Never take Xanax or any other benzodiazepine

A doctor at an ER thought it was a wise choice to give me a prescription for a benzodiazepine, which is a family of medication for people with anxiety, chronic pain, depression, joint pain, seizures and headaches. I only took the medication for my chronic pain on a daily basis like it recommended and boy was it an extremely hard medication to wean off and the withdrawals from this type of medication lasts forever. Please be very wise when doctors want to give you any kind of medication, do not trust them. They work for Big Pharma and can care less about helping you. Research everything! Benzodiazepines are xanax, klonopin, ativan and librium.

Rings a bell. I think I was on 20 mg of Lexapro and this at the same time. I agree that doctors prescribe too recklessly.

Exactly!

I watch the 6 o'clock local news followed by World New Tonight. One of these days I'm going to write down all the drugs they push on commercials and all of them end with "ask your doctor if XXXXXXX is right for you." Big Pharma at work. All the drugs on the commercials are aimed at an older audience who still watch the news on TV.

If you experience a nine hour boner---or if you experience death by renal failure---consult your physician immediately.

I don't understand why in the world they advertise prescription drugs on TV. Of course, I can imagine that the reason is to prompt we patients to ask our doctors for them so that it becomes likely that a doctor will prescribe them. But, that's an individual patient decision. I leave it to my doctor to decide what he/she needs to prescribe without any prompting from me.

Methadone+ xnes good time if you wake up.

First post in general. Heap withdrawl of benzos can kill u like booze. No sleep for weeks and you take a lil nap you body sweats out any h2o in the body scary. I'd wake up with a imprint of my body on my bed. Gross. Oh well heading to the l store.

They are legalized dope pushers! pmac, you sound like you have been through benzo withdrawal yourself. Sorry to hear that.

Most of the time the doctors are paid to write certain meds by the manufacturers so they don't really look out for us.

I never heard of prescribing xanax for pain. Anxiety, panic attacks, and in conjuction with one of the antidepressants for depression. Valium has more of a muscle relaxing action to it so some people got them for back spasm pain and it's used for alcohol withdrawl but up to now i never heard of xanax being prescribed for pain.

You have to be careful with all the benzo's, you don't think they're a big deal until you stop taking them, espescially if you took them for any length of time.

Yeah, they'll wean you off a Benzo with a short half-life (like Xanax) with a Benzo with a long half-life (like Valium), and vice versa. But all that does is trick your body for a little while. At the end of the day you're still gonna have a problem.

Valium does have a muscle relaxer in it and does have a long half life (about 12 hours) compared to Koldapin which is prescribed a lot for anxiety and whether people want to hear this or not Bi-Polar Disorders.
Xanax is the strongest benzodiazepine and has a short half life of about on 4 hours per 1 mg.

Librium(s) are used to get off of benzos; doctors think if you take that for a week you can just ween yourself off.

You're not supposed to just stop taking your dosage though. You have to decrease it gradually. And you have to maintain regular communication with your doctor.

Maybe some people just try to stop taking these things cold turkey. I know I have and I was warned not to. Not that I had any problems but everyone responds differently.

It can deadly it's no joke with benzo's it just as powerful as alcohol withdrawl you can DIE from it. A friend of mine has been on anti-depressants is whole life and told me once he stopped taking them and then switched to another it made the kid suicidal very powerful stuff.

I don't know a lot of medications and fortunately don't take any, but isn't Xanax one they advertise on tv with a sh*tload of possible side effects including suicidal thoughts?
Or am I thinking of something else?



TIS

Because you never heard of it means it's not true?! No pun intended, but my doctor gave me ATIVAN for pain, not XANAX.

No no, i didn't mean it like that. Just never heard of it before. Like i said some of the benzo's had more of a muscle relaxing effect and were given for muscle spasm type pain. I'm not that familiar with Ativan, for all i know it could be one of the benzos they used for that. Valium would probably work good for tension or stress headaches.

