Tasha Hedges took Xanax for 20 years to treat her anxiety and panic attacks, just as a psychiatrist had prescribed it. In 2022, the doctor died unexpectedly.
A general practitioner continued her recipe but retired shortly afterwards. The next doctor moved to Canada. Eventually Mrs. Hedges found a new psychiatrist.
“The first thing he did was starting to scream to me that I had been on Xanax for too long,” said Mrs. Hedges, 41, who lives in falling waters, W.Va. “He tore me from my medicines.”
Stopping the drug usually requires the dose of the dose slowly for months or even years, a process that is called tapered. Mrs. Hedges stopped cold turkey. Full of withdrawal symptoms followed: hot flashes, cold sweat, restless legs, the shakes and teeth grinding.
“It was a nightmare,” she said. Two years after the drug stopping, she still has to deal with the Fallout. “My brain has not been the same.”
In social media groups and websites such as benzobuddies, people like Mrs. Hedges say that they have become physically dependent on benzodiazepines. Many are then cut off from their medication or tapered too quickly, and are confronted with dangerous and potentially life -threatening withdrawal symptoms that can linger for a long time after the medicines have been stopped. Some doctors, afraid of the risks and stigma associated with these medicines, refuse to prescribe at all.
“Benzos generate as much fear in the prescriber as the patient,” said Dr. Ronald M. Winchel, an assistant clinical professor in psychiatry at Columbia University. “Am I starting? Is it the right context? Is it safe? Is my patient going to abuse? What will my colleagues think?”
Regulations for benzodiazepines such as Xanax, Ativan and Valium have been in trending since 2016, partly because of the worries of doctors. Nevertheless, these drugs are considered fast and effective and remain one of the most prescribed drugs in the country to treat disorders such as anxiety and sleep disorders. In 2019, an estimated 92 million regulations were provided in Benzodiazepine in the United States, According to the food and drug administration.
Current guidelines recommend Usually prescribe the lowest effective dose Less than four weeks. But patients stay on it even longer. A FDA -Assessment Discovered that in 2018 about half of the patients took them two months or more. Sometimes patients stay on them for years without regular checks to see if the medicines are still needed or tolerated, Dr. Edward K. Silberman, an emeritus of the professor of psychiatry at the Tufts University School of Medicine that has often written about benzodiazepines.
Because patients can develop a physical dependence Within a few weeks From steady benzodiazepine use requires a gradual process to take off the drugs – even after a short period. However, many practitioners are not well trained in phasing out the recipes. To make the process clearer, released in March experts from the American Society of Addiction Medicine New guidelines for dosing reduction developed with financing the FDA
“It is absolutely insane to put people under pressure to step away and withdraw people abruptly,” said Dr. Silberman.
Jody Jarreau, 60, began to take Klonopin for Insomnia 25 years ago while lived in Dallas. When his psychiatrist stopped practicing for medical reasons, he eventually found another person who suggested that he took two other benzodiazepines, Xanax and Valium, and worked on the weaning of the Klonopin.
After having used all three drugs for about six months, Mr. Jarreau was frustrated and decided to take matters into his own hands. He teen from the Klonopin and Xanax.
He still tries to get rid of the Valium, with the help of his doctor and a coach of the Benzodiazepine Information Coalition, a non -profit group.
Initially, Mr Jarreau, he tapered, said too quickly of the 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 withdrawal symptoms were suicidal thoughts.
“There is a bit like this background noise that says, you know, just take yourself out,” he said. ‘It would be easier. “
He says he had never experienced one of these symptoms before he returns the drugs.
In 2023Proponents of those who were injured by Benzodiazepines gave a name to the varied long -term symptoms that can arise during use, tapering or the stopping of the medicines: neurological dysfunction or binding induced by benzodiazepine.
Not everyone will bind, they acknowledge. And with the right tapered plan, experts say, side effects can be minimized.
“These are very good and safe drugs when they give the right person in the right dose for the right period,” said Dr. Carl Salzman, a professor in psychiatry at the Harvard Medical School and the former chairman of the Benzodiazepine Task Force of the American Psychiatric Association.
But although benzodiazepines have been around since the 1960s, some doctors are not aware of How they can best help their patients stop taking these medicines. This is partly because there is no one -off tapered strategy. It is the withdrawal symptoms, say some patients who make it necessary to gain access to these drugs while slowly tapering.
Dr. Silberman remembered a patient who had to shave flakes of her pill with a razor blade to slowly lower her dosage and minimize difficult side effects.
ASAMs New guidelines To reduce the dosage of a patient of a benzodiazepine draws heavily out of clinical experience, given the scarce and limited research into taper. They recommend clinicians that the risks and benefits of the current benzodiazepine prescribe at least every three months and, when phasing out, consider reducing the current dose to reduce the two to four weeks by 5 to 10 percent. The guidelines also say that patients who have been using benzodiazepines for years may require more than a year of taps and must be checked, even after the medicine has been stopped.
“Most of us have never been warned about the opportunities for dependence and long-term complications,” said De Foster, a researcher who contributed to the new guidelines and is a advocate for people like he struggled with benzodiazepine complications. Slow tapering can be difficult, he added, “but abrupt taps can be dangerous.”
The ASAM guidance came too late for Latasha Marbury, 49, who had become physically dependent on Klonopin in the purchase, NY, and was physically dependent. In 2022 she visited an addiction detox facility because she was desperate to stop taking the medicine that she had started for insomnia. Practice of the facility weaned her in just five days.
Then she cried hysterically and felt hopeless, she said. She experienced nocturnal horrors that felt that “almost like a lion is in the room, but you can’t see it and you fight it, an inability to sit still and deep depression. She visited another addiction facility in Florida, where she received an antidepressant. Within a few weeks she started to feel much better.
Now she said, “I sleep like a freaking baby.”
And she wonders: was this, instead of the benzodiazepine, the medicine she had always had to prescribed?
“When I think about it – what I have experienced – I cry,” she said. “It was not a physical pain, but it was a mental pain. And I am grateful that I live.”
If you have suicidal thoughts, call or text 988 to reach the lifeline of 988 suicide and crisis or go to Speakofsuicide.com/resources For a list of extra sources.
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