Posted by bleauberry on January 8, 2008, at 19:00:26
In reply to Do 20+ years of benzos change brain forever??, posted by Abby Cunningham on January 8, 2008, at 7:43:04
Just my opinion but I do believe 20 years of any psych drug or herb will change the brain forever, or at least for another 10 to 20 years, at which time if that happened you would be back to the baseline symptoms you started with. But aging and stuff...everything is changed and probably not in our favor. The bounceback, healing, and resiliency just isn't there like 20 years ago.
Actually I think a mere 1 year on a drug will change things for a long time if not forever. I know when I came off zyprexa after 8 years it took a full 3 months to feel stabilized, another 3 months to see my true baseline, and now 12 months later I still feel addicted to it like whatever it did is not going to undo anytime soon.
I like your natural approach. Keep focusing on that, find the best ones and best doses. Maybe they will never replace a med but I bet they can cut down on the doses needed.
You might have to explore other anxiety/depression drugs, whatever you haven't already. Things in the SSRI family, possibly zyprexa, possibly a mood stabilizer like depakote, lithium, lamictal, gabapentin. With the SSRIs time is needed. With the others though if you have really bad side effects to begin with, it is my opinion to walk away and move on to the next. In studying posts of people that have reported on and rated their meds, practically everyone who had really bad side effects in the start either did not get better or got worse. If side effects are mild, keep with it and give it a fair go.
You probably feel trapped. I do too. Actually I think 1000s of us do. So you aren't alone. We have to do the best we can and explore other avenues we haven't tried.
One more thought. Nardil.
poster:bleauberry
thread:805025
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20080105/msgs/805188.html