Yes, you're right about that. There are a lot of different benzos. Some people can taper off in a few months and be fine but others can taper off at the same amount of time and have a really terrible withdrawal from it. The withdrawal symptoms are painful. The worst mental and physical pain ever. I was only on them for over a month and went cold turkey thinking that since I was on it a month it would be ok. Boy, was I wrong.

Not to rain on anyone's misinformed medication parade, but very little (almost none) of what I have just read on this thread is even close to being correct. Yes benzos can be addictive, but if used correctly, they have been a tremendous help to millions of people. In addition, there is no conspiracy between big pharma and physicians...no money changes hands, and if your doctor doesn't have your best interests at heart, it's not because of big pharma...you've got other issues at hand.

I've always heard never take a laxative and a sleeping pill before turning in for the night...

No money changes hands (maybe), but there are other perks. Drug reps at my mom's job are constantly coming in and ordering massive catered lunches for everyone while doing conferences and of course holding business retreats for the doctors in the Virgin Islands and Vegas and shit.. sounds shady to me..

So a "massive" lunch does exactly what?...besides making you loosen your belt?

As posted above, I don't know why a medication such as Xanax would be prescribed for pain; there are plenty of medications that are specifically designed to reduce or otherwise minimize pain. Xanax (or its generic equivalent) is not; it is meant to relax the patient.

As also posted above, when medications are prescribed and used correctly, they are quite beneficial.

However, as a function of marketplace competition, I do think that pharmaceutical companies provide physicians with incentives to prescribe their product instead of another company's product.

Yeah, and Oxycodone is every bit as dangerous as anything in the Benzo family.

Well why focus on the lunch part? That's just the bits that the rest of the office gets to be in on. What about the retreats to tropical islands for the doctors. All expense paid of course

Really?....can you give an example of a paid trip to the islands or any other destination? I'm truly interested.

it's 2014, if you're unaware of the dangers of benzo's, opiates and/or sleeping pills that's on you. this fake idea that so many who run into problems push that it was the doctor's fault is transparent bullshit. most of the time, it's not the dr pushing narcotics on unsuspecting patients, it's patients pushing dr's to prescribe narcotics. oh yeah, give me a break about benzo withdrawl in the short term. if you have been taking a normal, moderate dosage for a few weeks, you will be a bit uncomfortable and have some problems sleeping. if you gulped down the entire 30 1mg pills in a few days, don't cry!

Well I don't have documentation. My mom works in a medical office and lots of times I hear from her or her doctor friends that the drug reps are bringing the doctors out to some retreat to have seminars. The seminars are basically the reps pushing new drugs. Any time I've heard the location it's always been some touristy vacation spot.

Benzos are NEVER Rxd for pain...again, another bit of misinformation....this thread is actually quite silly in its immaturity and lack of factual basis.

There you go. When you're doctor shopping under three different names, the problem may just be the man in the mirror. Now there's no denying how addictive these pills can be. But taken responsibly, they do A LOT more good than bad.

Amen....and no one is getting paid to give or not to give them to you....that is pure nonsense...lunches, dinners or any food is not going to coerce any physician to prescribe a certain medicine over another.

It sounds like your doctor should of given you seaqurel (don't know how you spell it) an anti-psychotic that's more of a tranquilizer

That's the thing though. These kinds of pills and pain killers are frequently abused by low life douches. I knew quite a few of these kinds of people in high school. Poppin whatever pill they could get their hands on, or crushing it and sniffing it like a line of cocaine. Fuckin assholes had no life

Hope the opposing team never have to go through something like that and experience it for themselves...

Exactly the point of my post and thank you for backing me up because IT IS true. Every time I go to the doctor there are drug reps there and it is just like you said.

And oldschool why do you think certain doctors only write a certain type of med? I had one pain doctor one time only write me Kadian for my back (extended release morphine). So when I told him the side effects were too bad, he called me a drug seeker and refused to write anything else. Every note pad in the damn place said Kadian as did every damn calendar and everything else. Why do you think that is? Because he gets perks and shit from whoever makes Kadian. He refused to even try anything else on me, that should tell you enough. He could have cared less on what the drug was doing to me, and of course I told him he could shove that bill up his ass too and walked out.

