Like most children, I believed in Santa Clause. I’d sit by the front window on Christmas eve, hoping to catch a glimpse of him and his reindeers flying across the sky. After a while, my mom would cup her hand to ear, “Is that Santa’s sleigh bells I hear?” I’d squeal with delight and rush to jump in bed, afraid that he’d not visit if I were awake. Even though I’d heard some of the older kids snicker that Santa wasn’t real, I knew in my heart that they were wrong. My parents would never lie to me.
My heart broke when they told me the truth about Santa. How could my parents have betrayed me?
I felt that same heartbreak when I learned the truth about the health care community. How could doctors betray us?
We believe that doctors have all the answers. We put our blind faith in them, doing what they tell us to do. But what they told us to do—take a benzodiazepine—harmed us. Needing answers as to how to heal from that harm, we are met with ignorance and, at times, arrogance. We soon learn that most doctors aren’t about health care after all. They are about sick care—managing symptoms. They don’t promote health and healing. Why is that?
To answer that, it helps if we understand the health care system at large.
- Medicine is highly reductionistic. Organs and diseases are looked at in isolation, not as part of a whole symphony of interwoven, interacting components. That does not help promote health and wellness as nothing in the body works in isolation.
- The science of nutrition is primarily ignored in medical school, and our health rests mainly on what we eat. (Lifestyle is a close second.) Medical students receive, on average, only twenty to twenty-five hours of nutritional studies, and those are usually the biochemistry of nutrition, such as the Krebs cycle.
- The corporate machinery that rules doctors can get in the way of proper health. A corporate policy can insist that doctors prescribe ineffective but profitable treatments. Some doctors have been reprimanded and bullied, threatened with loss of the their job for not suggesting those treatments!
- Insurance companies, dictating what a doctor can and can’t do.
- Big Pharma is part of the problem as well— greatly influencing what is taught in medical school—give this pill for that problem. But a drop-down menu approach to our health and well-being doesn’t work. It ignores our uniqueness, our nutritional needs, the body’s ability to self-heal, and it creates a worn-out groove of beliefs that overlooks the root cause of ill health and possible real cures. Most treatments or procedures suppress or manage symptoms instead of promoting good health or a cure.
- Research into illness is funded primarily for researchers exploring a new pharmaceutical instead of prevention or any other type of treatment. There is no money in prescribing a healthy diet and lifestyle, but millions, perhaps billions, can be made promoting a pill.
Does this mean that we part ways with the health care community? No. Of course not. There are things that a doctor can and should help us with. So we accept that the health care system is flawed, and we reel in our blind faith and use more discernment when we visit a doctor.
What do we do with our feelings that arise from learning that the health care industry isn’t what we thought it was? We allow ourselves our feelings and then we move on, a bit wiser, more empowered. We take our health and well-being into our own hands, where it has always belonged. We start living the four cornerstones of well-being, eat right, move enough, stress less, and love well. As we do, we gain more confidence in our innate wisdom about our bodies, and we become the best caretakers of them. In other words, we fall in love with ourselves and treat ourselves according. And that, you will never find in a doctor’s office or in a pill. It comes only from our selves.
(Photo by Hush Naidoo Jade Photography on Unsplash)
As a nurse of 28 years I couldn’t agree more. I have watched healthcare in America degrade more every year.
We must be our own advocates. Doctors take an oath, “first do no harm”, yet many of the patients I have cared for were harmed by their doctors and so was I.
Thank you for your thoughts. My heart hurts for you, and everyone experiencing an iatrogenic illness.
Doctors could learn a lot from us who are still suffering from
Benzo withdrawal. All they have
to do is listen… not judge us.
Our pain is real.
So true! I wish they would.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
I support emergency medicine, the rest is meant well in most cases but symptom and pharmaceutical based,
Thanks for your thoughts. I agree. We do need doctors, but we also need care that is health focused, not merely symptom suppression.
