Read Dennis' full interview below:
"Hi, this is Dennis
Hansen with
New Beginnings Recovery Center.
Today the topic is benzodiazepine dependency and coming off of benzodiazepines.
And I have Joy, our
Director of Nursing at our clinics and she’s got a couple of questions. Joy?
Joy:
Good afternoon Dennis. Why did my doctor prescribe me such an addictive drug?
Very good question. Joy asked why her doctor prescribed this. Benzodiazepines are used primarily as a depressant; they are used to control anxiety, they are used to control panic disorder, and some of them are used for sleep. Depending on the market aim, each one of these drugs are designed a little bit different, they’re all basically the same exact drug. The problem lies in the fact that this is a drug that was meant to be used for about two weeks and if you look at the manufacturer’s label, you will see that this drug, in fact is designed for that brief period. The problem is that most doctors continue to prescribe this medication for a number of different reasons. One is, it’s self-serving: as long as you are coming back for this medication, you are paying for office visits, and the other reason is they work tremendously for anxiety. There is no other class of drugs that exists that manages anxiety, that handles panic disorder and makes you sleep quite as good as benzodiazepines. The problem is these drugs have a diminished effect. Basically, that means that over the course of time, they lose their effectiveness. Now to achieve the same result, one would add additional benzodiazepines. So, over the course of time doctors will increase dosages to achieve the same result and the problem with that is that you can never get the initial effect that you had in the beginning and ultimately patients are left in a state of anxiety that cannot be curbed regardless of how much benzodiazepine is taken. So patients end up being dependent on this drug. So it becomes difficult to come off of this drug.
Joy:
Thank you.
I’ve been on
Xanax and Clonazepam for ten years. I’ve been switched, lowered, and raised.
Can I ever get well?
That’s a good question. Many of the patients that we treat in our clinics have a similar situation, where they have tried every conceivable method to try and come off of this class of drug and have failed and ultimately, end up with damaged receptor sites, extreme tolerance withdrawal and guilt, shame and some severe physical effects ranging from staying in a chronic state of seizure risk, to insomnia, tremendous anxiety, we see patients come in that have numbness, ringing in their ears, hallucinations; on our website we list about
150 tolerance withdrawal symptoms. Those that have suffered with a benzodiazepine class of drugs can relate to just how horrible this can be.
Modern medicine today doesn’t offer any easy ways to come off of this drug. So the prospect of coming off is very good if you use the
Ashton protocol which is the method that we use. Essentially, we migrate whichever benzo you happen to be on, we will migrate it to a longer-acting benzodiazepine and there’s a couple of options we can use but we use the longer lasting drug and stabilize the level of blood concentration of benzodiazepine and titrate upward until the patients symptoms dissipate, and once they’ve dissipated, we can do a gradual downward taper, and the patients will ultimately get better as the brain heals along the way.
Almost universally, this solution works. There are very few doctors that are willing to do this, but we are. So if you’re interested in talking about this solution for you and you’re struggling with this, you’ll have a compassionate ear with myself and our staff.
We are more than willing to take the time that is necessary to talk about your particular set of symptoms that you are struggling with. You can contact our office at 561-790-4177 and further information can be had at newbeginningsdetox.com. If you email us, at info@newbeginningsdetox.com and explain your situation, we will be happy to respond. On our benzodiazepine webpage, there is a link that you can click to fill out some particular information and we can do an assessment by email at no cost to you and see if this is the right level of care for you. This is an outpatient clinic and we have patients that fly into our clinic from around the world because we offer a solution that works.
Final word is this is not a quick solution, but it is a sure solution. So thanks for your time and have a good day."
It doesn't have to be this way!
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For more information on
NBRC and other treatment services we provide, please visit:
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- published: 23 Feb 2011
- views: 17653