"yes"},"categories":[3,24,4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1807"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1807"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1807\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1808,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1807\/revisions\/1808"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}