Among people taking benzodiazepines for longer than six months, about 40% experience moderate to severe withdrawal symptoms when they quit suddenly. Take precautions when benzodiazepines are used in combination with opioid addiction medications. Careful medication management by health care professionals can reduce the increased risk of serious side effects. Despite these factors, protracted anxiety symptoms, including agoraphobia and panics, do tend to subside gradually and rarely last more than a year. The process may be hastened by good psychological support and by the measures described under acute anxiety symptoms.
Benzodiazepine Withdrawal Symptoms
- ” This question is commonly asked by patients withdrawing from benzodiazepines.
- The need for sleep is so powerful that normal sleep will eventually reassert itself.
- This involves using a long half-life substitute to prevent intoxication and withdrawal phenomena, and allowing the patient to engage in holistic treatment of their dependence, before slowly reducing the dose.
- More severe reactions or withdrawals may also be more likely when taking strong drugs either for long periods or alongside other types of medications.
According to the classification, these drugs have a low potential for abuse and low risk of dependence. Practices such as drug tapering or using other drugs to help ease withdrawal may make early withdrawal symptoms milder and more manageable. People looking to get off benzos should do so under the guidance of a healthcare professional, who may recommend coping strategies and other tools to make the withdrawal process more comfortable. Patients on maintenance therapy may eventually reach a period of stability in which withdrawal to a lower dose or abstinence may be considered.
Management of benzodiazepine misuse and dependence
People tapering off the same original dosage of medication can have drastically different tapering experiences. In most cases, your doctor will reduce your dosage by 5% to 25% in the first week. Every 1 to 4 weeks after that, they’ll reduce your dose by another 5% to 25% of the original dose. They can range in severity, though for some people, they remain mild and manageable.
Signs and Symptoms of Benzodiazepine Withdrawal
A third important practical factor is the available dosage formulations of the various benzodiazepines. In withdrawal you need a long-acting drug which can be reduced in very small steps. Diazepam (Valium) is the only =https://ecosoberhouse.com/ benzodiazepine that is ideal for this purpose since it comes in 2mg tablets, which are scored down the middle and easily halved into 1 mg doses. Even by halving these tablets the smallest reduction one could easily make is the equivalent of 2.5mg diazepam. (Some patients become very adept at shaving small portions off their tablets).
- Short-acting benzodiazepines are much more likely to cause rebound symptoms.
- From 20mg diazepam a day, reductions of 1 mg in daily dosage every week or two might be preferable.
- If you are taking an antidepressant drug as well as a benzodiazepine it is best to complete the benzodiazepine withdrawal before starting to taper the antidepressant.
- A third important practical factor is the available dosage formulations of the various benzodiazepines.
Chapter 2: How to withdraw from benzodiazepines after long-term use
- Depending on your situation, your doctor may reduce your dose on a monthly, weekly, or even daily basis.
- Urine drug screening is complicated by the presence of benzodiazepine metabolites.
This should be discussed with them, and psychotherapy or appropriate pharmacotherapy offered. Most digestive symptoms get better after withdrawal but in a few people they persist and become a protracted symptom, raising fears of food allergy or candida infection. These questions are discussed further benzodiazepine withdrawal in the section on protracted symptoms. Thus these sensory symptoms, though disconcerting, are usually nothing to worry about. Meanwhile, the same measures suggested under muscle symptoms (above) can do much to alleviate them, and they usually disappear after withdrawal.
Benzodiazepines are a class of drug addiction medicines approved to treat generalized anxiety disorder, insomnia, seizures, social phobia, and panic disorder. Most benzodiazepines are recommended for periods of weeks or months to treat these disorders. However, the amount, frequency, and duration of treatment vary depending on the patient and the medical condition being treated. Benzodiazepines are also used as premedication before some medical procedures. Secondly, benzodiazepine withdrawal may uncover life problems that have never been fully addressed.
