Better Living Through Chemistry
In The New York Times, Amy Harmon writes that people are increasingly self-prescribing and managing their lives through medications. Horrors! (Or is it?) I take Ritalin for ADHD, and have been for maybe five life-changing years. But, what if it helps a college student without ADHD focus better? Side effects, for me, are minimal. The benefits are great. Why shouldn't others be allowed to take Ritalin if it makes them more focused and productive?

For a hefty markup, dozens of Web sites fill orders for a drugs, no prescription required, though to do so is not legal. Instead, customers are asked to fill out a form describing themselves and their symptoms, often with all the right boxes helpfully pre-checked.

Erin, 26, a slender hair stylist, remembers laughing to herself as she listed her weight as 250 pounds to order Adipex, a diet pill, for $113. One recent night, she took an Adipex to stay up cleaning her house, followed by a Xanax when she needed to sleep.

Like many other self-medicators, Erin, who has been on and off antidepressants and sleeping pills since she was in high school, has considered weaning herself from the pills. She wishes she had opted for chamomile tea instead of the Xanax when she wanted to sleep.

"I feel like I have been so programmed to think, 'If I feel like this then I should take this pill,' " she said. "I hate that."

But the problem with the tea, she said, is the same one she faces when she is coloring hair: "It's not predictable. I know how these drugs are going to affect me. I don't know if the chamomile tea will work."

Online pharmacies are not the only way for determined self-prescribers to get their pills. Suffering from mood swings a decade after his illness was diagnosed as bipolar disorder, Rich R., 31, heard in an online discussion group about an antidepressant not available in the United States. A contractor in the Midwest, Rich scanned an old prescription into his computer, rearranged the information and faxed it to pharmacies in Canada to get the drug.

"My initial experience with physicians who are supposed to be experts in the field was disappointing," Rich said. "So I concluded I can do things better than they can."

I would never trust a doctor's opinion without doing research myself as far as any medication goes. My favorite doctor was the one who flirted with the idea of putting me on lithium! when I was in my 20s...because I mentioned a minor malaise that mainly had to do with my extreme lack of a boyfriend combined with a living situation that resembled grinding poverty, but for the rather obscene rent. I didn't need lithium. I needed a raise, a boytoy, and a move to California.