stay on the meds or not?

[zombie666]

For years i have been a pain in everyones butt. I am mean rude and offten say things that hurt people bad. I had a really bad episode and I was put on klonopin that was ok it made me kinda dumb and relaxed and that was nice. that stopped working and now i am on valium everyone says i am nice. I can focus on things. so i was wondering if anyone has had good/bad experiences with the drug after taking it long term?

[Julie359]

Hiya Z, well i think with benzos in the UK doctors here are very careful with prescribing these drugs as they are very addictive and can cause some people alot of problems when trying to come off of them.  The longer you stay on them the more difficult it will be to come off of them.  While being on them they can be and are very good at calming but they are addictive in the true term because over time you find you need more and more to get the same effect and you found this out with the Klonopin.  I'm sure that if the doc were to increase the dose it would of worked fine but your doc was smart enough to transfer you to a new drug.  Personally i feel your doc should put you into therapy and once therapy starts then he/she needs to start to ween you off the benzo's.  Being on them long term is not a good idea.

You need to have a very serious chat with your doc regarding this, you are only young, you have to ask yourself what is gona happen once you HAVE to come off these drugs.  Also make sure that once you do come off that it is very slow and done in small steps, until your completely off the meds.  Going cold turkey or tappering too fast is very dangerous, esspecially with benzos.  Good-luck!!

[cj29]

There are definitely pros and cons to medications.  I have taken klonopin in the past and it worked fairly well for me.  Both klonopin and valium are longer lasting benzos that are prescribed more long term, but they can lose their efficacy in my opinion.  Throughout all this, have you been receiving any form of counseling to help with your situation?  For me, it helped to understand the root cause of my problem and I was able to confront it.  Whatever your decision, just don't adjust or stop medications without the advice of your doctor...keep us posted!