I spent three years on the withdrawal syndrome. It was the most devastating experience and is beyond description. No one should have to endure such hell.
Benzodiazepines have taken almost 4 years of my life and whoknows how many more. I was given adrug that is to be regulated to 4-6 weeks freely for 2 years. I am suffering more than anyonewho has not gone thru thiscould even BEGIN to imagine.
They prescribe these SSRI's and Benzo's like candy, and have no idea how addictive they really are. They are shocked when someone tells them they are having withdrawal symptoms.
Benzos should be outlawed. They made me sick and I am still very sick and in severe pain almost 1 year after getting of of them! Ativan destroyed my entire life, family and career.
9 weeks ago I was put on cyclosporine,and Prednisone. now I can't walk, stomach problems,my mouth is so sore I can't eat, I shake so bad I can't write my name, My legs are swelled up so bad and sore I can't walk. My heart rythum is completelyout of control.shake sobad I can't write my name
I agree with everyones post....The VA Hospital in Clarksburg, West Virginia is so understaffed and will hand out any drug..then cut you off without any reason and you know the outcome....You will or could suffer from effects worse than what the drug was originally intended for....Dr. Skar is a very nice person, but kissing ass to the Admn. should be last on her list and the patient should come first..
I am one of the Elders who represent the Gullah/Geechee Nation. The over 750,000 people who still live in the southeasten portion of the United States from cape fear,N.C to Jacksonville Fla. and 30 to 35 miles inland for over 300 years. We are concered to be the most dis-eased people in America. It is without doubt that Mr. Moore should start his research with us. After all my people were once "slaves" and fed scraps and hog guts for hundereds of years.Some of these foods are still part of our diet and is very unhealthy especially with preservatives added as well as, in these modern times live in dwellings along side of factories and waist dumps,and our fishung areas are polluted; we are suffering from it. Last October,President Bush signed into Law a bill of $10 million to preserve the the Gullah/Geechee culture and heritage. I hope that part of it will focus on health and not just tourism alone. As Minister of Adornment I am initiating a movement toward natural healing and prevention in solving these health issues. By promoting natural remedies.I intend not only to help my people but to help anyone else to feel better and may even save lives in the process without blam or steping on anyones toes. These "poisons"will not go away over night,but at least we now we have a way to DETOX without any side effects. www.mywaiora.com/267140
My Doctor at the Hearing and Balance Clinic Prescribes it to Nearly all of his Patients for treating vertigo...I Was on it for 2 years till I saw Klonopin Petition site...I Weened myself off after nearly 3 Months of cutting back...I am dizzy again but it is better than the alternative isnt it?
STOP DRUGGING PEOPLES All OVER THE WORLD!!!! open your eyes, and don't believe what doctors say because they are sponsered by farmaceutical companies. I totaly understand what they are saying in this petition. They fuckt me up (those antidepressants and amfetamines--all prescripted by doctors)and know i'm suffering of brain-damage (lost a part of my personality) and it's an non-stooping battle against the brain-damage and against the corrupt farmaceutical companies. They also sad it was in my head "antidepressants and amfetamines are safe" fucking stuppid hypocrit moneywolfs.
because after taking Celexa and Zyprexa, I now have akathisia, a severe suicide-inducing disorder which makes you feel like you can never sit still. These medications have set fire to the fabric that was my mind. I am now addicted to Ativan to control this problem, otherwise i would be dead.
My daughter has just tried to commit suicide after being on Lexapro for 2 months and also prescribed xanax..she took the entire bottle. I am afraid and don't know what to do that is how I found this web site.
because I am 2.5 months off Clonazepam and still don't feel my self after a doctor told me it was ok to go cold turkey since I was taking a small dose and not every day for under a year. The first month and a half off was hell I became agorapgobic had heart palpations and dizziness and vertigo. Doctors give out benzo very readily with no follow up. They also are not awair of the sighns or tolerance and dependency. Some people can become dependant is as quickly as 2 weeks. benzo are very dangerous drugs.
Our Doctors have become Pill Prescribing Robots who blindly trust pharmaciutical salesmen. After prescribing these lethal mid altering drugs, they leave us like children with these toxic prescriptions which are as lethal as loaded guns.
My young 30 year old cousin comitted suicide from anti-psycotic drugs. It turned off the reasoning portion of her brain and she overdosed.
