Why are benzos so bad?

[Neko818]

I am curious about why it's so bad to take benzos for a short time during withdrawal...does it take long to get addicted to them?

[Raccoon117]

I've been taking .5 - 1.0 mg of Niravam(dissolvable xanax)" as needed since I started getting anxiety related symptoms and such. I feel no urge to take it when I don't need it or anything like that, I haven't noticed any "rebound" anxiety. Haven't had a noticeable increase in tolerance either, .5 still does the job unless it is a full blown panic attack.

A lot of people are strongly against benzos, apparently ... I seem to be perfectly fine with it. Many say it is strongly addictive and that you can get withdrawal (mine is a only as needed pill amd I don't experience withdrawal from it). I guess it is like how my friend could stop paxil cold turkey and not have any withdrawal at all.

Haven't needed one in a week except for today (been getting pounding heart episodes lately =P)

[Neko818]

I don't know how I feel about taking one...I get horrible anxiety about going to bed at night (that's when the panic attacks and obsessive thoughts kick in) I just want to be able to relax enough to want to go to bed. I am so tired!

[Raccoon117]

My logic is that if I don't take it and let myself suffer until I finally pass out and go to sleep then i'll only worry about the same thing happening the next night, and it just becomes a habit. I would rather take it then suffer, even though i'm not happy about needing to take one as well...

It will eliminate what you are going through tonight but you will have to be the one to help yourself long term... I just have to know when to draw the line about when I need one, and when I don't. If I feel like this could be going on until I end up sleeping by pure exhaustion or if the anxiety is rapidly going up or not letting up at all then I would take one.

Just my opinion but if I were you I would take one tonight, I think in that situation it does more good then harm. Just take it when you really need it.

[Neko818]

I would probably take one if I had it, but I don't. I have an appointment on Monday with my GP and I was going to bring up the subject with him. I just have to deal with it the best I can for now and hope that he understands what I am feeling.

[TryingtoGetWell]

Addiction to benzodiazepines can occur within 3-4 weeks if taken regularly (daily) even in small doses and even if one doesn't build up a tolerance. Unfortunately the withdrawal can be very severe, at least as much as SSRI withdrawal.

I don't believe occasional use causes problems, at least not addiction. Since it affects neurotransmitters and neurotransmitters are in chaos and rebalancing while in SSRI withdrawal I think they potentially could hamper healing in WD, but I don't know if that's the case. (I don't know if anyone knows.) But you have to be very careful not to take them regularly in any case.

I'm not well enough to go off the 0.5 mg of clonazepam (maintenance dose from previous benzo addiction) which I've been on since long before paxil. I have no idea if it's affecting my paxil withdrawal but I suspect it may be.

[Raccoon117]

Seems like klonopin would be more suited for the every day use, Niravam and such only lasts for 3 hours at most. Which is why I think it is a better choice for panic. Starts working in 15 minutes, in an hour panic is minimal and by the 2nd hour you are fine. Its not a 12 hour deal.

[TryingtoGetWell]

Originally Posted by Raccoon117

Seems like klonopin would be more suited for the every day use, Niravam and such only lasts for 3 hours at most. Which is why I think it is a better choice for panic. Starts working in 15 minutes, in an hour panic is minimal and by the 2nd hour you are fine. Its not a 12 hour deal.

Didn't want to bore you with the details -- I was put on benzodiazepines as adjunct anticonvulsant for seizure disorder. Then when I went off them due to possible side effects, I went into such severe withdrawal I had to be hospitalized and put on clonazepam (klonopin) for safety and slowly tapered down. Unfortunately life circumstances never permitted my finishing withdrawal, much as I'd like to be completely off.

The problem with short-acting benzos is they can wear off very abruptly. But this may not happen with only occasional use. I don't know. I was on benzos on a regular basis due to seizure condition and with short-acting benzo I could set a clock by how I felt after four hours since taking it. Short-acting benzos were prescribed because they were believed then to be safer (like paxil is a short-acting SSRI, as is effexor, and they turned out to be the hardest to get off of); if you get addicted the withdrawal is worse, so if you choose to take them be sure not to take them regularly.

[Casey1231]

I took xanax back in the late 80's and early 90's, and I was stone cold addicted within months, it was hell on earth. If you are lucky enough to be a periodical user with no problems, than it will work for you, but proceed with extreme caution - it will sneak up on you and before you know it you're hooked.

