Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

scitechdaily.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

381–390 of 400 posts

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

#381

Post by shepardrtc »

jotm wrote: post #85
shepardrtc wrote: post #29

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 mayb…

Wow, 1. who tf gave you phenibut before gabapentin/pregabalin? Phenibut is notoriously hard to quit. It takes at least a few weeks of gradual tapering down. 2. Together with a benzodiazepine? Wew, lad. Should've also taken a few shots of vodka before sleep for the insanity trifecta. Edit: sorry, I always assume other people have access to medication. I don't so I shouldn't have laughed. Yeah, so there are a few gabap…

I bought it online under the name Somatomax. But you can get it from plenty of other places easily. Actually, a different doctor recommended it to me much earlier. "Just take a break every once in a while," she said. Ok, doc!

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

#382

Post by bozhark »

yodsanklai wrote: post #120
shepardrtc wrote: post #29

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 mayb…

> I tell everyone to never take benzos for any reasons You can't generalise your experience. Everybody is different and that's the doctor's job to assess whether the benefits outweigh the cost, considering the patient and their problems. Personally, I've been taking benzos very occasionally for 20 years (never more than a few days at a time) and they helped me overcome difficult times. Never had the slightest addicti…

> You can’t generalize your experience

Would that not mean the same to your own?

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

#383

Post by bozhark »

coconut08 wrote: post #239
jnovek wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here. Occasional clonazepam use for panic attacks which are secondary to post-traumatic stress disorder. Never even the tiniest sign of dependence. Sometimes I go months between uses. I am also a chronic pain patient and I worry that benzos are going to get the opioid treatment. There was a period in the mid to late 2010s where patients who depended on opioids for any sort of quality of life were taken off of th…

long term constant exposure to opioids will literally begin cause the pain they purport to solve. If you give a perfectly healthy person with no pain at all opioids for long enough they will be indistinguishable from a person who has an actual chronic pain issue. people should only ever take opioids VERY TEMPORARILY to get through surgeries or other such things. Opioids are not for long term pain management. Same thi…

You are vastly incorrect.

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

#384

Post by mancerayder »

kayodelycaon wrote: post #202
r3trohack3r wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got to see this side of American medicine while in high school. My great aunt unofficially overdosed on a cocktail of drugs prescribed by a group of loosely coordinating doctors. When she passed, her cocktail included 12 prescriptions. One of her doctors had prescribed her medication to lower her blood pressure while another had her on medication to raise it.

Ouch. People are really bad at handling their own medical care. I’m legitimately on 8 different medications and 3 supplements (not including vitamins), per doctor’s instructions. There is no way I’m going to any appointment (including my dentist) without a printed list of everything, including the dosages, instructions, and reason for being on it. Edit: I apologize for the poor phrasing. It comes off being flippant.…

> Ouch. People are really bad at handling their own medical care. I’m legitimately on 8 different medications and 3 supplements (not including vitamins), per doctor’s instructions.

Hold on. We have computers and networks. In most other countries I've been in, records are computerized and there's no need to write a piece of paper that you hand to new doctors and 'get good at handling your own health care.' Even here I see some exchange across providers on a "Mychart" like app. That's a start.

But what you're seeing is inefficiency - a computerized world where you're telling people they should bring printouts of everything to all appointments seems really unnecessary a burden.

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

#385

Post by mancerayder »

mikepurvis wrote: post #177
yodsanklai wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I tell everyone to never take benzos for any reasons You can't generalise your experience. Everybody is different and that's the doctor's job to assess whether the benefits outweigh the cost, considering the patient and their problems. Personally, I've been taking benzos very occasionally for 20 years (never more than a few days at a time) and they helped me overcome difficult times. Never had the slightest addicti…

This whole discussion is making me feel better than ever for choosing cannabis edibles (legal in Canada) to address stress-induced insomnia and other sleep issues for which the root cause was not something I was in a position to immediately address. I take it a few times a week as needed, small doses (2-5mg) and I feel that I am in control of it and could go off any time.

