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Some would have posted this in the news, section, but for us it's not actually news I presume.

 

From the BIC: http://benzoinfo.com/2018/11/13/benzo-withdrawal-why-i-ignored-medical-advice-and-listened-to-the-internet/

 

'I quickly discovered one monumental problem: modern medicine is largely incompetent regarding benzodiazepines.  ' Surprisingly so. Even many docs who try to dissuade their patients from starting a benzodiazepine, make a mental 180 degree turn after the drug has been prescribed.

 

A few snippets ' switching amongst different shorter- and longer-acting benzodiazepines', ' total denial of the problem altogether.'

'Two physicians even “fired” me as a patient, implying I was a liability.' Not quite what happened to me, but close.

'It was as if I was being gaslit.' Oh yes. First GP, and 2nd GP after I had read the 'medical records'.

 

I got some major other health issues added to the K poison, and locally we don't a free choice of doctors. Most GPs here don't have a clue, that's why they usually prescribe sleeping pills for at most one or two nights these days. Informal guidelines. Scary stuff btw, how hard it can be even if you don't get what they threw at me. Well, enough about me.

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I read that. Very good! Yes, in my experience with many doctors, the subject of benzos brings a quick pooh-pooh and then shutdown. I hardly ever talk about it anymore. I'm afraid of being a liability, as Janice said. But that doesn't mean that I don't have strong feelings about it. It's just that doctors don't accept it as being a known cause of much suffering. They BELIEVE in drugs. If one doesn't work, they try another. But I think it's reading stories from people in the same predicament I'm in that is truly healing. The body does what it can to accommodate pills; that, however, can be a slippery slope.

 

My God, what I've learned while here!! It's been a godsend, and I wish I'd been here from the very beginning, but I didn't know any better. Neither do the majority of people "out there" who are suffering. We're all stumbling for answers. Doctors, pharmacists, don't have the answers either...

 

Thank you, liberty!

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Some would have posted this in the news, section, but for us it's not actually news I presume.

 

From the BIC: http://benzoinfo.com/2018/11/13/benzo-withdrawal-why-i-ignored-medical-advice-and-listened-to-the-internet/

 

'I quickly discovered one monumental problem: modern medicine is largely incompetent regarding benzodiazepines.  ' Surprisingly so. Even many docs who try to dissuade their patients from starting a benzodiazepine, make a mental 180 degree turn after the drug has been prescribed.

 

A few snippets ' switching amongst different shorter- and longer-acting benzodiazepines', ' total denial of the problem altogether.'

'Two physicians even “fired” me as a patient, implying I was a liability.' Not quite what happened to me, but close.

'It was as if I was being gaslit.' Oh yes. First GP, and 2nd GP after I had read the 'medical records'.

 

I got some major other health issues added to the K poison, and locally we don't a free choice of doctors. Most GPs here don't have a clue, that's why they usually prescribe sleeping pills for at most one or two nights these days. Informal guidelines. Scary stuff btw, how hard it can be even if you don't get what they threw at me. Well, enough about me.

 

Thanks for posting this.  It is a very accurate account of the challenges one faces getting the proper help, and the challenges of tapering.

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I read that. Very good! Yes, in my experience with many doctors, the subject of benzos brings a quick pooh-pooh and then shutdown. I hardly ever talk about it anymore. I'm afraid of being a liability, as Janice said. But that doesn't mean that I don't have strong feelings about it. It's just that doctors don't accept it as being a known cause of much suffering. They BELIEVE in drugs. If one doesn't work, they try another. But I think it's reading stories from people in the same predicament I'm in that is truly healing. The body does what it can to accommodate pills; that, however, can be a slippery slope.

 

My God, what I've learned while here!! It's been a godsend, and I wish I'd been here from the very beginning, but I didn't know any better. Neither do the majority of people "out there" who are suffering. We're all stumbling for answers. Doctors, pharmacists, don't have the answers either...

 

Thank you, liberty!

 

:thumbsup:

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Partly related, when I was a teenager and in my twenties 'everybody knew' it was dangerous at best to start taking sleeping and calming tablets every day, long term.

Taking clonazepam daily was not the way it started, and was not planned. I had never believed it was somehow fine if a doctor prescribed it.

 

Is or was it that way in the USA ?

