The Stark Reality Of Benzodiazepine Dependence & Availability
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When it comes to anxiety, the truth is that coping mechanisms (medically & behaviorally) are different for everyone. There are some who wholeheartedly feel that anxiety meds are not the answer, and while they may relish in other forms of distraction, we all share common a desire to make ourselves feel better in the moment through whatever means we respectfully deem necessary. Individual rights to one's perceived sense of adequate treatment should not be infringed upon by another's skewed perception of what only works best for his or herself.

So in a rather complex and controversial outlook to the way anxiety should be treated, it seems that doctors and psychiatrists alike have taken a timid stance to prescribing benzo's - But is it really ethical and fair to the well-being of so many patients who have already become dependent over the course of several months or years? A roadblock in the supply chain could turn out to be life-threatening for countless individuals who'd suddenly be at risk of seizures and other diabolical maladies...

[1] Are mainstream doctors consciously aware of the sheer magnitude of benzodiazepine withdrawal? Are physicians trained to face and solve the real traumas of everyday human beings or are they simply textbook smart, generously appointed the M.D. crown for memorizing information throughout their education? These are important questions we sometimes have to ask ourselves, as many of these doctors have earned our deepest trust. When they recommend something, we are the ones who try it.

Some would say that society's perception of anxiety has an effect on the availability/accessibility of mental health services and treatment. For if we truly understood how different our brains operated at the level of each individual, anxiety and its multidimensional array of treatment options (specifically benzos) would inherently be accepted in a nonjudgmental and open-arms manner, despite the odious acts of those who misuse them.

I write all of this in the belief that benzodiazepine addiction & dependence should be treated with increased availability and access to proper tapering methods instead of just yanking the rug out from underneath our feet. Without proper protocol in place, black markets flourish with counterfeits, that only put more lives at risk. Similar to the current opioid epidemic, here we stand at the Mordor of capitalism; when one ember fades (doctors) another begins (dealers). [2] There are many solutions to the same problem, but which one have you chosen?

[1] Management of benzodiazepine misuse and dependence:
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4657308

[2] Do benzodiazepines still deserve a major role in the treatment of psychiatric disorders?
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22521806

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Re: Hamster (# 1)

I could have written your exact post!

My Doc did the same thing..1mg 3 times a day for 2 years and had to stop cold Turkey as the guy refused to refill and I was in Europe.

The brain zaps we're the worst...took almost 1 year to feel ok. Klonopin is the WORST benzo to take. If you need a Benzo take the Xanax XR. They are very weak and they exit your system quickly.

Unfortunately I had to go back and it's the Xanax XR. I have been on 3mg per day but down to 2mg. Much easier than Klonopin!

Bottom line is GP Docs should never prescribe any benzo! They have no clue about tapering, withdrawing, etc.

I know what you went through. HELL!

Good luck!

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Re: Vickki1000 (# 2)

Viki your assessment was fantastic. I am one of those suffering. I was on a slow taper 2.5% / .05 ml drop per week from 2ml every twelve hrs. I was doing well and got down to .50 twice a day. Then my Dr died who was helping people taper through the POINT OF RETURN. I called the compound pharmacy and they told me I needed a new refill to finish off my tapering program. I've been to 3 doctors and none would help me.... I believe they don't realize how close of being done I am or they say they don't do that because I believe they think they have to do the compound script which is not correct. The pharmacy takes .50 mg twice a day to the appropriate liquid drop. I am desperate and suffering. Even if I get klonopin illegally u can't taper correctly with pills. Can anybody help me? If there are any doctors out there please help.

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Re: Dave (# 17)

I am right where your at. I am on suboxone, and because of a tragic event I got hooked on klonopin. Also, I found a tapering program (point of return) tapering u correctly over a 9 to 12 month period; 5% drop per week. I got from 4.0ml to .40ml which is a liquid conversion because liquid enables small drops. I was a month and half from being done. Then my doctor with this program died, the compound pharmacy told me I needed a new script for the last refill, of coarse because of the suboxone I'm having trouble getting the last amount needed. I've been using what I have left lesser than needed causing withdrawal.... I fail to see the issue. Suboxone has a ceiling and the klonopin is a taper. It's going down not up. It doesn't make sense why they wouldn't help the devastation with anxiety and withdrawal. Can be worse than the opiate epidemic but doctors are uninformed. And uneducated. David if u see this post please tell me what has happened with your situation. Thanks. {edited for privacy}

