6 Months Out Back to Being Dizzy Again Benzo Buddies

Tranquilizer Detox Withdrawal Can Concluding Years

FDA, patients say quitting "benzos" abruptly can lead to horrific side effects.

Dec. 1, 2008— -- Americans accept a lot of "benzos," fifty-fifty if they don't know exactly what "benzos" are.

In 2007, U.S. doctors wrote more than 82 million prescriptions for a type of tranquilizer called benzodiazepines, often called "benzos," which includes Valium, Ativan, Xanax and Klonopin.

The positive effects of benzos are widely discussed in blogs, and in the media. But the much appreciated "mother's little helper" drugs can have dangerous side effects that last for years. Some of the worst problems really get-go once someone tries to stop taking them.

Negative symptoms began "probably the day after I stopped taking it [clonazepam] completely," said Colin Moran, 41, co-founder of benzobuddies.org, an emotional support site with applied communication to help people safely finish taking benzodiazepines.

"I woke up and I idea I had a stroke," he said. "My scalp, downwards the eye of my body -- everywhere on the left was numb, and I could barely move on that side of the body.

"Even though I thought I had a stroke, I was in such a confused country that I didn't even feel inclined to do anything near it," said Moran.

Moran had taken clonazepam (a benzodiazepine often called Rivotril or Klonopin) for nearly two years before deciding to accept a break. He even tried to "safely" taper off the dose over six weeks.

Finally, a friend forced him to call a neurologist, who informed him that he had non had a stroke simply that he was experiencing withdrawal from the clonazepam.

The numbness was but the starting time. Moran later on experienced nightmares, anxiety, nighttime sweats and a bewildering mental fog.

Moran said he had never had such symptoms before he was prescribed clonazepam for a seizure trouble, chosen brainstem myoclonus, which was characterized by spontaneous jerks in the body, trunk and limbs.

"Now I had to keep on this small dose, just so I could move," he said.

Eventually Moran would join a minority of people who suffer from protracted withdrawal syndrome after stopping benzodiazepines.

"The two most dangerous drugs to detox off of are benzos and alcohol," said Dr. Harris Stratyner, vice chairman of the National Quango on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence.

"A lot of insurance companies want you in the infirmary if you're coming off of alcohol or benzos," said Stratyner, who is too a clinical associate professor of psychiatry at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in Manhattan, and vice president of the Caron Treatment Center in New York.

Withdrawal Can Strike At Random

Non only do benzos create a physical habit, Stratyner said the drugs can alter how the brain processes neurotransmitters that at-home a person downwards.

In fact, the U.Southward. Food and Drug Administration recommends short-term use of benzodiazepines for that very reason, alarm that quitting benzodiazepines abruptly can result in more than than 40 withdrawal side effects, including headache, anxiety, tension, depression, insomnia, confusion, dizziness, derealization and short-term memory loss.

However, for Moran, side effects of benzos extended to the time he was taking the drugs, besides.

Since clonazepam was the only drug available to treat his condition, Moran tried for years to take the drug, so to taper off for three months before he built up too much of a tolerance, and then to outset over again.

"I was a complete mess on benzos -- confused, irrational and unemotional," he said.

Two years subsequently he started the new drugs, Moran decided to end his six-year romantic relationship.

"Information technology but felt incorrect. When I told her information technology was over, she told me that the medication had changed me," said Moran. "I thought it was just a reaction to the breakdown."

Merely six weeks afterward his concluding dose, Moran said a he felt a flood of feelings he hadn't felt in years.

"I think it was merely normal emotions, but it had been years since I experienced them then, I wasn't used to coping with them," he said.

Moran said he then realized his ex-girlfriend was correct.

"I tried to repair the damage I had done to my personal life, only it was way too late," he said.

To this day, Moran walks with a limp on his left side. He said he sees himself equally an farthermost case of common withdrawal symptoms.

Stratyner said 10 percent of people who quit abruptly may feel a "syndrome" of withdrawal symptoms that extend long after the drugs leave their bodies. This change tin reverse, but for a minor proportion of people, it tin can take months or years to recover.

"If y'all suddenly finish taking Klonopin (clonazepam) speedily, yous usually get cramping, yous can have convulsions, you can have auditory hallucinations, nightmares," said Stratytner. "It'southward not unusual at all."

But no i told that to Geraldine Burns, 53, the first time she decided to stop taking a benzo called Ativan (lorazepam).

"I never had a panic attack before I stopped taking Ativan," said Burns, who remembers she was driving down a busy artery in Boston with her infant daughter and young son in the dorsum seat when she suddenly felt like she couldn't breathe.

"Information technology was like you're simply coming out of your peel," she said.

A psychiatrist prescribed Ativan for Burns at age 33, before long after she gave nascency to her daughter. She said she felt physically off at the time, like she weighed 1,000 pounds, but that her doctors thought information technology was a postal service-partum depression.

