[Guest]

Dr, Please help. My partner is in Canada . . . she has recently been hospitalised (voluntarily)in a small country mental health unit. She has previously been diagnosed with GAD and was on a range of medications for the last eight years. Her last period of hospitalisation was 10 years ago for anxiety and depression (she was there for 3 months).
She has recently been under a great deal of stress - her greatest fear is being alone - we have endured a 3 month period of seperation (for work reaons) which is coming to an end in two weeks time. She managed to keep herself incredibly busy for the last 2 months, moving house etc so that she did not need to think too deeply about being there by herself. However, last week she realised that there was nothing to do but wait until I arrived.
She then began to experience difficulty sleeping and complained of an unbearable burning sensation going through her body when she lies down. She decided she could not bear the sensation and sought medical help - she was admitted to the mental health unit three days ago - she is being prescribed a range of anti-depressants and sleeping pills (I think one is called Palax or something like that). She says the doctor told her she would need to be in hospital for at least three weeks and that it may take up to 6-8 weeks for the medication to work. After two days the doctors now suggest she take an anti=psychotic called Olanzapine and she is worried about this. She is not suicidal, has no psychotic behaviours - she just wants the burning sensation to go away. Is Olanzapine a suitable drug in these circumstances and what are the potential side effects? Why would a doctor prescribe this to a person before giving the other drugs a chance to work? I'm desperate - I'm trying to help her from 10,000 miles away to deal with a hospital system that seems to be only interested in prescribing medications - they have told her there are no counsellors, therapists, group support services etc just a doctor once a day and otherwise she can just talk to the nurses if she wants!
Please help
Rastafairy

[Guest]

Unforunately, I am not sure what I can do to help. The information we receive over the web is not good enough to diagnose of treat. Olanzapine may or may not be of use in such a situation, it is hard to tell. It can be used to stabalize mood. It has been shown to boost the efficacy of antidepressants in some case reports and an unpublished study. But it is hard to know. The treament style in Canada is different than in the USA and the length of stay in hospital seems a lot longer. Our average length of stay is a week. So, I am unfamiliar with their treatment rationale. You can onlyh do what you can do. Offer encouragement and support. After you arrive, if you see no improvement nor does she, you can arrange for transport to a teaching service for a second opinion.
[quote] Dr, Please help. My partner is in Canada ... [/quote]