Posted on 12/28/2013 10:33:19 PM PST by Armen Hareyan
There has been growing awareness of the power of prescription medications to kill. The problem is so serious it should be ranked alongside illicit drug abuse and alcohol abuse as primary critical health hazards in the United States and elsewhere across the world. High profile deaths from prescription drugs, such as that of Michael Jackson, helps to highlight how serious this problem is. Many other people are also dead and dying from prescription drugs. The time to act on this problem is now.
Prescription drug abuse has been labelled as an epidemic by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, reports The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. There has been a marked decrease in the use of some illegal drugs such as cocaine, according to data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH). However, nearly one-third of people who are aged 12 and over who have used drugs for the first time in 2009 started by using a prescription drug non-medically.
It is often believed by prescription drug abusers that these substances are safer than illicit drugs because after all they are prescribed by healthcare professionals and dispensed by pharmacists. This appears to be a critical problem of misperception in teens. Teens are responsible for much prescription drug abuse, reports EmaxHealth reporter Robin Wulffson, MD. Addressing the critical problem of the prescription drug abuse epidemic is a top priority for public health.
The 2011 Prescription Drug Abuse Prevention Plan has expanded upon the Obama Administration's National Drug Control Strategy. This initiative now includes action in four major areas to lower prescription drug abuse, including:
1: Education. In order to effectively tackle the problem of prescription drug abuse it is essential to educate parents, youth, and patients about the dangers of abusing prescription drugs. Prescribers should be required to receive education dealing with the appropriate and safe use, and proper storage and disposal of prescription drugs.
2: Monitoring. Prescription drug monitoring programs (PDMPs) should be implemented in every state to lower “doctor shopping” and diversion. PDMPs should be enhanced to make certain they can share data across states and are used by healthcare providers.
3: Proper Medication Disposal. Convenient and environmentally responsible prescription drug disposal programs should be developed to help lower the supply of unused prescription drugs in the home.
4: Enforcement. Law enforcement needs the tools necessary to eliminate improper prescribing practices and to put a stop to pill mills.
Prescription drug abuse and doctors who prescribe them have been on the rise, according to EmaxHealth reporter Tyler Woods, Ph.D.
It has been observed that prescription drugs are actually the second-most abused category of drugs after marijuana. Furthermore, the most recent National Survey on Drug Use and Health shows that greater than 70 percent of people who abused prescription pain relievers got them from friends or relatives, while about 5 percent got them from a drug dealer or over the Internet. Also, opiate overdoses, which was once almost always due to heroin use, are now increasingly surfacing as being due to abuse of prescription painkillers. In the U.S. military alone, illicit drug use increased from 5% to 12% among active duty service members between 2005 to 2008. This was primarily due to the non-medical use of prescription drugs.
In recent years the number of prescriptions filled for opioid pain relievers, which are some of the most powerful medications available, has increased dramatically. There was a 402 percent increase in the milligram-per-person use of prescription opioids in the U.S. from 1997 to 2007. Furthermore, in 2000 retail pharmacies dispensed 174 million prescriptions for opioids.
Prescription medications are still killing, writes the Association of Accredited Naturopathic Medical Colleges (AANMC).
A wave of cautionary drug stories this year was lead by GlaxoSmithKline’s penalty. In the largest pharmaceutical settlement to date, in July 2012 pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) pleaded guilty to a three-part criminal indictment. The firm agreed to pay $3 billion in fines and civil penalties, which is the largest pharmaceutical settlement to date. The crime was promoting its drugs for unapproved uses while also failing to report drug-related health hazards.
U.S. Justice Department prosecutors said GSK endorsed Paxil for use by patients under 18 years old, even though there was lack of approval. The firm was also charged with withholding research which was related to a possible increase in suicide risk when taken by adolescents. GSK was also charged with failing to disclose health hazards which are associated with the diabetes drug Avandia. And doctors are said to have been given illegal kickbacks by GSK.
Abbott Laboratories settled for $1.6 billion over a lawsuit involving its anti-seizure drug Depakote in 2012. Abbott was charged with illegally marketing the drug for schizophrenia and agitated dementia, even though it was approved only for treatment of seizure disorders, or mania which is associated with bipolar disorder and migraines. Although doctors may prescribe drugs for any purpose, pharmaceutical companies are prohibited from promoting drugs for conditions which are not approved by the Food and Drug Administration.
Johnson & Johnson's Janssen Pharmaceuticals agreed to pay $181 million in order resolve claims made by 35 states and the District of Columbia that the firm had defrauded state Medicaid agencies by promoting the antipsychotic drugs Risperdal and Invega for unapproved uses. This was the largest multi-state health care fraud settlement ever.
