When are you going to get your MD? 🙂
Shh, don't jinx it.
I'm looking into doing a foundation studies course next year, which will allow me direct access to an under grad degree program if I meet the requirements. It's just a matter of finances.
Which paradoxical reaction you talking about? You mean when the patient instead of calming down gets more irritable? That's the one I see docs talking about the most.
Benzos like alcohol cause disinhibition in many because it depresses frontal cortex function. It's a reason why some docs don't recommend benzos be given to TBI or intellectually disabled patients when they are agitated.
It's also a reason why some people are happy drunks but some are just plain mean when drunk.
That makes sense, and I suppose you'd have to factor in that people metabolise different medications differently as well, for example I can get away with taking what most would consider sub-therapeutic doses of antidepressants and antipsychotics because I still get quantifiable beneficial effects on low doses. I've always figured it had something to do with the way my brain/body responds to drugs in general, because I was the same with illicit drugs, I could easily take 50% less of a dosage than what the average user would be taking, and I'd still be as dialed off my face as if I'd taken 3 times that amount.
The type of atypical reaction I'm talking about is the most common one with benzos, or at least what I understand to be common - when you take a dose and it more or less has the complete opposite effect. I've seen a rapid atypical reaction once in a close friend, who could take any other benzodiazepine and be fine, but one dose of Klonopin and he lost it. I received a rather frantic phone call from his girlfriend, and turned up to their house to find him with a knife held to his chest, sobbing and shouting about how his girlfriend was cheating on him , and planned to leave him, absolutely none of which was true. He claimed to have no memory of the event after the fact, so I'm not sure if he was in some sort of dissociative state or if he was just conveniently choosing to forget.
In my case the paradoxical reaction seemed to form over a fairly long period of time (around 8 years). When I first started Xanax everything was great, better than great even, but then the longer I stayed on it and the higher up they kept pushing the dosage, the more I gradually started to feel that something wasn't right, and that something eventually turned into a paradoxical reaction which consisted of agitation, insomnia, paranoia, extremely disregulated mood, sudden rage attacks (can't find the shirt I want to wear, time to rampage and start smashing the house up
🙄), etc etc.
