Posted by hiba on November 4, 2002, at 0:51:11
In reply to Re: Convinced At last ! » hiba, posted by Alan on November 3, 2002, at 16:28:40
Hello Alan,
Glad you are back in the forum once again.
Perhaps you might be wondering what my conviction is! It was just to state, the so called "protracted withdrawal" is mentioned in a renowned clinical manual. Still I didn't hesitate to reveal the doubtful nature of the given reference. Dr. Ashton's studies are being consistently challenged as they are mostly based on anecdotal evidences. "Martindale" professionals are very particular in collecting data from almost all available sources. That could be the reason.
"Protracted withdrawal syndrome" is still much controversial. Using a benzo in high doses for a considerably long period of time and stopping it abruptly may cause a longer than unusual withdrawal syndrome. This is arguably right. But such an usage and cessation is alien to clinical practice. Unsupervised usage of a drug and consequent complications are not an indicative of drug toxicity. Since we are discussing the medically supervised benzo usage, we have a better reason to neglect protracted withdrawal syndrome. It is not only how the drug treats you, it is how you treat the drug. If you want to abuse a drug, it shouldn't be a benzo or a narcotic. I have seen guys mixing phenergan(promethazine)with wine to augment the sedative high of the antihistamine.Benzophobia has done more than enough so far. Some practitioners were (or still?) prescribing hard antipsychotics to treat anxiety disorders because of the fear of benzo dependence. Once I got a prescription of Trazodone from an internist for sleeping problems. In PDR there is warning in block letter as "Trazodone is associated with priapism." Internist had justification. In low doses trazodone is safe. But many urologists believe drug induced priapism is not dose dependent. The reason for prescribing trazodone for sleep problems is its dissociation with dependence. But when the choice is an irreversible physical damage or a slight medical dependence, what makes sense is most important. That is all the fact about benzodiazepines.
Good luck Alan, Take care
HIBA
poster:hiba
thread:124171
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20021101/msgs/126352.html