Benzo withdrawal induced mania

[mikefiftynine]

I've found most of the people complaining of problems with benzodiazepines have other mental health issues, are on other medications, and / or are polydrug abusers.

The so-called online help forums for these people function along the lines of a cult. The people that inhabit these sites follow a perversion of Prof. Heather Ashton's work and actually claim to know more than the doctors do. They retail the idea that doctors are in league with Big Pharma to harm the patient. To say it is pretty nuts is an understatement.

These sites appear to foster and encourage mental illness. At them one will find anti-medicine and anti-doctor bias in spades. Quite often the people there have not followed their doctor's advice but eagerly follow the advice of total strangers they met on the internet. I noted quite a few are fresh out of a mental hospital.

Most people do not have any trouble coming off this class of medication.

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[whopper]

A problem with many of the anti-conventional medical movements is they go completely on the opposite side of the spectrum.

I believe Andrew Wiel has gone too commercial, but he said things that made sense. If sticking your unit into a live beehive was found in studies, based on good design and was replicated, to actually cure cancer, then I'd accept it. (The example is sarcasm for those of you who didn't get it yet). The problem here is conventional doctors would still refuse to accept it because it's outside their mental box, and the anti-medical movement would back it up even if there were no studies.

Real medicine should be evidenced-based. If fish oil were to found to actually help something, if it's a good risk/benefit ratio, then we should be open to it. Several doctors I've seen refuse to touch it because it seems too holistic to them, and to them, anything along those lines is quackery no matter the scientific data. Yes, medicine to them is about science, but to them, science must fit a paradigm along the lines of a philosophy.

In short, people have developed near-religious models on what medicine should be. It shouldn't be that way. If a guy breaks their arm, you can pump as much green tea as you want into the guy's veins. It's not going to help his broken arm.

If people want to stop their seizure meds because Kevin Trudeau told them to, then get a seizure and die, there's little we can do about it. I do, however, encourage medical doctors to actually listen to their patients because I think that's one of the reasons why Trudeau gets so many fans following his quackery...these people are jaded and disappointed with their medical doctors who aren't listening and teaching them about their medical condition for real.

Most people do not have any trouble coming off this class of medication.

I'm assuming you mean benzos. No, plenty of people do have a problem getting off of it if left on it too long and they've been on too high a dosage. As for other psychotropics, Paxil and Effexor aren't easy to get off of either. I've seen patients go through withdrawal when going off those meds, even when done very slowly. Several of the psychotropics, while not addictive, must be tapered down along a controlled schedule or the results could be bad.

 

[LPC]

Ziggy is absolutely correct. I am now 16 months free of benzodiazepines and am just now healed. It amazes me the ignorance in the medical field of the dangers of this class of drug. I was told during the acute withdrawal phase (first two months) by several doctors that I could not possibly be in withdrawal since the drug was "out of my system". True, given the half life, the drug was indeed out of my system; however, my GABA receptors were damaged. Only time can heal them. Not one doctor validated my experience. I was put on Restoril for "insomnia" for three years. I never abused the drug and am not a drug addict. In fact, I am a therapist who had a lucrative private practice but had to give it up due to the devastation caused by the withdrawal. I had almost every withdrawal symptom possible but no seizures because I was put on Neurontin and then had difficulty tapering from that, as well.

I am going back into private practice where I specialize in children/adolescent mental illness. I have decided to also accept clients who are experiencing psychotropic medication withdrawal syndromes. They need help and are not being heard. The arrogance and/or ignorance of the medical community is astounding to me.

Ziggy knows exactly what he is talking about. I have spoken with hundreds of people who are not addicts or drug seekers but normal, every day citizens who have had their lives ruined by these drugs. It is a travesty.

This post is to hopefully open some of the residents' eyes because for whatever reasons, other doctors are not paying attention. I have learned to listen to my clients and not assume a know-it-all attitude. This has helped tremendously.

From someone who has been there, I would never wish benzodiazepine withdrawal on my worst enemy.