[Raccoon117]

I use to take 4 of the pills at a time when I would self medicate to try and fix a bipolar swing (which I didn't know I was having at the time). Anyway I'd have about four pills are day, funny thing is when I went to a substance abuse/psychiatric hospital and ward place for a week or so, of course I didn't have any pills in there or anything, and I STILL didn't have any side effects.

I'm pretty sure I have PTSD from the whole incident, so I fear the pills and seriously doubt I could ever use them like that again.

[whitescorpion]

Originally Posted by Casey1231

I took xanax back in the late 80's and early 90's, and I was stone cold addicted within months, it was hell on earth. If you are lucky enough to be a periodical user with no problems, than it will work for you, but proceed with extreme caution - it will sneak up on you and before you know it you're hooked.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

I slowly worked my way up to 3mg of xanax twice a week (over the course of about 7-8 months. I started with 1mg.) so I could 'sleep'.
I started getting awful anxiety in between those twice-weekly doses.
It was so bad that I thought I was 'losing it' and I went to a psychiatrist who prescribed 20mg Paxil, ?mg Trazadone (HORRIBLE stuff) and ?mg hydroxyzine.
It seems he completely misdiagnosed me and discounted the Xanax withdrawal.

I was extremely fortunate to find this site after I had two 5 day 'excursions' with the paxil, two weeks apart. The Good People here explained that I was going through xanax withdrawal and advised me to discontinue the Paxil immediately, which I did. I also flushed the remaining Xanax down the toilet.
That was in February. It has been VERY difficult and I am just now starting to be able to sleep again.
I don't know if I will ever 'catch up' on all the sleep that I lost during that time. I have also been seeing a psychologist to work through whatver issues I have.

Potentialm Benzo users, PLEASE go cautiously. These drugs are insidious.

Check out the 'Ashton manual' on benzoisland for a wealth of info about this topic, including effects & withdrawal:

http://www.benzo.org.uk/manual/bzcha03.htm

[texgirl]

Neko, I was put on a "tiny" dose of Klonopin (.5 mg) by my doctor 2-1/2 years ago to help me sleep. It worked at first but I'd soon reached tolerance and it did nothing to suppress my terrible Paxil-induced nightmares. Despite my misgivings, I slowly upped the dose on my doctor's recommendation. Within a couple of months I was taking 1.25 mg, still only sleeping a few hours at night, still having nightmares, and now having lethargy, brain fog, chronic nausea and diarrhea, and rebound anxiety daily when my dose wore off. My doctor described it as "all of the side effects and none of the efficacy." Her advice? Increase the dose. Well, I'm not THAT stupid (and by now was a member of PaxilProgress). I knew I had to quit, but my doc had no clue how I should do it. ("Well, I guess you could cut the pills in half.") I fired her and found a new doctor who supported a slow wean and wrote me scripts to have the med compounded. I'm now two weeks from the end of a 7-month taper. (I've been off Paxil for about 16 months.) I feel pretty good overall, much more alert and alive, but I also have tremors, muscle spasms and fatigue, dizziness, low-grade anxiety, and (you guessed it) bad dreams and insomnia. While tolerable, I suspect these symptoms will be with me for several more weeks if not months. If I knew 2-1/2 years ago what I know now, I would never have touched benzos. I agree that they're okay if used very, very occasionally (say, once a month), but with regular use they quickly become insidious. The w/d symptoms not only mimic but exaggerate most of the reasons a user went on the drug in the first place, causing him or her to believe that the only solution is to take more, more frequently, and to feel that life without the drug is impossible, resulting in a physical and psychological cycle of dependence that's very hard to break.

[whitescorpion]

This is from the Ashton Manual.
The sleep induced by benzos is not the 'right' kind of sleep:

Insomnia, nightmares, sleep disturbance. The sleep engendered by benzodiazepines, though it may seem refreshing at first, is not a normal sleep. Benzodiazepines inhibit both dreaming sleep (rapid eye movement sleep, REMS) and deep sleep (slow wave sleep, SWS). The extra sleep time that benzodiazepines provide is spent mainly in light sleep, termed Stage 2 sleep. REM and SWS are the two most important stages of sleep and are essential to health. Sleep deprivation studies show that any deficit is quickly made up by a rebound to above normal levels as soon as circumstances permit.

In regular benzodiazepine users REMS and SWS tend to return to pre-drug levels (because of tolerance) but the initial deficit remains. On withdrawal, even after years of benzodiazepine use, there is a marked rebound increase in REMS which also becomes more intense. As a result, dreams become more vivid, nightmares may occur and cause frequent awakenings during the night. This is a normal reaction to benzodiazepine withdrawal and, though unpleasant, it is a sign that recovery is beginning to take place. When the deficit of REMS is made up, usually after about 4-6 weeks, the nightmares become less frequent and gradually fade away.

