Posted by viridis on September 30, 2002, at 10:07:32
In reply to Re: Anxiety Disoder Medication, PLEASE help, posted by JLM on September 30, 2002, at 7:25:38
Of course benzos can have side effects, just like almost any other medications. For me, these were mild and disappeared completely in a couple of weeks. And, there's no doubt that regular use can produce dependency, so that if one wants to go off them after an extended period of use, it should be done gradually. A few people do even become "addicted" to them. But the latter is very rare for those with real, biologically-rooted anxiety disorders. The fact remains that this group of drugs has been proven extremely safe and (as has been pointed out ad nauseum on this forum) a World Health Organization review of decades of studies shows that short and long-term use of drugs in this class is safe and warranted in many cases.
Numerous antidepressants (e.g., Effexor, SSRIs such as Paxil, Zoloft, etc.) have been shown to cause severe "discontinuation syndomes" for some users. These drugs are great for some patients, but others (like me) experience very serious side effects that don't diminish over time. Lifestyle changes etc. can also help tremendously in some cases of anxiety, but some people just need benzos to get their brain chemistry back to normal.
Showing a package insert that lists all the possible side effects of a medication is rather alarmist, and potentially misleading -- I could pull out the insert for almost any prescription drug (and most over-the-counter ones too) and find some small percentages of people who had all sorts of scary-sounding reactions. Of course you should be aware of these possibilities (and that's one of the reasons you have to get a prescription from a doctor), but if you want to go this route, you might as well avoid all medication of any kind altogether.
Finally, I've found sites such as benzo.org.UK very one-sided, and the horror stories they relate simply don't square with my experiences or those of others I know. No drug is completely safe, and few are totally free of side effects, but I'd take benzos over SSRIs etc. any day, and there are many others here who would agree. Living with severe anxiety is incredibly draining, unproductive, and I'm sure has long-term health consequences of its own. It's important to rationally explore the full range of treatment options (including benzos) and get well as soon as possible.
poster:viridis
thread:121617
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20020930/msgs/121642.html