Posted by med_empowered on July 20, 2005, at 18:35:02
In reply to Stopping a benzo abruptly?, posted by KaraS on July 20, 2005, at 14:09:11
hey! Convulsions really arent that common when you withdraw from sedatives, even long term. The big problem is with the barbiturates--long-term ,high dose withdrawal can lead to fata seizures, even when withdrawal is medically supervised. From what I understand, if you're on high-end benzo doses and you've been on them for a while, you won't go into convulsions until a little bit after the med is completely out of your system. So...if you're on Klonopin, Tranxene, or other long-acting ones, you have a couple days for the stuff to leave your system, and then a little while after that for the "rebound" of brain activity to reach a point at which you experience convulsions. Even then, people on high-end benzos doses dont always experience convulsions, and the convulsions that do occur usually aren't fatal, as they often are with barbiturate withdrawal. If you drink heavily, have a pre-existing seizure condition, or take meds that lower the seizure threshold (antidepressants, antipsychotics, stimulants), your risk jumps somewhat...I believe the risk also jumps if you have a brain injury, but im not entirely sure about this. If you get sick and have to be hospitalized w/o your meds, just make sure the docs know what you're taking...whenever possible, its a good idea to bring any and all RX bottles with you to the hospital. Once you're in the hospital, the docs there would be responsible for making sure you dont go into withdrawal. Since Ativan is available as an injection for sedation and anaesthesia, they'd probably do a conversion of your medication into ativan and dose up appropriately. Again: the seizure risk with all sedatives (even barbiturates) is way over-exagerrated. Unless you abuse sedatives for a long timee and/or have risk factors for convulsions, the odds of experiencing seizures are pretty low, and the odds that any convulsions you do experience will be fatal is very low (at least for BZDs..barbiturates are another story entirely). Good luck!
poster:med_empowered
thread:530613
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20050718/msgs/530749.html