alt Hacker NewsI helped my mother go through this after her psych decided it was time for her to cold turkey a 4x a day xanax prescription she'd been taking for 20+ years. 5 total ER trips, 3 separate hospitalizations, and a full year of absolute misery before she started getting some relief. A YEAR.
I have watched family members die of AIDS, cancer, and Alzheimers. I have myself recovered from alcoholism (5 years next month!). Nothing in all my life has ever held a candle to how hellish Benzo withdrawal is. These drugs need to be banned. Period.
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I take Xanax when I fly. I have a prescription for a whopping 10 pills, and it usually lasts me three months. It does exactly what it's supposed to. "Banned, Period" is assuming your experience justifies taking everyone else's away, and those of us using them responsibly benefit quite a bit. 4x a day is also over recommended dosages, depending on strength - so that's more on the doctor than the drug.
People who have been taking benzos for decades with no dose escalation should be left alone. Most people develop tolerance quickly to the sedative and hypnotic and anti-convulsive effects. But not everybody develops tolerance to its anxiolytic effect, and few legitimate patients abuse the things for fun, despite what the recent zeitgeist and sob/horror stories would like us to believe.
Obviously it's been overprescribed. Old school doctors likely still do prescribe it too easily. And new docs often plainly refuse to prescribe it at all. The solution doesn't have to be black or white. Doctors have the ability to limit the number of pills per month a patient can get, imagine that! It doesn't have to be nothing at all vs as-needed-which-means-the-full-30-pills-every-month-inviting-the-patient-to-start-taking-it-daily. It can be "give 5-10 pills per month".
That way the doctor can monitor the patient needs more closely and effectively prevent both addiction and tolerance from developing (to preempt: no, most people cannot in fact easily source it from the black market, and doctor shopping is no longer a thing for controlled drugs thanks to the opiod crisis).
>These drugs need to be banned. Period.
I've lived with that as well, but I've also spent months carved up (surgically) and there is no replacement for the role that they play medically.
I can't agree with a complete ban. It's better to get awareness out there about the harm they can do, and put better controls on access to them but not a ban.
I live with anxiety -there's no other drugs that work for it. Luckily I'm able to use DBT and straight up avoidence to cope with anxiety. But if I didn't have that last option then I'd be hosed -because there really is not anything that works effciently for treating anxiety; at least not in my personal experience (which goes back decades).
> These drugs need to be banned. Period.
I don't think so. It should be drilled into doctors' heads to prescribe them very cautiously and always warn about the addiction potential. But they have their legitimate uses and in some cases are irreplaceable.
How is forcing her to cold turkey that not malpractice?
I need the occasional benzo (midazolam) as a rescue medicine for my seizures a few times a year. Banning these things just makes it harder for people who actually need these life saving medicines. Most epilepsy drugs, including non-benzo, are strictly scheduled and it makes my life hell. It is very hard to get these medicines sometimes because of these rules (fuck the DEA, and your opinion), seizures can be lethal, especially compounded with withdrawal.
I was out of options for anti-seizure drugs outside of the benzo class, which I refused to take on a daily basis (clobazam). I have had to taper and switch many AEDs in the past, none were too hard (2-4 weeks) but I didn’t want to be stuck on this one and have to taper it for months should I have needed to.