Klarinet Archive - Posting 000488.txt from 2004/08

From: Robert Howe <arehow@-----.net>
Subj: [kl] beta blockers
Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2004 06:54:01 -0400

on 8/17/04 4:15 AM, klarinet-digest-help@-----.org at
klarinet-digest-help@-----.org wrote:

>> This message will be repeated every time someone brings up this topic.
>>
>> Ken

Are we being a little bit compulsive here?

In the 1970s Brautigan and Brautigan did a lovely study of B-blockers,
giving them or placebos to performing musician and to Julliard students
about to face juries. The effectiveness of B-blockers cannot be denied, but
like all meds, they should be taken under supervision. Real simple.
Asthma, diabetes, heart block, and perhaps cyclothymia are
contraindications.

Just as I would give B-blockers to a trucker whose chest pain interfered
with work, so would I give them to a musician whose anxiety produced stage
fright. I used Inderal through the mid 1990s to reduce tremor while doing
microsurgery; then, like so many musicians using B-blockers, I found that my
increasing professional maturity and confidence made them redundant.

Robert Howe

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