Ativan?

U

unde0066

New Member
Hi! New member here - I’ve had pain for several months now. I have a question about medications. Ativan not only knocks out my anxiety, but it knocks out my pain as well. I also get at least 24 hours relief from it whereas Ativan is only supposed to work for 8-10 hours. My OT feels this indicates my pain is related to anxiety and that it lasts so long because it takes my nervous system that long to get ramped up again.

My brain just has a hard to accepting this. Does anyone else have this experience with a medication? Or can speak to this?
 
It's always good to find a medication that works on both anxiety and pain, and your OT's explanation sounds right to me. I'm sure you know that Ativan is addictive, and so will work less well overtime and require higher doses to achieve the same effect. Are you exploring why your nervous system is "ramped up" ? There are many non-medication strategies for calming the nervous system like meditation, breathing exercises, yoga, etc.
 
Hello @unde0066,

What's your sense of a TMS connection to the pain? Have you had a chance to look into that yet?
unde0066 said:
... My OT feels this indicates my pain is related to anxiety and that it lasts so long because it takes my nervous system that long to get ramped up again.

My brain just has a hard to accepting this. Does anyone else have this experience with a medication? Or can speak to this?
Click to expand...

Since your OT is pointing to an anxiety-related cause to your pain, and you're having a hard time accepting that, maybe digging into TMS will be helpful for you. Maybe reading one of Dr. Sarno's books (the most recent one, The Divided Mind is a great one); reading success stories here on the Forum, examining your anxiety and what is behind that, doing some writing on what is going on related to anxiety in your life...

I think it's going to be hard to get answers on your reaction to the meds. (whether and why it's working longer for you than is typical) here on the Forum. You will absolutely get experiences and feedback from folks struggling with whether anxiety is a cause for their ongoing pain. That is very very common and a search on the Forum will lead to a lot of threads/discussions.
I wish you the best! Ongoing pain is so difficult, whether you've found a med that works or not. Hang in there.
 
I had a very similar experience with amitriptyline, which is also great at reducing anxiety. The problem was, was that it was very difficult to get off of.

The solutions offered here and by similar mind body approaches, offer a drug free way to alleviate both the pain and anxiety.
 
[QUOTE="Cap'n Spanky, post: 139335, member: 2274"The solutions offered here and by similar mind body approaches, offer a drug free way to alleviate both the pain and anxiety.[/QUOTE]

Hey unde0066, glad you are checking this out here, and hopefully, your mind can find some acceptance of the possibility of finding an alternative solution to alleviating your long term pain other than Atavan.

My own experience with the drug was not pleasant. Thirty years ago, I was prescribed it for a panic attack during travels and it lead to some rather dark, unhealthy thoughts and imaginings. In retrospect, though scary, but not fatal, it helped me to explore other, non-pharmaceutical methods of being with my anxious mind/pained body that eventually lead, thankfully, to the Sarno material, and resolution of my bouts of chronic pain. Best wishes...
 
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