Before I start addressing the points being made here, I'd like to say that I do believe opiates might very well be the most efficient treatment for your illness. If you have tried multiple other drugs which have not worked while opiates have, then it might just be the way to go.
Since there is a very real possibility that you won't read through my entire post, please answer these questions (if not only for other patients who might benefit off your experience):
-Which other meds have you tried for treatment of your anxiety disorder?
-For how long have you been using opiates to treat anxiety disorder?
-Were they prescribed by a doctor or are you self medicating?
-Which opiate do you use and at what dosage?
cr00k, I am a firm believer that the pharma industry is money first, patients second. I think that if they really wanted, they could cure cancer, no doubt.
No doubt that the pharmaceutical industry is ALL about money. Anyone who believes otherwise is hopelessly naive. Ragarding your second statement though, I beg to differ. Cancer treatment reseach is pretty big, often with billions of dollars invested into the developement of a single drug. Treatments are getting much more selective than they used to be. Tyrosine kinase inhibitors were originally introduced for chronic myelogenous leucemia or epidermal growth factor inhibitors for colorectal cancers. The latter were priced at 800k usd for treatment per year. You can do the math how many patients it takes to make up for developement... I found a good
article about the pricing rational behind cancer drugs. It all boils down to how much a year of life is considered to be worth.
With opiates, they lack the potential for patents that one brand name can hold and make money from that all other psychotropic drugs (SSRI, tryc, anti-psychotic etc) have.
This is a good point, natural and semi synthetic opiates are very expensive to produce and cannot be afforded by many patients, especially in low and middle income countries. This leaves a small profit margin for companies. Production costs for fully synthetic opiates like fentanyl are much lower though, which is why they are much more reasonably priced or even free in some countries.
I would say though that if a more advanced synthetic opiate was developed with less side effects and a long half life, it could be a huge money maker as well, at least for those 10 years during which the patent is up. You still have a good point there and this is surely the reason why so much less money flows into developement of novel opioids. However when it becomes apparent that such treatment options are superior to conventional methods, you might see independent clinical studies, e.g. from unversity hospitals etc. I am not aware of any studies being conducted regarding opioids as a treatment for anxiety disorder though.
The anxiety disorder forums are full of people who have used opioids for treatment of their anxiety or unrelated pain or have simply been using them illicitly for whatever other reasons. Most of them ran into serious problems with addiction or simply did not consider them an effective treatment in the long run. I have yet to find a large group of patients who seem to agree to the picture that is painted here where at least 2 people consider them lifesavers. Again, I am NOT saying they aren't lifesavers for you, but apparently this isn't the general consensus among patients with anxiety disorder and I honestly don't believe they've all been brain washed into believing otherwise.
The PAWS from opiates depend on the individual and really only exist if the patient lets it. If they get on with their life and choose to quit 100% they can greatly reduce PAWS...this can not be said for your big pharma mind candy. You will feel withdrawal from them for months on end because of the changes in the brain, and you can not change how you feel no matter how hard you try, because similar to opiate acute withdrawal, it just is. I have seen this first hand.
While you might have seen this first hand, how can you claim that when PAWs occur in opioid users some 'mind over matter' rationale applies while this is not the case for SSRI 'discontinuation syndrome'. Especially when it comes to SSRI many people are furious for various reasons about the medication (e.g. side effects, lack of efficacy, frustration over being ill) which greatly exacerbates the subjective severity of experienced withdrawl symptoms. There are cases in which SSRI discontinuation has had pretty severe consequences, however that usually takes years of high dosed treatment to occur.
There are independent reviews about SSRI discontinuation syndrome out there, this one is freely accessible:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3627130/
It found discontinuation syndrome to occur in as little as 27% of patients after 12-15 month treatment. The occurence also seems to depend highly on which SSRI was used, reducing that figure greatly for some SSRI's. There is no doubt whatsoever that SSRI discontinuation syndrome does exist, but I think you are exaggerating how common and how severe it is compared to opiate withdrawls.
Again, you'll get a good idea of this if you browse through patient forums like "crazymeds". You will find people who have run into serious problems, but the vast majority doesn't. Now compare this to long term opioid users and I will guarantee you that 100% of patients experience some withdrawal unless they take a very long period of time to taper their medication. A large portion of users will also run into serious issues with
addiction (dependence being a given here anyway).
The side effects of these drugs are just downright horrible. Benzos for anxiety are surely a worse off choice when compared to opiates addiction wise (besides panic attacks), but they are still heavily used and prescribed?
An interesting take on benzos vs. opiates, but can you back these claims up in any way? This seems highly subjective. Regarding the SSRI, while many people do experience side effects (e.g. sexual sides which are intolerable), many other people don't experience any major side effects at all on them, that's just the way things are. Read through patient forums or ask your psychiatrist about this, if you don't believe it. Speaking of sexual side effects, don't opiates cause delayed ejaculation that is possibly even worse than in SSRI's? Both meds surely do for me with equal severeness.