28 months into protracted BZW, I recently went (at the insistence of my family) to an internist for lab work. I was behind in that. She was head of that entire department. We’d never met before. The moment I mentioned I was in protracted BZW, she dismissed it and launched into my main issue with sleep deprivation was due to low serotonin levels and immediately suggesting SSRIs. The rest of our visit did not go well. Her doctors notes were grossly inaccurate and she received correction on that. Horrible listener and I will not being going back. Labs showed H. Pylori bacteria in my gut and am taking the antibiotics . Well aware, thanks to Dr. Jenn and benzobuddies, that my SX might ratchet up. Vertio and volume increased tinnitus have re-visisted. It is tolerable, however, and now after a week of the 14 day treatment behind me, seems lessened. That gut bacteria has to go (Dr. Jenn?) so I will stay the course. Also, as a pescatarian, my B12 is very low. Suggested I get B12 injections for three months. Knowing that could spin me right of the earth, decided not to address this until finished with gut bacteria. Eating high concentrated b12 foods until then. Hope this isn’t too about me but rather info for those in similar situation. Be well Dr. Jenn and fellow bodies
I’m so sorry that you’re not well. Of course you need to treat the infection. Recent studies show that it is best to avoid a probiotic while on or after an antibiotic — for many weeks— so that your gut microbiome can heal from the antibiotic. Antibiotics can wipe out 1/3 to 1/5 of our gut microbiome. A prebiotic is fine, but avoid probiotics for awhile.
I hope you are feeling better, soon.
After being prescribed benzos for more than 40 years i’m worried that my gene expression has changed permanently. Is it possible that my DNA has changed and that GABA receptors may not recover regenerate or heal? I spent years tapering experiencing seizures and all the other side effects possible. I’m down to .75 clonazepam. POTS and IBS tinnitus depression anxiety insomnia. About to retire I’m not sure I could endure years of PAWS. Thank you so much. Devotion to helping Benzo damage people. Your post are so valuable to me invalidate my suffering. My shrinks arrogance it’s very antagonistic constantly telling me he could get me off in five days that standard protocol that he’s done with thousands of patients. After I tell him I speak with hundreds if not thousands of people in benzo support groups who are suffering for months if not years from the damage. I hope things are going well in Canada. Thank you so much for your humanitarian efforts.
There are very important points for those suffering with Benzodiazepine Injury to understand when seeking care in the US medical system.
1) Healthcare providers are paid based on diagnostic/billing codes, and there is no code for benzo withdrawal/injury.
2) There is unlikely to be a code because the American Psychiatric Association creating one would be tantamount to admitting they caused harm, exposing themselves to legal action.
I hope through public awareness and outrage the system can be changed. Thank you Jenn for your tireless work in educating the public about benzos.
Jay, thank you for your wisdom. I’m curious if the lack of a diagnostic code for benzo withdrawal influences doctors to go on “fishing expeditions” looking for possible causes, ordering unnecessary tests, and putting their patients through a great deal of stress?
Bottom line: we must all educate ourselves and be our own best advocate.
Michael, my heart hurts for you. But I know you will recover. I’ve not heard of Permanente DNA damage.
Keep healing. We are here for you. ❤️
There is a “tipping point”. We have come to that “tipping point”.
There is so much information out there and it is becoming so well known about how benzodiazepines can cause harm when taken even as prescribed that physicians who are not up to date on this look like lazy fools who don’t stay abreast on important information updates in the medical world. It makes them look “old fashioned” and their education “dated”, and of course dangerous.
These doctors/practitioners look like fools when they are unaware of the potential dangers of benzos because this information is literally everywhere. They would have to be living under a rock to not be aware of it, and it is only becoming more published in medical documents by physicians/practioners/pharmacists who are aware. There’s so many support groups, books written, public speaking etc etc etc. This info is literally everywhere and is growing and spreading to the point where no one can no longer deny it – Thus, the “tipping point”
It is even in the FDA prescribing information. The FDA prescribing information for benzos is not near perfect, but none the less it is there. It is quickly becoming common knowledge of the dangers of these drugs. It is quickly becoming a well known fact.
Don’t doctors know they look like fools at this point when they are not aware of this? Or refuse to acknowledge it? There is just too much real and legitimate info out there backing these facts for them to hide it now.
If any doctor still foolishly believes that it’s okay to prescribe a benzo when it is not warranted, and/or for an amount of time that is dangerous (and let’s face it, anything outside of taking it for just a couple of days can lead down a dangerous path) then these physicians must also still think that the old fashioned wound antiseptic MercuroChrome that was banned from use, is still effective – That’s how dated their knowledge is. That’s how foolish they look.
If any physician that anyone comes across is unaware or arrogantly denies the dangers of these drugs – promptly and firmly educate them. You’ll be doing them a favor.
I hear you! It is frustrating that doctors still prescribe benzos the way that they do. Hopefully, one day, all doctors will take their Hippocratic oath seriously, “First, do no harm.”
Thank you for sharing your thoughts.