The shooting massacres in 2012 in Aurora, Colorado and Newtown, Connecticut have sparked renewed interest in the association between violence and prescription psychiatric drugs in teens and young adults. This disturbing pattern was evidenced in the 25-year list of school shootings which was compiled by the Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHR). The CCHR has long been blasting the psychiatrists for using dangerous drugs which can set off suicidal and homicidal ideation and intent, along with many other painful and sometimes lethal side effects.
Older patients are also put at risk by prescription drugs. A Vanderbilt University study has found that about 50 percent of all heart patients make medication errors. Two percent of these medication errors are life threatening. It has been found that one in five medications which are prescribed to people older than 65 are either wrongly prescribed or prescribed at the wrong dosage. This study also uncovered several drugs that are routinely prescribed for seniors, despite knowledge of their being inappropriate for that age group. These drugs include:
1: The pain reliever propoxyphene (Darvon, Darvocet)
2: The antidepressant amitriptyline (Elavil, Endep)
3:The blood pressure pill doxazosin (Cardura)
4: The antihistamine diphenhydramine (Benadryl).
Kristaps Paddock, ND, has commented in regard to the position of naturopaths on the prescription drug abuse problem, "The issue is not that drugs don't work, nor that as a naturopathic physician I'm 'opposed' to drugs, but rather that when the lives and health of patients is on the line, we should have access to accurate, unbiased information, be it about pharmaceutical drugs, herbs, supplements or other treatments." Dr. Paddock's insightful comment is right on target.
It has been my impression that the abuse of both illicit and prescribed drugs has been epidemic for decades, if not longer. These drugs have flooded the market to such a degree it appears organized crime must have infiltrated the entire American society, including the high school and university campuses. It also appears a disregard for the seriousness of this problem by many medical doctors highlights a catastrophic lack of commitment to dealing with these problems by medical educators and an arrogant desire to place quick profits ahead of patients lives by too many medical doctors.
It's been sad to witness that the practice of good general health care and good mental health care is far too often equated with how many prescription drugs are written. If a cup of green tea and exercise works better than pills, pills and more pills for some conditions such as weakness of an unclear etiology, than the pills simply should not be prescribed even if they are cleared by the FDA for such uses. Making up diagnoses to legitimize the prescribing of drugs which are often dangerous, as psychiatrists always do, can be lethal.
I started out on the wrong dosage of 2 MG twice a day which is where most of the issues and problems lie and after about 8 hours I was back into attacks. IOW rather than a higher MG it's better to spread out a lower MG more times per day. A different doctor cut it to .5mg 3-4 times a day and that allowed it to work all the time. It cut my daily use strength wise in half as well.
I've heard about the rebound anxiety but neither of us have experienced. Now if we forget to take it then at about the 12 mark our body lets us know. Yep were Benzo dependent. That said the idea of being confined to my home unable to interact with the outside world is a worse choice. I haven't taken Valium. I did about a year or so before onset take Librium and felt better than I had in years. After three months the doctor took me off of it.
My wife was put on it permanently after four doctors were checking her for a supposed heart attack. Finally they determined under stress a valve was closing down. No more episodes happened after it was prescribed. She took AD's for PTSD. Why? Because of an overdose or adverse reaction to a pain killer a dentist gave her that put her into hypothermia. Mepraghan I think was the drug. There was more but that triggered it and she was facing extraction of all her teeth.
The problem with the gold standard is the fact it is treating Phobic or Serotonin issue induced anxiety. Vestibular induced anxiety was mocked, ridiculed, and ignored up till the past few years where Vestibular research has validated it exist.
In the same respect it's ironic kids are often placed on Ritalin when they likely do not need it. That too ties in with what I'm saying. ADD ADHD has very close in symptoms of another likely more common issue called Central Auditory Processing Disorders. Kids with this have issues processing words especially verbal commands, sounds, and many times optics including reading difficulties or sentence structure difficulties like this and my previous post LOL.
Caffeine will not alter their state as it will with true ADD ADHD but something like a video game or a high action cartoon will trigger Cognitive behavior reactions. Mild antihistamines work for some kids with this. That's why I posted earlier I was misdiagnosed with ADD ADHD. Economic pressures in schools and Big Pharm feed the ADD ADHD epidemic. It's a funding bonanza for schools. C.A.P.D. isn't. C.A.P.D. usually means classroom adaption such as seating location so teachers lips can be read. Many CAPD patients can read lips faster than they can process auditory wise.
It is a change in our technology which has brought about the pushing to a persons limits of what some can process visual or auditory wise. You cross those limits and anxiety is the result. So is depression and loss of concentration. In my early school years in the 1960's one or two kids in the school had ADD ADHD. Anxiety disorders were rare in adults.
TV was still low action and in many homes black and white. Stores were not blaring out announcements, alarms, etc every few seconds. Classrooms had desk placed in a row facing the teacher not tables scattered about the room facing random directions as they are today. Many things have changed and these disorders have increased with those changes accordingly.