Boy you are very naive if you think that way. My best friend is a RN and has told me many stories of drug reps and their relationships with doctors. Why do you think they treat the doctors so good? It's not because they think their drug is THAT GOOD. If a doctor has a patient in that has some extreme pain and his thoughts come down to a mild pain killer like Loratab or Vicodin but he knows if he writes enough Loratab's that the rep will send him to Vegas what do you think he would write that patient? And you think that is perfectly fine and he doesn't gain from that? You really need to wake up dude.

And I agree on the benzos. I take Valium for when I travel on storms (10mg I think?) as I used to get anxiety when I travel on long trips and still do at times so I take one and relax. Most of the ones that have problems are taking a shitload and then have to stop for one reason or another and that's why it's so dangerous, just as it is for most pills that are strong in one way or another.

Dixie..I feel your pain thru the internet...but I can tell you that I am certainly not naive...and drug reps may be friendly with physicians but that is the extent of it..what else can they do...pay them off?...now you are being very naive if you believe that...you have no concept of how regulated the medical industry is and the extraordinary scrutiny under which we operate on a daily basis....and let me assure you that no one is going to Vegas or anywhere else for writing Vicodin or Lortab...which, by the way, are not considered to be mild pain killers..they are schedule II narcotics...that's the highest you can get prior to IV preparations which are schedule I....I can go on with this thread to try and shed some light on this subject for some here, but I think it would be quite meaningless, as the next intelligent thing written will be the first.

Quit trying to twist my words, I just used the Loratab/Vicodin deal as an example. Drug reps are promising junkets for a reason, but I guess it's all scouts honor eh? Or let me guess, certain doctors just think Loratabs are just that great? Get real, like I've said I've seen doctors refuse to change meds for folks (including myself) just because they promised to write only one type of med. You tell me why? They must know about all those healing powers the drug makers don't tell us about.

I know all about pain killers too, I have to take Opana daily for my spinal issues so you are pissing in the wind trying to prove I know nothing about pain killers. Have had to take them for almost 10 years now, and started at Loracet and moved up the ladder to what I'm on now before finally finding one that lets me function like I need to with minimal problems all because I found a doctor that doesn't sell out. If you think there are absolutely no kickbacks then yes you are naive. They don't spend all that money to get doctors to write scripts for their product for no reason. If it is that good they don't need to sell it and give shit away to get doctors to write it.

Again I'm not saying every single doctor does this, but it happens a whole lot more than you will admit. And yes to those who ACTUALLY hurt, Vicodin and Loratabs are mild. To the dopehead down the street who is snorting it, no it isn't.

Dixie....where to start? First of all, Vicodin and lortab are the same medicine and neither are even sold by drug reps because they are generic drugs (hydrocodone) and have been generic for years. I can assure you that there are no kickbacks. Opana is available in two forms...I hope you are on the ER version for your sake. If you have other questions or comments about pain meds or otherwise, I would be happy to answer them....seriously. Pain is a very serious subject...but all this talk of kickbacks and enticements is all bs...if you believe otherwise, that's your prerogative, but it doesn't happen...unless you consider a lunch to be enticement...the truth is reps aren't even allowed to leave a pen or pad in a doctor's possession....trying talking to Ted Kennedy or Nutsy Pelosi without coughing up 50k...that's ok, but let a physician accept a pen, and you are breaking the rules..that may make sense to some here, though I'm sure.

Once again you missed the point and still ignored the fact that I said I used Loratab and Vicodin as an example ONLY. I'm done talking in circles.

I don't think I missed a thing.

Back in the early 80's, I was having trouble falling asleep. My Dr. prescribed Halcyon. It worked, but it made me depressed--and I'm not a depressive person. So, I stopped taking it, and the depression lifted after about a week.

Later I read that Halcyon caused a rash of suicides. Now I hear that dentists use it as an anesthetic.

Had one doctor give me antidepressants for ankle pain one time and to "help me sleep" as well. It's a well known one but I forget the damn name. Made me suicidal as well and I quickly got off. Told them they better never write me anything like that again.

