Posted by JohnL on October 21, 2000, at 6:05:16
In reply to Klonopin, posted by Didier on October 20, 2000, at 22:00:05
Didier,
Unbelievable. Holy cow! Yikes. What can I say? I'm so sorry. What a heavyduty experience. Man o man. You must be one strong women to survive all that. You don't know me at all, but I send you my heartfelt support.Your experience highlights a couple things that I often preach at this board.
1)When a patient starts treatment with a drug that's new to them, and there's any kind of bad reaction, pull the plug. Stop it immediately. I'm not talking about dry mouth, nausea, insomnia, nightsweats, stuff like that. I'm talking reactions that affect our behavior in obviously negative or scary ways. Not cool. As you've seen, some mighty horrible things can result, including suicide. Most doctors will instead say, "Give it some time". I totally emphatically disagree. The risks are too high. The stakes are too great. These kinds of reactions can happen with ALL drugs, not just Klonopin.
2)Don't be so limited in drug choice as to consider only the drugs that are most common for a particular set of symptoms. For example, the benzodiazepines are most common for anxiety. But they may be totally inappropriate with some people, depending on the true underlying chemistry causing their symptoms. If low GABA was not the problem, then a benzo was almost certainly going to be bad news. After the initial bad reaction, other things could have been tried. Such as tiny dose antipsychotic (dopamine reducer), small dose Depakote (electrical smoother), small dose Lithium (chemical smoother), serotonin antidepressants (serotonin enhancer), or betablockers (noradrenergic reducers). All of these can and do work on anxiety, depending on the root cause with each person.
I preach the above two philosophies all the time. Your unfortunate experience is just one of many examples why. Again, I'm very very sorry. You have my support. Hang in there! :-)
John
poster:JohnL
thread:46928
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20001012/msgs/46949.html