Posted by avid abulia on July 13, 2003, at 18:07:41
In reply to Have I gone too far?, posted by Dave1970 on July 13, 2003, at 13:32:27
Well, in the sense that people on certain antihypertensive drugs (such as clonidine) do experience what would fit DSM-IV criteria as drug addiction, your doc cannot help but be right, either way ;)
The maximum dose (for epilepsy, anyway) is 16mg/day in 4 evenly divided doses, but if your doc is trying to keep you on benzo monotherapy and you keep needing to up the dose, there probably is something going on there, and you have every right to be concerned.
You might discuss a switch to a long-acting benzo (Valium is one, it has a terminal half-life--the time it takes to excrete the last half of the dose--of 200hrs!) and you might also discuss a switch to a different class of drugs, or polytherapy. I know there was a huge thread knocking Neurontin, and my experience was that it *was* totally useless for mood symptoms, but i (and several others i know) did/do find it very helpful for anxiety.
poster:avid abulia
thread:241458
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20030708/msgs/241544.html