I understand what you mean by using higher and higher doses, and the patient should avoid this at all costs. Maybe some sort of organised plan with a doctor on how much to take per day and warned not to stray etc.
"Maybe some sort of organized plan"? Of course there needs to be an organized plan, was there none for you?? Giving a patients opiates and telling him to take them as needed is a guaranteed disaster for the largest fraction of patients. That being said, even with such a "plan" countless people run into addiction issues. It seems like most people with serious opiate habits have first come in touch with them due to a legit prescription. Our forums are full of that. I am sure there are studies looking at these figures in detail and if you doubt my statement I will try to dig some up. Either way the whole point is that once these substances grab you by the balls, no plan in the world will keep you from doing however you please with your pills, especially not if you already have SUD prior to being prescribed them. That was actually my main point, I was disadvising the op because he had a known SUD, which significantly increases his risk of running into problems with addiction.
Now think if I had not found opiates...do you think the doctors would have tried them on me??Hmmm?? You said yourself they are not first-line which is true (I do not agree with your reasons though, bigpharma brain-washed). They would have had me zombied out on anti-psychotics, SSRIS and benzos everyday, what would I of become? I am an energetic and fun person and still am that EXACT SAME PERSON. Do you think I would have been myself on all these synthetic compounds that fuck with my brain chemistry? I would have become a shell of my former self forever. How would I ever of stopped those drugs and return to normal? With opiates, I can stop, withdraw for 3 days, and I am back to normal. Sure you feel like shit with PAWS, IF YOU LET IT. I don't. I even went on a holiday during opiate absence, and forgot all about PAWS...do you think if I was off benzos and SSRIS for a week and went on a holiday I would forget about the withdrawal from them??? NO!.
Why do you get off your meds in the first place? Didn't you experience rebound anxiety? It seems sufficiently proven that there will be rebound anxiety after opiate discontinuation and all patient reports I have found are congruent with that.
pure evidence that cannabis works (how long has it taken for a few states to try MJ for cancer, when this has been known for so long? People suffering and it stops the suffering, "but NO, it is illegal. There are plenty of other medications you can buy. Cannabis os banned, so sorry cancer sufferer, suffer more"
Are you saying cannabis actually treats cancer to a significant degree?? As in being an alternative to chemotherapy, radiation or the highly selective cancer treatments I mentioned earlier (enzyme and growth factor inhibitors)? Cannabis might be awesome for your well-being during treatment, it might even combat some of the cancers symptoms (depending on which symptoms we are talking about), it surely attenuates the nausea brought up by conventional treatment, but how can you just claim cannabis is a cancer treatment? What in the fuck, dude? Do you really believe survival rates in pot smokers are significantly higher than in those who abstain from cannabis? Evidence please.
Don't believe everything your read, especially in medicine, when money is involved (MEDICATIONS).
Oh trust me I don't, but I believe some things I read, at least when the claims are sufficiently backed up while I still try to keep a healthy scepticism towards any information being fed to me. I hope that's ok.
In regards to calling me "big pharma brainwashed", I can only counter this by telling you you are "opiate and cannabis brainwashed" which is a very real phenomenom.
Opiates are just downright amazing for all psychological problems, full stop. The only thing I can think of is severe voices that won't leave and are persistent 24/7, if an anti-psychotic does totally get rid of that, then ok. Also, panic attacks. Benzos are great for that.
Oh really? Well thanks man, so maybe I'd be better of treating my bipolar 1 with opiates? That's so strange, I seem to recall that I was taking opiates daily when my last full-blown mania developed (admittedly, I did feel amazing). Maybe the neuroleptics was a bad choice to get me out of mania after all. Maybe I should tell my best friend as well who is schizophrenic and had 3 suicide attempts before he got risperidone depot injections and is now leading a healthy life with a job that provides very reliable income, a 10 year relationship and a child.
Mmmm, now I am off both the opioids and the neuroleptics and am taking lamotrigine and bupropion instead which seem to be doing a good job keeping depression at bay. What would you recommend, given your vast knowledge on the subject, get off my anticonvulsant and the dopamine reuptake inhibitor and onto opiates instead? Please do tell which opiate you recommend, so I can get to work right away. I'll just tell my psychiatrist to fuck off because he's brainwashed, after he quite possibly saved my life and has been tearing himself (along with my therapist) another asshole to get me back on track.
Crook, you can also combine alcohol with trycilics, anti-psychotics and benzos to achieve intense effects....so this is not just applicable to opiates...
Please just stop this crap. Countless of bluelighters have died because of combining opiates with other cns depressants. Please dude, for the sake of harm reduction, admit that this is a real danger NOT applicable to drugs like neuroleptics or tricyclics... PS you will find the answers in your brain, not in your heart which seemed to be talking there.
