Are Prescription Drugs Really That Bad? (responsibility, psychologist, addiction, anxiety)
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Speaking from personal experience, benzodiazepines are the worst drugs on the planet. I would never ever ever ever recommend anyone taking any form of benzodiazepine unless they plan to stay on it for the rest of their lives. It is HIGHLY addictive. Yeah, people will say that you can easily quit with doctor's supervision by cutting your dose a little bit at a time, but that's bs. Benzos have hellish withdrawal symptoms, and truth be told doctors have no idea how to handle this process properly or how much mental and physical pain it causes. It can take months and even years to feel normal again after stopping benzos. It's a slow, frustrating and painful process. Not to mention that your anxiety comes back tenfold (maybe like a hundredfold), and then never goes away...literally no relief from the worst anxiety you can feel for months until you feel better.
Of course the severity of the withdrawal depends on how long you took your medication and your dose but even small doses can have nasty side effects. There is also a tolerance issue. It develops very quickly and the medication becomes less effective unless you up the dose. Do some research online. You'll find plenty of info on benzo withdrawal and a number of benzo message boards that are flooded with nightmare stories from all over the world.
I can't stress enough how serious this class of drugs is. I think they are fine for people with severe crippling anxiety..the ones who cannot function in society at all, but it's not any sort of a solution for anyone with anything less. In fact, it's a new problem..and an enormous problem at that.
Is it possible to use these drugs and avoid long-term side effects and unbearable withdrawal symptoms? Yeah, there are people who have quit after taking small doses with minimum side effects, but it's rare, and you have no idea how it'll turn out for you. If you don't plan on being medicated for the rest of your life, please don't start taking these.
Sometimes taking the med for a limited time while you "work" through the issues may be the way to go. Not counting on the med to "fix" you, but using it in order to work through the stuff with proper counciling.
Good luck.
Yes prescriptions drugs are really that bad and worse. But this is what you really need to know. Know that threre are standards for correct diagnosis. Example is the DSM IV Diagnostic Criteria for Generalized Anxiety Disorder as well as all others for any drug therapy of the brain. Anyone seeking treatment for the brain should seek the services of a licensed psychiatrist and should determine if they have the correct diagnosis and the correct treatment for that diagnosis. You should also seek out people that are treating a large number of similair patients that are well experienced with drug therapy. You should also print out the FDR legal write up or package insert of the drug. You should look under Warnings and Precautions and Adverse reactions. you should write up a page for each individual word listed. The purpose being that you will experience many of these but you really need to know what to look for as to spot it. For example agitation is one of the many items listed for clonazepam yet you are using it to reduce agitation. What does this mean? It means some times you will experience excessive agitation far beyond what you would normally expect without the drug. Watch for it and self control. Beware. I think you should have the drug on hand. Just understand that you need to use it wisely.
Speaking from personal experience, benzodiazepines are the worst drugs on the planet. I would never ever ever ever recommend anyone taking any form of benzodiazepine unless they plan to stay on it for the rest of their lives. It is HIGHLY addictive. Yeah, people will say that you can easily quit with doctor's supervision by cutting your dose a little bit at a time, but that's bs. Benzos have hellish withdrawal symptoms, and truth be told doctors have no idea how to handle this process properly or how much mental and physical pain it causes. It can take months and even years to feel normal again after stopping benzos. It's a slow, frustrating and painful process. Not to mention that your anxiety comes back tenfold (maybe like a hundredfold), and then never goes away...literally no relief from the worst anxiety you can feel for months until you feel better.
Of course the severity of the withdrawal depends on how long you took your medication and your dose but even small doses can have nasty side effects. There is also a tolerance issue. It develops very quickly and the medication becomes less effective unless you up the dose. Do some research online. You'll find plenty of info on benzo withdrawal and a number of benzo message boards that are flooded with nightmare stories from all over the world.
I can't stress enough how serious this class of drugs is. I think they are fine for people with severe crippling anxiety..the ones who cannot function in society at all, but it's not any sort of a solution for anyone with anything less. In fact, it's a new problem..and an enormous problem at that.
Is it possible to use these drugs and avoid long-term side effects and unbearable withdrawal symptoms? Yeah, there are people who have quit after taking small doses with minimum side effects, but it's rare, and you have no idea how it'll turn out for you. If you don't plan on being medicated for the rest of your life, please don't start taking these.
