Posted by alan on August 25, 2002, at 10:25:37
In reply to Bromazepam and Other Benzos, posted by banxious on August 22, 2002, at 23:10:29
I am concerned about dependence, tolerence, and interdose withdrawal associated with alprazolam.
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I have taken bzds for 20 years off and on and have understood that withdrawl is more easilly accomplished than one would be led to believe - especially if you augment with longer acting bzds to help with the tapering process.You may want to read:
http://panicdisorder.about.com/library/weekly/aa031997.htm
Perhaps this will help relieve your concerns about xanax - probably the most effective anxiolytic for many.
The anticipatory anxiety that you are experiencing is completely natural - I have the same symptoms as do most anxiety sufferers.
Why are you on all of the other medications? All for anxiety disorder? Bzd monotherapy is a common alternative to all of these medications at once if you want to have an alternative that will have less side effects.
All reports show that the panic and anxiety population do not abuse or experience suddenly spiraling dosages but rather, a time to let the drowsy start-up side effect abate after a week or two, find a non-arbitrary doseage level, and stick with it. They will either decrease their dosage over time as water seeking its own level or if their anxiety disorder fluctuates, trace the slight increase or decrease in their symptoms.
This "interdose withdrawls" phenomenon is simply the medication not being kept at a contant or steady-state level with regular dosing. One can stabilise one's self once they get the hang of when to dose and with how much...sometimes it is earlier than planned, sometimes later.
I've used it with great success and know many that do. In fact, the main complaints come from those that aren't using it properly, were misdiagnosed and were misprescribed, or simply not given proper instructions how to use the medication...or there were other complicating circumstances that were attributeed to the drug (drug interactions, confusion of improper time periods between dosages as being caused by the medication, etc.).
That isn't to say that there are not the occasional bad reaction to the drugs in this class (and everyone responds differently to each of them) but there are no more bad reactions to this drug than to any other psychotropic.
At least one is given a way out of the drug with the forewarning of it's tolerance/withdrawl effect - unlike the ssri's, etc, where drug co's have deliberately witheld information about the phenomenon with AD's as it's now coming to light.
Alan
Alan
poster:alan
thread:117455
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20020821/msgs/117714.html