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Re: Dizzyshell83 (# 25)

I've been on benzos for 5 yrs. I got hooked on them. My fault they got to the point of tolerance withdrawal, so I wanted to stop but no one would help taper me the appropriate way 2 to 5% of max dosage drop every 7 days. I found a company online called point of return. My Dr died. I'm almost done and no one will give me a last refill to finish 2 yrs of tapering to get off this crap. I'm at the end and going thru withdrawal. I tried detox and they leave u cold turkey and even a low dose is BRUTAL. I know I didn't help u but was sharing my experience about the lack of help after they give it to u way longer than what's appropriate. 2-4 weeks can start to cause withdrawal and I was never told that. Most doctors do not know how to taper correctly. People, please beware of the dependence as getting off them is nearly impossible. God bless all in this trap.

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Re: Sunny (# 8)

I have taken both prescribed the generics are just as effective accept npt a fan of the round ones thdy dont last as long.

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God bless u David your the first person to write about the dangers and ovewelming side effects of these dangerous medications, I believe Drs and patients don't want to see the truth about them because there an easy solution to solving your fears or anxiety.i got hooked on clonazepam 5 years ago and have been on a liquid compound professional taper for the last 3 years even that has been difficult because of my inability to give the doses to myself. I had to get a lockbox,delegate dosing to my girlfriend,the ups and downs have been hard .I started at 6mg per day I am now down to my last 4 weeks I am at .20 mg every 12 hours. Thank u for your experience and help in this area most people and doctors are clueless of these dangers and the dangers to your mental health.the proper taper for benzodiazepines is .05ml per week. Example if u are on 4mg a day u would start2mg every 12 hours for a week then drop to 1.95 every twelve hours for a week then1.90 and so on it takes quite a while and u must change from pills to liquid compound so the small drops can be achieved. I found it to be the only way to achieve balance and get off this crap and give me a new perspective maybe my daily anxiety wasn't so bad. Plus I have learned meditation and a Hawaiian treatment hooponopono to help me .Thanks again David I've been thinking of posting this information for awhile and I finally saw a post where someone new the truth.ps detox doesn't work because the get u through the danger period 7-10 days ship u to rehab cold turkey as they did me u leave because the symptoms are unbearable, I left and drank after years of sobriety from alcohol.this taper must be slow and steady for a successful completion of this medication. The best is to not start in the first place if it is an absolute nessesity don't use beyond 3 weeks ,never use EVERYDAY. MAY GOD BLESS ALL THAT ARE TRAPPED IN THIS DELEMA

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Hi. I've been taking benzodiazepines for 6 years. Last year my doctor here in the UK stopped or he refused actually to prescribe my medication from the psychiatric doctor's say so. My doctor claims he doesn't wanna supply diazepam or my zolpidem. My surgery has 4 doctors and the others were ok with it, but one day I got unlucky with this doctor and now he deals personally with me only so he can keep watching. I can't get another doctor.

I worry that I'll be then up s*** creek after being on it for 6 years. I've got borderline personality disorder and many others I'm in and out of respite and hospitals. I also worry about the social government with medicals before your entitled to sickness benefits. Because my doctor stopped diazepam and zolpidem, that doesn't look good to the assessment people.

Anyone else having trouble with their benzodiazepine prescriptions?

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Please help, my doctors won't help me treat my anxiety with something that works. I am so scared I'm gonna have a stroke or heart attack any day. Every muscle in my body is so tense that even now as I write this my toes are curled tight and the arch of my feet is tightly all curled up as my whole legs are so tight. They hurt my hips deep inside. It's crazy. Then to top that off my lower back up tight bad. The worst is deep inside my body under my shoulder blades is so tight and painful. My shoulders are like rocks and it's like the tightness from deep inside my shoulder blades. The tight pain is so bad that it goes up my neck. And my jaw is so tight its clenched hard and is making my head hurt so bad like causing sharp pains at times. I am feeling this way daily. Even my fingers I'm using right now are like I'm pushing my hands tight so my tight fingers are sticking up. Every part of me hurts so so bad. My heart rate is always over 100. My doctor knows this. My blood pressure is always high. I'm on a pill for it but it's not strong enough because my blood pressure and heart rate are too high. As always, this dr. does nothing for me. After my breast cancer and mastectomy anyway, I have no right breast and all lymph nodes taken out of my whole breast. I had a breast implant that exploded. My plastic surgeon did me so wrong. My skin was so tight my implant blew out. I have a hole in my chest that almost killed me many times when infected.