Now I'd rather take over the counter sleeping pills for sleep than I would Ambien or anything of the such. Even took Melatonin one time and wont do that again either, crap makes you NOT want to wake up, you think you've only been asleep for 2 hours instead of 10

That Lexipro is some nasty shit! The doctor gave me a script for it and I took it for about a year and then decided to stop taking it. Coming off that stuff was rough!
I would get constant brain zaps (like an electric shock inside your head) took me months to ween myself of that crap!

Yeah. I stopped taking it before my college exams because I was worried that it would fuck up my how I did in them. It also plays havoc with your sex drive! At least it did with mine.

Roaccutane is another drug that has some fucked up side effects. I was travelling home with my mother and she gets a phone call from my brother saying he's in the shed and he's thinking about hanging himself.

We were two hours from home. That wasn't a fun drive!

Well Moe, BigBrooklyn50 and Turnbull, you guys can relate. Thanks for your comments. Sorry about your bro Moe. I do hope he's well now.

Thanks stern and he's fine now.

Is that the same as Accutane? I took Accutane for acne at like 12 and I don't remember why I was taken off of it, I think it didn't work or some crap. Said not to be outside yet I had to help my Father and Godfather run catfish baskets and trot lines out in the summer heat

Then years later I read that crap was causing kids to kill themselves and boy was I glad I was off of that crap.

The anti-smoking drug Chantix has been linked to over 500 suicides.

Google--- Chantix - suicide

im in my early seventies. I was taking ambien for sleep, took it for about a year, worked great, then my doc took me of it, when I asked why? he said "some older patients are taking it and they are not waking up" well, he switched me to lunesta.

and it doesn't work at all. I miss the ambien, but, he won't prescribe it. old school have you heard of ambien?

I have prescribed Ambien hundreds of times, and it is by far, the most effective sleeping agent we have ever had...however, like any medication, there are precautions and contraindications...being elderly, is not an absolute contraindication, but should be used with discretion...if used cautiously, it can be a great benefit to patients, even to the point of being life changing to some particularly bad insomniacs.

I've been on benzos for almost 4 years now... at my peak I was taking between 2-5mg of xanax a day, then I switched to Klonopin (clonazepam) 2mg, tapered to 1, 0.5.. now I'm taking around 3mg of Valium a day, divided in two doses.. which is a really big decrease. I'm worried about having permanent effects from my benzo use... it's just one of those scary thoughts I try to leave at the back of my mind.

On top of that I've also been addicted to prescription opiates for 3 years, also tapered to a minimum. I've been making good progress the last 6 months, but recently I've been losing my motivation. The thing is, I'm only in my twenties. This all happened after a major spinal surgery I had about 3 years ago.

All I want to say about the opiates is how dangerously addictive they are. I tried them first when I was about 18, it was codeine.. then Oxy, etc, etc. Some of the highs have honestly been probably the best feeling I've ever had or will have, and I've done a lot of things.
Thank god though at least I never injected anything, never went down that road. Unless you got iron willpower, you should never try to get high on opiates.

Malandrino that is what I like about the Opana's, they don't give me that high feeling and I don't have any side effects. I also don't wake up with my body wanting one like the Percocets and others used to do.

Get help bro if you can't get off. When I quit smoking I told myself I was going to suffer and I did, but I quit them cold turkey after smoking 1-2 packs a day.

Opanas used to be one of the most abused prescription opiates in the US, back when the old, crushable formula was still around, but if you don't screw around with them, pretty much every opiate is good if used as prescribed.

I used to smoke cigarettes, smoke weed, drink heavily too... not to mention taking antidepressants. I've quit all of them. I rarely drink nowadays and when I do, I don't get shitfaced. I've never had a hard time quitting these, the reason being that these weren't things I really enjoyed that much in the first place. With opiates it's different because I still enjoy it, even at low dosages and with a high tolerance. Those other things were just addictions, the tough thing is when you're psychologically addicted and you ENJOY what you do.

