An Unsung Side Effect

Posted on August 6, 2013 in Body Language Psychotropics

The doctor who was going to perform the colostomy spent several minutes of my preliminary appointment putting information from my new patient form into the computer. He asked me a question here and there about previous conditions: why, for example, my anemia was of concern? (My hemoglobin count had dropped from 13.7 to 12 in the course of six months.) How long had I experienced gastric reflux? (On and on for twenty years. For this I won the bonus prize of an endoscopy to be performed at the same time.) Then he reviewed my medications and saw that I was on psychotropics.

“We’re going to have to bring in an anesthesiologist,” he announced.

The reason for this is that my psychotropics tend to raise the level of sedation. The valium they use for most patients won’t put me out. I would find myself enjoying every moment of the procedures as they poked my orifices and sought answers in my intestines and my esophagus.

The extra attendant would cost me $260 which my insurance might or might not pay. I sighed and made a note of this, then followed him to have a clerk send my prescription for the laxative to the pharmacist and explain to me what I could and couldn’t have before the probe.