Jordan Peterson, take 2, let's stay on point, please

[[ra...]]

Colin,

 

If he can "tell" us that we are wasting our time, then I can "tell" other buddies to stop engaging him.  But you are right.  No one should "tell" anyone what to do here, or in life in general.

 

So instead, I will "point out" that it "might" be a waste of time to engage a hostile poster rather than discuss the topic the rest of us want to discuss.

 

I will not apologize to BB because damn it, the whole thing just pisses me off, but I will promise not to "tell" anyone one what to do.  Not because BB or anyone has a policy, but because it is impolite to my fellow posters.  I apologize to my fellow posters.  I will not "tell" you what to do ever again.

 

PS Pinky, that bit about the "foreign mystery car" was brilliant.  Add to that, "a foreign mystery car that only 1% of people will admit even exists," and you complete the analogy.

 

I would love to stay and banter about, but I have a busy day.  I will "humbly suggest" that we all just cool down and only engage technical points.  Maybe avoid things about who is qualified to say what.  That just feeds the flames.

 

Hasta mañana,

 

ramcon1

[Guest [pa...]]

Doctors, and medical professionals in general are held to higher professional standards than car mechanics.

That's ridiculous statement. No car mechanic would do to a car what physicians casually do to people. Just look around the forum. People ruined by polydrugging and serial cold-turkeying people on and off drugs. All while treating problems caused by previously prescribed drugs.

[[Co...]]

okay to cut this short, that argument is:

1. Irrelevant

2. Hypocritical

3. a common fallacy - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority

 

Irelevant - were not talking about withdrawal. We have withdrawn from benzodiazepines (ask maugham about the pharmacodynamics of benzos and how long it takes to get out of our system) this is talking about the as-of-yet unidentified benzo syndrome/injury etc that leads to what we have now where we suffer many years out. I dont think you fully understand this, because the studies about "benzo withdrawal" are about the withdrawal anxiety-related rebound effect that the studies show only last 2-4 weeks. Does that sound familiar?

 

Hypocritical -  your argument is like saying that a study about CBT therapy on anxiety levels has nothing to do with us because it wasn't dealing with' benzodiazepine withdrawal' specifically. Anxiety related illnesses fall under the same cluster of conditions in the dsm, treatments that affect one are broadly and routinely applied across the board to other conditions within the similiar area. i said Panic Disorder is within our area. accurate and logical. next

 

fallacy - arguments from authority are not always toothless but this one is. When an authority has credentials in that area that would show greater insight because they have expertise in that particular issue, than its relevant. But your referencing credentials from a authority source, that doesn't understand the illness we have any more than the general population. and in many instances, the benzo community is more informed and making evidence based decisions than the authority figures your pointing at. The vast majority of doctors receive about 3 power point slides in benzo training in the fog of medical school and it says, they are safe, they replaced barbiturates and can be used to treat anxiety and other conditions. only thing you might see is some rebound anxiety for 2-4 weeks post treatment. Even if you go to benzo specialists, who do they reference, Ashton and BB's sources. So sadly, authority wont save us here. Im not arguing for a free for all here. but you and maghum not acknowledging these legitimize points from people in this thread because they are not authority figures is ridiculous.

 

Give me a break. I was not making an appeal to authority. I was making the very reasonable point that we should, in general, prefer the opinion of professionals in a relevant profession. I was not discussing an actual study or technical point, dismissing alternate views because of my own qualifications (or pointing to the qualifications of another). If we were discussing a particular assertion, you might have a point - we were not - so you did not (have a point). In the absence of good evidence to the contrary, the qualified opinion of a professional in any field should carry more weight than the mere opinion of a layperson. This ain't rocket surgery - just plain common sense.

 

In short: 'appeal to authority' is only a 'fallacy' when attempting to deflect argument by instead appealing to the relevant qualifications of the interlocutors. I was not doing that.

[[Co...]]

its about panic disorder which is within the syndrome of benzo withdrawal. but thanks for your input lol, ill put it with all the other glib statements that dont provide anything useful.

 

It is unrelated to benzodiazeopine withdrawal. We need it to be exact - it is not even close.

 

according to your logic, unless it came from research world, nope. therefore we cant be exact, we have no research that categorizes or compartmentalizes this. benzodiazepine withdrawal defines the 2-4 week period post cessation according to the literature. You cant stretch it to explain what we have. this is your standard remember, not mine.

 

I genuinely have no idea of what point you are trying to make. Again, the study in question was about the effects of xenon gas upon panic disorder, not benzodiazepine withdrawal. So, it is irrelevant.

