Posted by Klavot on February 21, 2007, at 16:50:43
In reply to Re: why are benzodiazpines abused? like opiates... » yxibow, posted by Chairman_MAO on February 21, 2007, at 12:59:07
Does that mean there is an upper limit to effective benzodiazepine dose, i.e. a dose beyond which no further benefits are to be derived by virtue of GABA activity being maximally potentiated?
I once read - I suspect it might have been on Sheldon Preskorn's website - that at 200 mg per day Zoloft, serotonin reuptake is inhibited 100 % and consequently there are no additional benefits to be realised beyond a 200 mg per day dose of Zoloft.
Klavot
-----
Chairman said:
> No, it is _IMPOSSIBLE_ in virtue of its mechanism of action. The BZD receptor complex can only potentiate GABA-A activity so much; there is a ceiling effect. There's a joke in pharmacology that the only way to kill a rat with alprazolam is to bury it alive in it. Sure, there's always an LD50. The LD50 of alprazolam in rats is 331-2171mg/kg! How could someone ever consume that much? You'd have to give yourself a bolus! Sure, you can be comatose, but that doesn't imply dangerous respiratory depression. You will eventually be un-comatose with only a lack of pharmacological savvy to show for it.
>
> There was a politician years ago who tried to off himself with diazepam in the face of a scandal; it didn't work. I've met people who've downed hundreds of pills of clonazepam and survived without any issues except sleeping a very long time.
poster:Klavot
thread:734714
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20070219/msgs/734893.html