Macedonians popping Diazepam like Mints
Consumption of anxiolytics and hypnotics i.e. drugs that reduce tension, anxiety, disturbed sleep, anxiety, depressed mood, anxiety and stress, increased by whopping 30 percent in the past three years.
The analysis was done by the Health Insurance Fund, who stated the most widely used drugs are “diazepam”,” lexilium”, “apaurin”, “heleks” and “sanval”, Vest daily reports.
“More than 1,250,000 prescriptions were realized in the pharmacies in 2010 which means that on average, every other person in the country has used at least one pack of these drugs during the year. In 2013 the consumption of these drugs has increased by about 30 percent to over 1,600,000 realized prescriptions,” said Dr. Igor Nelovski of the Fund – this practically makes the entire country ‘high’ on drugs.
Dr. Nelovski stated that drugs were even broken down to towns. For instance, diazepam is most frequetly used in Berovo and Negotino, bromazepam, which is known as “lexilium” is mostly used in Bitola, alprazolam or “helex” is mostly used in Kicevo and zolpidem or “sanval” is mostly used in Vinica.
“The participation of these drugs in the total number of prescriptions sold ranged from 8.18 percent in 2010 to 8.98 percent in 2013. With this, the drug group of anxiolytics is second according to consumption and the generic medication “diazepam” is on the fourth place of the ten most frequently prescribed drugs,” said Dr. Nelovski.
According to him, this figure is even higher because it does not take into consideration the drugs given in hospitals and those that patients buy without prescription.
Dr. Ana Petrova of the Health Insurance Fund warned that continued taking of these medications, especially taking tranquilizers unnecessarily can cause harmful effects to human health and addiction.
“These drugs cause slowed brain work, confusion, poor concentration, slurred speech, slowed reflexes, drowsiness, dizziness, fatigue, loss of balance, lower blood pressure, reduced breathing, reduced heart rate, depression, decreased libido, headaches, tremor , impaired memory, nightmares, hallucinations, aggression, muscle weakness, uncontrolled urination, constipation, menstrual disorder, etc “said Dr. Petrova.
It is scary that perfectly healthy people are popping these pills in an effort to sleep better, or to ‘feel’ relaxed during the day. Most of the people become addicted to this and continue to take the medications – says Dr. Petrova.
It’s even more problematic that Macedonian doctors at no point ask their patients why are they seeking this types of prescriptions, they simply “ok” the prescription without any medical evidence, which is a huge problem, admits Dr. Petrova.
source: http://macedoniaonline.eu/content/view/26359/45/
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