Anavex Life Sciences Corp (AVXL)

[XenaLives]

In truth, we don't know how long the effects of drugs that mess with the mitochondria persist.

I tapered off of alprazolam a couple of months ago, but I still feel that sleep, tinnitus, and alterations in taste that took place during withdrawal are improving very slowly.

Tremor may also be improving slowly, I'm not sure. The tremor was a side effect of buspirone. It went away after I quit but came back. It may have come back because they put me on alprazolam. I am still taking primidone for the tremor, but thinking of going off of it too...

https://www.mayoclinic.org/drugs-supplements/primidone-oral-route/side-effects/drg-20065638

I am sharing this because I have become acutely aware that doctors don't pay enough attention to drug side effects. There are few to no studies done after drug approval, the data collected by the FDA on side effects of drugs is totally anecdotal and random. Doctors leave patients on drugs unless they rant and rave because they have no other choices in "accepted medical practice".

Alternative therapies are not given enough attention in the U.S. and they aren't covered by Medicare or insurance. This is another thing that needs to change.

In Edit- I just decided to go off of the primidone.

Phenobarbital and primidone
Some studies report few cognitive adverse effects (CAEs) with the use of phenobarbital [Wang et al. 2006]. However, studies involving children with epilepsy have linked this agent to lower IQ [Farwell et al. 1990; Camfield et al. 1979], and discontinuation of the drug can improve total IQ (mainly affecting nonverbal items) in children [Tonekaboni et al. 2006]. Phenobarbital is considered to have worse cognitive effects than valproate or carbamazepine [Calandre et al. 1990; Vining et al. 1987]. When compared with carbamazepine, primidone has been found to cause more adverse effects on motor performance and attention/concentration tests [Smith et al. 1987; Rodin et al. 1976]. One study reported attentional and memory difficulties in children [Riva and Devoti, 1996], but these effects were reversible after discontinuation. Another study [Manni et al. 1993] showed that when compared with controls, patients taking phenobarbital showed longer movement times, impaired attention and reduced processing speed, but no relationship was found with drug concentration.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3229254/