Return of SWS seems to take longer after withdrawal, probably because anxiety levels are high, the brain is overactive and it is hard to relax completely. Subjects may have difficulty in getting off to sleep and may experience "restless legs syndrome", sudden muscle jerks (myoclonus) just as they are dropping off or be jolted suddenly by a hallucination of a loud bang (hypnagogic hallucination) which wakes them up again. These disturbances may also last for several weeks, sometimes months.

However, all these symptoms do settle in time. The need for sleep is so powerful that normal sleep will eventually reassert itself. Meanwhile, attention to sleep hygiene measures including avoiding tea, coffee, other stimulants or alcohol near bedtime, relaxation tapes, anxiety management techniques and physical exercise may be helpful. Taking all or most of the dose of benzodiazepine at night during the reduction period may also help. Occasionally another drug might be indicated

Just take a look around www.benzoisland.org or the yahoo benzo group and you would run the other way from a benzo. Benzos cause tolerance much more quickly than the a/d typically do. Some of the peole suffering the worst from the benzo have been short-term users. For years I took klonopin "as needed." "As needed" still altered my GABA receptors, and then I would need more and more to hold the w/d at bay. One of my closest benzo friends was only on it a couple of months, was paradoxical to it, and was then c/t'd. She has spent the last 3 years housebound, mainly bedridden in the worst possible hell imaginable. She is now starting to heal, thank God. Another man I know is actually a psychologist who went through this years ago. He also started taking Xanax "as needed" and then daily. He was paradoxical as well. He went through the worst hell imaginable, like many of us (myself included), for about 4 years with NO windows. The benzo boards are FULL of people like this. This isn't to scare you, but just to inform you of the dangers.

Just saw on foxnews where Paris Hilton had c/t'd Xanax when she was initially put in jail. They said she was having seizures, which is another reason you don't want to mess with a benzo.

[texgirl]

Originally Posted by Neko818

does it take long to get addicted to them?

Something that happens with benzos that doesn't happen so much with SSRIs is the psychological aspect of dependence. Because benzos work quickly (in some cases, almost immediately) to bring relief from anxiety, the brain retains a memory of that sensation, so that the urge to turn to the drug during episodes of stress becomes very powerful. Next thing you know, you're addicted, both physically and mentally. My pharmacist believes that psychological dependence is the main reason benzos are so hard to quit, but I'm guessing that's because he's never taken them.

[Neko818]

Thanks to everyone for the info and opinions. My doctor called me in a scrip for xanax today (haven't picked it up yet)...I have an appointment on Monday to talk to him about everything, but I felt like I needed some kind of short term possibility for relief in the mean time. I am looking into psychotherapy options as I don't want to rely on meds to control this panic and anxiety. I appreciate everyone's concern...I will be extremely cautious.

[BriOnH]

I have been addicted to 1mg of xanax / night for almost 3 years. It's harder to come off of then paxil imo.

[Songbird]

I was on midazolam for a while to help me sleep. I would not take any benzo or sleeping pill for more than 6 weeks. I think if you get on them long-term it will be very hard to stop, although I don't have personal experience of this, I was able to stop before 6 weeks.

Do you get zopiclone over there? In my opinion, if you have to take a sleeping pill, this one is much better than any benzo. (Again, I don't take it for more than 6 weeks).

[Raccoon117]

All the hate for benzos =[. They have saved me trips to the hospital and it is a must if you get a panic attack when you are out with your friends.

I guess people react to it differently. I couldn't even notice klonopin working for me, and it didn't help anxiety or panic. But to see everyone being addicted to Xanax and going threw hell because of it is insane. Guess people don't understand it is for panic attacks and not for bouts of anxiety.

[Neko818]

I don't plan on taking it for more than 2 weeks. I am only going to use it if I feel a bad panic attack coming on. I am hoping that going to a therapist will help me find a better way to head them off. It sometimes feels like the panic attacks themselves are becoming like a bad habit. I get worried that I will have one and then sure enough I do. That's the behavior I need to change.

[texgirl]

Originally Posted by Neko818

I am hoping that going to a therapist will help me find a better way to head them off. It sometimes feels like the panic attacks themselves are becoming like a bad habit. I get worried that I will have one and then sure enough I do. That's the behavior I need to change.

Good attitude, Neko. Much better to gain control over your panic attacks with coping skills than believing that you "must" take a pill to deal with them.