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Apotheosis
Guest
Ten Practical Considerations During Medication Withdrawal
There are many important considerations when undertaking medication withdrawal, and the following list provides only a few of these considerations. It would be helpful to consider this list as simply informal, clinical notes on this broad and complicated topic, but even so, I believe it can be of help to those who are interested in this topic. It is not meant to replace competent medical supervision and care, but to heighten awareness of the common pitfalls and problems associated with withdrawal.
When helping a patient through medication withdrawal . . . .
1. Realize that there are at least THREE areas that need to be healed and supported: a) withdrawal symptoms, b) underlying health problems, which led to the patient’s need for medications, and c) damage done to the patient from using a xenobiotic (medication) over time. The naive assumption that, if patients are stable, all there is to do is help them lower their medication(s) will result in some surprising outcomes. Being aware of three areas and not just one when tackling withdrawal allows a better assessment of what will happen during the withdrawal process. For example, if a patient had a difficult to treat underlying problem that began in utero or from early childhood, had been taking medications for decades, many of which were highly damaging to the body, then, even if the patient comes in looking sweet as a rose before medication withdrawal, you will be opening a Pandora’s box when you do so. How a patient presents (symptoms and complaints) does not determine how difficult the withdrawal will be. A patient who comes in after taking a medication for just a few weeks, complaining of a great many symptoms after taking the medication, may be able to withdraw from the medication very easily, especially if the underlying illness has all but healed.
Medications do have varying abilities to damage the body, some being harsher than others. As patients use these medications over time, this damage will accrue over time. This damage is in addition to the emotional and psychological dependence to psychotropic medications, which generally increases over time. Being aware that the amount of time a patient has been on medications will allow a more accurate estimate of how difficult the withdrawal process will be.
2. The rate of withdrawal depends on a lot of factors. So, “slowly” is quite relative to: a) what the patient is taking with respect to orthomolecular and energy medicine support, b) the person’s state of health and diet, c) the toxicity and addictive nature of the medication, d) the psychosocial stressors during withdrawal, e) how long the patient has been on the medication(s), f) whether or not nutritional support is the best way to ameliorate the effects of the medication or heal the underlying illness, and g) how many receptors are being affected simultaneously by the medication. The better the support, the more quickly patients can withdraw from their medications. So, slowly is not a hard and fast rule in medication withdrawal. However, if patients without any knowledge about the intricacies of medication withdrawal were told by an ignorant physician to do it on their own (slowly), not knowing that nutritional support would be critical, it may be impossible for them to go slowly enough to avoid the pitfalls of withdrawal, and they may end up with chronic health problems despite their best efforts.
My clinical experience has been that medications which affect multiple receptors will be more difficult to withdraw than medications that only affect one receptor. My assumption is that one taper of such a multi-receptor medication would be the equivalent of simultaneously lowering multiple single-receptor medications. It would be more demanding on the body and more difficult to support both nutritionally and enzymatically.
3. “Protracted Withdrawal” happens when something hasn’t healed during the withdrawal process. It could be the immune system, the gall bladder, the hormones, the liver, or some other part of the body. During withdrawal, if all three areas are not healing well, some aspect of the patient’s illness will become evident as the medication, which had suppressed the expression of clinical symptoms, is tapered. As a consequence, the less one knows about how to help a patient heal the three areas of health, the more the patient will suffer from “protracted withdrawal.” Sometimes, patients end up with “protracted withdrawal” that is very debilitating for years when they try to withdraw on their own, not knowing that their “psychotropic” medications not only had a profound impact on their nervous system, but also their hormones, immune system, liver, etc. “Protracted withdrawal” should not be used to place blame on the medication’s mysterious and nefarious machinations, for clinicians who handle withdrawal very well will struggle less with protracted withdrawal.
4. Supplements can only do so much. Although the patient may be taking highly absorbable, comprehensive, and highly supportive supplements during withdrawal, there are still limits to what supplements can do. A supplement cannot eliminate a patient’s hypersensitivity and allergic responses to the supplements, nor can it work when the basic enzymes and structures for handling supplements are no longer operable, nor will it change the curvature of a patient’s cervical spine. Sometimes, despite the patient’s desparate need for nutritional support, the first line of action may be detoxification, elimination of wheat and dairy, or a chiropractor. Sometimes, the patient needs energy medicine to heal a problem with “massive reversals,” a condition that is suggested by the patient’s repeated patterns of self-destructive choices and relationships, despite best laid plans for well-being. The best analogy would be that of a house in the process of being repaired. If the house is just suffering from old wall paper and out-of-date furniture, then one can go in and spruce up the place with a few well chosen touch-ups. If , however, the house in question lacks electricity and plumbing, the roof is caving in, and the foundation is sagging half off the cliff, then a few rolls of wallpaper and a new sofa just won’t do the job. When approaching a patient who wants to withdraw from medication(s), consider what is really underneath the superficial layer of medication induced function. Be open to other tools to help with withdrawal in addition to nutritional supplements.