"I was handed Ativan in the hospital and told to go come across a psychiatrist," she said.

A year after, subsequently receiving a prescription for Ativan, Burns said she still felt off.

"Then I read an commodity virtually how women could feel just how I felt, and it was an infection of the womb, and you lot don't necessarily have to have a fever," she said.

Burns said she called another doctor -- an internist -- about the article and he prescribed her antibiotics. Within five days of taking the antibiotics, Burns said she felt much better.

"So I stopped taking Ativan," said Burns. "I didn't know that yous couldn't merely terminate."

The Danger of Going Cold Turkey

After the first panic attacks, Burns called her psychiatrist who, according to Burns, told her she shouldn't accept stopped the pills and that she needed to take Ativan "for the rest of my life."

Burns connected to have Ativan and antidepressants for nine years; meanwhile, her feet and agoraphobia only increased. During that time, her body developed a tolerance for the drug, making coming off of information technology all the more risky.

And then, one day, at historic period 42, Burns went to a new gynecologist who informed her that benzodiazepines were extremely addictive. Burns decided to effort and cease, and so sue her psychiatrist.

"I was OK for about six months, and and so I went into protracted withdrawal," she said.

Burns experienced ringing in her ears, twitching on her face up and hallucinations that bugs were crawling all over her scalp.

X years later, many of her symptoms take calmed down. Just Burns decided she would spend her fourth dimension helping others through benzosupport.org and Benzobookreview.com.

Cindy, who asked ABCNews.com not to utilize her final name, found help through Burns and her Web site last yr. Like many people with benzo withdrawal symptoms, Cindy said the only sign that she wasn't crazy were others on the Cyberspace with similar symptoms.

"Three years agone, I was a very, very healthy 49-yr-old," said Cindy, of Rhode Island. "I never had a psychiatric history; I never was on any psychiatric drugs. Never on whatsoever drugs, really."

Cindy's gynecologist kickoff prescribed her Valium after she hit a bout of insomnia with menopause. It worked, but 8 months later, she began to experience depressed and have rashes. Cindy said her doctor told her she could quit taking the drug if she liked, then she did.

Three weeks later, Cindy said she couldn't stand or walk without holding on to a wall, and she had inexplicable feelings of physical fearfulness. Eventually, her ii higher-aged children found her unresponsive on the floor. They wrapped her up in a blanket and took her back to the gynecologist.

"I said, 'I demand to go to the infirmary,'" said Cindy. "She told me to go home."

Cindy said she has recovered slightly but is all the same and so disoriented that she has trouble reading and writing. Somewhen, she had to quit her job every bit a social worker.

"It took four months. I literally lost my mind," she said.

Withdrawal Can Lead to 'Derealization'

In addition to the fear, Cindy said she went through a "depersonalization," where people and objects appeared unreal and untrustworthy to her, every bit if she was in a dream world.

"Nothing was right," she said.

Now, Cindy said, she mistrusts doctors, and will admittedly pass up to take another drug again. Instead, she relies on emotional back up from Burns while her body slowly recovers.

Burns and Moran admit their online support groups accept stirred mild controversy with people'south doctors for the medical communication about tapering doses of drugs. Even so, they said all agree their sites tin provide initial emotional support to people struggling with withdrawal.

"Don't let the horror stories get to you," said Burns. "Nosotros've got lots of people who become better."

Alison Kellagher is one such person. She took benzodiazepines for 17 years, originally just to treat a couple of panic attacks she had in a new job.

"I went to a psychiatrist and he just immediately prescribed a Xanax, and it was to take every 24-hour interval," said Kellagher. "It helped for a number of years, but as the dose got higher, the side effect of low became stronger."

Kellagher eventually decided to terminate, and even went to a detox programme to aid her slowly taper off the drugs. Withal, the years had taken their toll and she experienced withdrawal.

"Then, I was in a profoundly alerted consciousness, immediately after stopping," said Kellagher. "Information technology was the feeling of being in terror, only it was just a physiological land of terror."

Kellagher said she thinks she'southward lucky because information technology simply lasted several months.

"The beginning three months was 24-vii. Then, it started to let up a fiddling bit by three to six months. Past a year, I was pretty comfy," she said. "I wasn't 100 percent, but I was functioning and feeling almost normal."

The feel motivated Kellagher, who worked in the bicycle wear manufacture, to get a main's degree for counseling. Now, she coaches people through protracted benzodiazepine withdrawal over the phone.

"People usually need some help keeping hope live," said Kellagher, who runs the site stoppingbenzos.com. "It's hard not to become bogged down in depression, considering it's a long process."

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Source: https://abcnews.go.com/Health/DepressionNews/story?id=6354685&page=1

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