UK Daily Mail re gabapentinoid drugs

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-5102355/Crippling-toll-new-valium-ruining-lives-MILLIONS.html

This is good to know. Thank you!

My mom is on that garbage.

 

It's sad but I won't even send this article to her. It uses the words "addiction" and "abuse" about a hundred times, just like most of these dailymail articles. My mom would completely disregard this as would most people who don't understand the difference between addiction and dependence. It also reinforces all of the myths and misconceptions surrounding benzo withdrawal/damage.

 

These articles do more harm than good for our cause.

In the article, it said that the woman initially dropped a single 300mg pill at once. That's a sizeable decrease, actually. Wish she'd gone more slowly.

Thanks for posting.  I don't know if the Daily Mail articles are doing more harm than good.  We could of course have no publicity at all but I am not sure what that would achieve either.  ITV is working on a documentary at the moment but I have no doubt the word "addiction" will be used.  It is inevitable.  Our petition to the Scottish Parliament will be discussed again on 7th December.

 

This is an article from The Guardian yesterday.  It isn't specifically about benzodiazepines but great to see a senior cardiologist speaking out in this way in public.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/healthcare-network/2017/nov/21/finance-trumps-patients-uk-healthcare-needs-inquiry?CMP=share_btn_fb

 

We continue to voice our opinions in the medical journals.  If you click on "article" you will get the letter from Annie Cody to which Dr Stuart Allan responded and this sparked off a few rather angry letters from the prescribed harmed community, including me.

 

http://bjgp.org/content/67/663/445.1/tab-e-letters

 

We keep trying anyway ....

 

Fiona 

 

Thanks for posting.  I don't know if the Daily Mail articles are doing more harm than good.  We could of course have no publicity at all but I am not sure what that would achieve either.  ITV is working on a documentary at the moment but I have no doubt the word "addiction" will be used.  It is inevitable.  Our petition to the Scottish Parliament will be discussed again on 7th December.

 

Anyone who doesn't think they are prone to "addiction" will write this off as something that could never happen to them. It saddens me that more people in the support community and especially people who advocate for this don't see how damaging it is to promote this epidemic in a misleading way. This is functional brain damage and it absolutely needs to be recognized as such. Then maybe people will start paying attention.

Thanks for posting.  I don't know if the Daily Mail articles are doing more harm than good.  We could of course have no publicity at all but I am not sure what that would achieve either.  ITV is working on a documentary at the moment but I have no doubt the word "addiction" will be used.  It is inevitable.  Our petition to the Scottish Parliament will be discussed again on 7th December.

 

Anyone who doesn't think they are prone to "addiction" will write this off as something that could never happen to them. It saddens me that more people in the support community and especially people who advocate for this don't see how damaging it is to promote this epidemic in a misleading way. This is functional brain damage and it absolutely needs to be recognized as such. Then maybe people will start paying attention.

 

I agree 100%. It was misuse of the 'addiction' word that made me think I was safe. The people who write these articles do not understand what physical dependence is, so they do very little to educate. However, in my case, I think they did cause a vague fear and wariness about taking these kinds of medications which was better than nothing. It stopped me taking them as frequently as prescribed, and made me suspicious early on when things started to go wrong.

I agree 100%. It was misuse of the 'addiction' word that made me think I was safe. The people who write these articles do not understand what physical dependence is, so they do very little to educate. However, in my case, I think they did cause a vague fear and wariness about taking these kinds of medications which was better than nothing. It stopped me taking them as frequently as prescribed, and made me suspicious early on when things started to go wrong.

 

I don't think any of these articles will ever reveal a full truth, but learning a little bit here and a little bit there, and slowly getting more and more educated on all these psych meds is the key to understanding a bigger picture. So, yes, an article that meanders and confuses a bit, but it also warns of some potential pitfalls, as well. If someone who's never taken Gabapentin before reads this, it may make them think a bit more thoroughly whether they want to take it or not. For someone who doesn't even know what Gabapentin is, this is a start, at least.

I was aware of the difficulties of getting off benzodiazepines for decades via TV and the media.  The use of the word "addiction" didn't make any difference to that.  Withdrawal symptoms are withdrawal symptoms whatever the language used.  But I agree that the word is used as a way of avoiding doing anything about the problem particularly by politicians.  It is used to point the finger of blame at the patient.  And it creates a great deal of misunderstanding. 

