Geographic distribution of members and using what names for drugs you take!

[medindexer]

Just joined. I was wondering what geographic distribution was for this site. I'm not prejudiced! I can't see info on this. Drug names in US are often different to those in UK/Europe.

Can I make a plea for people to try use generic names for drugs (generic = chemical name). By all means follow it with the trade name of what you are taking (also called manufacturers name). It's just that there can be many trade names and that's confusing. E.g. generic drug paroxetine has trade names which include Aropax, Brisdelle, Deroxat, Paxil, Pexeva, Paxtine, Paxetin, Paroxat, Paraxyl, Sereupin, Daparox and Seroxat. So ideally have:

venlafaxine (Efexor XL) along with dosage per day

It would IMO make things much clearer between all of us.

[Stilltrying_]

IMO medindexer people can look it up ( which is what I do ) if they are confused. This is a US site but there are people from other countries ( myself included) on here. I simply google the meds if I don't know what they are and they will give me equivalent names.

We are never going to have "perfection" !

[JapaneseFuton]

Can you explain further. What is a site where I can look up drug name equivalents. I can’t find medindexer. Thanks

[Dolphin14 in reply to JapaneseFuton]

Google that's what I do

[Hidden]

Definitely a good point I’ve seen some confusion here or there because of this. Using the chemical name would be the best to avoid confusion, like with me I used Prozac, but the drug itself was called fluoxetine. I have no idea what this drug is called in Europe. Googling the term is my quickest route to find the non-branded drug name. No specific sight(normally Web MD I think) I just look to see the chemical name and other brand names then have a better idea if I have experience with it.

[medindexer]

If you put in the trade name (tho u might not know it's a trade name - one clue is that generics should be initial lower case and trade name is a cap), abd also include the words "generic" and "trade".

Thing is, if everyone ideally used the generic name, you'd scoop up all articles on that drug. As it is, two people might be using two different trade names for one drug and neither would know the others post was of interest. There is always, just one generic name for any one drug, but there can be v many. A Xanax user and a Niravam user are taking the same drug, alprazolam.

The other day, I was reading a book and I looked up the drug 'venlafaxine'. No mention. But there was an entry for Efexor which is the trade name for venlafaxine (a good indexer knows how to deal with this). Now, by trade I'm an indexer of medical books. Most (tho not all) workers/researchers use generic names only. So keeping to trade names you'll miss plenty research.

Being consistent in using genetic in preference to trade would IMO increase coherence/communication. The phrase "singibg from the same hymnbook" comes to mind

[hypercat54]

Hi nice to meet you and good idea. I find it also helps when a member identifies which country they are from when asking for things like advice on benefits, local support groups, where to go to make friends etc. I find myself looking for clues such as different spellings! Also using abbreviations. Ok I think most of us know GAD for example is generalised anxiety disorder, but it can be confusing for younger members.

From what I have seen most here seem to be from the USA, with the second most from the UK. There are a scattering of other countries too though as this truely is an international site. x

[Dolphin14]

I've come across a lot of abbreviations for things that I have never seen before. People are very good at explaining when I ask.

It's kind of a lot to ask people to perhaps use a name for their med that they aren't even familiar with.

Sometimes we just have to do our research to follow a post.

[Olderal]

For some reason this site which I don't use much now because it has gone international asked me to give you my experience of venlafaxine. My experience of venlafaxine is totally irrelevant to your post.ADMIN please note.I do agree with the point you made which illustrates just one of the problems with the site going international. When I joined it was practically for Scotland only but thats going back a few years. Being helpful to Scots was possible, being helpful, one hopes, to the world was just not feasible.

Incidentally one persons experience of a drug is 99% totally irrelevant to anyone else's experience with a drug so this sort of question ( which was not your question or point ) is an absolute waste of time and of possible interest or help to 0.1 % (say) of people with problems and probably does more harm than good. It would take a lot of typing to explain why this is so, more than I am prepared to do.

Olderal

[sweetiepye in reply to Olderal]

I wondered what happen to you , and miss your wisdom . I hope you are well. Pam

[Lin1944]

Hi our good friends in the USA. I Can tell who is from USA as most of you have therapists. In U.K, where we have free Health Service the only way you can see a phsychiatrist is if you are suicidal.Otherwise you have to pay privately which can be hugely expensive. We have Cognitive Behavoural Therapy free but it’s usually run by a young Lady just out of University who has no idea what anxiety and depression is all about. From Lin x