I absolutely support this Petition. Doctors have no interest in stopping mental illness. It is a money maker for them. I would like to see a psychiatrist take one day's supply of pills which were prescribed to my friend until I got Power of Attorney for her personal care. Psychiatrists have no interest in their patients' lives. Most of them are very abusive, rude, ignorant people. My friend's psychiatrist even offered to drive her to a lake so she could jump in and drown herself. He also told her that she is a nuisance to society. He is the nuisance and should have his license suspended. In another situation, another doctor put my mother on Ativan in 2003 and when I became suspicious due to her behaviour, I got rid of all the pills and reported the doctor to the College of Physicians and Surgeons in Toronto with copies to VON and Community Care Access. The doctor, no doubt, thought I was uneducated in pharmacology. After I prepared a blistering report to her, I think she regrets the day she met me. Since I took over my mother's care with vitamins and proper nutrition, she has never been ill since I got rid of the doctor in 2003. I also learned that a person going through university to become a doctor only spends 4 hours in 8 years on nutrition. This is disgusting.
I support this petition because I've been trying to get off of Zoloft for the last 3 months and I still haven't succeeded. If I try I have to have someone here with me because when I try to get off of it I feel like I am going crazy. And after taking Xanax for a week I felt like I was in a horror movie. Please take these meds out of circulation. People are suffering!!!
My life has been turned into a nightmare. What began as stress from too much coffee and not enough sleep from studying has turned into a drug dependency that makes a person wish for death instead. The suffering is unimaginable and our healthcare system is getting away with destroying lives so they can make money.
Although making doctors and drug companies murderers isn't all true. There should be more warnings passed mouth to mouth,or in media or Hollywood, like replace the dope junkie with Xanax victim in the gutter, every now and then. I'm going off benzos Cold Turkey this time, to hell with seizures, depression and hallucinations!
Since I have been through years of trials and tribulations with all medications...went cold turkey...didn't sleep for 11 days straight since the body screams for the benzos when you aren't taking them anymore....landed back in a psych's office to take a LOW dose again...one had me on double the amount of Ativan that is known by psychs...but they tell you to be your own nurse and when you taper or go off them.....I've been on Paxil for years and don't function properly at all with my brain now and the zapping, cloudy head, depersonalization, and worse symptoms than I originally asked for HELP for (depression, anxiety, or PTSD, hell some diagnosis or guess work)...my family has paid for it but mostly I HAVE and I don't have the energy to sue for what isn't going to give me back MY LIFE...not one thing was warned about benzos for short term or Paxil and all prescription drugs that are WORSE than street drugs which I WOULD RATHER be on since they have a benefit and ARE SAID to be easier to kick from those on prescriptions from illegal drug use....I'd atleast be choosing to be high or happy or feel something else and choosing another day to not put anything in my body....I don't have an addictive personality and am very strong willed.....I'm seeing nurses and drug dependency therapists having the same nightmare which is SCARY in itself....I just want to be able to live drug free without suffering and so I could have a healthy child before the age of forty as I lost a baby in 93 and that is when a psych handed me a benzo and other meds as if it were candy and wrote script after script and another dependency psych told me they would help me in court but it would have taken more from me than it's worth...she finally couldn't figure out what was wrong with me when trying to get me on Prozac or Paxil...my chemistry gave in but now I want out and I don't see that happening
because I have been on Xanax for close to two years, after getting off of meth which I had a horrible 5 year experience with. I am sober for five years from alcohol and i conquered crack 20 some years ago. Xanax has been the hardest of them all! Go figured....it's legal! lol I realy dont find it too funny but you can not quit the humor our I believe that's when you will slip away and never come back.
I am a victim of Zoloft addiction. It was never made known to me just how hard it is to quit this drug. Pfizer still states there are NO withdrwal problems with this drug. Do a google search of Zoloft+withdrawal and see for your self.I support this petition.
So many deaths due to psychiatric medication. More and more young children on brain-blunting quick fixes. The social problems increase. It is THE major problem of our time with its own momentum.
Please help
Don't know what it's gonna take for someone to listen.These drugs are evil to the fullest.They are destroying peoples lives.Someone needs to address this tragedy.
Medication that were prescibed to me have caused me so much more hard in the long run than good. I have tried various meds for social anxiety disorder. For the last two months I have been suffering through a withdrawal hell after my own personal decison to get off klonopin due to side effects. I am extremly physicaly sick and these drugs should be prescibed w care if at ALL!
After taking over half a million psych meds in 27 years, I consider psychiatry and its meds , a dezeaze.
Taking meds is like taking a virus.
These psychs are insane, cause they dont know what NO!! means.
Off psych poison for 6 years, with diabetes, liver failure, blindness, and brain damage as the end results .
Psych drug pushers go to hell.
There were many years that I could not leave the house. My anxiety and panic attacks kept me in my own living hell... Benzos changed all that for me, that was 10 years ago... I am in a much worse place today. I am terrified, I don't know what to do... for the past 5 years I've been taking 2mg Klonopin 3 times a day. I have tried everything... the end result over the last year... still taking Klonopin, added Valium and alcohol. Anyway, I am a mess and very scared.
