Posted by mcp on October 7, 2004, at 2:43:33
In reply to Re: Help with anxiety/benzos, posted by utopizen on October 6, 2004, at 20:01:01
No disrespect, but I think it is reckless and irresponsible for you to casually recommend someone take an AD and join the AD for life club, as you put it.
There are so many things you can try and do before you take the DRASTIC last step of taking a drug. It may work for you, but that doesn't mean it will for others.
> > I have been taking Klonopin for several weeks and it has helped greatly with my anxiety. Unfortunately it started causing a depression that I haven't felt for some time. Does anyone have an opinion of an alternative that might be better in that regard? I get the impression that Klonopin is more "PC" than others although my Pdoc is usually open to suggestions. Thanks for your help.
> >
>
> It's best to augment Klonopin with an antidepressant, because depression is especially prone to anyone with a mental illness of any kind, and Klonopin can't stop the inevitable.
>
> In other words, since depression happens in 1 out of 5 Americans, and even more than that in patients with a mental illness, guess what? Chances you're going to get depressed at any given time with or WITHOUT Klonopin are already really, really high.
>
> If psychopharmacology was simple, we'd simply refer to the clinical trials sheets and see depression occured in patients taking Klonopin in a dose-dependent relationship. Unfortunately, psychopharmacology isn't that simple--if you read clinical trial statistics that literally, you'll go insane.
>
> Go on an antidepressant, regardless of what the hypothesis of the month is about whether the Klonopin is causing your depression or not. In a sense, a drug can only -agitate- existing problems like depression. Why are some people more prone to getting depression from a certain med while others can take the same med and never get depression? Who knows.
>
> But the fact that a drug might set it off should alarm you for this reason alone: if a med can trigger depression in you, who's to say the next negative life event for you won't just as easily?
>
> Moral of the story: try lowering or substituting the Klonopin, but don't look for this as a solution within itself: if you're like me, join the antidepressant for life club. (Start trying 'em for social anxiety disorder, stay on 'em once you get depression).
>
> I went off antidepressants when I went on Klonopin, and a few months later got depression. Who knows what caused it, but I regret ever going off antidepressants.
poster:mcp
thread:399779
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20041002/msgs/399878.html