 

[whopper]

I've been telling my patients to report doctors who do poor practice to the state medical board.

Most patients do not know they have this option. In several states, on the website of the board, there is a link to a complaint form.

Any patient I have where there is strong reason to suspect an iatrogenic problem that was not addressed to the patient by their previous doctor, I tell the patient how to get to the link. It's no secret. Simply type in -your state- and medical board, and voila, it'll likely be the first hit.

 

[clement]

humm, interesting thread...i recently had a pt started on a low dose of xanax in their early 40s for a few months for the first time in pt's life... for what an urgent care center believed to be panic attacks...high functioning, linear pt, pt started exhibiting frank mania for the very first time in pt's life (including one time in our unit with me as a witness), rambling and shaking hands with all the other patients literally out of the blue...with some paranoid delusions during the mania. the whole thing was VERY quick, lasted maybe 4 minutes tops, and he was already getting it together/clearing before IM's entered the picture. while on our unit, pt always attributed these bouts of mania to corresponding with periods when pt was off the xanax and was absolutely not BZD-seeking during pt's stay ( I had the PRNs on board)...but i always assumed pt meant mania in the context of insomnia while off BZD. pt was psych history and substance naive.

we did an mri of the brain and found a potential pit adenoma...cortisol level, tsh, etc all wnl.

 

[Ziggy1977]

I'm sure if ziggy's doc had told him to kill a chicken, drink it's blood, and bury the head at the crossroads he might have done it. Extreme example, but it makes a point.

Wouldn't go that far.... it comes down to trust. I trusted the medical field. One because that is all I knew and two my father was in the business. Why wouldn't I? They were the smart ones... but I came to realize it is simply a guessing game. The results of how I would react to a medication could not be seen until my blood chemistry had been completely altered which usually took about 3-4 weeks. If I reacted poorly, then I was switched to another antidepressant only to endure their side effects. Before long I became depressed from the actual side effects and lost touch with why I was even on the medication to begin with.

I was too young to understand what an antidepressant was when I was first put on at the age of 13. Then ultimately the AD gave me GAD and was introduced to Xanax XR. I believe if I saw a therapist, rather than a psychiatrist when I was 13 I more likely would have been diagnosed with situational depression. Situational because I had just moved across the country for my father's job and lost all of my grade school friends in a difficult time in a boy's life called puberty.

-Ziggy

 

[whopper]

it comes down to trust. I trusted the medical field.

I mentioned this in a few other threads, but IMHO, several doctors put as much attention into their job as a burger flipper.

It's hard to become a doctor, it's hard to graduate from a residency. After that, there's a lot of free reign. With that extreme amount of power, a lot of doctors choose not to do the right thing. They choose to do the easy thing.

There's only two ways I can see of that would realistically control this problem. 1) Patients that had bad experiences with doctors need to report it. A problem here is many patients don't know what that is. It's like having a guy say your car will cost $3500 to fix or $5000. Unless you know how to fix a car yourself, you don't know where they're coming from. Some patients will complain even if they received good care because of factors such as "the doctor refused to give me my Xanax!" Several patients will complain even if they got quality services if the end result was not the one they wanted.

2) State medical boards need to send in medically trained people to act as patients and evaluate the work of other doctors. Doctors that do extremely poor work could get their license removed. A problem here is several doctors cannot tolerate the idea of actually being evaluated for real and blow up in anger, to which my response is...what are you afraid of? I brought this idea up before in another area of this forum (a nonpsychiatric one).

The other problem, and IMHO this is actually a valid one, is someone who is in the position of evaluating another doctor might go critic-happy and give every single doctor a bad evaluation. Option #2 only works IMHO if you have very open but definable criteria where only violation of exact standards and a very poor level of care could be used make sure a doctor has their license removed.

