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[Br...]

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Symptoms of cold turkey benzo withdrawl are not benign. For the last two nights, I tried everything I could think of to tear my mind away from the tachycardia, skipped heart beats , incredibly painful masseter muscle cramps (jaw muscles), and unconscious slowing of breathing to the point of making me afraid to sleep for fear of my breathing stopping altogether. I I'd gotten mad that my life was controlled by medications and threw out my last four doses, leaving myself with a cold turkey that came on incredibly fast.

 

looking at what has been posted here, and videos of people describing their experiences, they all seem to have one thing in common. M.D.s are not taking the benzo withdrawl problem seriously. If there were only one or two Dr.s who did not believe their patients complaints, I would say they were isolated incidents of a couple of doctors who had a problem with patients actually knowing more about a drug than they did. However, its not one or two, and the problem is widespread, not confined to any area in the states.

 

I think the majority of doctors want to help their patients, not harm them, so the only conclusion I could draw from this is that they are not being taught about the seriousness of stopping any benzo cold turkey. I am not an M.D., and what I'm about to say as medical advice or a claim to know more than M.D.s, I'm just drawing a parallel. Until last Nov. , I was a DVM. In veterinary school, pharmacology is part of the curriculum and there are so many drugs that they cannot all be gone into. The clinician teaching the class picks out what they feel will be most important, go into detail about ones that will be used on a daily basis. The amount of information is staggering. One exam would cover a pile of notes two inches thick, and that is truly not an exaggeration. As new drugs come in, some old ones are pushed aside and replaced with the new drugs.  M.D.s and D.V.M.s are closely related in some aspects, so my guess is that the same thing goes on in human medical classes. Benzos have been around for a long time, making me wonder if they are glossed over in med school. That they are "benign" in their withdrawl and power to cause addiction and dependence has probably been handed down.

 

In many vet schools, there are two kinds of teachers. One kind likes to teach and don't really want to go into research, but research is money to the universities, so that is part of the contract. The other kind is there to do research and teaching is a necessary evil to them. Just theory, but med school probably has the same breakdown. This is not meant to be a bash on either profession, merely an observation and theory.

 

If my theory is correct, then most likely M.D.s are just not being taught about the dangers of benzos and that needs to be corrected. Having gone through withdrawl early on from opioids prescribed for pain and started withdrawl from benzo, both drugs cold turkey, in my experience, benzo withdrawl was actually worse and came on much faster than the beginnings of opioid withdrawl. It took almost 72 hours for the onset of opioid withdrawl symptoms. It took less than 24hrs for benzo withdrawl symptoms to appear.

 

Since people are put on benzos for anxiety and also as part of a pain management cocktail, when patients complain about the heightened anxiety, paranoia etc., they have already been labeled as emotionally unstable to varying degrees, and the conclusion is drawn that the problem is with the patient, not the drug.

 

I just don't know how to go about changing that. Going to a single Dr. and trying to convince them that benzos are dangerous isn't going to help. The problem needs to be addressed at its origin. Before that happens, the theory that M.D.s are just not being taught about how dangerous benzos are has to be established. Does anyone out there have  friend or relative currently in med school or just out of it? One that would be willing to tell you whether they were taught? Has anyone noticed a change in how their physicians are telling their patients about the possibility of having serious problems if they stop the drug suddenly?

 

Biran2

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