There are two ways to come off benzos, either by tapering the same medicine or switching to a long acting one and taper off that. The severity or whether it is mixed with other drugs/alcohol/street supply would determine whether it would be started inpatient or not here.
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If someone comes to me having been prescribed lorazepam 1mg four times a day and wants to taper, that would normally be a pretty straightforward outpatient process. Taper dose, not frequency if using the same med (don’t go from 1 4xaday to 1 3xaday).
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Usually it’s pretty easy to taper the first half, gets harder as you go along for some. Sometimes it’s the opposite. Some people need very long, tiny dose tapers, others are fine going super quick. I don’t know why. I tend to follow the patient’s lead.
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You can have a seizure if stopping daily benzos abruptly (again, people are very different in their risk for this), so it’s best to be monitored.
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I should also add for addiction, switching to long acting and taper is better. A lot of my folks come to me on steady state benzos, and want to reduce or stop (they might have physical dependence or not, but not meet use despite harm criteria for addiction). 2nd group...
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...I will tend to keep on the same med and slowly taper dose but not frequency until you’re pretty far down.
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There are other specialized methods...using anticonvulsants or phenobarbital. PB is usually reserved for folks inpatient who aren’t responding to usual methods or you don’t know exactly what someone was taking. Anticonvulsants are used in case studies or as adjuncts.
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Yeah, I could not make sense of this at all. Going to Russia, of all places, for treatment?
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Pneumonia and a medically induced coma because the Russians have “the guts” to medically treat benzo addiction? I got nothin’
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Yeah, read that this morning. You'd have thought that perhaps they'd have asked for comment from, um, I don't know, a physician involved in the addiction medicine here in Canada
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That would entail as much as three, maybe even four minutes of phone calls. In the internet age, who has the time?
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