I lost faith in the medical establishment many years ago, later propelled to what I suspect is irrevocability in the wave of Covid-hysteria nonsense (#922854).
So here's this long-read in the WSJ, about how benzos (Xanax, Valium etc) have long-term detrimental effects and is overprescribed, often for quite trivial reasons. 24 million Americans use them on a regular basis.
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 Wall Street Journal spoke to nearly four dozen doctors, researchers, and patients or family members of patients who had been prescribed benzodiazepines. The patients ranged from doctors to mail carriers, veterans to tech workers, business executives to new mothers, all of whom say their lives were turned upside down by crippling effects of the drug.
Anecdotal, whatever, but is it wrong? Maybe stay off these things to the greatest extent possible
"Doctors are only now coming to grips with harmful effects stretching back decade.""Doctors are only now coming to grips with harmful effects stretching back decade."
First comment below (never look at comment section, but this one stood out):
Many doctors say the drugs are too often prescribed for conditions they aren’t effective at treating, and often for too long. Studies dating back decades have shown that they have no clear advantage over a placebo for better sleep, one of the most common reasons they are prescribed
"There is this huge difference between physical dependence and addiction,” he said. 'I’m not taking it because I’m getting a high off of it.'""There is this huge difference between physical dependence and addiction,” he said. 'I’m not taking it because I’m getting a high off of it.'"
Put differently: quit the meds. You can just live better. Subscribing to ~HealthAndFitness is a start!
non-paywalled: https://archive.md/vGEih
Interesting read. These things tend to be more extreme in the US, in europe doctors are much more careful with the prescription of these types of drugs. Same with opioids, europe has been mostly spared by the opioid epidemic.
Yes. That seems to be my impression, too. Different incentive system for doctors to prescribe this kind of heavy meds, I'd venture, but that's just a hunch.
Korea is likely midway between the US and Europe in that respect. But don't have numbers to confirm my intuition. As for meds related to depression and other mental diseases, it's only recently that it has started coming out of the taboo sphere in Korea. Many more people are on antidepressants than before, but still, quite small compared to Europe and the US, it seems.
There's really a lot to discuss. It'll be easy to blame Big Pharma, and their conduct has much to criticize... but I also wonder how many people Xanax has helped. I would like to ask why do doctors tend to overprescribe medication and don't emphasize enough lifestyle change?
Probably all of the above. But mostly because many doctors are overworked and it is the easy way out for both. For the patient because he doesn't have to change his lifestyle, for the doctor because the patient shuts up and leaves, because: hey, if the doctor says so it must be right. Moreover, pharma companies probably sugarcoated the addictive potential (as was the case with oxycontin)
Yep... so many factors just push in the directions of drugs over lifestyle change.
great 2008 movie about addiction and side-effects of the anti-psychotics.
view on www.youtube.comi call them demon drugs, and lump Ozempic into the same category.