I hear ya Maladrino. What Benzos do to the brain is cause our GABA receptors to shut down and it messes up the Central Nervous System. GABA is what keeps us calm, when they are tarnished from Benzos or Alcohol they take quite some time to deregulate and for our brains to get back to homeostasis (getting back to normality). Benzos are only supposed to be taken no more than 1 month at the most, but people take them longer. Look up "Benzo Withdrawal" on the net, bud. Take care!

Serious question: What did you do to stop smoking? I created this bad habit about a year and a half ago from stress at work and I want to drop it ASAP before I am dead at 50.

Take some wellbutrin it's anti-depressant that was oringally brought out to quit smoking

That has worked with some people, but I wouldn't really recommend it. My Mom used it when she quit and I told her if she could quit that I would do the same. The best is always just dropping them.



Honestly bro I just quit cold turkey. I was one of those like others that quit all the time. But honestly you have to get your head right before attempting to quit. If you are going to find reasons to smoke (woman leaves you, you get laid off at work, etc.) then you will never quit.

I told myself that no matter how much I suffered and no matter what happens in life I was going to stop them no matter what. I refused every excuse to smoke, including when I was being tested for Lymphoma because they thought I had it. It wasn't easy that's for damn sure, but until you get your head right it's not even worth quitting yet. It's like when you have poison ivy and it's begging you to scratch it and you know you can't and you refuse to. You must do the same with this. After about 2-3 weeks it is gravy from there. Only once or twice a month do I even crave one and I pretty much hate to be around cig smoke anymore...




Yes I was on them then as well and had to change meds because there was a huge shortage when they changed the formula. They don't feel as strong now as they were, but they are still the best pain killer for me. And you are right, when you need them they are good for you. If I couldn't take anything I would probably be bedridden, and now I can get out and drive and work and you can't even tell I'm on anything.

I don't know about that. That's pharmaceutical sales reps jobs. They want their product on the shelves in the Dr.'s office and I'm sure good relations and great lunches can make that happen.

I agree.

Even when taken responsibly there is no guarantee you won't have a bad withdrawal. It can last anywhere from 2 months to a year in many cases. I took 5mg twice daily. Just 1mg. That is what my doctor (at the time) said to take. They are not made for the long term, only for a month at the most or in a hospital setting. It causes too many problems and put too much strain on our GABA and CNS.

I'm not sure about pharmaceutical sales but I have an uncle that work for the medical equipment saler Stryker. He said now all they hire is pretty little blondes right out of college. (I know one that works in Dallas for a different company, 6 months after employment there was a noticeable size difference in her breasts, I'm sure the company footed that).

They start off at 60K a year, but they are basically an intern, associate, whatever you want to call it. They follow around the person above them, meet the doctors, familiarize themselves with the equipment they are selling (My uncle sales specifically equipment from the mandible on up aka the mouth on up to be very vague.

The first two years are low pay(In their field at least), but once they let you take the reigns, we are talking beaucoup money, like more than double the 60K and depending on sales it can be triple or Quadruple. Commissions off of sales, taking doctors out on deep sea fishing trips and guided hunts (That's what we do down here, I guess its more of expensive dinners and venues in NYC.)

It's all fueled by sales. Two years ago he "won" a trip to Ireland, not sure if I added fuel the fire for this argument

The sad truth is that anyone can go to a doctor and say he or she is "nervous" or "depressed" or can't sleep, and the prescription floodgates open.

I had a seizure from benzo-diazepine withdrawal.

Not a drug id ever take again, there are safer treatments for anxiety disorder.

using benzos for the treatment of chronic anxiety disorders, i find actually ends up causing more anxiety due to addiction.

It's the honest truth. I had two buddies of mine I have been friends with since high school just recently get on adderoll three or four years ago. I'm 27 so this would of been when they were 23-24. Told the doctor they used to be on it but haven't taken it since high school. No background medical checks or any tests at all. Wrote out the prescription and sent them on their way. That was a real eye opener to me on how easy it is for someone to work the system and legally take a drug that they are addicted too.

How long were you on them and which one, how long did it take for you to get well?

Happy Holidays!