[[Co...]]

the accurate version of that analogy would be if you had a foreign mystery car that no one had ever seen in america with issues and you asked the car mechanic to have a look. Remember this condition is NOT any old 'car' its a mystery car from out of now where, that no ones seen or understands or even recognizes. thats actually an accurate metaphor than.

 

Now your metaphor works let run it through, you go to your mechanic buddy and ask him to take a look. He scratches his head confused, and you say but wait, its just moving parts and electronics and mechanics right? didn't you learn about this is in mechanic school. he says nope, we didnt learn about that, but ill look into it. than he tells you hes jut gonna treat it like a local american car cause hes the expert right!, and at mechanic school, all cars get basic fixes like a,b,c which he will do. and surprise bloody surpirse, it doesnt work. so he throws his hand up, and says, it should work, anyways heres your bill i did everything they taught me at mechanic school.

 

Now your cars still broken and smokes coming out all the time etc.

 

Now you going to go back to that guy? or are you gonna look elsewhere?

 

You walk into a thread of people talking about going elsewhere and exploring other options to get it fixed right and Colin walks in and says. BUT WAIT! thats a terrible idea hes the authority source remember, he went to mechanic school!!!!!!! best you go back to him!!!!.

 

what do you think of colins advice? do you want to back to the mechanic?

 

Now your metaphor is accurate.

 

You are way overthinking the analogy. The point is, in any normal situation, we make use of the expertise of others to resolve a technical problem and/or where they have a practiced skill set. Skill diversification is even appears in other mammals. It is more efficient; it is more reliable. It is a blindingly obvious thing to do.

[[pi...]]

wrong. its the idea of evidence based medicine. medicine isn't a science, its an applied science which isn't the same thing. Xenon like anything else is fair game as long as it follows the evidence based medicine approach.

 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3789163/

If you check out wiki pages for most drugs it says: How it works is not entirely clear. Even for the old drugs like paracetamol. Medicine really isn't a science. From anthropological standpoint it's far closer to superstition, a collection of ritual practices to deal with specific symptoms. Witch doctors gave you Ayahuasca, modern psychiatrists give you SSRIs, neither of them knows how it works.

 

this is very insightful. its amazing how most people who work or study medicine dont gain this insight until very late in life. I wish more people understood the limitations of western medicine and how flawed it really is. It didnt really sink in for me until this whole experience. I should of known when saw how "iatrogenic" was always a leading cause of death and disease in the 'causes' section for so many conditions. Medical errors are the third leading cause of death after cancer and heart disease.

[[Co...]]

Pamster...

 

As you can see the same thing has happened as the last thread we created now. Its completely derailed and its a whole lot of jibberish about nothing. Instead of giving me warnings for my behaviour. Take a look at how this thread got to this point.

 

This thread is not "completely derailed". I refer you to my earlier post addressed to ramcon1.

[[pi...]]

okay to cut this short, that argument is:

1. Irrelevant

2. Hypocritical

3. a common fallacy - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority

 

Irelevant - were not talking about withdrawal. We have withdrawn from benzodiazepines (ask maugham about the pharmacodynamics of benzos and how long it takes to get out of our system) this is talking about the as-of-yet unidentified benzo syndrome/injury etc that leads to what we have now where we suffer many years out. I dont think you fully understand this, because the studies about "benzo withdrawal" are about the withdrawal anxiety-related rebound effect that the studies show only last 2-4 weeks. Does that sound familiar?

 

Hypocritical -  your argument is like saying that a study about CBT therapy on anxiety levels has nothing to do with us because it wasn't dealing with' benzodiazepine withdrawal' specifically. Anxiety related illnesses fall under the same cluster of conditions in the dsm, treatments that affect one are broadly and routinely applied across the board to other conditions within the similiar area. i said Panic Disorder is within our area. accurate and logical. next

 

fallacy - arguments from authority are not always toothless but this one is. When an authority has credentials in that area that would show greater insight because they have expertise in that particular issue, than its relevant. But your referencing credentials from a authority source, that doesn't understand the illness we have any more than the general population. and in many instances, the benzo community is more informed and making evidence based decisions than the authority figures your pointing at. The vast majority of doctors receive about 3 power point slides in benzo training in the fog of medical school and it says, they are safe, they replaced barbiturates and can be used to treat anxiety and other conditions. only thing you might see is some rebound anxiety for 2-4 weeks post treatment. Even if you go to benzo specialists, who do they reference, Ashton and BB's sources. So sadly, authority wont save us here. Im not arguing for a free for all here. but you and maghum not acknowledging these legitimize points from people in this thread because they are not authority figures is ridiculous.

