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Mental Health Benzos for severe anxiety and PD

RedAlert17

Greenlighter
Joined
Apr 26, 2009
Messages
4
Everyone says short-term because these drugs are addictive but I have read stories from people who have been on valium for over 40 years and they still say it works for their anxiety and panic. Is there anyone here who has been on benzos long-term to manage severe anxiety and panic despite the addiction. IMO, the risk to benefit is worth it if nothing else works and your panic and GAD make you feel like you are dying each and every day. Some ppl get relief from SSRIs but a lot of ppl say SSRIs do not work very well for them if they work at all. I wish there was some sort of safe invasive brain surgery they could do to alleviate the suffering caused by these disorders. I know ppl who refuse to take meds but they also have absolutely no life. Most can not work and are non functional. I mean what do you do if you try every non drug approach and nothing else works and you are on the severe end of the PD/GAD spectrum. What do you do if benzos, altho addictive, are the only things that offer some relief.

Thanks
 
I would do exactly what you're doing - weigh the pros and cons. Make an educated decision.

If it helps more than it hurts you have your answer. Only you can decide what's best for you.

Good luck!
 
I think that if benzos end up helping you where nothing else will and you can stay steady on a dose and not slowly up it, then the physical dependence, though severe, may be worth it for you. I mean the dependence is only a problem is you're trying to get off, or forced to get off. If you have a prescription and no worries about getting them and you're not abusing them, and they help your quality of life, then it may very well be worth it for you.
 
Maybe a very low dose is all one would need. Anything to make life 1% better than the day before. Hell, even a placebo could help me.

I am a strong believer in how the mind is so powerful, that what you think you feel can quite literally turn into what you actually feel.

And based on your OP, you would be the first person to say no to a dosage increase.

Be honest about your concerns to your doctor, so that they can help hold you accountable as well. You're on the same team.
 
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So from the best study I've seen, klonopin works for at least three years. But unless it's necessary and/or short-term, benzos can cause some gnarly depersonalization and depression.

Have you tried buspar? SSRIs are safer.

There's some evidence that benzos may lead to cognitive deficits, and even cognitive disorders, in long-term use. And the discontinuation syndrome, even done slowly, can likewise be terrible.
 
I don't think it's possible on a physiological level to use them long term and not experience an overall negative, despite having some moments of relief. When you consider the effects of tolerance and the ever increasing amount of negative side effects with increased dose, it appears to me a battle that can't be won. Receptor up/down regulation from taking a psychoactive drug every day will always send you down hill on a negative feedback loop. You'll get less positive effects while experience more negative effects, and all while your baseline condition slowly diminishes every day.

I guess it'd be possible for people to "maintain", but I seriously question the ethics of prescribing benzos for the long term. Some benzos are probably more effective over the long term than others, and I'm guessing a lot of that has to do with the length of half-life. Faster acting benzos should be used for a shorter period of time and less frequently, in my opinion.

And when you stop and look at the bigger picture, there are much more effective ways of dealing with anxiety and its related disorders. Removing the symptoms doesn't necessarily address the root cause, and I think you do yourself a disservice to assume that your brain is broken or imbalanced and the only way to correct it is to take a drug for the rest of your life. Often, taking the time to examine what is going on in your life and in your head(with the help of a counselor/therapist) is much more effective in the long term. In my opinion, these drugs are pretty useless when not used in conjunction with things like talk therapy. If they aren't being used to assist you in dealing with the problem then they will likely just mask it and inevitably become part of the problem.
 
40 yrs. sounds like 40 years of exodus.

To me I was on klonopin for seven years. It always worked but I started to really hate life.

I gave GAD, OCD, PANIC DISORDER. And psychosis. Plus ADD, but I refuse to be on benzos. Now I’m not knocking them.

They really do work, but you never know what the future holds.

After my truck got stolen I was forced out of where I live. I moved to TN and from there I was yanked off three mg. I had two grand mal seizures back to back, I was completely psychotic.

I look back and say how much I’ve learned.


Gabapentin takes the edge off and I’m happy w that.

Whatever you decide I hope it works!!
 
Shit sonic, that is pretty rough. I've been there a few times myself and it wasn't much fun. That was all recently or what?

How are you feeling now? After a few seizures I couldn't talk right for a few weeks, but after others I felt pretty normal. My back is still fucked up from the last one though.

You sound like you are doing much better than just a month ago. Glad to hear things are improving for you!
 
In 2017 that summer after the three month psychosis I fired the docs. Got back on the scripts I had at the pharmacy and weaned, I moved back to Oklahoma and found a doc willing to help the process. From July of 17-March of 18 I did well.

In October I did three days of flubromazolam. I threw it out because I was blacking out and also doing high doses of Norco.


After that I became psychotic for a few months. I’ve literally been clean from pharmacy benzos since April of last year.
 
^That is truly inspiring, seriously.

To me I was on klonopin for seven years. It always worked but I started to really hate life.

I can relate, as can many others. It's great to feel numb at certain points, but the depression and depersonalization can be worse.
 
My strategy has always been to limit intake to twice in 7 days. If you can do that then you can stay on them indefinitely while avoiding the dependency. It's not easy as the tendency is too take more and more but I did it for a year so it is possible.

I think the everyday type script is a trap personally
 
Not sure about American drug stores but in AUS pharmacists offer stage supply of medication where you are only allowed to pick up a certain number of pills per week.

For example my GP writes me scripts for 20 Valium 5 mg tablets but writes i am only allowed to get two pills once every 7 days. I've been getting the same scripts from my doctor for a good couple of years now and stage supply suits both me and the GP

This stage supply stops me going overboard and getting addicted to Valium.
 
