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Long-term benzodiazepine use causes synapse loss and cognitive deficits in mice

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Re: Long-term benzodiazepine use causes synapse loss and cognitive deficits in mice

#21

Post by mistrial9 »

trevorishere wrote: post #10
jmcgough wrote: post #3

Daily use of benzos is extremely bad in general - the physical addiction is not pleasant to withdraw from, and it significantly increases the risk of dementia in old age.

> dementia in old age. Spoke to a psychiatrist on this one. He was saying The Lancet longitudinal study was bunk and that Xanax use was not one of concern. I'm not saying he's correct, but he literally laughed at my objection to Xanax, including it's now very long history of use with an average dose of 6mg/day.

this man laughed at you for suggesting this? Xanax is a "benzo" wikipedia tells me.. Consider the source

Re: Long-term benzodiazepine use causes synapse loss and cognitive deficits in mice

#22

Post by anonymoushn »

ldjkfkdsjnv wrote: post #9
ZanyProgrammer wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reality is that many doctors these days will not prescribe large amounts of benzos, certainly not just willy nilly.

I'm not just talking about benzos, but also anti psychotics, amphetamines, statins, and basically the whole gamut. My brother is a pharmacist, and is constantly shocked by the prescriptions that healthy people bring in to get filled. The medical field has been unjustly given too much prestige.

antipsychotics are horrifying. do therapeutic doses of stimulants cause problems other than heart disease over the long term?

Re: Long-term benzodiazepine use causes synapse loss and cognitive deficits in mice

#23

Post by sascha_sl »

ldjkfkdsjnv wrote: post #9
ZanyProgrammer wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reality is that many doctors these days will not prescribe large amounts of benzos, certainly not just willy nilly.

I'm not just talking about benzos, but also anti psychotics, amphetamines, statins, and basically the whole gamut. My brother is a pharmacist, and is constantly shocked by the prescriptions that healthy people bring in to get filled. The medical field has been unjustly given too much prestige.

If your brother told you that with this exact framing, he's in the wrong industry.

Health, and especially not mental health is very much not visible or even obvious. Just ask any disabled person that is not bound to a wheelchair 100 percent of the time.

Re: Long-term benzodiazepine use causes synapse loss and cognitive deficits in mice

#24

Post by jmcgough »

fermentation wrote: post #13
jmcgough wrote: post #3

Daily use of benzos is extremely bad in general - the physical addiction is not pleasant to withdraw from, and it significantly increases the risk of dementia in old age.

Had some anxiety issues in France and a doctor that I met with (who I had trouble speaking to) prescribed daily benzos for a month. Towards the end of the month it felt like my body NEEDED the pills. It was scary.

Your brain chemistry acclimates to using a GABA agonist every day and will get out of whack if you stop taking it :( like anxiety will be WAY WORSE when going through withdrawal.

I still use a benzo (lowest dose lamictal) but only about once a month when I need hit the panic button. It's really not meant to be a daily use drug, scared me when a friend was prescribed it as a daily medication.

Re: Long-term benzodiazepine use causes synapse loss and cognitive deficits in mice

#25

Post by anonymoushn »

ldjkfkdsjnv wrote: post #18
cwzwarich wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My brother is a pharmacist, and is constantly shocked by the prescriptions that healthy people bring in to get filled. While I definitely agree with your general point, how does your brother know that they’re healthy or don’t need to take the medication? I’ve never had any discussion with a pharmacist (in the US or Canada) where I’ve revealed this information.

What I mean is a mother of 4, with no medical history, is feeling stressed and worn out. Maybe she has trouble focussing. All of a sudden she comes in with an amphetamine prescription. A year later, she's a full blown dependent on a serious drug. She was actually just burned out and probably just needed a break from her kids and a vacation. Very common. There's no transparency, no public understanding of doctors who…

I sort of expect that the psychiatrist spends more time with the patient each month than the pharmacist.

Re: Long-term benzodiazepine use causes synapse loss and cognitive deficits in mice

#26

Post by openknot »

ldjkfkdsjnv wrote: post #6

The reality is many drugs have long term effects, we just can't see them yet. But if you are close to someone who is a user, over the long run you will notice differences. Sometimes its just that they don't have the same spark. Regardless, 100 years down the line we will look back in horror at the state of pharmaceutical drugs. All it takes is going to a doctor, saying you have anxiety, and the doctor pops out a scri…

>"But if you are close to someone who is a user, over the long run you will notice differences. Sometimes its just that they don't have the same spark."

The loss of a spark can happen regardless of drug use. Work in an unsupportive environment over a long period of time, a breakup, or the failure to achieve a long-sought goal can cause a person to change over time. In addition, the underlying condition that the medication is treating may cause the effect, which could have been worse had the medication not been prescribed.

It's plausible that medications may have understudied long-term effects, but there are too many confounding causes to attribute a behavioral change to long-term medication use.

Re: Long-term benzodiazepine use causes synapse loss and cognitive deficits in mice

#27

Post by anonymoushn »

cstejerean wrote: post #12
ldjkfkdsjnv wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not just talking about benzos, but also anti psychotics, amphetamines, statins, and basically the whole gamut. My brother is a pharmacist, and is constantly shocked by the prescriptions that healthy people bring in to get filled. The medical field has been unjustly given too much prestige.

And how does he know they are healthy?

maybe my pharmacist can tell that I don't need methylphenidate because I have all my documents in order while I'm already on methylphenidate :)

Re: Long-term benzodiazepine use causes synapse loss and cognitive deficits in mice

#28

Post by twstdzppr »

They are easily one of the most harmful classes of medications. Sure, they combat anxiety acutely, but wreck ones cognitive abilities in the process. This has been readily observable for a long time.

Plus, the anxiolytic effect quickly turns into a dependency, as when the withdrawal starts kicking in you're inclined to start having anxiety attacks.

Suppose you want to get off them. Now you have a significant problem. Can't quit cold turkey -- you're likely to have a seizure.

Re: Long-term benzodiazepine use causes synapse loss and cognitive deficits in mice

#29

Post by shepardrtc »

I was prescribed benzos because of sleeping issues, but I was also taking phenibut at the same time. After about 3 weeks of using large doses of the benzos every night, I stopped taking them, but a year later I still feel pangs of withdrawal sometimes when I get stressed. It took me another 4 months to get off the phenibut and a month or so after that before my sleep returned to normal. There were months where I maybe got an hour or two of sleep a night. If I got stressed, I simply wouldn't sleep at all. I once went three days without sleep. The torment of that combined with the withdrawal from the drugs showed me what hell was like. I tell everyone to never take benzos for any reasons. I don't care how safe the doctors say they are; they aren't. Period. There are repercussions - as this study shows - and they will not help the underlying cause of your issues. Treat the cause, not the symptoms.

Re: Long-term benzodiazepine use causes synapse loss and cognitive deficits in mice

#30

Post by natly »

glerk wrote: post #19

Benzos are pretty terrible drugs in general. The physical addiction potential and withdrawal people are going through are enough to dissuade me from touching them. For folks dealing with anxiety, I recommend trying propranolol. It is not as powerful, but sometimes it is enough to achieve the desired effect and the side effects are way less severe.

I recommend working out, it helped me a ton with anxiety. It basically cured it (I don't work out much anymore but a short intense few months of hard workouts seems to have almost removed it from my system years afterwards).
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