 

Give me a break. I was not making an appeal to authority. I was making the very reasonable point that we should, in general, prefer the opinion of professionals in a relevant profession. I was not discussing an actual study or technical point, dismissing alternate views because of my own qualifications (or pointing to the qualifications of another). If we were discussing a particular assertion, you might have a point - we were not - so you did not (have a point). In the absence of good evidence to the contrary, the qualified opinion of a professional in any field should carry more weight than the mere opinion of a layperson. This ain't rocket surgery - just plain common sense.

 

In short: 'appeal to authority' is only a 'fallacy' when attempting to deflect argument by instead appealing to the relevant qualifications of the interlocutors. I was not doing that.

 

"I was making the very reasonable point that we should, in general, prefer the opinion of professionals in a relevant profession" - thats literally an appeal to authority. Your saying the specific argument isn't relevant, and that generally speaking authorities are more trustworthy. But we aren't talking generally, we were being specific. now your creating a motte and bailey defence. another fallacy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_fallacy

 

[[pi...]]

its about panic disorder which is within the syndrome of benzo withdrawal. but thanks for your input lol, ill put it with all the other glib statements that dont provide anything useful.

 

It is unrelated to benzodiazeopine withdrawal. We need it to be exact - it is not even close.

 

according to your logic, unless it came from research world, nope. therefore we cant be exact, we have no research that categorizes or compartmentalizes this. benzodiazepine withdrawal defines the 2-4 week period post cessation according to the literature. You cant stretch it to explain what we have. this is your standard remember, not mine.

 

I genuinely have no idea of what point you are trying to make. Again, the study in question was about the effects of xenon gas upon panic disorder, not benzodiazepine withdrawal. So, it is irrelevant.

 

my point is there is no intellectual consistency to your points. you keep using the term 'benzo withdrawal' to describe our illness. the studies we are discussing DO NOT use this term to describe this illness and would not include us as having "benzo withdrawal." hence when you use the term to describe our condition, this therefore GOES AGAINST what your advocating. See the contradiction?

[[Co...]]

its about panic disorder which is within the syndrome of benzo withdrawal. but thanks for your input lol, ill put it with all the other glib statements that dont provide anything useful.

 

It is unrelated to benzodiazeopine withdrawal. We need it to be exact - it is not even close.

 

according to your logic, unless it came from research world, nope. therefore we cant be exact, we have no research that categorizes or compartmentalizes this. benzodiazepine withdrawal defines the 2-4 week period post cessation according to the literature. You cant stretch it to explain what we have. this is your standard remember, not mine.

 

It's not the research "world" that is important. It's the idea of the scientific method. Everything else, including xenon, is magical thinking.

 

wrong. its the idea of evidence based medicine. medicine isn't a science, its an applied science which isn't the same thing. Xenon like anything else is fair game as long as it follows the evidence based medicine approach.

 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3789163/

 

You are almost right. Modern medicine can do lot of theoretical work and lab experiments, but it then makes use of statistically based trials. The reason for this is that medicine is indeed inexact and because of each our individual genetic makeup, how individuals react to a given medicine or treatment is unknown. So, carefully constructed and supervised trials are used to assess efficacy and safety: statistics are used to asses these. And, statistics being branch of mathematics - and if applied rigorously - it provides us with a very sound idea of potential risks vs potential benefits.

 

You can legitimately point to flaws in the process (non-adherence) in particular cases, but not the underlying methodology. The analysis of efficacy of a new medicine is statistical in nature - and statistics is a branch of mathematics - and mathematics is a branch of (an based upon) logic - you cannot get more scientific than this.

 

The problem is that there is no double-blind, peer-reviewed study of the effects xenon gas on benzodiazepine withdrawal (syndrome). Stop pretending to the contrary. To prove me wrong, point to the study.

[[pi...]]

the accurate version of that analogy would be if you had a foreign mystery car that no one had ever seen in america with issues and you asked the car mechanic to have a look. Remember this condition is NOT any old 'car' its a mystery car from out of now where, that no ones seen or understands or even recognizes. thats actually an accurate metaphor than.

 

Now your metaphor works let run it through, you go to your mechanic buddy and ask him to take a look. He scratches his head confused, and you say but wait, its just moving parts and electronics and mechanics right? didn't you learn about this is in mechanic school. he says nope, we didnt learn about that, but ill look into it. than he tells you hes jut gonna treat it like a local american car cause hes the expert right!, and at mechanic school, all cars get basic fixes like a,b,c which he will do. and surprise bloody surpirse, it doesnt work. so he throws his hand up, and says, it should work, anyways heres your bill i did everything they taught me at mechanic school.

