How to Avoid Severe SSRI Withdrawal Symptoms?
After long-term use, most people are going to have serious symptoms when stopping SSRIs. Many people are going to have transient, mild to moderate difficulty and some are going to end up falling down the akathisia rabbit hole. That is a long, difficult drop.
Three Suicides: Honoring Lives Lost to Benzodiazepines
I am still trying to reconcile what these chemicals are capable of, how the urge can morph into an action, how we maybe just donât understand suicide all that well. For me, the suffering was so intense it was too painful to stay alive. I understand how my friends felt in their last moments.
Cognitive Impairment from Long-Term Benzodiazepine Use Remains Even After Drug Withdrawal
Long-term benzodiazepine use shown to effect cognitive function during current use and for years after drug discontinuation.
The Reckoning in Psychiatry Over Protracted Antidepressant Withdrawal
Medically-induced harmâaffecting tens of millions of people worldwideâhas taken the field decades to take seriously.
Is Long-term Use of Benzodiazepines a Risk for Cancer?
A large study of the population in Taiwan reveals that long-term use of benzodiazepine drugs, commonly prescribed for anxiety, significantly increases the risk for brain, colorectal, and lung cancers. The research, published open-access in the journal Medicine, also identifies the types of benzodiazepines that carry the greatest cancer risk.
Setbacks
Oddly enough, it had occurred to me over this past year as Iâve been writing these essays for Mad in America that maybe I was âtoo healthyâ to speak to the withdrawal experience with authenticity, to have street cred. Itâs now a moot point. I write this not to scare people, but to present a reality. This reality has been difficult to accept, but the fact remains that my nervous system is more sensitive than before and might always be so, at least to some degree.
8 Years of Mental Health Research Distilled to 4 Infographics
Pictures are worth a thousand words. So Iâve chosen pictures to distill the mountain of mental health research Iâve examined over the last eight years. Three infographics summarize research on psychiatric drugs, and one asserts why I think Integrative Mental Health is the best path available for mental health recovery.
Tapering Strips for Benzodiazepines
One size fits all does not work. It is not possible to use the same tapering schedule for all patients who wish to stop with a certain drug. Therefore we had to come up with a flexible solution that was both practical and allowed doctors and patients to make the choice they deemed appropriate.
Pushing for an Informed Consent Benzo Bill in Texas
Dr. Raymond Armstrong and I are currently working together to push Texas lawmakers to adopt restrictions on the prescription of benzodiazepines and sleep drugs. We feel fortunate to be able to draw from the experience of the benzo movement in Massachusetts, and we are grateful for the information that long time advocates like Geraldine Burns have provided us.
Update: Massachusetts Benzodiazepine Bill Hearing
The hearing for Bill H4062: Informed Consent for Benzodiazepines and Non-benzodiazepine Hypnotics took place on Monday â in the middle of an April snowstorm! The discussion clarified some important points in the legislation and gave survivors an opportunity to tell their stories. I was so proud to be there and witness the courage, camaraderie, resilience, advocacy, and vulnerability of fellow survivors. This legislation is our chance to be heard. As one survivor said, through tears, to the committee, âDo not let my suffering be in vain. I beg you to pass this bill.â
Announcing an International Symposium and Institute on Psychiatric Drug Risks and Withdrawal
I have given up on psychiatry as a system capable of âbeing thereâ for people who are dealing with life and death issues. Psychiatry as a system of care lacks validity. Every day â unfortunately â we learn of new examples proving this statement. But here's the good news: every day we meet people who show us that the predictions of psychiatry are not true; that there are âcures,â that it is possible to reduce or withdraw psychiatric drugs.
PTSD in Withdrawal
Can withdrawal from psychiatric drugging be so terrible as to leave you with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) â to somehow rearrange your psyche for the worse even once time and hard work have undone the damage caused by the chemicals? To so profoundly alter your core self that you acquire a new diagnosis meriting special considerations or further treatment in order to resume a normal life again? If the real definition of insanity is ârepeating the same mistake over and over and expecting a different result,â then embracing a psychiatric diagnosis of PTSD as a result of psychiatric damage would surely make you âinsaneâ.
