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"Should Benzodiazepines Be Replaced by Antidepressants.....?"


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Hi All,

Here's a medical journal article -- albeit quite short -- that poses a question for doctors treating anxiety disorders.

 

What do you think? Personally, I think that it's best to focus on non-drug treatments as much as possible, including Cognitive Behaviour Therapy and exercise, among other options. As the article points out, both benzos and antidepressants have side effects and withdrawal syndromes.

 

http://www.madinamerica.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Rickels-2013-editorial.pdf

 

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Hi All,

Here's a medical journal article -- albeit quite short -- that poses a question for doctors treating anxiety disorders.

 

What do you think? Personally, I think that it's best to focus on non-drug treatments as much as possible, including Cognitive Behaviour Therapy and exercise, among other options. As the article points out, both benzos and antidepressants have side effects and withdrawal syndromes.

 

http://www.madinamerica.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Rickels-2013-editorial.pdf

 

 

Hi Lapis, to my knowledge a psych.med without side effects doens't exist. If a person suffers

from very bad Depression they will need treatment, no doubt.

 

But replacing Benzodiazepines with another drug, is like changing deck chairs

on the Titanic, won't cure Benzo wd. :)

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Hi Morreweg,

I think the article is referring to treatment for anxiety disorders, rather than benzodiazepine withdrawal. So that's the question -- how the doctor can help someone with an anxiety disorder. I think it would be great to make counselling accessible and available to more people. Self-care, stress management and healthy lifestyle choices (nutrition and exercise) should also be front and centre when it comes to healthcare.

 

I think most of us here agree that medication comes with many risks and questionable outcomes.

 

All the best,

Lapis2

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This is what I'm curious about. It's written that a distinction between w/d symptoms and a return to anxiety is critical for clinical management. But there is a very wide discrepancy in what doctors feel is the end of w/d and what is actually the true end of w/d. Since the majority of doctors don't seem to believe that w/d lasts beyond a month (in benzo w/d), are they going to assume that patients have a return to anxiety (that was before taking the drug) rather than realizing that the patient is still in w/d? In that case, would the patient then be put back on the original drug or be put on another drug? Which would be very unfortunate. This is why there needs to be more research about benzos, so that doctors understand that there can be a very, very long period of w/d.
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