 

Now your cars still broken and smokes coming out all the time etc.

 

Now you going to go back to that guy? or are you gonna look elsewhere?

 

You walk into a thread of people talking about going elsewhere and exploring other options to get it fixed right and Colin walks in and says. BUT WAIT! thats a terrible idea hes the authority source remember, he went to mechanic school!!!!!!! best you go back to him!!!!.

 

what do you think of colins advice? do you want to back to the mechanic?

 

Now your metaphor is accurate.

 

You are way overthinking the analogy. The point is, in any normal situation, we make use of the expertise of others to resolve a technical problem and/or where they have a practiced skill set. Skill diversification is even appears in other mammals. It is more efficient; it is more reliable. It is a blindingly obvious thing to do.

 

You seem to really like heuristics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heuristic

 

common sense approaches like this are fine and help us function. They also tend to be wrong a lot. here is an example where your wrong but you cant get past the fact that it works as a heuristic most of the time. Most of the time in life what you are saying holds up. We are in one of those places where it doesn't work. i.e. common sense isn't great in uncommon situations. starting to get it?

 

excerpt from link - "These rules work well under most circumstances, but in certain cases can lead to systematic errors or cognitive biases" this is this thread in a nutshell. You and Maugham are stuck here, with a cognitive bias you cant get past.

 

[[Co...]]

Colin,

 

If he can "tell" us that we are wasting our time, then I can "tell" other buddies to stop engaging him.  But you are right.  No one should "tell" anyone what to do here, or in life in general.

 

That's all I am asking here. It is OK to disagree, or even be wrong. But it is not OK to attempt to shut up others engaged in good-faith argument.

 

So instead, I will "point out" that it "might" be a waste of time to engage a hostile poster rather than discuss the topic the rest of us want to discuss.

 

Urgh. But Maughham1 is only 'hostile' because you do not agree with him. He is being no more combative than you. But, you will note, he has not called upon for you be silenced. You might wish to chew on that.

 

I will not apologize to BB because damn it, the whole thing just pisses me off, but I will promise not to "tell" anyone one what to do.  Not because BB or anyone has a policy, but because it is impolite to my fellow posters.  I apologize to my fellow posters.  I will not "tell" you what to do ever again.

 

Well, I did not ask you to apologise, but one is probably due. I understand that you are 'pissed off', but some comments from you and others have gone a little too far. I own this forum - I could easily shut up anyone I wished simply because I do not like what they have to say. I have not done that; I do not do that. There are some rules, which apply to all members. I generally adhere to the rules myself too. And when I do not, I've rightly been pulled up on it (and at no cost to the member doing it). Sounds reasonable - yes? Then why even mention it? Well, some long-term members here will recall how other (now defunct) benzo-support groups operated - many regular members at this forum would have been banned from each of those groups for various reasons (specific to each individual group's particular narrow view of what is acceptable). I assure you, BB is by far the least prone benzo-support forum to censor content and members*. I don't think you properly appreciate what you have here. If you had experienced the others, you would be much more welcoming of alternative views.

 

I suppose this is symptom of the generalised partisanship taking place in your, mine, and many other countries. Although I am aware of it, I do not suppose this automatically makes me immune to it. So, if I sometimes push too hard, I apologise to all members. I also acknowledge that given my unique role here, me expressing my views  in a forthright manner (just like many members do) might come across differently, as though I am setting down a line. Generally, I am not doing that. When I am, I make it explicit (as I did in my last post to you).

 

Anyway, I hope everyone can step-back a little and take a deep breath. It is all OK. It is just debate on an Internet forum.

 

* Conversely, there was one benzo-support forum which applied no moderation at all. No surprises about how that panned out.

[[Co...]]

"I was making the very reasonable point that we should, in general, prefer the opinion of professionals in a relevant profession" - thats literally an appeal to authority. Your saying the specific argument isn't relevant, and that generally speaking authorities are more trustworthy. But we aren't talking generally, we were being specific. now your creating a motte and bailey defence. another fallacy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_fallacy

 

Again, it only applies when trying to dismiss an argument. What I was doing is expressing that I will generally trust the views of a relevant expert over laypeople. If we were discussing a particular point, which we were not (I had not and still have not even read the referenced study), and I had dismissed argument that way, you might have a point. I did not do that. Your point of appeal to authority fallacy is fine - such appeals are a logical fallacy. But does not describe to what I did.