The British Royal Colleges of Psychiatrists, General Practitioners and Nursing and General Medical Council, as well as past leaders of your own A.P.A. have all decried the current practice of psychiatry as an abomination; unethical; forced exploitation of the most vulnerable in society without a shred of reliable evidence , scientific or otherwise that either diagnosis or treatments are reliable, for benefit of the international pharmaceutical industry.
Protest without action is ethically questionable in those with power, so please 'get your finger out' and act for us.
My own Campaign will be found at www.ondeafears.org.uk
My daughter, Gabrielle was put on antidepressants for obsessive compulstive disorder. After a week of Zoloft, she made statements like, "I want to kill Dad." "I want Dad dead." "Dad touched my private parts." (A big lie)and she started using profanity which she had never used before. Had she been capable, I am sure she would have tried to kill her father.
I was mistakenly prescribed benzos for insomnia, when any doctor with half a brain would havce known I was experiencing insomnia as a side effect of going off of zoloft cold turkey and would have put me back on the drug and told me to taper slowly. I had perfect health prior to this nightmare - but got addicted to benzos and took them every night for a year straight before quitting cold turkey. It's been a year since I quit and I still can't sleep. I think the drugs permanently altered my brain chemistry. My doctor gave NO INDICATION whatsoever that what happened to me could happen, and he would have continued to prescribe those drugs to me - are doctors really that stupid or do they just like riding the pharmaceutical gravy train? This is a SERIOUS problem that must be stopped! That doctors prescribe drugs that exacerbate the problems for which they are prescribed is almost like a license to murder. I fear my health will never be restored.
I was on ativan for 6 yrs. My dr kept writing me prescription,I was an addict. I finally took myself off. I'm 2 weeks benzo free. But iam still dealing with the aftermath.It has made me lose 6 yrs off my life
I was on prozac for a couple of years then paxil for another couple and when I went off of the latter I had the most horrible "discotinuati on" syndrome and my depression went down so far I was better off dead. I still ahve cognitive problems years later. I thnk these drugs should be taken off of the market and replaced with natural substances. I'll never be the same thanks to these greedy, criminal drug companies.
Thank god for the law of "what goes around", comes around.
Benzodiazepines, prescribed for more than a few weeks, make a weak person sicker and weaker while making the pharmaceutical companies and doctors richer and richer. The patients weakness is then attributed to the patient and not the medication. A person can spend years living in an medication induced illness and be told by 'professionals' that it is a personal weakness. Just another 911 only the terrorists are pharmaceutical companies in bed with the doctors and it all looks squeeky clean and legit.
Doctors are prescribing benzos in total ignorance and denial of their potential side effects. After going through hell from being prescribed benzos for sleep, I don't think I will ever trust another doctor.
xanax withdrawl almost killed me, and the lack of knowledge about withdrawl from benzodiazapines and the symptoms it causes is appalling. The Dr's who prescribe this toxic poison should have to take it themselves a year and try to come off.
Benzo free now with the help of noone but me
Diane
I support an investigation tho not necessarily with an attacking attitude as this sounds. Still, being a victim of these drugs as well, I do STRONGLY believe much needs to be done in the world of pharmaceuticals and their infuence and control over doctors.
Thank you for considering this petition/project.
I have been tormented by the withdrawal from benzodiazepines. I thank the lord that after 10 long months off the pills, I am nearly healed. These prescriprions need to be stopped for sure.
I'm an ex-Effexor junkie but have problems from many other "medications" as well. Mr. Moore, our doctors are telling us these drugs are safe, effective and non habit forming. Many tell us that there are no problems withdrawing and that we may need to be on these pills for life. After all, "would you deny a diabetic his/her insulin?" Many doctors use that disgusting analogy. Please help.
Please contact me if you'd like me to tell you my whole benzodiazapine horror story in person. I can travel to anywhere and would love to help in any project that you undertake.E-mail, StodskiNH@yahoo.com
Dam doctors gave me benzos when they could not figure out my illness and at 48 my teeth rotted from the meds.I am on disability and now how do i afford teeth? Damn mad.
this crap has destroyed my life and will soon be on the streets with no insurance at 59===MikeV[ damn these greedy drug companies===Bush is no friend of the poor and disabled
The continued manufacture and use of benzodiazepine drugs by pharmaceutical companies - despite the severe consequences to those prescribed them is a gross abuse of individual rights. We need a champion to expose this evil, ('The love of money is the root of all evil') - this will prevent thousands of others going through ther torture of benzo addiction and give the potential for those who have suffered to receive the help and compensation they deserve. Dave Wheat
My ex-husband went through hell trying to withdraw from Paxil. It took him nearly a year to get off the drug completely. Our twenty year marriage fell apart during this time. We also lost our youngest son to the effects of SSRIS. His death has officially been listed as a suicide. He was only twelve when he was prescribed Prozac. These drugs are destroying families, and they are killing uniformed adults and children.
