Hospital put me into withdrawals on purpose!!

[taylor_105]

I got sick a few weeks ago and was hospitalized for a week. My psychiatrist does not have privileges at this hospital so I got stuck with some doctor that did not know me or my conditions. I have a very high anxiety problem and have been on benzos for over half my life. Because of tolerance I am at 5 mg of Xanax IR a day. I take one mg in morning, one at lunch, one at dinner, and 2 at bedtime. This schedule is on the high end of doses for Xanax IR and I know that but like I said it works for me. It doesn't make me high it just keeps me normal. Without it I can't eat, sleep, leave the house, and I vomit all the time from panic. Anyway, I was in this hospital and the in house shrink saw my Xanax dose and said that's too high. And he immediately dropped me to 2 mg from 5 on the same day!!!! I think that was so very cruel because he purposely threw me into withdrawals. By the third day I was sweating through my bedsheets so much they constantly had to change them. I wasn't eating or sleeping. One tech asked me if I had Tourette's Syndrome because my whole body was twitching even my voice was wavering. I could not even hold things without dropping them. I begged to be put back on my normal dose stating that the minute I get out I am going back to my own doctor's course of 5 mgs. a day so I did not see the point of him torturing me while I was there. He said he didn't care. He actually said I want to make you hurt a little so you can see that this medication is no good. He was on some sort of God trip. One of the side effects was my blood pressure went up to 180 over 140 which is extremely high for me. You would think the guy would give me a PRN of Xanax between doses but no....he gave me BLOOD PRESSURE medication instead. A drug that I do not need. He said you will hurt a little bit but we will give you just enough to keep you from having seizures. I never felt so sick in my whole life on top of the other illness I was in there for. I filed a grievance against him and I will NEVER go to that hospital again. The day I was going to be discharged he dropped me from 2 mg to 1 and a half. I was so ready to get home and take my regular dose and once I did I felt normal within ten minutes. I never did fill the script for the blood pressure meds he gave me. I do not need them. I wonder if there is anything I can do other than file a grievance which I did.

 

[dokomo]

This sucks. I'm sorry this happened to you!!

Medically speaking, what your doctor did was reprehensible.

If everything is as you said, there was definitely malpractice but you'd have a hard time making anything come of it for a couple reasons.

The maximum daily dosage that is considered to be legitimately therapeutic is 4mg/day. Doses that high and beyond would certainly raise eyebrows. Also, he did prevent seizures by giving you some, which in a legal sense mitigates liability.

-->TDS

 

[hydrochron]

I didn't know the recomended dose was 4mg's I was under the illusion that it was 6 because of it's short half life. But I could see that sense the max for klonopin is 4.

Alot of people take 6mg's a day, so your dose is high. But not crazy high. 5mg's is a good dose, anyways I dont know why you would let them do that shit to you. I would of flipped the fuck out.

There's not much you can do now but move on, and remember that these pills have you by the balls. So dont get in a situation where you wont be able to have them again.

Peace

 

[ColtDan]

press charges against him or something. that sounds fucked up

 

[Help me please]

Taylor, I assume you are fairly young and have many years to live so I wonder if that doctor wasn't thinking ahead a bit. You will build up a tolerance to the xanax and need more and more. You are already on an extemely high dose so what then? Do you think you will get your regular doctor to risk their license to keep you happy? That doctor was trying to help you out and I would bet the sarcasm you heard was not what was being conveyed. You were in WD so you heard what you wanted to.

The blood pressure med was clonidine or the brand version. It is used to combat symptoms of WD including the high BP that people get from WD. They come in pills and also a once a week patch which is what I used.

Do you do any CBT or just pop pills?

 

[cj]

^^
I can see your point but why such a dramatic drop 3-4 mg would have lowered tolerance and made him much more comfortable. But taylor you do need to be thinking long term tolerance will become a factor quicker then you think especially if you already dont even feel 5mg a day.

