Generation Xanax: The Dark Side of America's Wonder Drug

[Mosby]

Two years after she started taking Xanax, Dana Bare began having panic attacks like never before.

Her memory started slipping. Her husband had to remind her how to make a sandwich. Bare’s ailments cycled her through emergency rooms and puzzled specialists, some of whom thought she was mentally ill or had cancer. No one knew what to do other than up her Xanax dose, to 2 milligrams a day at one point.

The popular pills had been a blessing at first when her general practitioner prescribed them for mild insomnia more than a decade ago. Bare was a busy mother of five running a charity based in Smith County, Tenn. Xanax helped sleep come easy.

Over time, though, her nervous system developed a debilitating physical dependence on the drug. When she tried to quit after five years, crippling symptoms consumed her. “Brain zaps” hit her like electric shocks. Shower water jolted her so badly that she would suffer hourslong panic attacks and at times writhe in pain until she passed out.

“Never forget how much I have always loved you, but don’t spend too much time missing me,” Bare wrote to her oldest daughter in 2018, when she worried she might die amid her two-year journey to get off the drug. “There has never been anything greater than being your mama.”

https://www.wsj.com/health/wellness/xanax-drug-benzodiazepines-research-harm-7a60f236?st=ty6XQM&reflink=share_mobilewebshare

[SheltieLover]

1. Benzos are horrible drugs

One training I'd done years ago quoted a longitudinal study that reflected ONE benzo alters brainwaves in excess of 5 years!

Thx for sharing.

[Mosby]

2. Couple quotes

“These were never really designed to be long-term medications,” said Dr. Haran Sivakumar, an addiction medicine specialist at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York who also has his own private practice.

Martin, who has been treating patients since the mid-1970s, said, “I’m an expert on this, and I was never aware that there are these patients who have long-term consequences of benzodiazepines. I personally feel a little negligent myself. I was not aware of it, and I should have been.”

Huff, who had graduated at the top of her class as a physician, was outraged that she and other doctors were untrained about the potential ill effects of benzodiazepine use and “some of the most serious risks are not mentioned in the FDA Label—specifically that patients can suffer disabling neurological damage from benzodiazepines, which in some cases may be permanent,” she wrote in 2019.

People who have been taking benzos are walking experiments, the medical community did not do their due diligence with these drugs.

[Bvb1979]

6. Wonder drug

I get panic attacks every day.agorapobia depression resistance to antidepressants disc bulging causing migraine and for the I have been on Xanax for 15 years. 2mg.

[Diraven]

3. They are great for panic attacks

I use them for this like 3 times a year and that's it. I didn't know they were still prescribed as sleeping pills.

[mucifer]

4. Benzos can be REALLY helpful in hospice. But, even then some people don't react well to them. I am

a hospice nurse.

I do have a friend who has been taking a benzo twice a day for years prescribed. I worry about him. It does help his anxiety. But, his memory is worse. But, I don't know for sure if it's the benzo making it worse.

This is a really interesting article.

[buzzycrumbhunger]

5. Pharmacy tech here...

I’m always grateful I’ve never needed any psych meds because they seem to me to create bigger problems than what they’re treating. So sick of people coming in all tearful because we can’t fill a script yet and they’ve mysteriously run out early. “You miscounted!” “I dropped my bottle in the bathroom sink!” “I’m very careful and only take it when I need it!”

Doesn’t matter if it’s mood stabilizers or opiods (though they’re the WORST—why are people allowed to be on a short-term pain killer for YEARS?!) The whining, the anger, the pathetic begging. How is this better than what you were originally trying to treat?

[tulipsandroses]

8. Psych meds in general don't create more problems for the vast majority of people taking them. The problem as mentioned

is that benzos are not supposed to be used as every day medications. They have their appropriate place in treatment. I've worked in mental health for many years, medication saves lives and contributes to the quality of life for people with mental health issues.
Mood stabilizers are definitely not short term medications and they are also not addictive. They are the lifeline for people with Bipolar disorder or at times severe depression.

I get what you are saying about being frustrated with people that may be dealing with substance abuse issues but let's not add to the stigma of mental health treatment.

[buzzycrumbhunger]

9. My reaction is probably tainted by my years doing acute care transcription...

Over 15 years and the WORST dictations were from the psych docs, who threw combinations of meds at patients hoping that *something* might be the magic bullet to cure what ailed them. Hands down the most disjointed, rambling doctors anywhere. Not a resounding endorsement of the specialty when the “cures” are so nebulous that no one seems to have a clue what to prescribe…

[tulipsandroses]

10. "Bad" practitioners are present in all fields. I don't know what you have seen so I can't speak to that, but I will say

that it is possible that there is a rationale for combining meds that you may not understand. Most providers are not just throwing things and hoping something sticks. There is usually a rationale for combining different meds. .
Psych tends to get a bad rap but the same applies to many other illnesses - Hypertension, sometimes people are taking more than one blood pressure medication to keep their blood pressure stable. Same for Diabetes. Same for migraines. Same for Epilepsy. And even for those illnesses, sometimes patients are trying different meds before finding the right regimen for them.

[58Sunliner]

11. It is horrible. It's like the pt is a fire hydrant and they all have to mark it with a diagnosis.

Is it ego? Or is the system of remuneration partly to blame? The pt is the loser, that's for sure. Like many doctors, they can not see themselves in the pts.

[tulipsandroses]

7. "These were never really designed to be long-term medications," said Dr. Haran Sivakumar

That is very important. Can't tell you how many times new patients are upset with me when I tell them that. Not their fault entirely. Patient education is extremely important. Unfortunately some providers either are not very good at patient education or the conveyer belt system, that forces you to see a patient every 15-20 minutes does not leave a lot of time for patient education.