Valium Diazepam General Information Side effects. Anxiety Treatment in Philadelphia

Valium (Diazepam) is a benzodiazepine which is commonly used to treat anxiety disorders. It is also frequently used to treat alcohol and sedative withdrawal (in detox facilities) as it has a very long half-life. There are significant risks of side effects, including abuse, dependence, tolerance and withdrawal.

Dr. Pagnani discusses tapering and stopping this medication in patients as well. Because it has a very long half-life (taking up to 100 hours for half of its metabolites to leave someone's system) patients often do not wait long enough after a decrease in their dose (to allow themselves to come to a new baseline), before making an additional decrease. It can take up to 3 weeks, to fully leave someone's system (when they stop the medication)! This long half-life can lead to a compounding effect of withdrawal, and patients believing that they need to stay on the medication "forever," when in fact, they can often taper off of it, with a more calculated and slow approach. Providers can even use compounding pharmacies to make incredibly small decreases overtime.

Starting, stopping or changing doses of this medication needs to be done by an individual's psychiatric provider, or patients can have serious adverse outcomes.

Dr. Pagnani is the Medical Director of Rittenhouse Psychiatric Associates in Philadelphia, PA and surrounding areas. Their practice has 25 Academically oriented provides and is now scheduling in-office and telemedicine visits.

For additional informative mental health videos:
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www.RittenhousePA.com
www.ChrisPagnaniMD.com