 

We are just going in circles here.

[Guest [pa...]]

While we're at the subject of physicians and car mechanics professor Ashton herself said that patients should approach physicians in the same way that they would a car mechanic.

 

[[Ca...]]

Its ok, Ill save the day.. -and no charge for my expertise..!!

 

That pesky mystery car just needs a fresh bottle of NOS...

 

 

[[Ma...]]

its about panic disorder which is within the syndrome of benzo withdrawal. but thanks for your input lol, ill put it with all the other glib statements that dont provide anything useful.

 

It is unrelated to benzodiazeopine withdrawal. We need it to be exact - it is not even close.

 

according to your logic, unless it came from research world, nope. therefore we cant be exact, we have no research that categorizes or compartmentalizes this. benzodiazepine withdrawal defines the 2-4 week period post cessation according to the literature. You cant stretch it to explain what we have. this is your standard remember, not mine.

 

It's not the research "world" that is important. It's the idea of the scientific method. Everything else, including xenon, is magical thinking.

 

wrong. its the idea of evidence based medicine. medicine isn't a science, its an applied science which isn't the same thing. Xenon like anything else is fair game as long as it follows the evidence based medicine approach.

 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3789163/

 

Which it doesn't.

[[Ma...]]

Benzo withdrawal studies are few and far between and the interest in spending money to conduct them is even less. 

 

Pubmed shows 437 studies when you search for "benzodiazepine withdrawal".

 

Yes, and they're all on rats.

 

The comment I responded to didn't specify the species. But to help you understand this issue, this review summarizes the many human studies on this topic: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMra1611832

 

yes let me add one more glib one liner to "help you understand" haha - great job maugham

 

heres a link to the free version of Dr Soykas article if anyone wants to read

https://medicinainternaelsalvador.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/tratando-la-dependencia-a-benzodiacepinas.pdf

 

your link has a pay wall dude *sigh*

 

oh hey look colin, maugham the pscyhologist linked a study on 'benzodiazepine withdrawal' that says "The  most  common  psychological  withdrawal  symptoms are anxiety and panic disorders" for people in 'benzodiazepine withdrawal". thats literally what you couldnt wrap your head around before in your post. thank maugham for linking to the proof you needed. goood news, now the xenon treatment is 100% relevant according to your standards. welcome to the discussion.

 

thoughts on article -> one small paragraph about 'withdrawal'. same old 2-4 week rebound anxiety blurb. Not one mention of how long withdrawal lasts, no mention of protracted nature of symptoms, no mention of injury or iatrogenic harm. But it does mention how addicts will doctor shop etc. I was prescribed for sleep and took for 6 weeks as prescribed. i didn't doctor shop and wasnt an addict. doesn't seem to be the same thing does it?, its almost like i might be seeking out someone more informed about whats going on with me. its almost like they have no idea what we are talking about and our experience doesn't seem to fit in their category of 'benzodiazepine withdrawal'

 

i think this article in learning about uncertainty in medicine is very relevant to you and Colin. and if you didn't study this principle in your education, it explains why your stressed and having issues with this sought of discussion, your professors failed you if they didn't equip you with the ability to handle the unknown in your medical considerations or opinions. in fact many in the health professions believe its such a big issue that they should be screening people based on this for medical school and any health related courses. Theres a school of thought that says dealing with ambiguity is an innate characteristic and some people cant be helped and should just be screened out of any health related professions cause they cant cope and then do harm to patients with their need to certain about everything. Im starting to see their point!

 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6127608/

 

You didn't even quote the whole sentence just the beginning of it totally misrepresenting that article. Cherrypicking is not nice.

 

Here is the the entire sentence (and paragraph):

 

The  most  common  psychological  withdrawal  symptoms are anxiety and panic disorders, restessness and agitation, depression and mood swings, psychovegetative symptoms (e.g., tremor), reduced concentration, and sleep disturbances and nightmares.6,45-49 Appetite loss, tachycardia, blurred vision, and dry mouth may also be pres- ent, as may tinnitus, drowsiness, or derealization (a feeling that one’s surroundings are not real). Disorders of perception are relatively common and range from hyperacusis to photophobia to dysesthesia; these symptoms are not pathogno- monic but are characteristic of benzodiazepine withdrawal. Seizures are quite common, espe- cially if the agent is discontinued abruptly. Severe withdrawal symptoms include paranoid thoughts, hallucinations, depersonalization, and withdraw- al delirium. Tables 3 and 4 provide an overview of withdrawal symptoms.6,45,47,49

 

wrong. the rest of the paragraph aka the context doesnt change the point. cherrypicking is fine so long as it isnt misleading. you cherry picked that paragraph out of the article. do we need to upload the whole article print? of course not.

