Anxiety caused by a short-life hypnotic

Abstract

Drugs used as hypnotics are the same as those used to diminish anxiety - for example, alcohol, barbiturates, and benzodiazepines- and their presence leads to adaptive changes in the central nervous system, as if to counteract the drug. When the drug is stopped the induced changes persist, with resultant insomnia and anxiety. The more rapidly the drug is eliminated the earlier the rebound. Withdrawal of anxiety-relieving drugs often causes paranoid ideas, and a report of paranoid ideas associated with traizolam might have arisen from a dose of 1 mg. Dosage is clearly crucial, and the merits of very rapidly metabolised drugs like triazolam, at optimal dosage, should continue to be recognised.