IMHO, state medical boards need to take a much more proactive approach in stopping doctors that freely give out meds of abuse. I know of several patients telling me they know the exact doctors to go to get their hit of meds of abuse, and the doctors doing this IMHO seem to know what's going on. They're not doing it because patients take advantage of them. They're doing it because it makes them money, or they're just too lazy to explain basic information about a med that's federally required.

 

[Ziggy1977]

My father actually wrote a letter to the doctor in question and in so many words threatened to take his license away. We were not raised in a family where we seek retaliation. Sometimes it is better to move along and enjoy the times you have remaining on this earth with as little drama as possible.

Though the flip side is what if he does it to someone else? Should I set an example? Believe me I have debated this in my own conscious and have still not reached a conclusion. Perhaps that day will come in the near future.

-Ziggy

 

[Ziggy1977]

From my reading and research mikefiftynine is a member of 4chan where basically him and his peers attempt to hack into forums and steal member databases to get access personal data. It's worth a read...

-Ziggy

And no I'm not in a cult.... furthest thing from it. I'm an independent venture capitalist.. but that's about it...

 

[whopper]

Sometimes it is better to move along and enjoy the times you have remaining on this earth with as little drama as possible.

Simply reporting what happened to the state medical board is relatively pain-free and only takes minutes.

I understand someone not wanting to go through a lawsuit. That's potentially expensive and will make it more difficult for the person to move ahead with their life.

At least in the state I'm in, I've seen some complaints actually turn into action. A doctor I know was accused by a very psychotic patient of doing some things that were very likely from psychosis. (E.g. being part of a world-wide conspiracy to "suck it and phuck it"-oops I spelled the word wrong). The state still investigated the doctor. Yeah, he was exonerated, but that goes to show you, at least where I'm at, they do listen.

The problem is most patients don't know they have the option to write a complaint.

 

[DreamPatient]

Hello All,

I arrived at this forum via my Google search for "Benzo withdrawal induced mania." This thread began four years ago and continued for three years, so the subject may still have legs. In reading all of the previous posts I'm left with a yet more enhanced grasp of the general subject from both the medical and the patient's side. I thank all for contributing. (Yes even the confrontational posts. They're instructive and oh so human.) In the chance that the original poster, other medical students or professionals, or anyone from the patient's side does a search similar to mine in the future, I'll share my story in the hopes that it might help either doctor or patient, or one in the same as the case sometimes is.

On May 30th of this year, after 22 years of daily Klonopin use (2 mg TID), I was forced to go "cold turkey" for the very first time. I had missed a dose or even an entire day or two before, but for 22 years I was the quintessence of compliant, as my member name here implies. I was indeed a poster child "dream patient" of compliance. I lasted less than a week then without Klonopin before serious problems set in. You see, I had no idea what I was getting myself into by discontinuing the medication, and I simply couldn't get to my doctor for a prescription for the first time ever. Miss your appointment and you have to wait for another. I had no idea that I'd never make that one either. I began to mentally unravel quite quickly, and after three or four initial days that were very tense and yet worsening still with every horrific moment, I had but a day or two with a very vague awareness of reality as I'd always known it before I was finally hospitalized. Sleeping as well as eating went from being difficult to impossible prior to hospitalization. I have no recollection whatsoever of my being hospitalized. That might be a good thing.

The last day or two prior to hospitalization I can only now in retrospect remember as being well beyond mere anxiety. I was delusional and beginning to hallucinate for the first time in my life. I then lost two weeks of my life in the hospital. Two weeks gone forever, and perhaps quite mercifully so. All my memories now of that next two weeks are a seemingly endless series of somehow loosely connected nightmares of a magnitude I'd never known - yet disconnected as well all at once. I'll spare you the horrible details, but indicate that they were persecutory or grandiose by and large. It was a very real, unimaginably frightening and different world than I could ever imagine. I'd never believed in it before, but hell is a quick and useful word in describing it. Really the only word.

