This is about my mother rather than myself. Her state has gotten very severe to the point where she's bedridden. Her diagnostic history includes POTS, Sjogren's, MCAD, CFS, fibro. She has disabling spasms in her GI tract, along with inflammation upon contact with food or water, which limits her ability to eat or drink. She can't stand or even sit because of POTS and worsening of spasms. Her lips are severely inflammed and develop a very large, dry crust after each reaction.
When she takes ativan, she quickly gets relief - POTS goes away, constipation goes down, ability to eat and drink more freely, ability to walk, etc. Most surprising of all is how the inflammation in her mouth and lip areas go away and no longer react upon contact with water or other things.
There's a big problem with receiving it, especially since she can only tolerate it through IV. Like me, she reacts badly to all oral medication. The only way she can receive it is in the hospital, and it often reaches a point where she has no other choice due to flares in severity. She often gets treated terribly by attending physicians once she's admitted and discharged rapidly, sometimes even accused of being a drug seeker.
Worse, this gives doctors more ammunition to use for psychosomatic accusations since, in their own expert words, it's "just a mental drug" or "only helps anxiety". They are clueless about the spasmolytic and other effects of benzos and will deny that there are any. Earlier this year she's gotten more severe after she was forcibly admitted to a psychiatric ward when doctors made false accusations and completely ignored all her symptoms and diagnoses. It took a while to get her out.
I've searched the forum and found other patients reporting that benzos help them. I'm looking for more info as to what the possible mechanism could be. It obviously relieves spasms, which themselves could also be causing inflammation and ANS symptoms, but could there also be some neurogenic inflammation at play?
When she takes ativan, she quickly gets relief - POTS goes away, constipation goes down, ability to eat and drink more freely, ability to walk, etc. Most surprising of all is how the inflammation in her mouth and lip areas go away and no longer react upon contact with water or other things.
There's a big problem with receiving it, especially since she can only tolerate it through IV. Like me, she reacts badly to all oral medication. The only way she can receive it is in the hospital, and it often reaches a point where she has no other choice due to flares in severity. She often gets treated terribly by attending physicians once she's admitted and discharged rapidly, sometimes even accused of being a drug seeker.
Worse, this gives doctors more ammunition to use for psychosomatic accusations since, in their own expert words, it's "just a mental drug" or "only helps anxiety". They are clueless about the spasmolytic and other effects of benzos and will deny that there are any. Earlier this year she's gotten more severe after she was forcibly admitted to a psychiatric ward when doctors made false accusations and completely ignored all her symptoms and diagnoses. It took a while to get her out.
I've searched the forum and found other patients reporting that benzos help them. I'm looking for more info as to what the possible mechanism could be. It obviously relieves spasms, which themselves could also be causing inflammation and ANS symptoms, but could there also be some neurogenic inflammation at play?