 

We wanted to make a distinction between the symptoms of depression and benzo withdrawal. The symptoms of benzo withdrawal include depression plus many other symptoms. Therefore, the two are not the same.

[[Ma...]]

wrong. its the idea of evidence based medicine. medicine isn't a science, its an applied science which isn't the same thing. Xenon like anything else is fair game as long as it follows the evidence based medicine approach.

 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3789163/

If you check out wiki pages for most drugs it says: How it works is not entirely clear. Even for the old drugs like paracetamol. Medicine really isn't a science. From anthropological standpoint it's far closer to superstition, a collection of ritual practices to deal with specific symptoms. Witch doctors gave you Ayahuasca, modern psychiatrists give you SSRIs, neither of them knows how it works.

 

this is very insightful. its amazing how most people who work or study medicine dont gain this insight until very late in life. I wish more people understood the limitations of western medicine and how flawed it really is. It didnt really sink in for me until this whole experience. I should of known when saw how "iatrogenic" was always a leading cause of death and disease in the 'causes' section for so many conditions. Medical errors are the third leading cause of death after cancer and heart disease.

 

And I don't disagree with the point that we don't fully understand how drugs work. But medicine is a science. Just like in any science, we don't understand everything and we never will. Nevertheless, we strive to have an ever better understanding of the processes and mechanisms. Western medicine is mostly not flawed, but incomplete.

 

It would be appreciated if you could provide some support for your statement that medical errors are the third leading cause of death. I strongly believe that you won't be able to.

[[pi...]]

wrong. its the idea of evidence based medicine. medicine isn't a science, its an applied science which isn't the same thing. Xenon like anything else is fair game as long as it follows the evidence based medicine approach.

 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3789163/

If you check out wiki pages for most drugs it says: How it works is not entirely clear. Even for the old drugs like paracetamol. Medicine really isn't a science. From anthropological standpoint it's far closer to superstition, a collection of ritual practices to deal with specific symptoms. Witch doctors gave you Ayahuasca, modern psychiatrists give you SSRIs, neither of them knows how it works.

 

this is very insightful. its amazing how most people who work or study medicine dont gain this insight until very late in life. I wish more people understood the limitations of western medicine and how flawed it really is. It didnt really sink in for me until this whole experience. I should of known when saw how "iatrogenic" was always a leading cause of death and disease in the 'causes' section for so many conditions. Medical errors are the third leading cause of death after cancer and heart disease.

 

And I don't disagree with the point that we don't fully understand how drugs work. But medicine is a science. Just like in any science, we don't understand everything and we never will. Nevertheless, we strive to have an ever better understanding of the processes and mechanisms. Western medicine is mostly not flawed, but incomplete.

 

It would be appreciated if you could provide some support for your statement that medical errors are the third leading cause of death. I strongly believe that you won't be able to.

 

https://www.bmj.com/content/353/bmj.i2139.full - BMJ estimate that they have stood behind despite naysayers like yourself.

 

"I strongly believe that you won't be able to" this sentence in particular is very revealing. Your viewpoints are guided by your feelings and beliefs, not the evidence base. At best, you can dispute that 'medical injury' should be included in 'medical error'. or you can quibble over some other language distinction. But the estimates are legitimate. your flat out uninformed or wrong again, sadly. although its predictable at this point.

 

I say again. medicine isn't a science, its an "applied science". these aren't the same things. you need to educate yourself on this. medicine is a sub branch of engineering. remember STEM at university? "science, engineering, technology and mathematics". there's a reason these are distinct fields and they're not all just called SCIENCE. I can elaborate on this point if you need more help understanding the difference? this should help you. its a ncbi article so your mind can lower its belief system shielding to think through it. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3190445/

 

more links proving your wrong about main point:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK225187/

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/05/03/476636183/death-certificates-undercount-toll-of-medical-errors

 

[[pi...]]

Its ok, Ill save the day.. -and no charge for my expertise..!!

 

That pesky mystery car just needs a fresh bottle of NOS...

 

 

i needed the laugh, thankyou.  :laugh:

[[pi...]]

Benzo withdrawal studies are few and far between and the interest in spending money to conduct them is even less. 

 

Pubmed shows 437 studies when you search for "benzodiazepine withdrawal".

 

Yes, and they're all on rats.