 

Partly that's why I was baffled to learn of the GP's thinking that daily consumption was 'safe'. I only fully learned the truth after that quasi-legal procedure.

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Partly related, when I was a teenager and in my twenties 'everybody knew' it was dangerous at best to start taking sleeping and calming tablets every day, long term.

Taking clonazepam daily was not the way it started, and was not planned. I had never believed it was somehow fine if a doctor prescribed it.

 

Is or was it that way in the USA ?

 

Partly that's why I was baffled to learn of the GP's thinking that daily consumption was 'safe'. I only fully learned the truth after that quasi-legal procedure.

 

Yes and no in my experience but mostly no.  I was told to go easy on them but the default here is to trust and "talk to your doctor" if you're unsure.  They said it was fine.  My anxiety was so bothersome too, I just believed it.  4 out of 5 of them prescribed too easily and after a certain amount of time, you just kind of believe it's OK.  The 5th is the last one I saw.  I was caught in a trap before I knew it.  I knew they could be addictive and always had that in my mind but I didn't know I was addicted or it didn't seem to fit any definition of addiction at least not how I understood it plus doctors were fine with it.

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Maybe it's my age but doctors handed out diazepam like it was candy. Newsweek, Time magazine, you name it all called it stuff like Mother's Little Helper, no problem. Even fellow teenagers back in the 70s laughed when I said I took Valium sometimes, the called it 'candy' and said I was a baby.

 

But in some countries, and more recently I think there have been more knowledgeable people including doctors, but some are concerned with people not 'freaking out' so they dose them. Some are genuinely concerned and think it will solve the anxiety problem and they fall for the pharm rep's spiel; others just get out the pad, it differs.

 

One thing most doctors have in common is ignorance, not stupidity. They really don't know much about regular people on it longterm and the hurting. Instead, they focus on the recreational user/abuser and tar everyone else with the same brush--or too many do.

 

I am grateful I have a counselor on my side and a gp who is ignorant but so far isn't pushing me too hard.

 

May we all find support among medical people to help us through this at a pace we can withstand.

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Partly related, when I was a teenager and in my twenties 'everybody knew' it was dangerous at best to start taking sleeping and calming tablets every day, long term.

Taking clonazepam daily was not the way it started, and was not planned. I had never believed it was somehow fine if a doctor prescribed it.

 

Is or was it that way in the USA ?

 

Partly that's why I was baffled to learn of the GP's thinking that daily consumption was 'safe'. I only fully learned the truth after that quasi-legal procedure.

 

I'd traditionally taken tranquilizers as needed until I developed strong physical dependency and took them every day from that point on. Yes, when I was in my 20's, AD's were preferred to tranquilizers, so I was strongly encouraged to take AD's instead. Of course, doctors would prescribe me bzds as needed on a rare occasion. I'd never planned to take them daily or long term. Never ever did until the lorazepam fiasco. Even with that one, I actually fought it and walked, exercised, listened to a lot of music, etc just to keep the stress down. But the fears and problems kept mounting and it was starting to get blurry whether it was my anxiety or the wearoff from lorazepam.

 

But yes, I was prescribed ativan to take as needed, then I was prescribed everyday as needed up to x times, then I was prescribed every day. Then, all the hell broke loose. I think my body was dependent enough to take it every day, but there's no such thing here as a 0.25mg lorazepam pill, and I didn't know at the time that one can cut that tiny white pill into 2 pieces and take a 1/2. The small round white 0.5mg pill is the smallest prescribed, so one is given an impression that he can just step off of it......

 

Yes, I did not plan it, but it happened anyway. I had not experienced any kind of problem or even tolerance with any calming pills (I'd also taken homeopathic calming pills and other natural/herbal pills in addition to Rx ones) prior to lorazepam, so that one took me by quite a surprise. I think the rebounds were too much, and I just didn't know how to deal with it.

 

I think about 6 months into taking it off/on and then going off of it, I started to feel this deep existential fear that was not there before. Not as bad as now, but it was alarming, and it surely convinced me that I was starting to get more anxious and needed to continue taking lorazepam as needed. It's a clever trap, indeed.

 

Yes, as far as daily use, we have had this 2-4 week guideline. But is it 2-4 weeks every day or as needed? Every initial script I'd gotten was an as needed script.