My hair never came back all the way. I have to buy a front hair piece to even look normal. Ya I have and still some horrible medical issues. But so do others in this world. I know that and much more. All I ask from dr. is to help the anxiety I've been through to go away. Please I ask, but the dr. refuses to give me any kind of help. My old dr. I had put me on 2mg xanax 2 times a day and that was such a wonderful medication for me. I felt no more tightness, no more pain. I felt like me again - normal. I had no more anxiety no more stress no more panicking. I was going to die from all my tightness all over my body. My new doctor is not normal. She knows how I feel. I have told her and everything. She won't help me. I ask her for my medication I was on before no, she says...Its something I can not stop. Its just there all the time and worse at sometimes than other times but is there. I feel so sad. My new dr.Is treating me like some junky off the street that wants drugs. She gave me my sleeping med. Of course because I can't sleep. I was on them. Only 1 before bed. She said never will she give me anything to help my tense body and stress and anxiety, because I take 1 sleeping medication before bed for insomnia I have had since I was a teenager - something I can not control at all. And same goes for my other issues.

I'm in need of a dr. who cares and helps their patients get the medical help that is needed. That dr. Is going to kill me by not helping me. She just will not take this like a medical problem that it has been. Not believing me. I'm 56 years old. I'm not some child or teenager that is not aware of real health problems. She makes me feel like a low class piece of s***, treated like a horrible person out for pills like a desperate woman with a sick addiction. This is no addiction, it is a medical problem that needs to be treated like any other one that people go to see a dr. for. What should I do? I so need help or this sickness that is not something I asked for in my life is going to kill me. I need some kind of help soon. I am scared.

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Re: Sheila (# 22)

I haven't heard that...how can a million plus lose their pills?

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Is Xanax being taken off the market? My psychiatrist said he would no longer prescribe Xanax after January and it could only be done by my physician.

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What alternative medications are there to Xanax? There's one that started with the letter "C", that was a short word, but I don't remember the name...

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Re: Vickki1000 (# 2)

I find your story heartbreaking.

It's very unfair of doctors (or "modern science" in general) to say to you "Well, when we first gave it to you it was a miracle drug. Now we found maybe there are some problems, so you have to bail out NOW!

Are you sure that *you're* the one having addiction problems? Or were you just told you were?

See, to me the difference is all in the fact that every drug produces side-effects. Some will be devastating, others you don't mind much...

But if this has you rendered bed-ridden and the other things you were going through trying to *withdraw* - trust me, your side effects would have to have been so much worse!! Like, being a vampire and unable to keep daylight hours...

It sounds ridiculous I know, but you don't HAVE TO follow your doctor's advice (esp since they seem younger & younger these days).
If it's your disorder; then YOU are the expert. You choose. Especially with that "you're not making progress fast enough for me". You poor woman! It's almost like they have a quota to fill & your illness is getting in the way!
Ridiculous!!

I'd like to tell you all the true story of the billionaire Howard Hughes at the end of his life.
As far as they can figure, he was the longest-lived chronic pain patient (self medicated at that) in history!

He was rich enough to keep himself pain managed for over 50yrs by himself with 3 items: Codiene, Valium, and a type of analgesic with caffeine called Emperin.

Guess which one killed him? The bloody aspirin! After all the abuse it put him into renal failure.

Really makes you think, doesn't it?

Anyway, feel better & take care of yourself. -Lauralee ?

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Re: Vickki1000 (# 2)

Absolutely spot on! It's a wake-up call for everyone. As a nurse, one of the first concepts we learn is patient advocacy. We are the last in line to the patient and have to protect the patient even if it's from an MD error. Some nurses would give their life for their patient if it came down to that.

The MD's are not educated with this concept and actually find it an insult to them. I just bring that up to add to the excellent assessed and knowledgeable statement regarding drug dependency and people that are legally endowed with our trust to prescribe and manage them appropriately.

