Posted by yxibow on December 21, 2006, at 1:35:43
In reply to Re: Withdrawal Symtom Relapse from Benzos? » khfreibe, posted by Simcha on December 20, 2006, at 0:14:06
The Ashton site, is not managed by her, whoever she may be. Its a controversial topic so if people want to believe in her methods that's fine, I personally believe that she really wants to get everybody off of benzodiazepines period, as in non-use of them. Which I think is a disservice to those who benefit, but anyhow and just encourages the disuse of them, especially in the UK.
Withdrawing from them for whatever reason, though, is no more than 5 or 10% per week, depending on how long one is on a certain medication in part though not completely true, and for what indication, etc.Withdrawing in 5 days from a benzo in any significant dose is not terribly smart -- there are a lot of rebound effects depending on what disorder one is taking it for, not to mention the fact that withdrawing from any AED (the entire class of such drugs) has to be taken seriously because they, after all, had a primary purpose at one point not just for anxiety but for epilepsy.
You do not have to have epilepsy to have a grand mal seizure and withdrawing quickly from any AED potentiates the risk of having one. Whatever method one chooses to do so, it should be medically sound, rational, and slow. The benzodiazepine will still be there tomorrow, yes, but absent any serious problems with ones liver or kidney, it will still be there tomorrow and it can be tapered slowly. In other words, there is no serious rush, and they cannot be withdrawn in days with vomiting and nasty psychotic symptoms like heroin withdrawal and live to tell the tale comfortably. [pardon the graphicness].
I know personally, I withdrew cold turkey from Tranxene before I knew much about benzodiazepines and to this day I still have some odd back tightness and scalp tightness from spasms that occurred at the time. Were the doctors on top of it, they would have restored the full dose, not some paltry amount. Anyhow, word to the wise about them.
Otherwise, they are perfectly good medications when used as directed and have been around for nearly 50 years.-- tidings
poster:yxibow
thread:714278
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/wdrawl/20061010/msgs/715360.html