When I came out of this lost two weeks and first began trying to put together what had happened, I was in a soiled disposable adult diaper along with a catheter and IV, and totally clueless as to what had happened for what I only then learned had been two full weeks of my life. My point now in responding to this thread is that the attending psychiatrist, who I only got to see for perhaps 5-10 minutes afterwards, would only tell me that I'd had a severe manic episode. That was it. No other possible explanation. It was clear as could be to him with no doubts at all. I then spent perhaps another five days in the hospital for observation, was deemed well enough to be discharged, and left with no further recommendations from the hospital or any doctor on what I should do then as far as treatment was concerned. I'd never had a remotely similar experience in my life, manic episode, psychotic break - call it what you will. I have certainly never been hospitalized before or since. It was this and only this: my own experience with cold turkey benzodiazepine withdrawal as I now understand it to be. Period.

Perhaps what's of value here is the fact that the doctors treating me in the hospital had no idea of my previous psychiatric history or that I was in withdrawal from benzodiazepines, thus able to approach my condition in the hospital with no bias whatsoever. They had no idea that I was withdrawing, and were able to go on only what they they saw without a history or any knowledge of my withdrawal to color that. (I didn't know it either at the time. Yes, I was that naive, trusting, and poorly informed.) They saw only an extreme manic episode in full bloom. I too was unresponsive to any and all med's to arrest it, and they did not administer any benzodiazepines whatsoever, although my hunch is that they would have stopped it. My manic episode lasted full-blown psychotic (what else would one call it?) for almost two weeks and then inexplicably stopped. Yay.

I am a 55 year-old male, with a diagnosis of bipolar at age 32, and treated for 22+ years for such. I simply always did what my doctors told me to do. That meant strict compliance. I took Klonopin only per doctor's orders, and remained on it for 22 years without anyone batting an eyelash. My original dose remained unchanged for 22+ years, and that lack of tolerance over the years seemed to fortify my complacency in deeming it as "safe." Yes, prior to diagnosis I had hypomanic cycling as well as depressive. On the "Fieve-Dunner Manic-Depression Mood Scale" (very useful for bipolars and their doctors in communicating) I would have rated myself as being in a steady state between 50-55 during the days and weeks leading up to my running out of Klonopin. I have no reason to believe that my withdrawal simply served to somehow horrifically amplify any existing manic state whatsoever. I am far more toward the conviction that the withdrawal instead unleashed perhaps more at either a potential, possible, or predictable outcome for a true bipolar subjected to cold turkey benzodiazepine withdrawal, perhaps then again when dosed at my level or near it for as long as I was or at least long enough to have become addicted. That such cold turkey benzodiazepine withdrawal within a bipolar diagnosis either can or will present additionally as a frank manic/psychotic break. Whether this is the rule or the exception and/or dependent upon what variables in what percentage of what group and/or subgroup within bipolar and/or outside of it - I do not know. I can only share my experience.

From what you said (whopper in the original post to this thread) there was no indication as to your patient's history prior to her coming under your care, and no way to either rule in or out that she may have arrived at the hospital either as a result of her cessation of benzodiazepines or whether or not she may have been already further along in a withdrawal situation when she came under your care. Folks that end up in hospitals aren't always able to accurately convey either their histories or any reliable life routine prior to being admitted, and upon being hospitalized then fall under the care of the powers that be. After all, they're a psych patient, and not always able to do so. I know this personally. I went through it and I didn't know anything about anything until all was over. She may have been in an off and on stop and go twilight world re: her benzodiazepine cessation/withdrawal that you simply walked into quite possibly unable to ascertain reliably just where she was along the lines of her true withdrawal journey at that time. Much as those that attended to me didn't know. She was simply hospitalized with definitive and perhaps psychotic mania that could not be treated as well as simultaneously suffering from benzodiazepine withdrawal all at once.

So was I.

It is altogether very interesting, and I thank you once again for your sharing. You're a highly intuitive and empathetic professional. I can only hope that my story helps someone as well in any way.

It really doesn't surprise me to have found this thread though.

After all, I'm the one that Googled "Benzo withdrawal induced mania."

