Stop kidding yourselves...Benzos are poison and in some cases cause permanent brain damage...Short term usage only 2-4 weeks  Google, Ray Nimmo and read his account of his experience.Stop justifying your addiction to this highly damaging medication.
Good luck to you all

I couldn't have put that any better myself! My hubby is a doctor, I'm a licensed psychologist and a PA so We both prescribe meds, both get all the political blah blah blah! every month on, like you said, the latest witch hunt on drug X! Opiates and benzos have both been found to be extremely safe, benzos have actually been found to prolong life in some chronic cases. I too am dependent on xanax and that is a bunch of BS!!! long-acting benzos are worse-pleeeeassse! and MY neurons aren't firing properly????? hmmm. Pharmaceutical companies started and funded (in whole) medical school. Pharmaceutical companies control what goes into med schools and then sticks them in a white coat in OUR dr's offices. I was blessed from childhood with a doctor that could see things for what they really are and treated his patients and not his pocketbook and reputation. I made good and sure to know all of the ins and outs of the medical industry while still in undergrad and it's not difficult growing up with a medical attorney for a mother and a father who is the CEO of a pharmaceutical co. lol You never would have guessed that was the DNA I stemmed from.

No I am not the Dutchess from another forum, this is the only forum I am on but either way it's good to see a kindred soul who isn't going to die of liver toxicity because "acetaminophen increases alangesia & lessens the potential for abuse in hydrocodone" The US is soooo advanced, yet not so advanced countries aren't killing their citizens with NSAID's and Tylenol!

xoxo- D.

You're so right about the politicization of benzos and whatever other drug class becomes the witch-hunt of the month. Politics and the doer of much of its dirty work, the criminal "justice" system, should have as much to do with medicine and medications as religion should have to do with the state. It seems that drugs and religion are equal occasions for ignorance, fear, persecution and hypocrisy. It

The politics behind medicine does this. Everyone has to cover their *** When a new drug comes out, the pharmaceutical company producing it is giving larger kickbacks to doctors for prescribing it than other medications so they can get their product out there and widely distributed. Doctors get money for every prescription they write, and the newer the drug, the more money they're getting. When a drug comes under fire for one reason or another we have this fluctuation like we are seeing now with the benzos. The opiates have their days too, when docs get really tight with those. In 1978 the big deal was darvocet. Several years ago it was oxycodone. Right now the spotlight is on benzos. Even if you don't use insurance, you will be flagged for getting a prescription for a benzo. from more than once doctor. This is more tightly controlled in areas of California right now than other places in the country. The DA (ed jeagles) in Kern County- his wife was tried for stealing an rx pad fro her doctor and writing fake prescriptions so now he has to make sure he is keeping these types of things tightly controlled (looks good on paper for him).

You really just have to find the right doctor which can be hard to do especially now. A doctor who knows what their patient needs and isn't afraid to give it if it is needed to keep their patients healthy, patients like yourself. There are so many doctors that take their patients off of benzos at the first mention of withdrawal that it's INSANITY!! Patients just need to know their rights as far as benzos. go. A doctor taking a patient off cold turkey is liable for what happens to that patient, and in the case of benzos we are not just talking about the medical license on the line, we're talking about serious jail time with the right attorneys and a patient that won't settle out of court. Taking a patient off of benzos cold turkey is literally risking their life. convulsions, seizures, stroke, acute delirium, death. I've seen the healthiest 19 year old stroke and die from benzo w/d (she wasn't my patient) I've been through w/d, I'd never do that to a patient or my career. A lot of doctors just bank on the ignorance of patients. They are purposely kept uninformed. The doctor doesn't tell you all that can happen in w/d when writing the rx for a benzo (doctor's that do this are so few and far between) there are good reasons for not doing this but by keeping patients uninformed it keeps a lot of doctors out of a lot of trouble every single day

xoxo- D

PS I will die down after a while and it will be somehting else. Benzos and opiates will always medically be of concern, but to what extent will continue to fluctuate with what's going on behind closed doors with the pharmaceutical companies and the FDA and what county gets hit next with the publicity of a figure in the community falsifying scripts. If Bree Jeagles stole the rx pad and wrote herself scrips for somas instead of vicodin, kern county would be cracking down on muscle relaxants instead if opiates.