Medications for fear of flying
Following a review of prescribing practices and following similar policies at other practices, the surgery is no longer prescribing sedatives (such as diazepam) for “fear of flying”. There are a number of good reasons why this is not recommended:
- Emergencies are rare whilst flying, but taking sedative medication like diazepam can reduce your ability to react promptly and follow instructions in an emergency
- Sedatives make you sleepy meaning that you are moving around less on the flight. This immobility can increase the risk of blood clots (deep vein thrombosis or DVT)
- Although most people find the drug sedating, for some people it causes paradoxical agitation and aggression. This type of behaviour is unpredictable and could be very risky on a plane.
- Diazepam and similar sedative drugs are illegal in some countries and may cause trouble with the police or customs officers
- All medical conditions and medications have to be declared to your travel insurance, not doing so could nullify a travel insurance policy
- Prescribing sedative medications for fear of flying is actually against prescribing guidelines and represents a potential legal risk for the prescriber, particularly if one of the rare events such as agitation or DVT occurs
- Diazepam stays in the system for some time and if random drug testing is needed for any reason (such as work or sport) it could be detected and cause problems.
This website has some really good advice for how to overcome a fear of flying.
Sedative medication for dental procedures
If you think you might need sedative medication for a dental procedure, please talk to your dentist about it. GPs won’t prescribe sedative medications for this purpose. Dentists can prescribe medication for this purpose if they feel it is appropriate.
