And now I remember why I gave up trying to find a psychiatrist in the first place...

I was diagnosed with Binge Eating Disorder in July. I had initially tried to find a psychiatrist, because that's The Right Thing To Do, but I gave up and ended up getting diagnosis and medication from my PCP. However, my PCP has started getting squirrely about Vyvanse and made it sound like she'd want to start working to "wean me off" which, as far as I can tell, is not how this works. It's not something that you treat for a year and then it magically goes away. (If that were the case, it would have magically not come back after a year of freedom post-op, right?)

I knew I'd need more breathing space to deal with finding a psychiatrist, so I made it a spring break goal. Today, being the first day of spring break, I went to my health insurance website, got the list of psychiatrists in order by distance, and started calling.

I just called 14 psychiatrists from my health insurance list of providers. In the first 13: I left one message, one didn't have any openings for SEVEN months, and the rest were wrong/disconnected numbers. The 14th happened to be the psychiatrist who did my pre-op clearance and I was able to schedule with him for April 1. (Apparently he works every other Saturday. Or one Saturday a month. Or something.) He's 25 miles away, so obviously was not my first choice. I don't remember disliking him from my pre-op evaluation, though, so hopefully he'll be on board with helping me to deal with my BED and medication management.

How annoying.

And it really sucks because, technically, I am the definition of a drug seeker. There is a drug and I'm seeking it. Hopefully the fact that I have a diagnosis and am currently on this drug will make the process easier.

It should not be this challenging to find a psychiatrist. And I even live near a major metropolitan area!

I recently had to help my daughter find one for bipolar, and I also found it to be very challenging. You're right, it shouldn't be that hard.

I hope your latest guy works out.

If not, I don't know if it would work or not, but what I would suggest is talking to your PCP and telling her about your struggle to find a psych. I'd ask her if she would be willing to continue prescribing the med if you found a psychologist/counselor/therapist to work on the BED with, and had that person report to the PCP that you are complying with treatment? The PCP's objection may be that she wants to see progress for you instead of just committing you to a lifelong prescription. I see a therapist who specializes in eating disorders, and she's been amazing. I haven't needed any kind of medication, but my therapist would have been happy to coordinate with my PCP if it had been necessary.

One of the issues there is that the FDA is clamping down on non-psych providers prescribing psych meds, & vice versa. We're all under a microscope thanks to the opiate debacle.

That would make sense, since my hubby's PCP has been squirrelly from the beginning about it for hubby's ADD. Hubby was stable for YEARS on a very low dose of generic Ritalin but the PCP won't even consider that, and offered Vyvanse as a "better" alternative, but now is getting weird about it as well. Hubby's trying to find a psych to manage it for him.

I already have talked to her about this, and she knows I'm seeing a therapist.. so, yeah. It's a drag. Hopefully this psychiatrist I've scheduled with will work out!

There is a HUGE shortage of psychiatrists and psychiatric nurse practitioners all over this country. There are many, many communities now where folks with health insurance are going to community mental health centers with acutely ill folks because there are not enough private practice providers in the community, or there are not enough private practice providers that will mess with the hassle of dealing with private insurance.

Psychiatry is the lowest paid medical specialty (I have a family member who is one, so I've heard a lot about it!), so doesn't attract the number of doctors that other specialties do.

Endocrinology is another one where finding one to see you is really hard. There are only 5,800 or so in the US and 2,000 of those are academics who rarely see patients. I feel lucky to have found mine and that it's not overly hard to get an appt with her.

There is a 8 month waiting list for the two Endocrinologists in my area!

Ugh - what a pain. This drug is a pain in and of itself. It is wonderful, but the perscription process is administratively heavy. No faxes, no calls, no 3 month perscription. Like holy hell what do they think we are doing with it?!?!

I hope this goes well for you. My PCP has been great with it, I'm hoping he never retires.

Because technically it is a controlled substance - a schedule CII drug, so the DEA assumes people are going to try to get it just to get that amphetamine high and/or stock up on 90day supplies so they can abuse/sell it.

Without going into detail that I shouldn't, the very nature of this active (which is amphetamine related) makes it much less likely to be abused than straight up amphetamine salts like you would find in other stimulant based medications. However, the DEA doesn't see it that way.