Taking any medication for as needed anxiety 3-4 times per day is a lot.
Since you've been taking it for 20 years it won't be "easy", but in the long run I will assure you that there are better options.
And take it from someone who knows anxiety myself, you will be much happier.
Remember what I said above.
Xanax lasts 3-5 hours, so it's no wonder you need it so often.
Nothing sucks worse than having anxiety that needs treatment multiple times per day.
Ask your doc about Xanax XR in a pinch.
It should last all day.
I am an insider so to speak trying to tell those treating this that they are not covering all bases. I can spot a Vestibular Anxiety patient in a Walmart for example by watching their reactions. It's the environment of the store triggering them due to sensory overload. I'll tell you one better. I was at a local rural gas station/store the other day. The store has a highly annoying high frequency Beep somehow connected to their security. It went off and I jerked. So did the guy 5 ft from me and I laughed. I said Oh you don't like that either huh? He said I'm getting over an incident where a loud noise went off beside me a few weeks ago. Remember the stories about vets in artillery units coming home and having intolerance to loud noises? Were they phobic or were they vestibular damaged? I had a full battery 155MM shoot go off about 50 ft from me in National Gaurd. I worked in very loud high pitch and low pitch noises in the machinery rooms on the ship for four years.
But the ones in Wally World or a grocerty store, Home depot, etc? Next trip on say a Friday evening watch the people. Used to Wally World had announcements for every single thing going on. A few persons shopping and by no means all would start becoming agitated but they did not know why. You'd see the deer in headlights look at the checkout and some leaving carts and walking off. They likely did not know why but they had enough and just wanted out of the store.
Don't get me wrong I don't sit at home 24/7. I get out daily. But for things like groceries I got to the store at midnight to shop. That way I'm not hearing announcements etc and my concentration is not broken. Some days my concentration is an hour or two others its only 15 minutes. That isn't GAD it is typical Vestibular symptoms. Look up Cognitive Aspects of Vestibular Disorders a good description of trying to multitask with this.
The reason I can get by on Xanax sometimes even as low as two a day is because I limit triggers and the half life level controls it. Another reason is these attacks by attacks I mean this definition
Stimulus-sensitive myoclonus is triggered by a variety of external events, including noise, movement, and light. Surprise may increase the sensitivity of the individual. IOW I spasm in my upper Torso violently from my shoulders up. It's as if someone hit me with a bucket of ice water or something the way I react. It's actually seizures. If I'm laying down trying to sleep and it hits I sometimes yell involuntarily. That is not Anxiety Disorder that is Sensory Processing Disorder producing anxiety two very different things with anxiety as a symptom m and not a disorder in itself but that's what i got labeled with was GAD.
The Xanax controls the seizures and limits associated anxiety. I can have as many as half a dozen episodes per minute. No doctor yet has explained it. Yes I've been tested for Epilepsy several times. If at home I won't take an extra pill usually most days it's two or three pills. I have another trick to head it off that works at home. I pick up my acoustic guitar and play it and that stops it usually.
On a bad day which can mean several things including a low pressure system moving in or the Menieres flares up etc I might take fourth pill. I can go sometimes by simply forgetting to take it 10-12 hours at home so I don't see an issue. At home I control triggers. The social security examiner gave me some advice that helped me figure out what was setting it off. Each attack I wrote down what I was doing and I saw the pattern. I control them as much as possible and have finally in the past couple of years managed to watch a few low action TV shows again.
My balance is getting worse two years ago I had four bad falls so I use a cane now when walking outside. My hearing level is 50% loss over entire spectrum and 60% at voice range. If I take out my hearing aids I have less attacks also.
If I don't head off the attacks chemically when we are out and I'm driving then two likely possibilities will happen. One is exhaustion physically and mentally from the seizures which is an inconvenience. The other I have not had happen in over ten years now which is the brain fog because I taught myself how to head it off. There isn't even a name that covers entirely what I have. LOL. I think it's because it's several disorders combined plus some sensory damage I was born with.
A Spinal Cord Rehab doctor, her Internal medicine Doctor, Cardiologist, and a Shrink put my wife on Xanax. I was there when they did it we were watching her heart beating. They were all in the room. All were in agreement. Had she not been on it she likely would be dead now due to Serotonin Syndrome. I don't mess with her medications especially ones that work for her. She can't handle Valium. The thing about this one patient may do well on Xanax and not on Valium and vice versa. I have to watch carefully eve what cold meds I take and I take Singluar and 20 mg of Claratin a day too boot for allergies even though I'm on shots for it. One more interesting thing. Before onset I had high blood pressure. I was on two meds for it and it would not come down. When I began Xanax it went normal and I'm on one BP Med now.
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