Posted by zeugma on January 8, 2006, at 9:28:51
In reply to Re: When are benzos justified?, posted by reefer on January 8, 2006, at 8:52:58
My problem has never been the drug itself, rather the opio/benzo phobia around me. That's just my five cents.... >>
My social phobia is worse than my embarrasment at the sidelong looks of benzophobic pharmacists. Social phobia makes it all but impossible for me to eat in public, for example, without Klonopin.
A couple of minutes of embarrasment at the pharmacy is nothing to being able to moderate my unrelenting claustrophobia, social phobia, and aggravations of IBS caused by episodes of severe anxiety. Klonopin moderates them: suggestions made by authors such as Dr. David Burns, in his book "Feeling Good", that benzos are undesirable in the treatment of anxiety disorders because they 'magically' ameliorate all anxiety, thus discouraging patients from continuing to enlist in his CBT programs, and then induce tolerance, so escalating dosages are required to achieve the same effect, are just not true, at least in my case. Well, it is true that i have lost all motivation to engage in CBT. But that is because of problems with CBT, not because of magical but fleeting effects of a benzo. The effects are neither magical nor fleeting, but very useful in my case , unlike effects of CBT. As a matter of fact one should realize that Burns is in the marketing business and benzos are clearly competition. Burns' praise for SSRI's as an adjunct to CB therapy is perhaps a reflection on the differential effectiveness of SSRI's vs. benzos in treating severe anxiety. (There is no question however, from reading this board, that SSRI's work much better than benzos for some forms of anxiety.)
As to the question of dependence/addiction: like Dr. Heather Ashton, Dr. David healy is a controversial figure in psychiatry. He is one who IMO has given much thought to matters involving benzos, SSRI's, and marketing issues, and was stripped of an appointment at a major Canadian university, allegedly because that university was the recipient of a large grant from from Eli Lilly, and Healy has lectured extensively on the adverse effects of prozac and other SSRI's. here is the link, to be read with a critical eye (just because I think he's on target is no reason anyone else should):
http://www.socialaudit.org.uk/58092-DH.htm
Perhaps he's wrong about the relative risks of benzodiazepine vs. SSRI withdrawal, but anyone capable of this astute obseervation:
<<Indeed, given that pharmaceutical companies now regard SPcs and PILs as advertising material that goes direct to the consumer, it is not clear that it is possible to regulate in a manner that prescinds from marketing>>
deserves to be taken seriously.
By the way, this is just a pedantic note but for what it's worth: I visited Ashton's site, and the 'overt Christian imagery' mentioned by an earlier poster appears to actually be the seal of the university she is affiliated with. That is merely a comment about a particular detail of her site, and neither validates nor invalidates any points made by any poster here.-z
poster:zeugma
thread:594786
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20060108/msgs/596518.html