Social Vacuum
I remember the feeling, one of not exactly isolation but otherness. A sense that not only did I not fit in many places where I used to, but also that I lacked the energy to even try â to, like an actor, wear the skin of the old me for an hour or even a few minutes so that others would not feel uncomfortable in my quivering and clearly perturbed presence.
The Gauntlet of Protracted Benzodiazepine Withdrawal
My doctor insisted that my symptoms could not be associated with withdrawal â they had to be symptoms of an underlying condition. I have since learned from legitimate sources that protracted withdrawal syndrome from benzodiazepines can intensify long before it abates, with some symptoms lasting for years.
There’s No Duct Tape for Benzo Withdrawal
Itâs stunning what a quarter milligram of a benzodiazepine can do to the body. Iâve been detoxing off a high dose of benzodiazepines since September of 2011. The first few months were a failure. But this past May, I found my expert and thought I had the formula. Things were going well for detoxing off a substance many deem more addictive that heroin. That is, I realized, until they werenât.
Benzo Withdrawal: Why Don’t Doctors Know?
Many have asked: âWhy doesnât my doctor/provider know what is happening to me?â Benzodiazepine tolerance and withdrawal are not new. So, why isnât it simple to diagnose and treat? As both a health care provider and a withdrawal sufferer, Iâd like to offer an inside and outside perspective on this question.
Who and What Killed Prince and Michael Jackson? Will the Role of Benzos Ever...
It is the deadly cocktail of benzodiazepines and opiates that is most responsible for the rising rate of opiate overdose deaths... and benzos may actually be THE decisive deadly component in the lethal drug combination. Yes, fentanyl and propofol can be dangerous drugs, but to focus the main attention in this crisis on these rarely used drugs is deliberately misleading...This minimizes the critical role of benzos and rather conveniently lets certain institutions and their leaders off the hook as the main suspects in such a vast number of cases that should be labeled as crimes of negligent homicide.
Withdrawal Symptoms Routinely Confound Findings of Psychiatric Drug Studies
Researchers examine how rapid discontinuation can mimic the relapse of mental health symptoms and confound psychiatric drug studies.
New Clinical Guidelines on Deprescribing Benzodiazepines
New guidelines recommend deprescribing benzodiazepine receptor agonists for adults.
Playing the Odds, Revisited
It is hard to believe that a year has gone past since I posted Playing the Odds: Antidepressant Withdrawal and the Problem of Informed Consent. The feedback I received underscored the more controversial aspects of SSRI toxicity. Common themes concerned the abrupt onset of new symptoms 3 to 12 months after stopping the drug, reinstatement of the drug failing to help withdrawal related symptoms, the possibility that withdrawal-related symptoms can persist indefinitely and concerns about using benzodiazepines to help with tardive akathisia.
Researchers Address Dangers of Polypharmacy and Inappropriate Medication Use
A new special issue brings together articles exploring the harmful effects of simultaneous multiple medication use.
On Pharma, Corruption, and Psychiatric Drugs
"My studies in this area lead me to a very uncomfortable conclusion: Our citizens would be far better off if we removed all the psychotropic drugs from the market, as doctors are unable to handle them. It is inescapable that their availability creates more harm than good."
- Peter Gøtzsche, MD; Co-founder of the Cochrane Collaboration
A Massachusetts Benzo Bill That Mandates Informed Consent
H. 3594 would require pharmacists to distribute pamphlets containing information on benzodiazepine misuse and abuse, risk of dependency and addiction, handling and addiction treatment resources. This would be a major legislative response to the prescribing patterns for these drugs today.
Existential Therapy Assists Patients Withdrawing From Psychiatric Drugs
Confronting existential anxiety through âBasal Exposure Therapyâ shows promising results in people withdrawing from psychotropic drugs.
Benzodiazepine Use and Risk of Alzheimer’s Disease
If a person in mid-life is feeling anxious, or depressed, or can't sleep? No problem. No need to figure out the source of these concerns. No need to work towards solutions in the old time-honored way of our ancestors. Today, psychiatrists have pills. Pop a benzo! And by the way, you'll have a 40% increased risk of Alzheimer's Disease in your late sixties.