Posted by Elizabeth on April 11, 2002, at 11:35:18
In reply to opioids and benzos - Elizabeth, posted by mike21 on April 10, 2002, at 7:03:11
> I can't find the previous thread where we discussed this, but, you mentioned side-effects with taking opioid agonists. I was thinking that if I truly had an opioid deficiency, side-effects would be minimal or none. Maybe that's not realistic.
I don't think it is. The "deficiency," whatever it is, would be central but not necessarily peripheral, for one thing; a lot of the side effects are not centrally mediated (for example, there are a lot of opioid receptors in the gut). Also, and probably more importantly, "deficiency" shouldn't necessarily be taken to mean low levels of endogenous opioids; a number of other things could be responsible for a "deficient" endogenous opioid system (probably including some that nobody even knows about at present).
> In your experience with Dr. Bodkin, did you get the impression he had treated many patients successfully with long-term use of buprenorphine?
I saw him in 1996, only shortly after he'd published the results of the study; I'm not sure whether he had used it other times, but he seemed fairly impressed by it. (I met with him again in 1998, but we didn't discuss buprenorphine.) But there are quite a few pdocs who report cases of treating people long-term for depression with buprenorphine and other opioids.
So -- what about benzos???
-elizabeth
poster:Elizabeth
thread:102601
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20020408/msgs/102755.html