There's a fine line sometimes with edibles and anxiety with many people, I observe.

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

#386

Post by mancerayder »

shepardrtc wrote: post #29

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 mayb…

I think they're quite dangerous nightly/daily, but from what I've seen 1-2X a week for sleep can be restorative versus perpetual insomnia.

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

#387

Post by barfingclouds »

shepardrtc wrote: post #29

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 mayb…

I’ve taken benzos for half my life but I space them out in a way so they aren’t damaging like that. Yeah it can be bad how people don’t realize how damaging they can be. I’m really grateful for them, and they’ve saved me from burning out at my job multiple times (hypersensitive, social anxiety, likely autism)

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

#388

Post by barfingclouds »

outoftheabyss wrote: post #192
yodsanklai wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I tell everyone to never take benzos for any reasons You can't generalise your experience. Everybody is different and that's the doctor's job to assess whether the benefits outweigh the cost, considering the patient and their problems. Personally, I've been taking benzos very occasionally for 20 years (never more than a few days at a time) and they helped me overcome difficult times. Never had the slightest addicti…

Agreed, I have pretty bad social anxiety with hypervigilance. Taking on average 3 5mg (occasionally a 10mg dose) tablets a week when needed for presentations or meetings with more weight allows me to keep my job. Even such a small dose I feel restores a sense of normality that I haven't experienced in over 10 years without them, I'm able to rationalise what I want to say, conversation flows, I feel in control. With a…

This is exactly me

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

#389

Post by whimsicalism »

SemanticStrengh wrote: post #367
whimsicalism wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it has gone very much the other way in recent years, it is not easy to be prescribed opioids in the US nowadays.

source/numbers of the number of prescriptions per year? https://www.hhs.gov/opioids/about-the-epidemic/index.html

https://www.iqvia.com/-/media/iqvia/pdfs/institute-reports/p...

from https://www.iqvia.com/insights/the-iqvia-institute/reports/p...

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

#390

Post by hilbert42 »

coconut08 wrote: post #239
jnovek wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here. Occasional clonazepam use for panic attacks which are secondary to post-traumatic stress disorder. Never even the tiniest sign of dependence. Sometimes I go months between uses. I am also a chronic pain patient and I worry that benzos are going to get the opioid treatment. There was a period in the mid to late 2010s where patients who depended on opioids for any sort of quality of life were taken off of th…

long term constant exposure to opioids will literally begin cause the pain they purport to solve. If you give a perfectly healthy person with no pain at all opioids for long enough they will be indistinguishable from a person who has an actual chronic pain issue. people should only ever take opioids VERY TEMPORARILY to get through surgeries or other such things. Opioids are not for long term pain management. Same thi…

"long term constant exposure to opioids will literally begin cause the pain they purport to solve."

From peronal albeit limited experience, I don't doubt that opioids can cause pain they purport to relieve.

I used to take an OTC painkiller for headaches that was a combination of 500mg acetaminophen (aka paracetamol) and 10mg codeine and whilst it was somewhat effective the frequency of my headaches actually increased.

It eventually dawned on me that the painkiller and or the frequency of taking it was causing some rebound effect and that the likely culprit was the codeine - given that it was an opiate and thus potentially addictive.

I then switched to acetaminophen-only tablets and although less effective as a painkiller than the combination, the frequency of my headaches decreased quite dramatically.

I never exceeded the recommended daily dose nor did I take the tablets every day (as I've always been aware of acetaminophen's potential to cause life threatening liver damage on overdose), so my codeine intake would have been within acceptable limits (especially given the painkiller's OTC status).

That said, I abruptly switched to the non-codeine formulation without any noticeable withdrawal symptoms.

The fact that codeine could cause headache pain when taken at dose levels below that which would be considered potentially addictive has never been lost on me. I'm very surprised that the public hasn't been warned more widely about this issue.

Post reply on HN