Cheers!


DreamPatient

 

[Ceke2002]

I realise this is a fairly old thread that has been resurrected, but having read through some of the responses I'd just like to say...

To those who are posting as 'anti psychiatry', because 'big pharma, psychiatrists don't understand the true dangers of benzos, med students aren't properly educated', etc etc. It was a general practitioner/family doctor who originally prescribed a benzodiazepine to me, and it was a general practitioner/family doctor who kept me on them for several years whilst continually upping the dosage. In the end it was a psychiatrist who helped me get off them, and it has been psychiatrists who I've found have generally had a far safer and more educated approach to benzodiazepine usage than any other medical practioner I've come across.

And just a quick aside, it's been interesting to read of people/patient's experiences with psychotic episodes during benzo withdrawal. I'm not sure if my already having a diagnosis of PMD meant that I was more susceptible to psychosis during withdrawal, or if it was just the fact that silly me tried to go cold turkey off an average daily dose of 8-10 mgs of Xanax taken over the past 4 years (can we say 'grand mal seizure'? I thought we could ). Anyway, the first night withdrawing was the one and only time I have ever truly, completely, lost touch with reality. I suppose I should at least be thankful it was a 'fun' sort of psychosis. I'm pretty sure I've mentioned it on here before, but I spent most of the night, in a house that looked like it had turned into an amusement park fun, sitting in front of our fish tank, 'communicating', because I thought I was transmitting messages from our fishes to their 'brothers and sisters' in the ocean. It was like this awesome 'power to the fishes, right on' bonding thing I had going on at the time, and there wasn't one single part of me that went 'Hmm, you know this might not actually be real, do you think maybe you're experiencing a psychotic reaction to the benzo withdrawal?' Nope, as far as I was concerned what I was experiencing was 100% real, it was only in hindsight that I realised I was actually both hallucinating and delusional at the time.

Had some auditory hallucinations in the ER about an hour after having a grand mal seizure on the second night as well. I started singing along (quietly I might add) to a song I thought was being played through the air conditioner, until my husband pointed out the air conditioner wasn't actually playing music. I felt kinda sheepish, because I recognised straight away I was hallucinating. Not sure if that was still some residual sort of psychotic symptoms going on due to the withdrawal, or whether I was still in a bit of a post ictal (sp?) state because of the seizure.

Anyway, I mostly just wanted to counteract some of the 'Psychiatrists are bad, mmkay' posts in this thread.

*goes back to lurking*

 

[PikminOC]

I thought someone just wanted to resurrect Whopper!

 

[DD214_DOC]

Can we please stop calling a few minutes of hyperactive and bizarre behavior, "mania"? Mania has a very specific meaning. I received a discharge follow-up patient who had less than 24 hours of, "mania" with, "visual hallucinations" that was diagnosed as bipolar I with psychotic fx and jacked up to 900mg nightly of seroquel, which essentially ruined her life from weight gain and oversedation.

If the ward team had realized that manic-like behavior for less than a day is NOT mania, and that seeing the walls waving was NOT a hallucination, they may have bothered to get the MRI that I ordered and saw her multiple bifrontal and parietal lobe lesions.

I know every specialty has its geniuses and dunces, but I'm frequently surprised at how crappy some psychiatrists actually are.

I admittedly only skimmed the details of the case, but couldn't delirium from bzd be an explanation given the on/off nature of the symptoms and the fact that it isn't actually mania? I don't recall seeing mention of any other additional or more specific symptom clusters.

