Author(s)

Granato Philippe¹, Shreekumar Vinekar², Fontaine Audrey¹, Paradis Philippe^3*, Danel Thierry⁴, Cottencin Olivier^5,6

¹Pole de Psychiatrie, Centre Psychothérapeutique de Maubeuge, Centre Hospitalier Sambre Avesnois (CHSA), Maubeuge, France.
²Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, College of Medicine, University of Oklahoma, Oklahoma City, OK, USA.
³Pole de Santé Publique de Maubeuge, Centre Hospitalier Sambre Avesnois (CHSA), Maubeuge, France.
⁴Fédération Régionale de Recherche en Santé Mentale (F2RSM), Lille, France.
⁵Psychiatry and Addiction Medicine Department, CHU-Lille, Lille, France.
⁶SCALab, PsyCHIC Team, CNRS UMR 9193, University of Lille, Lille, France.

Benzodiazepines are psychotropic medications for effective management of anxiety. However, after over 50 years of unrestrained prescription use, prescribers realize the severity of side effects in select patients. The most challenging of these side effects is the emergence of a physiological dependence that explains virtual impossibility of successful withdrawal that can ensure sustained abstinence. We propose a method for successful withdrawal using substitution and innovative downward tapering of diazepam oral solution for all benzodiazepines to attain sustained remission. Our protocol reported here allowed not only successful withdrawal for all of 20 patients included in this pilot study but also helped in totally weaning them off of benzodiazepines demonstrating absence of relapse even 2 years after the total discontinuance.

Benzodiazepine, Withdrawal, Success

Granto Ph., et al. (2016) Original and Simple Protocol for Withdrawal of Benzodiazepines to Achieve Sustained Remission. Open Journal of Psychiatry, 6, 195-202. doi: 10.4236/ojpsych.2016.62024.