America doesn’t I don’t think a program like that but you can asked the pharmacist to do something similar.
 
Yeah in the public system in the US if people are known to abuse meds but they need them, they literally go for months having the person visiting the clinic each day for their dose.
 
I've used Klonopin for many years and it's continued to work at the same dosage without me needing to raise it and nothing else has worked for my anxiety, except Kratom, and while I wish I could switch to that I had a problem with it and unlike Klonopin which has a long half life and would take me about 5 days to go into WD, Kratom lasts 4 hours and if I got really dependent on that I could go into WD every 4 hours and I don't want to need to take anything every 4 hours for the rest of my life. I bet I'd wake up in the middle of the night every night in cold sweats and need to swallow an ounce of powder to get back to sleep (I mean I got up to over 16 grams a dose at one point....)

Klonopin has had negative side effects as well like tiredness, and I wish I could get off it, but when I did for 9 months...even though I didn't have bad WD, my anxiety came back.

For some people they do need to be on benzos long terms and while I wish I could get off them and maybe some day I can, and while I'd suggest avoiding long term use if possible, if you really do need them, even long term, don't let others scare you away IMO.

The side effects can be bad, but anxiety can also be debilitating, and if nothing else works then that might be what you need to do.

And I've had lots of talk therapy, as well as other treatments of various kinds, but that doesn't eliminate the kind of social anxiety I take Klonopin for. I'd describe what happens to me when I get social anxiety and what I use the Klonopin for, but it's personal so I'd rather not.

It bothers me that so many people tell others never to use benzos long term without considering what may happen if you need them and nothing else works for your anxiety and the anxiety ruins your life if you don't take them.
 
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I was on xanax for like 7 years. Eventually it quits working as well unless you up the dose unfortunately. I think benzos are a legitimate medication for people with anxiety but knowing what I know now I wouldn't take any every day.
 
I was on xanax for like 7 years. Eventually it quits working as well unless you up the dose unfortunately. I think benzos are a legitimate medication for people with anxiety but knowing what I know now I wouldn't take any every day.

Maybe Xanax stops working....or maybe FOR YOU....but please just don't say that ALL benzos...or Klonopin...stop working for EVERYONE unless they up the dosage, cause it's not true, and has not been true for me.

I have been stable on 1.5mgs or less sometimes for more years than I know is good, and believe me I really want to find something else with fewer side effects that helps me anxiety to switch too, but I don't believe there's necessarily anything else that will work that won't have equal or greater side effects.

There are many people who have been able to use long acting benzos for many years without upping the dose and a short acting one like Xanax is just bound to be much worse IMO.

I am now curious about Gabapentin since one poster said he switched to that instead of Klonopin and it worked, but I would wonder if it's not equally dangerous as I'd think the "GABA" part of the word means it's also a GABA drug.

Sometimes I wish I could just make Kratom my medication and taper off Klonopin, and in theory I think it would work...BUT....when I used Kratom I took so much my tolerance got up to 16 grams a dose, and yet I did not want to be dependent so would only take it 3 days a week.

That meant that on my off days I'd be exhausted from the WD and sleep like 14 hours and had no energy and it made my eczema twice as bad too.

I've heard that people who get really dependent on Kratom and can't control their doses like I couldn't end up needing to take it every 4 hours and go into WD every 4 hours and cant' sleep without it...even wake up with sweats and WD in the middle of the night and need to dose to get back to sleep.....and that sounds horrible.

Say what you want about Klonopin and yes it's worse for you than Kratom...but at least it lasts 12 hours and has a super long half life and would take me about 5 days to go into WD rather than 4 hours.

If Kratom had the duration of Klonopin I'd already have made the switch.
 
If you take benzos every day you will develop a tolerance. And I never said it quit working completely, just that FOR ME it gradually lost some effectiveness.
 
If you take benzos every day you will develop a tolerance. And I never said it quit working completely, just that FOR ME it gradually lost some effectiveness.

Ok for you it did.

Well yeah, you develop a tolerance of some kind, but FOR ME at least over years of being on them I've never needed to raise it above 1.5mgs to be effective for my anxiety (sometimes less) so it's not set in stone that benzos get less effective over time.

In terms of developing a tolerance there's the question of exactly WHAT THAT MEANS for you personally.

For me, all it has meant was like, for example, when I first started taking it many years ago just 0.5mgs would make me very tired, and now 1.5mgs doesn't make me nearly so tired, or like, even though you shouldn't really drink much on benzos, I do sometimes, and years back if I had a couple beers on a low dose I'd get really tired and drunk, and that doesn't happen anymore.

Otherwise, I have not experienced the tolerance to it doing much.

I wish I could replace it with something else equally effective for my anxiety with fewer side effects, but so far I haven't been able to, and I don't think I could just take nothing for my anxiety at all.
 
Neurontin (gabapentin), has been life-changing for me as far as anxiety and panic attacks.

It's a realistic kind of life-changing. I'm not euphoric, etc. I'm like what I thought "normal" people must be like.

I can think positively, try and find solutions to my issues and have hope. And not live with debilitating anxiety, panic and racing thoughts.

For me, the positive outweighs the negative. I used to be prescribed #90 1mg xanax,3x a day with 2 refills, that I was able to refill every 12 days.

I wasn't able, at that time, to take them responsibly. I asked my Dr to only write #30 a month instead. I was able to responsibly take that amount. I have no idea why either lol.

It was a shit show- I'd take #90 in 3 days. WTH?

I sometimes still feel the need for benzo, on particularly bad days. I can't have an Rx because I'm on Subutex.

Different things work for different people. Mycophile, you seem to be an exception. For a majority of people, benzos become less effective with time.
 
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