 

The comment I responded to didn't specify the species. But to help you understand this issue, this review summarizes the many human studies on this topic: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMra1611832

 

yes let me add one more glib one liner to "help you understand" haha - great job maugham

 

heres a link to the free version of Dr Soykas article if anyone wants to read

https://medicinainternaelsalvador.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/tratando-la-dependencia-a-benzodiacepinas.pdf

 

your link has a pay wall dude *sigh*

 

oh hey look colin, maugham the pscyhologist linked a study on 'benzodiazepine withdrawal' that says "The  most  common  psychological  withdrawal  symptoms are anxiety and panic disorders" for people in 'benzodiazepine withdrawal". thats literally what you couldnt wrap your head around before in your post. thank maugham for linking to the proof you needed. goood news, now the xenon treatment is 100% relevant according to your standards. welcome to the discussion.

 

thoughts on article -> one small paragraph about 'withdrawal'. same old 2-4 week rebound anxiety blurb. Not one mention of how long withdrawal lasts, no mention of protracted nature of symptoms, no mention of injury or iatrogenic harm. But it does mention how addicts will doctor shop etc. I was prescribed for sleep and took for 6 weeks as prescribed. i didn't doctor shop and wasnt an addict. doesn't seem to be the same thing does it?, its almost like i might be seeking out someone more informed about whats going on with me. its almost like they have no idea what we are talking about and our experience doesn't seem to fit in their category of 'benzodiazepine withdrawal'

 

i think this article in learning about uncertainty in medicine is very relevant to you and Colin. and if you didn't study this principle in your education, it explains why your stressed and having issues with this sought of discussion, your professors failed you if they didn't equip you with the ability to handle the unknown in your medical considerations or opinions. in fact many in the health professions believe its such a big issue that they should be screening people based on this for medical school and any health related courses. Theres a school of thought that says dealing with ambiguity is an innate characteristic and some people cant be helped and should just be screened out of any health related professions cause they cant cope and then do harm to patients with their need to certain about everything. Im starting to see their point!

 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6127608/

 

You didn't even quote the whole sentence just the beginning of it totally misrepresenting that article. Cherrypicking is not nice.

 

Here is the the entire sentence (and paragraph):

 

The  most  common  psychological  withdrawal  symptoms are anxiety and panic disorders, restessness and agitation, depression and mood swings, psychovegetative symptoms (e.g., tremor), reduced concentration, and sleep disturbances and nightmares.6,45-49 Appetite loss, tachycardia, blurred vision, and dry mouth may also be pres- ent, as may tinnitus, drowsiness, or derealization (a feeling that one’s surroundings are not real). Disorders of perception are relatively common and range from hyperacusis to photophobia to dysesthesia; these symptoms are not pathogno- monic but are characteristic of benzodiazepine withdrawal. Seizures are quite common, espe- cially if the agent is discontinued abruptly. Severe withdrawal symptoms include paranoid thoughts, hallucinations, depersonalization, and withdraw- al delirium. Tables 3 and 4 provide an overview of withdrawal symptoms.6,45,47,49

 

wrong. the rest of the paragraph aka the context doesnt change the point. cherrypicking is fine so long as it isnt misleading. you cherry picked that paragraph out of the article. do we need to upload the whole article print? of course not.

 

We wanted to make a distinction between the symptoms of depression and benzo withdrawal. The symptoms of benzo withdrawal include depression plus many other symptoms. Therefore, the two are not the same.

 

this shows a fundamental misunderstanding about the nature of mental illness diagnosis. in psychiatry, there is broad cross over effects. someone who has depression, tends to also have anxiety, and if they have anxiety, they will commonly have elements of Generalized anxiety that cross over with phobias or OCD or ADD and other conditions. Drawing boundaries in psychiatry is hard, and they shift constantly. Does this sound like science?. is there a blood test for any of these illnesses? wheres the lab experiment where they found just one of these diseases? oh you cant find it, right, great science here. thats because psychiatry is very flawed and incomplete and they APPLY what little science there is in an effort to ease suffering (=applied science).

 

what you need to understand is Its mostly social construct and peer review consensus. this is why things go in and out of the Diagnostic Manual (DSM) with the fashions and trends of the day. so when you demand exact boundaries and glibly ask for concrete statements like this, you just look foolish and come across as very ignorant.

[[pi...]]