I was only 16 when put on these poison drugs now Im 30 and feel enough is enough its very very hard to withdrawel but with help from people who suffer the same as me makes it a bit easier not the doctors they don't know you need to help us the benzo people who have gone to hell and back.
Taken off SSRIs cold turkey over 3 years ago, serotonin syndrome, serious withdrawal, severe akathisia, fevers, muscular wastage, eye bleeds, strokes disassociation and suicidality as a result of meds and withdrawals. Now have to take diazepam episodically (and as little often as possible to avoid benzo related addiction), just to control the severe 'atypical akathisia' that still continues.
www.ssri-uksupport.com
When my former doctor put me on Ativan for my hyperactive thyroid in 1999, I naively thought Ativan was thyroid medication, and I took it for a few years. I had no idea it was a benzodiazepine tranquilizer or that I would become addicted to it. When the Ativan stopped working, I thought my thyroid was getting worse and not that I had a "drug problem." After years of Ativan Hell, I finally found a homeopathic physician who was willing to wean me off benzos. I wasted at least five good years of my life battling this addiction. Don't make the same mistake I did. If a doctor prescribes something for you, ask whether or not it's addictive, and, if you are still doubtful about this, ask your pharmacist.
Genie Polower
Words cannot describe the terror, the pain, the madness, the despair that benzos have brought to my life. 20 years old and no history of mental problems until I got on benzos. Since being on/off benzos I have been to the ER 11 times, have been committed twice and have contemplated suicide daily. Every single task is a challenge. Sitting upright in a chair is impossible on most days. Stop the madness as this chemical holocaust continues to kill more and more innocent souls everday.
When I was diagnosed with hyperthyroidism, a doctor put me on Ativan without telling me that it was a benzodiazepine tranquilizer. I naively thought it was thyroid medication. When the Ativan stopped working, I thought this was because my thyroid condition had worsened and not because I had become addicted to and developed a tolerance to the Ativan. I have spent the past four years in Ativan Hell. It was only because of an understanding homeopathic physician that I was able to wean myself off benzos and start living again. I urge everyone to question every medication these pill pushers give us. It could mean the difference between life and death.
Genie Polower
I had no idea that when I took 3 mg. of Klonopin, I was taking the equivalent of 60 mg. of Valium. I've been tapering off tranquilizers faithfully for 19 months and have remained ill during this whole time. I used to love life and these drugs have had me contemplate suicide many times.
Mr. Moore, Please listen to our cry for attention. There are so many of us suffering incredibly and senselessly due to the over prescription of benzodiazapines and antidepressants.
I look forward to seeing a Michael Moore documentary focusing on the shocking and unconscionable abuses of the public trust perpetrated by HMO's and "Big Pharma."
Rob Robinson, Founder
SSRI Citizen
www.SSRIcitizen.org
I am a Paxil survivor. I took this drug more than 7 years ago. My life has never been the same. The withdrawals from this "medication" were so severe that they rendered me disabled. Even Heroin only has withdrawals that last a week or so. My withdrawals from Paxil lasted more than two years. If ever there was a drug that needed to be taken off the market, it's this one! These drugs are destroying our society -- just look at the rise of violence in this country, the weird murders, school shootings, murder-suicides -- most of these cases involved an SSRI. As I've said in many an interview, Paxil has to be the greatest pharmaceutical fraud and blunder ever perpetrated on the public. My views of what these drugs are doing to our society are contained in the novel I wrote titled "Blind Reason." This insanity must be stopped!
I was on ativan for only 2 months when my doctor decided to pull me off the drug cold turkey. She told me I couldnt be addicted in only 2 months. I am now 4 months off ativan and living in hell. I am told that this can take upto a year to heal. I have had extreme anxiety/panic, agoraphobia, depression, dizziness, suicidal thoughts, and many many more symptoms. People should be made known how bad this stuff is the first time they take it....I just didnt know....I was a former US Marine, 34 years old, and by far this is the toughest thing I have ever endured !!
My husband and I are long-time members of your site, Mr. Moore. I was *knowingly* given benzos by my doctor without any warning about addiction. I was then thrown to the dogs when it came time to detox. I am clean now, but can't believe that at one time, I was a 'junkie'. Please support us as we support you. Thank you, Kathleen and Martin Garcia
Doctors shouldn't be allowed to prescribe benzos when 99% of them don't understand the consequences patients must endure to get off them. Some patients don't make it!
I have lost over six years of my life from being on Klonopin. Still recovering after two years off. I did not ask for these pills. They were prescribed for me to get me over the damage done from A/D that I did not need. This has got to stop.