 

[duneplanet]

in a hospital a doctor ripped me off 3 mg of klonopin in 2 weeks. i had been on it for 2 years. I was left psychotic and withdrawing for 2 years. people dont know anything about benzos in hospitals or rehabs. they think the withdrawal takes 2 weeks. I manged to get a 2 month valium taper recently but im still withdrawing hardcore. one time in rehab they cold turkeyed me off klonopin and gave a low dose of neurontin. they wondered why i was so fucked up. im tired of doctors fucking my life up

 

[taylor_105]

Taylor, I assume you are fairly young and have many years to live so I wonder if that doctor wasn't thinking ahead a bit. You will build up a tolerance to the xanax and need more and more. You are already on an extemely high dose so what then? Do you think you will get your regular doctor to risk their license to keep you happy? That doctor was trying to help you out and I would bet the sarcasm you heard was not what was being conveyed. You were in WD so you heard what you wanted to.

The blood pressure med was clonidine or the brand version. It is used to combat symptoms of WD including the high BP that people get from WD. They come in pills and also a once a week patch which is what I used.

Do you do any CBT or just pop pills?

I do not pop pills. I take them normally as prescribed. I have no idea what a CBT is. You will have to explain that one to me. I look very young but on Nov. 8 I turned 37 so I am middle aged...almost. lol The blood pressure med was called Visteril which I believe is Benedryl. It took a very little edge off but not much. Thanks for the answers.

 

[Bojangles69]

I hate to play devils advocate but I tend to agree with him.

And you also never stated WHAT you were admitted for, you just said "I got sick".
Maybe his honest assessment was that you didn't need to be on 5mg, I'm sure he had a reason for it other than just being evil.
And yeh it sucks to get dropped like that but in a medical setting it DOESN'T MATTER. If a street doctor did that it would be a totally different story. But they have nurses/drs to monitor you every minute and they were obviously trying to get you off the benzos for a reason.

My blood pressure was 210/165 when I was dropped off my klonopin. They also gave me blood pressure medicines and I'm glad they did cause it helped a ton with the shaking. When I got out I could have went back to where I was before but the difference was I wanted to get off that shit.
I hate to say it but the fact is when you are on medications you are under a doctors control. And if you don't like what doctors can do don't be on medications.

I'm sure you and your regular doctor have a relationship, and he'd keep you at 5mg, but whos to say which dr is really right or wrong? They're both doing what they think is right.

I don't know I just don't see a malpractice suit of any sorts. Next time you get "sick", just realize shit like this can happen again. I was also told countless times myself getting off opiates that its good to feel a certain degree of pain and I welcomed it because I WANTED to get off.
The problem is you didn't want to get off and a doctor disagreed with you. He obviously new a 3mg would hurt, but also knew you'd be completely safe. My main point is noone here will ever hear the doctors side of the story or why he did what he did. And I think a lot of the complaints on this forum about drs are people not realizing what doctors are and aren't allowed to do.
He prob saw that you were still suffering from whatever the benzos were suppose to be helping and was trying to do you a favor in the long run, I just can't go off assuming he's evil though and as much empathy as I have for you, thats the nature of being on benzos. They ARE quite a shitty drug if you want my honest assessment, and I think the doctor was 100% right about that.
They only "work" when your dose is always being raised, and the side effects always start to outweight the therapeutic affects. Same as opiates. Sure they kill pain but they also wind up putting people in more pain than they bargained for.

 

[vvViolet]

CBT is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. basically, it's talk therapy. for some people, it works wonders. i've been in and out of CBT for about 15 years (primarily for OCD, GAD and ADHD). after a 3 year break, finally got back into this past May and am super satisfied with the results. it's something that you should def. take a look at if you have not already.

your story is mind-blowing. 5.0mg of Xanax is a high dose but remains well within the range of a "therapeutic dose." and seeing as you were sick at the time, why put more stress on your body by throwing you into Benzo WDs? that's super cruel.

 

[Z Y G G Y]

I feel extremely sorry for you. What the doc did was totally inhumane. I am currently dependant on an opioid, the worst one pretty much to w/d from which is mehtadone. I would like to come off but refuse to go any where a hospital or similar place to do it for reasons closely related to what happened to you.

Seriously, there was no reason for him to do that to you. It was to me, pretty much torture. Don't doctors sign a thing that says do no harm. I can't see how good it was for him to leave you in a state you were in. In order to make you realize that you are on a high dose he coud have brought in a counselor. As far as I know torutre is illegal and what he did was really just that to me. If I had money and could hire a good lawyer I'd sue his ass. I don't give shit whether his intentions were good (I doubt that), the guy was probably a psychopath or one of many who believe that those who are on addictive substances should be somehow punished. Like they are worse people than the rest of the population and deserve no empathy.

