Got a script for Valium...

and I feel GREAT!  I realize this is a benzo and highly addicitive but so far this has been the only thing that has controlled my anxiety.  Over the past 3 years doctors have given me Prozac, Zoloft, Lexapro, Cymbalta, Celexa, Amatryptaline and xanax.  Xanax made me feel the worst, light headed and I walked around in a fog all day.  The others had horrible side effects on me and actually increased my anxiety and made me shake.  

All doctors refused to give me Valium until I finally went to the doctor that treats my grandmother and bro-inlaw.  I told him my history, gave him my charts and he was amazed that the previous doctors would not give me Valium.  Here is why I believe they refused to give me valium....it only cost me $4 for fifteen 10mg tabs which I break in half and take a half tab each night before bed.  All the other SSRI's I was taking cost anywhere from $75 to $100 for a 1 month supply and that is with insurance.  

Valium has been around for at least 50 years and it's benefits are well documented.  SSRI's are still realitively new and nobody has any idea as to the long-term effects they will have.  While any benzo is addictive..so are ALL SSRI's.  

Anyway...I guess the reason for my post is to try and motivate anyone else out there frustrated that their doctors wont listen to them and prescribe a drug that will actually help.  Keep looking...keep trying..and understand that your health is in YOUR hands.  I have lost all faith in the medical profession..with the exception of a small portion...and believe that most of them are in it for the glory and money.  

[bosnianworrier]

Well I'm glad that you found something that helps you. But I don't think they didn't give you valium because its cheap, but because it is considered highly addictive. Way more addictive than SSRI's.

Other reason could be, some people use benzos as street drugs. I know doctors who wouldn't prescribe any benzo or only a few.

Btw, Valium doesn't work for everyone.

[jakegorzen]

ALL Physc drugs are addicting, while the class of addiction fluctuates from one to another, the principle is there.

Antidepressant Withdraw syndrome is real, and has been studies, and I believe the first post.
AD's makes mood swings, hot/cold sweats, stomach cramps, blurred vision, trembling, insomnia........kinda sounds like Heroin withdraw to me.
So that said, YES they are addictive "even though its not a crave kind of addiction"
Same thing with benzos, its the type of person that will "crave" it, most just go through withdraw not "craving" it, so I put ALL the physc drugs in the same damn catagory.

Dont forget the Physc Doctors that pull the AD from the patient, the patient withdraws from it, not knowing, and then the Physc Dr. "diagnoses" them with Bi-polar, Skitzo, etc... when its realy just the withdraw.

ADs are BS, they havent been hardly enough studied, cause EVERY SIDE EFFECT KNOWN, hardly work better then a placebo, and YOU STILL WITHDRAW..WOOOOWHOOO! so you take something that barely works,...if that then when you stop taking it, your in worse postition then what you were in the first place.
If your going to take something thats addictive, then you might as well take something THAT WORKS!
With that said, Im anti Physc, I believe there is a "need" sometimes for medication, but Docs are forgetting the old ways of medicine, and allot of simple causes of Mental problems are mainly from Parasites.
Thats why almost everyone has the same symptoms.

ALSO, to let you in, on a little secret, you know what the main Product used in AD's is?

FLORIDE
PROVEN TO DUMB YOU DOWN
So thats what they wanna do to people with mental conditions...make them stupid...so they take anything thats prescribed to them,. lol
atleast big Pharm will get there billions

[tropicalsoul]

Why are doctors quick to prescribe xanax but not Valium?  Valium is longer lasting with fewer side effects and, rumor has it, is easier to detox from.  This I do not understand.

[jakegorzen]

Because of all the hype from the past.

That and they probably get a better kickback from the Xanax

[tropicalsoul]

I forgot to add one last thing about the first reply post.  I do agree that Valium is not for everyone but I am living proof that SSRI's are not meant for all people either.  I cannot begin to tell you the living heII I went through trying all those different psych drugs...the withdrawals were the worst.  So you can understand my excitement when I have finally found a cheap, fairily harmless, drug that will control my anxiety.

[nora006]

Hello.
I really believe you!
Even though there "shouldn't" be a problem of withdrawl (withdrawal) with AD that is not a very good argument I'm afraid. EVERY drug that has the potential to alter brain chemistry to some degree will be "problematic" in this respect, and it is hardly difficult to grasp that there might be some kind of problems when stopping the continuos drugadministration. People will respond differently to the declining levels of chemicals.

As someone has pointed out here before on this forum, there are different medications designed to treat different problems but, unfortunately, I do too belive that AD is prescribed too easily because of the "non-addictive" concept and the paradigm that reigns for the moment.

But again people respond differently. Many years ago I tried Efexor which did nothing; good nor bad, and I just quit using it one day after som weeks and wasn't even aware of the possibility of w/d symptoms. I never had any. Personally I'm not fond of SSRI but I know that many people do get helped by these drugs.

I agree that valium is a good medication used in the right way. My only experience with valium is that it has to be administered quite often during the day if one is to avoid rebound. It isn't dangerous, just unpleasant. But again. One person can take 2 mg Valium and have a marked effect and others have to take 5-10 mg several times a day.

Best of luck with it!