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Re: Codeine for Depression Treatment-Elizabeth

Posted by paulk on June 5, 2001, at 12:05:48

In reply to Re: Codeine for Depression Treatment-Elizabeth, posted by AMenz on June 5, 2001, at 11:19:40

>Codeine is supposed to be addictive. I'm already unable to get off a 1mg benzo daily.

I’m not a doctor, but just a life long paient. That being said: Why are you trying to get off? The best way to get off is to switch to a long half-life Benzo like Clonazepam and to taper down – sometimes by as little as ¼ of the dose per week. ( one week at 1mg - next at .75 next at .5 next at .4 next at .3, .2,.1 )

Be aware that you may not be addicted to the benzo at all. What you might be experiencing is the reemergence of symptoms that the benzo is helping you with. That is not addiction. If this is the case you need to ask yourself why you are stopping. I could see switching to Effexor of some other med to deal with anxiety – but if they don’t work for you why not use what works? Some doctors are overly anti benzos – they have seen patients that abused benzos – most mental patents don’t abuse these drugs – and if you are on 1 mg – it sure doesn’t sound like you are.

You want to use the lowest dose that controls your symptoms – that can be quite low for some of us (I take .25mg of Clonazepam). Larger than necessary doses seem to effect memory and learning..

I don’t like the idea of using a benzo “as needed” except in the case of bipolar depression. Most of the time, anxiety can be treated with a regular low dose – going up and down can CAUSE anxiety.

Clonazepam BTW is probably one of the best to use – it has a long half-life and some seritnergic effect as well. Xanex (Alprazolam) has some anti-depressant action but has too short of a half-life to be practical for most (it would be interesting if they came out with a slow release version of it.).

Good luck to you


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