Posted by Alan on February 15, 2002, at 23:27:59
In reply to Trashing Benzos, posted by Mr. Scott on February 15, 2002, at 19:38:39
One Doesn't have to feel defective if they find that they do best on the benzodiazepine alone. That actually makes you part of the discreet majority.
Your doctor probably doesn't know it, but one of the best-kept secrets in this field is that the majority of people who achieve long-term pharmaceutical control of their anxiety disorder are on benzodiazepines rather than antidepressants. This has been so for many, many years, both before and after the introduction of SSRIs, and was most recently reiterated in a study presented at the 2001 conference of the Anxiety Disorders Association of America (an organization that generally does not favor pharmaceutical treatment of any kind).
Significant numbers of people do achieve such control on antidepressants alone or with an antidepressants as the primary pharmaceutical treatment and a benzodiazepine as backup. But a larger group of people get started out on antidepressants and eventually have to be switched to benzodiazepines, or they get started on an antidepressant and a benzodiazepine and eventually quit the antidepressant but stay on the benzodiazepine -- either officially or without telling their doctor. And of course some people "graduate" from antidepressant treatment, benzodiazepine treatment, or combination treatment and maintain equilibrium without medication. I haven't seen any convincing evidence that either class of medication leads to more "graduations" than the other, although many doctors are under the misimpression that antidepressants are superior in that respect. The thing is, if you push such docs, they usually discover they can't provide any independent evidence to back that up -- they've always heard it from people around them (especially sales reps) but never gone looking at the evidence for themselves.
Alan
poster:Alan
thread:94336
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20020215/msgs/94352.html