Question: I have been prescribed Serepax to help me cope with my divorce. What are the main side effects of Serepax? Are they addictive?
The main problems associated with Serepax and the other anti-anxiety drugs are drowsiness and slowed reflexes. These are usually due to a dosage that is too high, but it may just require a few days on treatment for the side-effects to subside. Care should be taken with driving and operating machinery on the first few days of any tranquilliser course. Alcohol will exacerbate the side-effects, and must be avoided.
The major problem is dependence, when too many tablets are taken for too long. This is different to addiction, where severe withdrawal symptoms occur if the drug is removed. Dependence is easier to deal with, but still requires the cooperation of doctor and patient to slowly reduce the dosage of the medication over many months.
If your doctor prescribes a course of tranquillisers for you, please don’t throw up your hands in horror and refuse to take them. He or she will be doing this for good reason, and will be aware of both the problems requiring their use, and the problems that must be avoided by their use.

Question: I have a daughter who takes Tegretol for nocturnal fits. She has only had three in three years, and they follow overwork and stress. Do these tablets cause any liver or kidney trouble, and if she did not take them and had more fits, would she get brain damage?
Pseudo epilepsy is a term that is sometimes used to describe the type of stress-related fits that affect your daughter.
If the fits are always related to overwork and stress, it may be possible for her to take a medication on only those days when she feels that she may have a fit because of these factors. This would probably be more effective, and less annoying, than taking medication long term. On the other hand, Tegretol is a very safe and effective medication for controlling and preventing many different types of fits, and there are no serious long term effects from taking this medication.
Brain damage from fits only occurs in rare situations if the fits are very prolonged, very frequent, and cause serious side effects. This is not the case with your daughter. Discuss using intermittent medication, rather than constant medication, with your daughter’s doctor.

Question: What are tranquillisers? The chemist told me that the pills my doctor prescribed for my problem were this type of drug. Are they dangerous?
Serepax, Valium, Ativan, Murelax, Frisium, Xanax, Ducene. These are just a few of the trade names for the tranquillisers marketed in Australia by several pharmaceutical companies. Tranquillisers, or anxiolytics (anti-anxiety drugs) are excellent medications if used correctly. Unfortunately, they have received bad press in recent years because of their abuse by a small number of patients.
Tranquillisers are designed to control the stress associated with short term crises in a person’s life. Loss of job, death in the family, marriage problems, trouble at work, disobedient teenage children, financial shortfalls—the list of stresses experienced in modern life goes on and on. If these problems are causing a patient to have sleepless nights, lose concentration, become tearful, temperamental or just feel that they can’t cope, a course of tranquillisers over a few weeks can enable them to see their problems in a more reasonable light and work to overcome them.
Doctors are very much aware of prescribing these products correctly to avoid their long term potential for dependence.

Question: Can you tell me about a drug called Sinemet? My husband has been taking it for years, and I don’t know why.
This medication is used for only one purposes—the treatment of Parkinson’s disease.
The tablet actually contains two medications, which work together to control the stiffness, tremor and mental deterioration that can accompany this disease. It is important to remember that there is no cure for Parkinson’s disease, only control, so the tablets must be taken for long periods. If they are stopped, the symptoms of the disease may return, and a person who is well controlled may deteriorate rapidly. Unfortunately, the disease tends to worsen with time, so often the dosage of medication must be slowly increased, or other drugs added to maintain control.
It is a very safe drug, and there are no problems in using it long term. Any side effects are usually experienced in the first few weeks of treatment, and then subside. If your husband ever sees a doctor or dentist for any treatment, he must make the practitioner aware that he is taking Sinemet, as it can interact with other medications, and can cause problems with general anaesthesia and some diseases.