I know totally how you feel because I was in a similar situation. I went inpatient for 7 days and was refused any pain meds. I didn't sleep or eat and cried the whole time among many other things. It is so shitty and so inhumane. People don't have to suffer. If you were to go back on the benzos anyways once you get off why would he do that?

Coulnseling would have been the humane way to teach you about the possible long term dangers of a high dose benzos, but not a fucking 60% reduction in your dose. The right way to get off of benzos is something like a few percent per few weeks. I read somehwere that cold turkey benzos is actually damaging to the brain and it might have possible negative long term consequences. Read up on it and if u can take his wise ass to court to teach him a lesson in emathy and to possibly put a blemish on his credentials if you can. If he did that to you imagine what he does to others. Screw this guy. If there are any websites that review doctors make sure to tell your story. Write to a paper. What he did was not ok and in my opinion he should be made to pay for it in some way. If he did that to a child of someone with money his ass would be squished, but cuz he knew he'd have no consequences with he did what he did. He knew he culd get away with it. IF you can do something so he doesn't just get away with it. Make a youtube video. I dunno. Something

 

[Lolie]

Actually it's the doctor who's prescribing 25% above the maximum recommended daily dose of Xanax who is risking liability for malpractice. Hospitals often have extremely strict policies about staying within accepted standards of care precisely to limit their legal liability and the doctors practising there have to stay within those guidelines as well as within the constraints of their own insurance. There's nothing remotely resembling malpractice on the part of the hospital in this particular instance.

 

[Bojangles69]

Beyond policies they could have just dropped the dose 25% vs dropping her 3mg in one day.

I'm arguing for what the hospital did not because of policies but because the doctor obviously had some information about the situation that this thread will never see. And I love how people are claiming "inhumane" as if a hospitals #1 priority if suppose to be how you feel. What if a disease was killing you but at the same time making you feel good? Should the drs not kill the disease just because its gonna put you in pain?

Doctors make decisions based on future wellbeing, not present which is what gets so many addictive minded people in the situations they're in right now. If you have a terminal illness thats a different situation, and often the doctors themselves will become "your addicts". Feeding you morphine to keep you out of pain till you die. But my whole point is I see entirely too many dr bashing threads in this forum and a general lack of respect for doctors in general.

I'm venturing to think that a lot of what was done was based on her history, WHY she was there (which she still hasn't specificed) and a whole host of clinical information you or I will never see... plus how she was acting in general. Not just because doctors are evil. I sympathize for what you went through, but it sounds too convenient for your own case to call them all evil/bad people. Lets not forget who we are talking about here, people who make a living in saving other peoples lives. Its the same situation with cops, the second they make even the most mundane of mistakes its all over the media and people are protesting. But noone ever wants to put themselves in the shoes of the police... doctors, or whoever. Way too easy to just blame them.

 

[Lolie]

^^^
They could also have switched her to a longer acting benzo and decreased the dose but as it sounds like she was only ever going to be a short term patient and she'd stated her intention to resume taking the high dose of Xanax upon discharge the longterm picture was really one for her usual prescriber to worry about.

And I agree with you that doctors are often damned if they do and damned if they don't regarding pain meds and anxiety meds.

 

[Uber_Penguin]

And I love how people are claiming "inhumane" as if a hospitals #1 priority if suppose to be how you feel. What if a disease was killing you but at the same time making you feel good? Should the drs not kill the disease just because its gonna put you in pain?

Erm, not to be argumentative, but although I can't think of any diseases that would somehow make you feel good, I can think of one that makes you feel really bad (cancer) off the top of my head, and lots of especially old people decline any treatment because it causes more pain. As a matter of fact in situations like my when a relative is incapacitated and has no living will (I think that's what it's called) they ask close family members whether or not they should even do surgery based on how family members think the individual would feel, regardless of whether or not it fixes them. Or they do things like pulling the plug. My point is that yes, being humane is and should be a part of any treatment, and how people feel very often impacts their treatment.

But then once again the question of what "got sick" really means gets called to mind. I've never withdrawn from benzos, but I know if I was in heavy opiate withdrawal and the doctor was, at least in my mind, attempting to intentionally cause me that much pain, I would just discharge myself unless I was so debilitated I had no option but to stay. I don't know a lot about hospitals to be honest, but wouldn't it be a viable option to just go to a dif. hospital if no one will do anything about it at the current one?