Withdrawal symptoms are withdrawal symptoms whatever the language used.

 

They are, but it is all too easy to ignore the potential for that if you don't believe that it can happen to you. The worst symptoms in the world mean nothing to someone if they don't think there is any chance that they will experience them.

 

I was peripherally aware that benzos are "addictive" when my doctor first prescribed them. I asked her about it specifically, and her response was "I am not worried about that with you".

 

I now realize that this basically meant that she had absolutely no clue about the dangers of these drugs. She believed that as long as I wasn't escalating my dose that I would be fine. And I thought that since I had never had a problem "controlling myself" I would be fine.

 

The way I see it these articles only serve to perpetuate the ignorance and negligence that got me here in the first place.

 

 

Thanks for posting.  I don't know if the Daily Mail articles are doing more harm than good.  We could of course have no publicity at all but I am not sure what that would achieve either.  ITV is working on a documentary at the moment but I have no doubt the word "addiction" will be used.  It is inevitable.  Our petition to the Scottish Parliament will be discussed again on 7th December.

 

This is an article from The Guardian yesterday.  It isn't specifically about benzodiazepines but great to see a senior cardiologist speaking out in this way in public.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/healthcare-network/2017/nov/21/finance-trumps-patients-uk-healthcare-needs-inquiry?CMP=share_btn_fb

 

We continue to voice our opinions in the medical journals.  If you click on "article" you will get the letter from Annie Cody to which Dr Stuart Allan responded and this sparked off a few rather angry letters from the prescribed harmed community, including me.

 

http://bjgp.org/content/67/663/445.1/tab-e-letters

 

We keep trying anyway ....

 

Fiona 

 

"It’s estimated that 20-50% of more than $3tn of healthcare activity in the United States is inappropriate, wasting resources and/or harming patients. According to Peter Gøtzsche, co-founder of the Cochrane Collaboration, , side effects from prescription medications are the third most common cause of death after heart disease and cancer."

 

This quote from the article is astounding when put on paper for all to read.  May be the "do no harm" should be imposed on the pharma and medical industry as well as the practitioners.

I have a doctor who told me to ask what exactly any drug or procedure would do for ME and to disregard the statistics that are thrown around, his thoughts are to limit the amount of medication and take none if at all practical.

 

2trusting

 

Withdrawal symptoms are withdrawal symptoms whatever the language used.

 

They are, but it is all too easy to ignore the potential for that if you don't believe that it can happen to you. The worst symptoms in the world mean nothing to someone if they don't think there is any chance that they will experience them.

 

I was peripherally aware that benzos are "addictive" when my doctor first prescribed them. I asked her about it specifically, and her response was "I am not worried about that with you".

 

I now realize that this basically meant that she had absolutely no clue about the dangers of these drugs. She believed that as long as I wasn't escalating my dose that I would be fine. And I thought that since I had never had a problem "controlling myself" I would be fine.

 

The way I see it these articles only serve to perpetuate the ignorance and negligence that got me here in the first place.

This is exactly where I was. I didn't understand about withdrawal symptoms - I thought addiction was all about taking drugs because you can't resist the good feeling they give. I wasn't into any of that since smoking and alcohol both make me sick, always have done.

Yes I do appreciate what you are saying.  Here in the UK, there has been a great deal of publicity over the decades about the adverse effects of benzodiazepines via the TV and the press.  Many doctors are well aware of the damaging effects of these drugs.  Most will not prescribe them long term any more.  Medical students are told they should not be prescribed long term.  The prescribing rates are down considerably, they have gradually fallen over the past 30 years.  So I think the public by and large will know about these drugs or if they don't they are unlikely to be prescribed them long-term unless they have already been on them for a long time. The biggest problem here now is antidepressants, the prescribing rates keep increasing.  Patients do not realise how difficult it can be to get off those drugs or the damage that they can do, including neurological damage. 

 

The British Medical Association and the All Party Parliamentary Group on Prescribed Drug Dependence use the term "dependence".  Our petitions to the Scottish and Welsh Parliaments are for "prescribed drug dependence".  So we are trying extremely hard to shift the terminology away from "addiction" when dealing with policymakers and when we talk to the press. 

 

Now whether or not the press articles are helping this overall effort or are making it worse by using the "A" word, I really don't know.