 

[birchswing]

This thread was suggested to me when I was posting in another one. I had not read it before. I can only add my own two cents and I've experienced disbelief before, so I am willing to accept it. It hurts me to see how people attacked Ziggy as a drug addict. I was 15 when I first saw a psychiatrist. My first and at that time only treatment was Ativan daily, indefinitely. Went off to college and was switched by the school's psychiatrist to a heavier dose of Klonopin, which I was told was not really a benzodiazepine and was not addictive. I have never been prescribed a psychiatric medication by a primary care doctor. My main current diagnosis is iatrogenic benzodiazepine dependence. My problem is that psychiatrists are so backed up that the one I see with whom I am a patient of record can only do follow-ups three months out. She doesn't do phone calls or e-mails, not even for emergencies. It's 911 or nothing. It's a very difficult position. Everyone is booked. I asked my primary care doctor if he could handle my psychiatric needs and he said that he didn't feel qualified. I have a friend who recently saw a psychiatrist and was prescribed Xanax. And while I've told this story before and it wasn't believed, my dental hygienist's husband saw a psychiatrist who prescribed an antidepressant. It made him anxious. The doctor told him that he had anxiety "underneath" his depression which the SSRI had lifted. She gave him a benzo—I think Xanax.

 

[birchswing]

Most people do not have any trouble coming off this class of medication.

This is where it started for me. This belief by doctors is what causes iatrogenic benzodiazepine dependence. I was told this many times over 15 years ago. Catch up to 1960 when the Lancet first reported physical dependence resulting from benzodiazepine use.

 

[Ceke2002]

This thread was suggested to me when I was posting in another one. I had not read it before. I can only add my own two cents and I've experienced disbelief before, so I am willing to accept it. It hurts me to see how people attacked Ziggy as a drug addict. I was 15 when I first saw a psychiatrist. My first and at that time only treatment was Ativan daily, indefinitely. Went off to college and was switched by the school's psychiatrist to a heavier dose of Klonopin, which I was told was not really a benzodiazepine and was not addictive. I have never been prescribed a psychiatric medication by a primary care doctor. My main current diagnosis is iatrogenic benzodiazepine dependence. My problem is that psychiatrists are so backed up that the one I see with whom I am a patient of record can only do follow-ups three months out. She doesn't do phone calls or e-mails, not even for emergencies. It's 911 or nothing. It's a very difficult position. Everyone is booked. I asked my primary care doctor if he could handle my psychiatric needs and he said that he didn't feel qualified. I have a friend who recently saw a psychiatrist and was prescribed Xanax. And while I've told this story before and it wasn't believed, my dental hygienist's husband saw a psychiatrist who prescribed an antidepressant. It made him anxious. The doctor told him that he had anxiety "underneath" his depression which the SSRI had lifted. She gave him a benzo—I think Xanax.

I think most of the criticism that was aimed towards Ziggy came less from one or two isolated people accusing him of being an addict, and more from the fact that mixed in with some very interesting ideas and observations there was also a whole tonne of misinterpreted BS. Besides that you really have to learn to accept the fact that a lot of people who do get hooked on benzos are simply addicts, by the accepted meaning of the word, and did not become dependent on the medication through anyone's fault but their own, and therefore, by extension, practicing medical professionals discussing or speculating upon situations of possible addictive behaviours with benzodiazipene (ab)use should not automatically be interpreted as a slight on you, or me, or any other number of patients who legitimately found themselves on the short end of the stick when it came to the rampant misprescribing of these drugs.

 

[Porcupinee]

Sorry for reviving this thread, just know that I did read the entire thing.

Also sorry if this is breaking the rules. Just delete my post if so. Just know that I am posting this solely to increase your medical standard. Perhaps it is common, but this thread is the end destination of a google search and is, at this day and age, at the for front of understanding.

I see that there have been two people who have posted something similar. OK, so last month after using non-rx benzos for severe insomnia (research bzds) I developed I hefty tolerance. Yes, I am a drug addict. No need to debate this or remind me. I already know you hate me in the medical field. After cessation from this bzd, and 5-6 days of not sleeping I went into psychosis. I was treated with anti-psychotics and after 3 days, I was finally released with the diagnosis of bipolar with psychotic features; mania. They even tested me for seizures and they determined I was not having one. I wanted to say this because there was a poster who mentioned that they were tired of people thinking everything was psychosis.

