Posted by Quintal on December 23, 2006, at 8:50:15
In reply to Re: What Do You Do If You Develope A tolerance to Benz » Quintal, posted by jimmygold70 on December 22, 2006, at 16:23:28
>I don't see how Valium has less withdrawal symptoms. I mean, in theory this might be true but I haven't seen any convincing evidence that longer half life means less withdrawal symptoms. They might be much more delayed with Valium, though. It's just a feature.
No, it's not that withdrawals are just more delayed with Valium. The brain has more time to adjust to changes and maintain its equilibrium when the levels of benzodiazepine are falling slowly. With Valium do you see that the brain (and the person) has over a week to acclimatize with lower benzodiazepine levels after their last dose while with something like Xanax it can be as little as six hours - a huge shock. This usually means milder withdrawal symptoms and lower risk of seizures with Valium.
>Long half life means much trouble with overdoses as its elimination takes ages. You can also dose clonazepam daily with a reasonable half-life. That might be the best tradeoff between compliance and toxicity.
Benzo overdose is rarely life threatening if taken alone and fairly easy to treat. Yes, in theory Valium's long half life would make it a little more complicated for treatment of overdose. It's the short acting benzos that tend to cause problems for more people in long term treatment - for instance when they develop tolerance and start having withdrawal symptoms between doses or become addicted and try to quit.
That said, many people have been able to quit Xanax without the help of a taper with longer acting benzos. Also many people (myself included) have taken overdoses of Valium and not needed hospital treatment at all.
Yes, Klonopin allows once daily dosing yet I still had severe withdrawal symptoms when had to withdraw abruptly. Valium was bad, but not as terrifying as Klonopin.
Q
poster:Quintal
thread:715139
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20061217/msgs/715833.html