So anyways, I agree with those saying this was a ludicrous and inhumane thing to do. If what others are saying is correct and the maximum therapeutic dose is in fact 4 mg, then the doc should have lowered it to 4 mg, and even that shouldn't have been done straight up imo. The person being treated does not deserve to go through an enormous amount of pain and suffering because their doctor did something that doesn't agree with conventional medicine.

Just from the information presented what it looks like is there was some pompous control-freak doctor who decided "Well, in my infallible judgement that's too much xanax and what I think most certainly is always right, even if I know almost nothing about this patient personally. Therefore, since I know what's best for everyone even if nobody else does, I'm going to do everything in my power to lower the dosage as much as I can in the short time that I have, and this individual will be punished for being treated by another doctor in a way I find inappropriate!"

What we're told transpired is at best pretty unethical, and at worst what could be considered torture. (then again I'm not well acquainted with what specifically constitutes torture by law)

 

[swap]

Unless the Xanax was the reason you got sick, or if the Xanax would have significantly affected your recovery, a normal doctor would have left the prescription as is.
In a hospital setting a normal doctor would only treat the diagnosis related to the hospital visit.
Your story has many holes (missing points) which makes me think the Xanax was a reason why you ended up in the hospital.

 

[lowrider6967]

you have a very good lawsuit,especially if someone else heard him say that bullshit to you,(going to make you hurt) of course most staff are not going to admit hearing this,but the threat of perjury might refresh there memory.A few days of withdraw might equal a lot of dough!good luck!

 

[Divine Moments]

I know it may be different in the states, but since there's dispute on the dosages for Alprazolam I'll throw this in from the Australian Medicines Handbook:

Dosage – Alprazolam

Anxiety
Adult, initially, 0.25–0.5 mg 3 times daily. Range, 0.5–4 mg daily.

Panic disorder
Adult, initially, 0.5–1 mg at night, increased by 0.25–1 mg every 3 days until symptoms are controlled. Maximum 10 mg daily.

I think some of you are very quick to side with the OP in outrage at the doctor. I'm not saying he's lying but every story is different from the other side. It sounds like the doctor had a legitimate reason to want to reduce your dose (though I agree it was probably too rapid) but obviously the intended impact was lost on you.

Really he should have spoken directly with your prescribing doctor to determine whether you need to be on that much and how appropriate it would be to change it. However, doctors don't always take the best course, whether because they're busy, lazy, or have their own beliefs. It seems in this case the doctor had his reasons and without knowing more about the situation we can't judge his decision as right or wrong.

Sounds like a horrible ordeal OP, sorry you had to go through that.

 

[BlueberryfishY]

Taylor you are really 39? you look like about 15-16.. lucky.

 

[3dmusic]

Taylor

It was very wrong of your hospital doctor to take you off xanax so rapidly.

Yes, 5mg is a high dose, and although it may make you feel normal, tolerance quickly develops and you need more. This is evidenced by your need to updose the xanax over the course of time you have taken them.

Soon these pills will do you no good, and will have the opposite effect that you want.
In the meantime, I would recommend considering a very slow taper. You will need to cross over to valium slowly first.
Most doctors will not prescribe valium over 30mgs so you will need to slowly taper xanax until you get to 1.5mg (which is the equivalent of 30mgs) you will need help to do this, and Irecommend that you join a benzo forum such as thetrap.org.uk
There are experts on there who know more than doctors and can guide you through tapering xanax, as I am not an expert.
You must taper slowly, between 5% and 10% of the dose you are cutting from. For example, your first cut would be 0.3 - 0.6mgs, the second cut would be 5% to 10% of the next dose you are on after the first cut.

although I have read up a lot on benzo tapering, I am no expert, and would urge you to visit thetrap, as there are experts on there who have gone through the same thing, and yes, they know exactly how clueless doctors are when it comes to benzo withdrawal. It is possible to overcome benzo addiction, many others have done it, so long as its done safely, and under the supervision of experts.

Sadly I do not know how to submit a grievance to the doctor who cut your xanax too rapidly, but I do hope you find a way, as his behaviour was ignorant and cruel.

I wish you the best.