Anyway, I just wanted to let you all know this is becoming more common and I really wanted to touch on the seizure thing. They treated me with only 100mg of seroquel and it worked. It doesn't work anymore, unfortunately, which is why I started googling but it did work at the time.

 

[birchswing]

Sorry for reviving this thread, just know that I did read the entire thing.

Also sorry if this is breaking the rules. Just delete my post if so. Just know that I am posting this solely to increase your medical standard. Perhaps it is common, but this thread is the end destination of a google search and is, at this day and age, at the for front of understanding.

I see that there have been two people who have posted something similar. OK, so last month after using non-rx benzos for severe insomnia (research bzds) I developed I hefty tolerance. Yes, I am a drug addict. No need to debate this or remind me. I already know you hate me in the medical field. After cessation from this bzd, and 5-6 days of not sleeping I went into psychosis. I was treated with anti-psychotics and after 3 days, I was finally released with the diagnosis of bipolar with psychotic features; mania. They even tested me for seizures and they determined I was not having one. I wanted to say this because there was a poster who mentioned that they were tired of people thinking everything was psychosis.

Anyway, I just wanted to let you all know this is becoming more common and I really wanted to touch on the seizure thing. They treated me with only 100mg of seroquel and it worked. It doesn't work anymore, unfortunately, which is why I started googling but it did work at the time.

Sorry about your experience.

There are a lot of great support groups on Facebook and also benzobuddies.org if you're still having protracted withdrawal symptoms.

When you read news reports of people who have died in prisons because they were withheld benzodiazepines, it's clear that they have gone into psychotic states before dying.

This is a good study on the severity of people's experiences:
High-dose benzodiazepine dependence: a qualitative study of patients’ perception on cessation and withdrawal

It's in the news a lot again because of the singer who was on Ativan who recently died, but it doesn't get as much attention as opioids or nearly as much accurate understanding.

 

[Epicurean]

This whole ‘the doctor’ made me an addict is preposterous. There isn’t an organism on Earth that doesn’t realise that Benzos are addictive long term, and most people can come off with a slow taper easily actually. I was on 100 mg Diazepam daily down to nothing in 8 months. No withdrawal no nothing. But then again I am in the uk and our doctors will not prescribe for more than 7 days and why we don’t have an opioid epidemic here. I was an addict before I went to the doctor - she helped me to stop.

 

[birchswing]

@Epicurean

This:

"This whole ‘the doctor’ made me an addict is preposterous."

does not jibe with this:

"Our doctors will not prescribe for more than 7 days and why we don’t have an opioid epidemic here."

 

[NickNaylor]

This whole ‘the doctor’ made me an addict is preposterous. There isn’t an organism on Earth that doesn’t realise that Benzos are addictive long term, and most people can come off with a slow taper easily actually. I was on 100 mg Diazepam daily down to nothing in 8 months. No withdrawal no nothing. But then again I am in the uk and our doctors will not prescribe for more than 7 days and why we don’t have an opioid epidemic here. I was an addict before I went to the doctor - she helped me to stop.

Two thoughts:

1) Yes, there are a LOT of people that are surprisingly health illiterate and flat-out deny the possibility of dependence, misuse, abuse, and other long-term effects of BZDs (e.g., cognitive impairment). One of my clinic patients - who has been advised of these side effects NUMEROUS times over the 2 or so years that she’s been seen in the clinic - simply said to me “no, that won’t happen to me” when I again discussed with her the risks of long-term BZD use. Perhaps you might argue this is willful ignorance vs. denial, but nevertheless I’m no longer surprised at what patients don’t understand about things that we might assume are fairly “common knowledge.”

2) Good for you on getting off the diazepam, but the literature and most clinical evidence would suggest that your experience is fairly atypical. N=1 anecdotes does not broad experience make. I have found that I typically have no trouble reducing BZD doses, but the final push from 25-50% of starting dose to completely discontinued is extremely difficult for most patients from what I’ve found.