 

It of course makes sense now, but when strong fear takes over, the logic goes out of the window. At least mine did. I suppose I can call it "medication spellbinding"  :-\. But then again, benzos do have that tendency to cloud clear, logical and rational thinking. And the disinhibiting effect that it produces can also apply to how one takes them, too :(. And the rebound/withdrawal effect can scare a person into taking another one tablet.

 

So I think for me it was perceived effectiveness + punishment reinforcement. Add a very stressful life to it, and this is a perfect storm for physical dependency on ativan.

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LPF, lots of truth in there.

 

Bit of a different question then.

 

Aside from my first prescription, I did not get these pills after a personal consultation with my doctor. It is or was common to use 'repeat prescriptions'.  Call a phone number, voice mail or answering machine, say what you 'need' and it will be taken care of. Sometimes or even usually (??) prescriptions were filled by the assistant of the GP (Dutch practice- they like to delegate) and sent by her to the pharmacy. I think that by law the doctor was obliged to authorize those prescriptions, but I suspect that was usually not done in the real world. The guidelines (and enforcement?)  have become stronger. Issuing those repeat prescriptions was virtually never mentioned in my medical records, that GP only started doing that after I had filed the complaint ! It would have taken some doing to bypass that - I would have had to call the assistant, she would have asked me why I wanted to see the doctor, she would have said I could just phone in the request, I would have had to insist that I wanted a personal consultation with the doctor to get my prescription filled ! Not sure if it would have been possible !

 

Anything like that in the USA ? I know it's 'controlled', whatever that may mean. Here those drugs fall under the Opium Law, but in the real world that doesn't mean much.

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liberty

 

We have Physician Assistants who by law can prescribe meds just like a medical doctor can.

 

As for being 'punished' for complaining, that part sure as heck happens, happened to me, and now I am afraid to disagree with my doctor about anything for fear he will retaliate and change my dose or medication or stop it fast.

 

What 'exactly' though about the USA practice did you have a question about--if I didn't answer it.

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LPF, lots of truth in there.

 

Bit of a different question then.

 

Aside from my first prescription, I did not get these pills after a personal consultation with my doctor. It is or was common to use 'repeat prescriptions'.  Call a phone number, voice mail or answering machine, say what you 'need' and it will be taken care of. Sometimes or even usually (??) prescriptions were filled by the assistant of the GP (Dutch practice- they like to delegate) and sent by her to the pharmacy. I think that by law the doctor was obliged to authorize those prescriptions, but I suspect that was usually not done in the real world. The guidelines (and enforcement?)  have become stronger. Issuing those repeat prescriptions was virtually never mentioned in my medical records, that GP only started doing that after I had filed the complaint ! It would have taken some doing to bypass that - I would have had to call the assistant, she would have asked me why I wanted to see the doctor, she would have said I could just phone in the request, I would have had to insist that I wanted a personal consultation with the doctor to get my prescription filled ! Not sure if it would have been possible !

 

Anything like that in the USA ? I know it's 'controlled', whatever that may mean. Here those drugs fall under the Opium Law, but in the real world that doesn't mean much.

 

I was getting prescriptions with refills from my initial ativan prescribing doctor. He'd give me at least 1 refill, sometimes 2. I would call the office when running out and the office person would talk to the doctor, and I'd get another refill without seeing him if I needed to. It was not a problem at all, but the minute I talked to him and said I wanted to get off lorazepam via diazepam, I started getting 0 refills. At that moment, they wrote "1mg lorazepam, 5mg diazepam" in the state database for me, which is funny to me because my prescription was 1-2mg lorazepam a day as needed, and when he gave me diazepam, it said "up to two tablets every day as needed" (these were 5mg diazepam tablets, 60 prescribed at once). Then I switched the doctors because my first prescriber started to tell me how I needed to get back to work because I am going to end up "in one hospital after another". He was predicting the future for me, but didn't realize I was destabilized by the prescription tablet switching of the short-term bzd, and he complained how 10mg valium is "too much". I don't think it was too much because the lorazepam to diazepam conversion rates are 1:10.

 

But yes, once I complained and wanted off, everyone was giving me zero refills except one kind psychiatrist who retired and gave me 3 diazepam refills to give me time to find another psychiatrist.

 

The current psychiatrist gives me 1 refill of everything, when I come in for the med-check.

 

Yes, lot has changed in the recent years.

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