What You Need to Know About Medication Withdrawal
A little knowledge can help prevent panic and other complications.
“Hey, I don’t use street drugs, why would I have to worry about withdrawal?” Millions of Americans, if they even consider the topic, probably hold similar thoughts. But tens of millions of Americans this year faced involuntary interruptions of their medication supplies. Whether you take prescription medications, street drugs, or just know someone who does, learning a little bit about drug withdrawal can help you get through the experience.
Stopping medications abruptly, or even a steep reduction in dose, can produce two related, but usually separable, types of problems. Halting a medication deprives one of the benefits of that drug; it can no longer perform its job. Lack of Adderall leaves someone with ADHD in their inattentive, unfocused, restless and impulsive baseline state. Stopping other medications may mean that blood pressure or diabetes is no longer controlled, or that infections and tumors are no longer being attacked.
When a river dries up, there’s much less or no water. That’s the absence of the benefits. But a drier river bed has ripple effects on the plants, animals, and even the microclimate of the area. Those additional effects can be compared to the emergence of withdrawal effects…
