health reporter seeking benzo info

Greetings!

I am a health projects reporter with the Bend Bulletin, a daily newspaper in Bend, Oregon. I'm working on a story about the risks of benzodiazepines, particularly with long term use, and was hoping to find individuals in Oregon or at least in the U.S., who might have some experience with benzo use and withdrawal.

I recently spoke with a woman here in Bend, who had a horrible time getting off Ativan, and that sent me down the road of investigating the risks of benzodiazepines. My article will focus in particularly on the high numbers of people who are prescribed benzos long term, despite labeling clearly saying these should be for short term use only. We'll also focus on the difficulties that many patients have in withdrawing from the medication, and explore why this issue has gotten so much attention in the U.K., Australia and even Canada, but not in the U.S.

If you are interested in sharing your story, please contact me through the messaging system in this forum, and then I can follow-up with my direct contact info.

I will be sure to post a link the article here when it is published.

Thanks!

Markian Hawryluk

Hi fellow Buddies,

I have been in communication with Markian, have verified his identity and that he he is indeed a reporter for the Bend Bulletin.

In case you are wondering, the rule covering use of our members as research subjects does not apply, since Markian has my permission to request interviews of members, and he will require your individual cooperation to progress his article.

The Bend Bulletin is a local, well established, real-world newspaper. Nice to see that they are still around.

http://www.bendbulletin.com/

http://www.bendbulletin.com/health/

http://www.bendbulletin.com/NewsroomStaffList/?person=70

Please do as Markian suggested, and contact him through the Personal Message system. Do not post your contact details on the forum.

Thank you, Markian for taking interest in the problems associated with long-term use of benzodiazepines. And thank you to those members who chose to participate in Markian's Bend Bulletin article.

Good luck.

Thanks from me as well Markian.  As suggested in your message, attention to this topic is long overdue.  The fact that you are willing to put time and effort towards bringing the problem of prescribing benzos for long term use to the forefront in the US is a step in the right direction.

pianogirl

Welcome to BenzoBuddies, Markian.

Thank you so much for being willing to do an article on benzodiazepines.  We see so many folks whose doctors have prescribed this class of medication long-term, but when the patient requests help with a taper, the patients prescriptions are often cut off abruptly.  This causes a lot of unnecessary suffering and is truly horrible to watch here on the forum.

Many doctors believe that when the benzo is out of the person's bloodstream, the withdrawal symptoms should stop.  But this is far from the case because benzos can actually cause neuroadaptations in our nervous system.  These adaptations can take a very long time to reverse because this part of our body usually heals very slowly.  Here is a research article, with citations, by one of our member's, Perseverance, that explains why a taper is extremely important:  Benzo Withdrawal,  Glutamate Receptors and LTP

Dr. Katherine Pittman also completed a survey of our member's for a presentation she was doing.  Here is a PowerPoint of her presentation.  I hope you find it helpful.

http://www.adaa.org/sites/default/files/Pittman121.pdf

Enjoy your time on the board!

Juliea

We'll also focus on the difficulties that many patients have in withdrawing from the medication, and explore why this issue has gotten so much attention in the U.K., Australia and even Canada, but not in the U.S.

 

Markian Hawryluk

Curious as to where you have obtained info regarding the issue of benzos getting so much attention in Canada. I believe this is not the case. Thanks.

not much in the uk really, a few newspaper stories, all inaccurate and not about the full horror. Here is a letter from an MP giving details of the situation:



Letter from Jim Dobbin MP to Jane Ellison, Public Health Minister

4 April 2014

Increase in psychotropic drug prescriptions 2013

Dear Jane,

Thank you for your letter of 20 March.

The recently published Prescription Cost Analysis 2013 records that the combined total for tranquilliser and antidepressant prescriptions has increased from 67.3 million prescriptions in 2012 to 70.2 million prescriptions in 2013.

This increase demonstrates:

a)      Established patients who have been prescribed tranquillisers long term are being left on them and that there are no withdrawal facilities for involuntary tranquilliser addicts.

b)      The increase of 3 million prescriptions equates to approximately 250,000 new patients being initiated into antidepressant use with all the risks associated including withdrawal syndromes, deaths, birth defects and suicides.

In your letter of 20 March you said “I fully intend to maintain the momentum generated by my predecessors so that we can help all those who are affected by this serious problem”.

You have been misinformed by your advisers that there is any momentum at all generated by your predecessors Anne Milton and Anna Soubry.

Your immediate predecessor Anna Soubry set out the four areas for action agreed by a roundtable of experts and patient groups convened by the Department of Health at the NTA Addiction to Medicines seminar in February 2013.

One of these was:

“Improving access to treatment and support, including non-medicine treatment such as the programme for Increasing Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) and broader health and wellbeing that can make people feel better without pills.”

This has not happened as shown by the increase in psychotropic drug prescriptions.

Anna Soubry’s predecessor, Anne Milton, said in response to my PQ of 19 Dec 2011:

“The Government’s Drugs Strategy seeks to tackle dependence on all drugs, including prescription and over-the-counter drugs. We are leading work to prevent and tackle addiction to prescribed and over-the-counter medicine, including anti-depressants.”

The following conclusions may be drawn from this increase in prescriptions for psychotropic drugs:

1. The coalition’s addiction to medicines strategy has failed

2. The coalition does not understand the modern concept of treating the whole person with an integrated health and social care system. The social cost of the iatrogenic illness generated by these prescriptions is enormous in the cost of DWP benefits, NHS visits for drug side effects, emergency hospital admissions for tranquillisers and antidepressants, which are sixteen times those of heroin and cocaine combined (Drug Poisoning Finished Admission Episodes 2011 – 12).

3. Coalition Public Health Ministers have been unable to control ideological PHE officials such as Steve Taylor and Rosanna O’Connor who have implemented their own substance misuse policy in direct contradiction of the policy laid out by Anna Soubry at the NTA Addiction to Medicines Event in February 2013.

I would be happy to meet with you again in the near future to discuss these matters.

 Yours sincerely,

 Jim Dobbin MP

 Chair, All Party Parliamentary Group on Involuntary Tranquilliser Addiction

 House of Commons

Greetings!

I wanted to say thank you to all the members of the BB community who reached out to me. The response was overwhelming and your stories were both tragic and inspiring. We limited in space so I wasn't able to use everybody's story in the article but all the information and interviews were so helpful for me to begin to understand what you're going through. Thank you so much for sharing.

The article ran on Sunday (June 1) and so far has garnered a lot of positive response. I hope I'll get to write more on this subject down the road.

Here's the link to the article!

Thanks again!

Markian

http://www.bendbulletin.com/home/2119922-151/benzodiazepines-treat-anxiety-cause-long-term-problems?entryType=0

Thank you Heathreporter for your excellent article.

Maybe it will prevent others from experiencing the months... years ...of hell ...that so many of us are going through.

Maybe it will help educate users of benzodiazapines about what may be happening to them & why they may be experiencing a bizarre array of health issues

Maybe it will also help educate the doctors & medical community about the very real dangers of long term benzodiazapines use & prescribing.

You have provided a great service to many people with this article.

I have printed it out to give to my health professionals & family.

Thank you

margaretisabel