Tasha Hedges took Xanax for 20 years to treat his anxiety and panic attacks, exactly as a psychiatrist had prescribed. Then, in 2022, that doctor died unexpectedly.
A general practitioner continued his recipe but retired shortly after. The next doctor moved to Canada. Finally, Mrs. Hedges found a new psychiatrist.
“The first thing is to start shouting that I had a leg in Xanax too long,” said Mrs. Hedges, 41, who lives in Waters Falling, W.VA. “Hello, my medications started me.”
Decontinating drugs generally requires decreasing the dose slowly approximately months or even years, a process called decrease. Mrs. Hedges stopped the cold turkey. Weakening abstinence symptoms followed: hot hot flashes, cold sweats, restless legs, milkshakes and teeth.
“It was a nightmare,” he said. Two years after suspending the medicine, it is still dealing with the consequences. “My brain does not have the same leg.”
In groups of social networks and websites such as Benzobuddies, people like Mrs. Hedges say they have become physically dependent on benzodiazepines. Many cut off their medicine or tape too fast, and face the symptoms of dangerous and potential life withdrawal, which can suspend the lung after drugs are suspended. Some doctors, fearful of the risks and stigma associated with thesis drugs, refuse to prescribe them.
“The Benzos generate as much anxiety in prescribing as in the patient,” said Dr. Ronald M. Winchel, a clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of Columbia. “Do I start it? Is it the right context? Is it safe?
Recipes for benzodiazepines such as Xanax, Ativan and Valium have agreed since 2016, partly due to conerns of doctors. Even so, these medications are prices and effective, and remain among the most commonly prescribed medications in the country to treat conditions, including anxiety and sleep disorders. In 2019, it is estimated that 92 million benzodiazepine recipes were distributed in the United States, according to the Food and Medicines Administration.
Current guidelines recommending the lowest effective dose for the shortest possible duration, usually less than four weeks. But patients tend to stay on them longer than that. An FDA review found that in 2018 approximately half or patients have touched them for two months or more. Sometimes, patients remain in them for years without regular records to see if drugs are still necessary or tolerated, said Dr. Edward K. Silberman, Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Tufts that he has often written about benzodiazepines.
Because patients can develop a physical dependence within several weeks of constant use of benzodiazepines, getting out of medications, just after a short period, it requires a gradual process. However, many practitioners are not well trained to reduce recipes. To clarify the process, in March, the experts of the American Medicine Society of Addictions published new guidelines for the reduction of the dose that were developed with FDA funds
“It is absolutely crazy to press people to get off and retire to people abruptly,” Dr. Ir. Silberman said.
Jody Jarreau, 60, rethinking Klonopin for insomnia 25 years ago while living in Dallas. When his psychiatrist stops practicing for medical reasons, Hey found another who suggested that take another two benzodiazepines, Xanax and Valium, and work to highlight the Klonopin.
After about six months of taking the three drugs, Jarreau frustrated and decided to take the matter in his own hands. Hello, Klonopin and Xanax were dismissed.
He is still trying to leave the valium, with the help of his general practitioner and a coach of the Benzodiazepine information coalition, a non -profit group.
Initially, said Jarreau, hey quickly of drugs and developed headaches, nausea and agoraphobia, which is an excessive and irrational fear of being in open or unknown places. But one of the most difficult abstinence symptoms has bone thoughts or suicide.
“There is a child or like this background noise that says, you know, he just takes out,” he said. “It would be easier. “
He says he had never experienced any of these symptoms before reducing drugs.
In 2023, the defenders of the injured by the benzodiazepines cool a name to the varied symptoms of pulmonary ingots that may arise duration of use, decrease or discontinuation of medications: neurological dysfunction induced by benzodiezepine or union.
Not everyone will experience BIND, they recognize. And with the correct decrease plan, experts say, side effects can be minimized.
“These are very good and safe drugs when the right dose is given to the right dose for the correct period of time,” said Dr. Carl Salzman, a professor of psychiatry at the Harvard School of Medicine and the former president of the Benzodiazepines associations of the Faculty of Benzodiazepine.
But I even thought that benzodiazepines have existed since the 60s, some doctors are not aware of The best way to help their patients stop making thesis drugs. This is partly due to the fact that there is no unique size reduction strategy. They are the symptoms of abstinence, some patients say, which make it necessary to continue accessing thesis medications while slowly narrowing.
Dr. Silberman remembered a patient who needed to shave the pill flakes with a razor blade to slowly reduce her dose and minimize difficult side effects.
The new ASAM guidelines to reduce the dose of a patient from a benzodiazepine are largely based on the clinical experience given the scarce and limited research on reduction. They recommend that doctors evaluate the risks and benefits of the prescription of the in progress that prescribes at least every three months and, by reducing, consider reducing the current dose by 5 to 10 percent every two to four weeks. Guidelines also say that patients who have been taking benzodiazepines for years may require more than a year of decrease, and should be monitored just after the medication has been discontinued.
“Most of us were never warned about the Long -term dependence and complications,” said De Foster, a researcher who contributed to the new guidelines and is a defender of people as his who have fought with the complications of Benzodiazepines. The slow decrease can be difficult, he added, “but the abrupt decrease can be dangerous.”
Asam’s guide came too late for Lasha Marbury, 49, who lives in the purchase, New York, and had a toy that physically depended on Klonopin. In 2022 he visited an addiction detoxification installation because he was desperate to stop doing, which had begun for insomnia. The installation practitioners left it in just five days.
Then, he cried hysterically and felt desperate, he said. He experienced night terrors who felt “almost like a lion is in the room, but you can’t see and you are fighting him,” an inability to sit still and deep depression. He visited another addiction installation in Florida, where he received an antidepressant. Within the week he began to feel much better.
Now, she said: “I sleep like a damn baby.”
And he wonders: was this, instead of benzodiazepine, the drug that should have prescribed the leg all the time?
“When I think about it, for what I happened, I cry,” he said. “It was a physical pain but it was a mental pain. And I am grateful to be alive.”
If you have thoughts about suicide, call or send a text message to 988 to reach the life line of suicide and the crisis of 988 or let’s talkfsuicide.com/resources to obtain an additional resources list.
