Lol, there is no need to get all bent out of shape. But unfortunately, this kind of behavior is very typical of long term benzo users. Of course I have anxiety, I don't speak on subjects I don't have experience with. I have struggled with social anxiety all my life and taken benzos for years also.
I didn't say I didn't think a patient shouldn't be allowed to choose to use a drug, that's a different topic. What I said was, someone who deeply cares for their patients should not be giving them brain damaging poison, which benzos are. The side effects of benzos aren't always apparent while you are taking the medication, they become apparent once you try to come off. It took me over 6 years to recover from my time on benzos. WHen used long term, they cause serious changes to the brain. I am not unusual either, just go to a site like benzobuddies.org and you will notice thousands of people all around the world have had their lives seriously disrupted or even destroyed by benzos.
I am all for doctors right to do whatever they can to help the patient. But the fact of the matter is that the situation isn't actually so bad that you need to take a brain damaging poison to treat anxiety. First of all, all they do is mask the symptom. They don't cure anxiety, as evidenced by you continuining to rely on them after TWELVE years. Its like putting a sticker over the check engine light in your car instead of checking the engine. Second, there are plenty of other ways to treat anxiety which are both safer and more effective than benzos.
When a drug turns out to cause serious side effects, it is usually banned or removed from the market to protect people, like Vioxx. Benzos have more than enough risks to meet this same fate, but there is serious denial about this in the medical community. Just read
http://www.benzo.org.uk/. Again, this is a separate issue from your right to use benzos. I believe if you truly wish to your poison yourself, you should be able to. But no doctor should in good conscience seriously recommend that for you as " medical treatment".
A doctor who truly cares for his patients, isn't likely to give them something which has a high percent chance of destroying their mind and which is next to impossible to stop taking. Its simply bad medicine, period. The issue of whether someone who wants benzos despite the dangers should have access to them, is a separate question as to whether it is good medicine. Someone who truly cares about your well being, wouldn't be likely to recommend smoking crack to you as a treatment for depression, even if you are convinced that smoking crack is the only way to improve your mood. Thats your delusion. A good doctor, actually cures his patients, instead of merely getting them hooked on some chemical that big pharma wants to cash in on.
I know I will be hated for speaking the truth, but the truth is that there are much better ways to deal with anxiety than poisoning yourself with benzos.
What "kind of behavior is typical of long term benzo users"?
Getting bent out of shape??
That's not only annoying it's insulting.
I'm no more prone to getting "bent out of shape" than I ever was and it's quite an odd statement to make.
Sorry, but even though I see your points I still mostly disagree.
Benzos like Klonopin CAN....Repeat CAN SOMETIMES permanently damage the brain depending on dosage, years of use and frequency and any number of other factors and.
They do NOT ALWAYS cause permanent negative changes to the brain, and I personally wouldn't refer to them with the language "brain damaging poison" unless you also want to refer to any number of other psychiatric medications like SSRIs, MAOIs and anti-psychotics under the same language.
Whether or not they "cure" symptoms is not of issue IMO.
SSRIs, which have also been prescribed for mental illness for a LONG time, do not "cure" the patient either in the sense that if one stops taking them the issues one was taking them for will return.
In fact, I think the vast majority of psychiatric medications do not "cure" a patient either, but as long as they are taken symptoms do not occur.
Personally, speaking from someone who has used them 12 years, I honestly don't care that they don't cure my anxiety because all I know is that while I use them my anxiety is gone and I have seen very few side effects other than some mild drowsiness, and that is good enough for me.
My twelve years of use have indeed shown that they don't cure anxiety, as I got off of them for 9 months (EASILY actually despite how many people have trouble with this I had almost no WD which speaks well for my reaction to the drug) and did indeed find my anxiety was still there so I started using them again.
But to speak of medications not "curing" people and only helping so long as they are taken in this day and age is kind of pointless with how common it is across the board even with medications that are not psychiatric in nature.
My mother has a thyroid condition and she has to take thyroid medication the rest of her life or she will die but so long as she takes it she does not have any number of extremely uncomfortable symptoms caused by her condition.
So her medication doesn't "cure" her, but she is perfectly satisfied with the knowledge that this is the case because they keep her alive and keep her symptoms from occuring.
MANY people with all kinds of conditions take medications for their entire lives which never actually "cure" them.
People with high cholesterol or high blood pressure take meds for these conditions their whole lives and are never "cured" but if they are satisfied with their symptoms no longer occurring and are able to tolerate the side effects then they are satisfied.
This is how I personally feel about Klonopin.
And just because in 12 years I haven't felt the negative side effects does NOT necessarily mean that I will EVER experience permanent horrific cognitive changes and I personally am betting that it won't ever happen to me.
Now while it is of course true that a good doctor should treat the cause of the problem and not only the symptoms, who is to say that he can't do BOTH????
They certainly can.
For me, I see one doctor for medication and I seek therapy from other doctors to try to cause the root of the problem.
Maybe someday I'll cure the root and no longer need the medication, but if not I will have something which can overcome the crippling symptoms.
I in no way see the analogy of putting a sticker over the check engine sign in your car either lol.
It's more like repairing an old car over and over in an effort to keep it running as long as possible until it inevitably breaks down and you need to buy another....but really, that analogy doesn't work too well either and I don't think we need a "car analogy" for this.
I absolutely reject out of hand that a doctor cannot care about his patient's well being because he prescribes a medication which CAN...repeat CAN have harmful side effects but which brings great relief of symptoms.
For all of the thousands of people on that "benzobuddies" site who are getting together and crying about the damage done to them by benzos who knows how many thousands of people have used benzos WITHOUT ever experiencing this horrible long term side effects???
You can be damn sure that they are out there and you just aren't hearing from them, but you are hearing from one right now.
All drugs have side effects and the history of medications which treat only symptoms but not the root and which CAN have negative side effects is about as deep and extensive as it gets to the point of my venturing to guess that quite possibly the MAJORITY of medications that exist, both psychiatric and otherwise, do not actually CURE a patient permanently but only treat symptoms.
Whether or not it's the majority it's certainly true that a MASSIVE percentage of medications do not actually permanently "cure" a person but nevertheless relieve symptoms.
And for some people, like myself, relief of symptoms without experiencing negative side effects is good enough at least for the time being.
Actually PERMANENTLY "curing" anxiety may not always even be possible at all.
So to say that a doctor that prescribes these meds for symptom relief of disorders that can be EXTREMELY hard to overcome doesn't care about his patients is ridiculous.
You are not being "hated" for speaking the truth, you are being called out for only speaking ONE HALF of the truth.
The other half is that these "better ways of treating anxiety" are not always readily available or even accessible at all, do not themselves always "cure" the entire problem either and that benzos are just one of scores of medications for all sorts of issues which CAN SOMETIMES have negative effects in favor of helping with sometimes crippling symptoms.
All medications have side effects, and as such, it is up to the patient to decide whether or not the risks are worth it for the symptom relief but in the end the risks of the medication does NOT make doctors who prescribe them "uncaring monsters".
