So I wanted to cover this section on prescription drugs, it's very critical to understand the information in this very short module. What I'm talking about are benzodiazepines or benzos. As they're commonly referred to these drugs, they bind to gab, if remember Gabba is a neurotransmitter when you stimulate GABA, it actually causes inhibition of the brain. So it kind of shuts things down. It's sort of the on off switch, if you will. And these drugs are broken down into short, mid and long acting.

I'll give you some examples of each and so how long depends on how long the half life is. That is how long it takes for half the drug to get out of your body and how long the effect lasts. And so the short acting ones you can see here, Xanax rahzel, em Halcyon, sir x vs. Zed, which I use a lot of in the emergency department. We use it for sedating people to do painful procedures or put dislocations and fractures back in place, mid range ones or an event or Lorazepam as it's commonly known. And restaurant. And then some of the longer acting ones Clonazepam, which is Klonopin, dal main diazepam, which has value probably all heard some of those at some point in your life.

The side effects are huge, and they're often underestimated and overlooked when prescribing these medications to patients, at least in my experience, I see a lot of people, long term benzyl use and a whole host of complications and problems. So dizziness, headaches, diarrhea nauseousness anterograde amnesia that is you can't form new memories going forward so you can remember the past but you can't recall or interpret the future. sleepwalking, confusion and rebound insomnia. Those are just some of the side effects. Here's the big one to point out. This is just absolutely fundamental to understand.

Benzo use has been linked to a 50% increase risk of dementia there are several studies out there the best is best known as in the British Medical Journal, but this is huge. The studies show that people who are 65 and older took benzos at any point in their life had a 50 50% increased chance of becoming demented. That's just that should just scare the heck out of you. Consider this. People who are on benzos cannot stop them abruptly. They need to be tapered.

If you take these type of medications, I would encourage you to talk to your prescriber, whether it's your therapists, your physician, whoever, and just talk about some options and just discuss the risk of dementia is just so huge to be overlooked. These drugs need to be tapered and monitored. stopping them abruptly can result in seizures. So, you know, it's definitely something to consider. I know a lot of people suffer from anxiety and benzos are probably the go to drug for temporarily calming that down. But just I'm just asking you to consider the risk