I absolutely agree with all of this. I will never ever go on another benzodiazepine, I don't care how bad my anxiety is. I was on Xanax for years, and in the first few years, on the smallest dose. I never abused it, yet if I ran out, less than 12 hours after it was out of my system (it has a short half-life), I would start going through withdrawal. In the end, because I lost my insurance, my pdoc dropped me, and I couldn't find another pdoc or even MD that would re-prescribe the Xanax and other psych drugs, including Cymbalta, Neurontin and an anti-psychotic, all of which needed to be tapered off. Instead, I was forced to go off of all of them at the same time, cold-turkey, and it was absolutely horrible. Benzo withdrawal is compared with heroin withdrawal and is said to be worse - I can guarantee you, you don't want to go through it. It took over two months before the withdrawal symptoms calmed enough so that I could function again, and some of the symptoms lingered on for over a year. You can have seizures from cold-turkey withdrawal from benzos, yet even ERs wouldn't help me. Even though these were all drugs prescribed by my doctors, and even though I had never abused any of them, I was looked upon as a drug abuser and drug seeker wherever I went when the withdrawal symptoms started. I had hallucinations, uncontrollable shaking, I caused permanent scarring inside my mouth from uncontrollable biting down on the inside of my cheeks - it was really, really awful.
So, realize that, even with the smallest dose of a benzo, there is full potential for you to become dependent on it, and getting off of it can be extremely difficult. Check out Benzodiazepine Withdrawal Information, Help & Support for more info.
I believe that sometimes, a short duration of some psych drugs is necessary, but beware the doctor that wants to put you on some of these drugs long-term. As said above, many psych drugs are prescribed to counter the side effects of others, and before you know it, you are on many psych drugs that can have serious side effects. Some of those side effects can be irreversible, such as extrapyramidal symptoms, which several people I know have developed after being on some anti-psychotics and SSRIs. Do your research on all the psych drugs your doctors want to prescribe, don't go in blind and trusting, keep yourself informed.
Physicians want a waiting room filled with bright shiny people.
HMOs are the worst.
I was taking so many prescribed antibiotics for my infected tonsils that the HMO called and accuse me of selling them. I finally had my tonsils out at 27 and woke up in a lake of fire, but that is another story.
No there's nothing wrong with taking medication so that it helps you. Taking Paxil has helped my anxiety and depression tremendously, including my OCD.
I was feeling no anxiety when my doc prescribed 2 mg 4X per day of Klonipin.... that was several years ago and I must say that although I had no anxiety my quality of life suffered. I'm sure you know all about addiction so think wisely and proceed with caution...hopefully you just need it temporarily.
~Running is a great anxiety reducer for obvious reasons.
No there's nothing wrong with taking medication so that it helps you. Taking Paxil has helped my anxiety and depression tremendously, including my OCD.
I'm glad it helped. While I personally had a bad experience with Paxil, I do realize it helps some people too. I think doctors could do a better job in informing patients of side effects and I learned as a result of my experience to do better research on prescriptions before I take them.
That's what I don't get about a lot of the anti-prescription reaction, and I'm not just talking in this thread or on the site. Someone has a bad reaction to a drug, say Xanax or Paxil and they become convinced it's evil, no one should take it and it should be banned. I can say I certainly don't want to take Paxil again and I'm a bit wary of anti-depressants in general based on my experience. FOR ME. Other people respond well to Paxil/anti-depressants and if they do, good for them. I'm glad they are able to find relief from their symptoms.
That entire article is about people who abuse benzos. I have NEVER abused benzos, EVER and most people who are prescribed benzos don't either. The whole point of any anti-benzo talk is that it is next to impossible for your body to not become dependent on it, and once it is, it is absolute hell to get off of it. That psych is blaming the patients for being "benzo-sponges" - he is saying that it is the patients' fault, not the fault of the psychiatrist or the drug manufacturers. I repeat, most all people who take benzos will never abuse them, but most will become physically dependent on the drug and have great difficulty withdrawing from them. That article is a self-serving load of crap by a doctor who is out of touch with reality and wants to shift blame for this problem away from himself and the medical community.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Ethical Drugs
