- Diazepam is a sedative and it could impair your ability to concentrate. It may make you sleepy during the flight increasing the risk of any injury particularly in the emergency situations. This could seriously affect the safety of you and the people around you.
- Some people taking diazepam, can experience mood disturbances and make you behave in ways you normally wouldn’t. This could also impact on your safety and the safety of your fellow passengers or could lead you to get in trouble with the law.
- Diazepam is used to treat the conditions but it is not allowed to be prescribed for preventative reasons in non-medical settings.
- National prescribing guidelines followed by doctors also don’t allow the use of benzodiazepines in cases or phobia. Any doctor prescribing diazepam for a fear of flying would be taking a significant legal risk as this goes against these guidelines. Benzodiazepines are only licensed for short-term use in a crisis in generalised anxiety. If this is the problem you suffer with, you should seek proper care and support for your mental health, and it would not be advisable to go on a flight.
- In several countries, diazepam and similar drugs are illegal. They would be confiscated, and you might find yourself in trouble with the police for being in control of an illegal substance.
- Diazepam has a long half-life. This means it stays in your system for a significant time and you may fail random drug testing if you are subjected to such testing as is required in some jobs.
We appreciate a fear of flying is very real and very frightening and can be debilitating. However, there are much better and effective ways of tackling the problem. We recommend you tackle your problem with a Fear of Flying Course.
Fear of Flying Courses:
Prescribing for dental procedures
GPs will not issue prescriptions for sedating medications (such as diazepam) prior to dental procedures.
Dentists should not direct patients to GPs requesting they prescribes sedating medications, such as diazepam.
If a dentist wishes to prescribe sedating medications for anxious patients that dentist should be responsible for issuing the prescription. The dental practitioner’s formulary, which is the list of drugs a dentist can prescribe is found on the BNF dental practitioners formulary, includes Diazepam Tablets and Oral Solution.
If the dentist is treating a patient within their practice NHS contract, then the prescription should be on a FP10D form.
If the dentist is treating a patient privately, they should issue a private prescription. Dentists can access a patient’s summary care record via the DERs/Rego electronic referral system for NHS England Southeast dental referrals.
Dentists may contact a GP for information or advice, if, for example the patient has a complex medical history.
Prescribing for anxiety or claustrophobia during an MRI scan.
GPs will not issue prescriptions for sedating medications (such as diazepam) prior to MRI scans.
It’s estimated that every year, approximately two million MRI scans worldwide are not performed because of patients refusing to be scanned or terminating the scan early due to claustrophobia.
There are many resources online that can help prepare patients on what to expect during a scan including step by step explanations and videos of MRIs being performed. In more severe cases, the NHS website suggests that mild sedatives are an option for people with severe MRI anxiety.
GPs are recommended to carefully consider the 2024 Royal College of Radiologists’ guidance: Sedation, analgesia and anaesthesia in radiology, third edition | The Royal College of Radiologists which states “Sedation and analgesia can effectively alleviate the pain, anxiety and psychological and physical distress of radiological procedures and is extensively used in routine clinical practice. Sedation and analgesia should be administered by a competent and well-trained sedation team and oversight provided by a sedation committee within the institution.”
There is also an emphasis on thorough pre-procedure assessment, planning and monitoring of the patient throughout the procedure.
This means that the GP is not the right person to prescribe these medications. If they are needed, then this should be discussed with the radiology team. The radiology team may also be able to offer other options such as the use of a less restrictive scanner.