"I was making the very reasonable point that we should, in general, prefer the opinion of professionals in a relevant profession" - thats literally an appeal to authority. Your saying the specific argument isn't relevant, and that generally speaking authorities are more trustworthy. But we aren't talking generally, we were being specific. now your creating a motte and bailey defence. another fallacy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_fallacy

 

Again, it only applies when trying to dismiss an argument. What I was doing is expressing that I will generally trust the views of a relevant expert over laypeople. If we were discussing a particular point, which we were not (I had not and still have not even read the referenced study), and I had dismissed argument that way, you might have a point. I did not do that. Your point of appeal to authority fallacy is fine - such appeals are a logical fallacy. But does not describe to what I did.

 

We are just going in circles here.

we are discussing benzodiazepine injury/syndrome/withdrawal etc -> Thats the specific topic of discussion. The general point is science and medicine and authorities etc are generally useful and good and we should trust their expertise (the common sense yes yes yes). The specific point in question is does this hold true within the context of benzo sufferes. and anything within this context, doesn't work with your generalist frame of reasoning. see my post about heuristics before where it explain the flaw here and how this creates the cognitive bias that you cant move past.

[[pi...]]

Colin,

 

If he can "tell" us that we are wasting our time, then I can "tell" other buddies to stop engaging him.  But you are right.  No one should "tell" anyone what to do here, or in life in general.

 

That's all I am asking here. It is OK to disagree, or even be wrong. But it is not OK to attempt to shut up others engaged in good-faith argument.

 

So instead, I will "point out" that it "might" be a waste of time to engage a hostile poster rather than discuss the topic the rest of us want to discuss.

 

Urgh. But Maughham1 is only 'hostile' because you do not agree with him. He is being no more combative than you. But, you will note, he has not called upon for you be silenced. You might wish to chew on that.

 

I will not apologize to BB because damn it, the whole thing just pisses me off, but I will promise not to "tell" anyone one what to do.  Not because BB or anyone has a policy, but because it is impolite to my fellow posters.  I apologize to my fellow posters.  I will not "tell" you what to do ever again.

 

Well, I did not ask you to apologise, but one is probably due. I understand that you are 'pissed off', but some comments from you and others have gone a little too far. I own this forum - I could easily shut up anyone I wished simply because I do not like what they have to say. I have not done that; I do not do that. There are some rules, which apply to all members. I generally adhere to the rules myself too. And when I do not, I've rightly been pulled up on it (and at no cost to the member doing it). Sounds reasonable - yes? Then why even mention it? Well, some long-term members here will recall how other (now defunct) benzo-support groups operated - many regular members at this forum would have been banned from each of those groups for various reasons (specific to each individual group's particular narrow view of what is acceptable). I assure you, BB is by far the least prone benzo-support forum to censor content and members*. I don't think you properly appreciate what you have here. If you had experienced the others, you would be much more welcoming of alternative views.

 

I suppose this is symptom of the generalised partisanship taking place in your, mine, and many other countries. Although I am aware of it, I do not suppose this automatically makes me immune to it. So, if I sometimes push too hard, I apologise to all members. I also acknowledge that given my unique role here, me expressing my views  in a forthright manner (just like many members do) might come across differently, as though I am setting down a line. Generally, I am not doing that. When I am, I make it explicit (as I did in my last post to you).

 

Anyway, I hope everyone can step-back a little and take a deep breath. It is all OK. It is just debate on an Internet forum.

 

* Conversely, there was one benzo-support forum which applied no moderation at all. No surprises about how that panned out.

 

i dont disagree with this and i appreciate places that dont censor in an age of censorship. i think all decent people do. Just a point of observation though, statements like this "I own this forum - I could easily shut up anyone I wished simply because I do not like what they have to say. I have not done that; I do not do that" can come across as intimidating and can be interpreted as a veiled threat.

 

example, this is a common bullying technique, bullies will remind you that they have power over you that they dont use. its intimidation 101. the result is fear of you deciding to use it. they dont technically do it so they have deniability also which is how they stay out of trouble. but they will let you know that they have power over you which if done persistently, is a common trait of mental abuse in domestic situations and workplaces.

 

Like i said, I'm sure you didn't mean it to come off that way, but thats just my observation and i would probably just keep an eye on that if it were me who had made it and didn't notice that.

[[Sh...]]

Anybody that wants to continue this discussion about xenon or any other thing that might help feel free to pm me. Maybe we could start a little group where we CC each other in, or just go back and forth with different ppl. I wont be looking at this thread anymore.

[[be...]]

Yeah, at this point, I feel like this board isn’t the right place for this topic any longer. I’m currently collating a list of alternative therapies with studies to back up their efficacy to perhaps start a thread in the alternative therapies board. Or maybe a support group thread is in order for experimental therapies?

 

Just some thoughts. I hate to say it, but I want a safe space!