There are many important considerations when undertaking medication withdrawal, and the following list provides only a few of these considerations. It would be helpful to consider this list as simply informal, clinical notes on this broad and complicated topic, but even so, I believe it can be of help to those who are interested in this topic. It is not meant to replace competent medical supervision and care, but to heighten awareness of the common pitfalls and problems associated with withdrawal.
When helping a patient through medication withdrawal . . . .
1. Realize that there are at least THREE areas that need to be healed and supported: a) withdrawal symptoms, b) underlying health problems, which led to the patient’s need for medications, and c) damage done to the patient from using a xenobiotic (medication) over time. The naive assumption that, if patients are stable, all there is to do is help them lower their medication(s) will result in some surprising outcomes. Being aware of three areas and not just one when tackling withdrawal allows a better assessment of what will happen during the withdrawal process. For example, if a patient had a difficult to treat underlying problem that began in utero or from early childhood, had been taking medications for decades, many of which were highly damaging to the body, then, even if the patient comes in looking sweet as a rose before medication withdrawal, you will be opening a Pandora’s box when you do so. How a patient presents (symptoms and complaints) does not determine how difficult the withdrawal will be. A patient who comes in after taking a medication for just a few weeks, complaining of a great many symptoms after taking the medication, may be able to withdraw from the medication very easily, especially if the underlying illness has all but healed.
Medications do have varying abilities to damage the body, some being harsher than others. As patients use these medications over time, this damage will accrue over time. This damage is in addition to the emotional and psychological dependence to psychotropic medications, which generally increases over time. Being aware that the amount of time a patient has been on medications will allow a more accurate estimate of how difficult the withdrawal process will be.
2. The rate of withdrawal depends on a lot of factors. So, “slowly” is quite relative to: a) what the patient is taking with respect to orthomolecular and energy medicine support, b) the person’s state of health and diet, c) the toxicity and addictive nature of the medication, d) the psychosocial stressors during withdrawal, e) how long the patient has been on the medication(s), f) whether or not nutritional support is the best way to ameliorate the effects of the medication or heal the underlying illness, and g) how many receptors are being affected simultaneously by the medication. The better the support, the more quickly patients can withdraw from their medications. So, slowly is not a hard and fast rule in medication withdrawal. However, if patients without any knowledge about the intricacies of medication withdrawal were told by an ignorant physician to do it on their own (slowly), not knowing that nutritional support would be critical, it may be impossible for them to go slowly enough to avoid the pitfalls of withdrawal, and they may end up with chronic health problems despite their best efforts.
My clinical experience has been that medications which affect multiple receptors will be more difficult to withdraw than medications that only affect one receptor. My assumption is that one taper of such a multi-receptor medication would be the equivalent of simultaneously lowering multiple single-receptor medications. It would be more demanding on the body and more difficult to support both nutritionally and enzymatically.
3. “Protracted Withdrawal” happens when something hasn’t healed during the withdrawal process. It could be the immune system, the gall bladder, the hormones, the liver, or some other part of the body. During withdrawal, if all three areas are not healing well, some aspect of the patient’s illness will become evident as the medication, which had suppressed the expression of clinical symptoms, is tapered. As a consequence, the less one knows about how to help a patient heal the three areas of health, the more the patient will suffer from “protracted withdrawal.” Sometimes, patients end up with “protracted withdrawal” that is very debilitating for years when they try to withdraw on their own, not knowing that their “psychotropic” medications not only had a profound impact on their nervous system, but also their hormones, immune system, liver, etc. “Protracted withdrawal” should not be used to place blame on the medication’s mysterious and nefarious machinations, for clinicians who handle withdrawal very well will struggle less with protracted withdrawal.
4. Supplements can only do so much. Although the patient may be taking highly absorbable, comprehensive, and highly supportive supplements during withdrawal, there are still limits to what supplements can do. A supplement cannot eliminate a patient’s hypersensitivity and allergic responses to the supplements, nor can it work when the basic enzymes and structures for handling supplements are no longer operable, nor will it change the curvature of a patient’s cervical spine. Sometimes, despite the patient’s desparate need for nutritional support, the first line of action may be detoxification, elimination of wheat and dairy, or a chiropractor. Sometimes, the patient needs energy medicine to heal a problem with “massive reversals,” a condition that is suggested by the patient’s repeated patterns of self-destructive choices and relationships, despite best laid plans for well-being. The best analogy would be that of a house in the process of being repaired. If the house is just suffering from old wall paper and out-of-date furniture, then one can go in and spruce up the place with a few well chosen touch-ups. If , however, the house in question lacks electricity and plumbing, the roof is caving in, and the foundation is sagging half off the cliff, then a few rolls of wallpaper and a new sofa just won’t do the job. When approaching a patient who wants to withdraw from medication(s), consider what is really underneath the superficial layer of medication induced function. Be open to other tools to help with withdrawal in addition to nutritional supplements.