The opioid crisis has caused a panic among several physician groups, and because they can't do anything about what happens in the public sector (such as friends and relatives stealing or "borrowing" meds) they focus on the one group they can have control over and that is the innocent chronic pain patient. Statistics abound that patients with chronic pain or on drugs that are appropriately prescribed but can be addictive are the least likely group to OD. But suicides are often classified as OD's in this group, particularly now when everything a chronic pain patient does is suspect and the pressure to suicide is only increased as the supposedly "well-meaning' cold turkey withdrawals and non follow up of retiring prescribing physicians and the fear physicians have taking on new patients that need controlled substances is commonplace. The unreasonable fears of the FDA and DEA have on MD's their practice is over the top two... It's number one that is looked after and not 2-1000 of the patients. I'm not saying it's a character flaw or intelligence issue. It's human and the errors that are being driven by big pharma's infiltration of our medical schools, MD clinics, and every facet of health care. I'm hoping one day someone with great courage and leadership will point this out of how it's undermined all aspects of healthcare in order to feed the insatiable money eating machine of big pharma.

People rise up and fight back, get informed, because nobody's going to do it for you.

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Re: Benny boy (# 15)

I was on 200mg until 8 months ago and had been tapering at 10 percent per month for 20 months. Patient information is more accurate than your doctors. They should take it. After reaching 25mg I became extremely ill, felt strange. Even had mind trips. It is the most painful withdrawal of any medication including cymbalta. Intense pain, insomnia, neuropathic pain, feeling of concussion, extreme weakness, inability to walk are just a few of the symptoms. On the bright side you will lose weight. Weight gained on amitriptyline. And mood will improve after about 8 months but this may be a two year withdrawal. And according to others it is,very hard to get off of. My life has been shut down for 8 months. And head pressure can get so severe you may have to take 50 mg. I had a small stroke possibly and temporarily, for minutes lost my vision. No other drug has an effect on the withdrawal. Again anyone on 50-and above is in rhe most devastating fight for life like myself. It is worse than chemo and longer. And stomach pain in the morning is intense and signals a bad day. Hope you succeed. My doctor said two weeks and no withdrawal. Not true unless 10mg possibly. That is why doctors dropped the dosage fro 300 to 25.

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Yes, what you are saying is right, like me I have been on klonopin 2x daily for around 15 years. I have PTSD but my Dr that was getting me off of opiates quit and left the practice leaving me without my subutex and my klonopin so I had the facilities write me out a 1 month script until I could find a new Dr and most Drs will not let you take both meds at the same time. But I finally found a Dr that let me take both until my script of klonopin ran out. He told me my family Dr would refill but she said no. Now I have no Dr that will prescribe both meds and I am scared as hell. I cannot go without these meds. I feel that the Drs that got you addicted to certain meds should be responsible if something happens to you like having no one who will prescribe. They should be held accountable for this. I know a legal suit will not help but if they got you addicted then they should help you get unaddicted and fill your scripts. It is not fair that you have to go through very very bad withdrawals. Someone should help you. Then I have the subutex withdrawal on top of this. Someone needs to be held accountable for this.

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So many Drs have no real understanding of anxiety at all other than what they've learned in books. Even trying to get treated for it they treat everyone like they're drug seeking. Once the "opiod epidemic" became the catch phrase (which btw, was created by the pill mills and unethical Drs who wrote scripts for cash with impunity for years) All patients meds and dosages were cut. I had been on diazepam for a few years and they just discontinued them over a 2 month period. I developed terrible rebound anxiety, mild agoraphobia, and hard to explain symptoms that lasted 6-9 months. They do not look at individual treatment or patients, as long as the amount the Drs are prescribing goes down. The hell with patients

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Re: Alan (# 11)

Amitriptyline withdrawal I've been taking that for several years 50 mg to bed if I stop taking this cold turkey what will happen

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Re: Lauralee (# 10)

I was instructed to take it at night. It does not matter when you take it as long you have the right amount in your system.

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Re: Mickey (# 12)

I agree as well Allen. I am a retired research nurse, who also being driven neurotic due to implosionary emotional skills and at the same time now hypertensive related to severe panic anxiety and falling through medical cracks as im perminantly disabled now on medicare medi-cal and my heart cant stake it, that guy standing on my severly inderweight chest from a dead sleep with a script from my dr. Just breathe.... im a dead woman... Klonplopin btw is 1-150 for 1mg and a 2mg xanax bar is 4-5each in LA streets and Klonopin has 2x the half life.... i wish more dealers had klonopin. So this is the end of my 17 year nursing education.

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Re: Alan (# 11)

I agree with this 100%, i take Klonopin regularly, do not abuse it at all, and i also have Ativan if i need it, sometimes i never need it, sometimes once every 6 months i might need one....

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