clonazepam and dementia...I have to quit???

[Phill2]

I've been on 2 x 5mg benzo for 12 yrs now
Nothing wrong with me

[MyNameIsTerry]

I have just posted about this elsewhere on the forums, but found this. The dementia they are talking about is frontal temporal dementia which affects younger people than the other varieties, and strikes people in any age group but mostly 40s, 50s and later. There is no way to know if this will only affect some benzo users, or all, or how much you need to take, for how long. It is very very scary. And it applies to all the people taking tri-cyclics as well! I took imipramine 10mg daily for 12 months for fibromyalgia,before I stopped as it stopped working for me, but I know people who have been taking amitryptaline for years and years at high doses, including a woman in her 70s who is on 75mg daily, and has been for years, and is perfectly fine. My 85 year old mother takes one of the sedating antihistamines (also implicated) for sleep, and is also fine. Surely, if people were all getting dementia from the use of these meds we would hear more about it? Considering they are widely used by younger age groups. I know dementias of various types are increasing worldwide, but there are so many other causes for it. And surely, they would know if stopping the drug stops the risk, OR if you take them for years and then stop, and are perfectly fine, does the dementia start later? And if so, how could they blame the benzos when it could be caused by something else? It's a minefield of ifs and buts and what ifs.

Where have you read about it? Someone on here posted an article about this a few weeks back and the blog was pathetic as it didn't reference any study at all other than to mention the number of people in it. The funny thing was, it was the same number as the article I was talking about earlier in this thread which the person incharge of that research said they found NO link.

[chickenhawk]

Hi Terry, I'm trying to find it, it was a scholarly-type article, not a blog or comment on a forum. Will keep looking tomorrow, (its my bedtime now)

[MyNameIsTerry]

Hi chickenhawk,

Ok, post it when you get chance.

I've just done a quick Google and all I get back seem to be what I've already seen after checking a few.

This comment is one that keeps coming up about people >65:

“While correlation certainly isn't causation, there’s ample reason to avoid this class of drug as a first-line therapy.”

But their argument is to avoid it due to the prevalence of falls.