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Toxic sleep is killing me, please help.


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All,

I ran into a sleep problem that resulted me taking Clonazepam for about three months at an average dose of around 2/3 mg/night. I tried to rapidly taper but hot hit hard with bad withdrawal like dizziness, DR/DP, and burning skin. I reinstated at 1/3 mg/night and started a slow taper that took over 14 months to complete. In that time I developed many neurological issues like burning/nuns skin over my entire body, POTS, Dystonia of the abdomen, loss of coordination, loss of muscle, tinnitus, light sensitivity, etc. The list goes on and on. I have been dizzy for going on two years now, and none of my symptoms have improved. The insomnia I have now is far worse than the insomnia that made me start taking that rat poison. A typical night got me is to go to bed around 10 pm. I normally fall asleep by 10:30 pm, but only for a short duration, maybe 1/2-1 hr or so. I then wake up fully, but usually can fall back asleep after a little while. However, as this repeats, it becomes more and more difficult to get back to sleep. My skin starts to burn, and I wake up in a state of terror with my heart racing and beating forcefully. This cycle repeats till around 1:30 am when the suffering becomes so intense that it is no longer possible to get back to sleep. At that point my abdominal muscles on my left side cramp severely and painfully and it is not possible to get them to release. I got so desperate for additional sleep two nights ago, I drank a beer, took melatonin, took valerian root, and took chamomile tea extract. This didn’t help at all and made me feel worse the following day. That rat poison took away my sleep drive completely. Now I never get sleepy tired, ever. Usually, I don’t take anything, and certainly never any prescription rat poison. I am really at the end of my rope here. I have been off all that poison for ten months, but I continue to get worse. I tried Benadryl and Unisom, but that only made me feel worse and didn’t give me any sleep. During my three month stint with doctors, I tried trazadone, Lexapro, Paxil, and other poisons of that type, but none worked and all had severe side effects. I had hoped that staying clean would allow my brain to rebalance, but thst is apparently not happening. Has anyone else found themselves in the same situation and recovered? I have no joy in my life anymore. I am a walking zombie who only feels pain and suffering. Please, any advice is welcome.

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Aloha is spot on - it takes much longer for solid, natural sleep to return.  I began to see improvement at one year off benzos and at two years things are still improving for me.  It is so exasperating but this is the reality of benzo recovery, especially when you've relied heavily on benzos for sleep as I did.
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Sorry to hears your stuggles.

Is me or does it seem that clonazepam withdrawal is much worse than diazepam withdrawal?

I was on about 6mg diazepam a few years ago which is roughly equal to 0.6mg clonazepam and ran out for 3 weeks.

All I got was a bit of mild withdrawal. Just a little anxiety that I could cope with.

I keep reading posts about people tapering ridiculously off clonazepam and still  going through utter hell?..

Same with ativan.

What do you guys think? Is diazepam withdrawal milder?

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Personally, klonopin was the worst benzo for me when it finally stopped working. The irony here is that it worked great for nearly 13 years @ only .5 mgs w/o me ever-increasing the dose. Go figure!
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13 years and it stopped working? wow

Did it just have no effect or did you get a paradoxical reaction where it actually increased your anxiety?

 

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Also how long do you plan to take to come off 2.5mgs diazepam?

I have been on 5mg for 22 days and plan to drop to 3.75mg on day 28.

 

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13 years and it stopped working? wow

Did it just have no effect or did you get a paradoxical reaction where it actually increased your anxiety?

 

Not exactly sure here DJMaux214. During this time, I had a major stress event at work also. Had this not happened, I think the .5 mgs of K would have continued to work IMO......IDK for certain tho. I was happy, doing great, no issues with tolerance, sleeping great, feeling good until this stress event at work happened.

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Also how long do you plan to take to come off 2.5mgs diazepam?

I have been on 5mg for 22 days and plan to drop to 3.75mg on day 28.

 

Not sure here also...I am somewhat stable right now. (I think). Plus, I had to finally go on disability, so no more work stress anymore. The anxiety still creeps in and kicks my butt from time to time but overall, I am coping ok ATM. I seldom have panic attacks anymore. My problem is mostly just the daily GAD. The stress from my job was killing me literally. (long story tho that I'd rather forget and not talk about anymore).

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  • 1 month later...
I am literally right there with you in this hell hole experience. I’m so exhausted but I can’t sleep. I can’t even remember what your topic was in this post. God help us both.
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  • 1 month later...
[86...]

Hi,

 

I feel you! I was barely sleeping for months, maybe even years. As far as I know, this broke the horrible cycle of endless insomnia: getting stable in withdrawal. Not/barely sleeping is not stable.

 

I still don't sleep great (6/7 hours), but so much better than almost no sleep and waking up 10 times.

 

Melatonin might be considered but I would stay away from everything else.

 

Be well,

Naf1983

 

All,

I ran into a sleep problem that resulted me taking Clonazepam for about three months at an average dose of around 2/3 mg/night. I tried to rapidly taper but hot hit hard with bad withdrawal like dizziness, DR/DP, and burning skin. I reinstated at 1/3 mg/night and started a slow taper that took over 14 months to complete. In that time I developed many neurological issues like burning/nuns skin over my entire body, POTS, Dystonia of the abdomen, loss of coordination, loss of muscle, tinnitus, light sensitivity, etc. The list goes on and on. I have been dizzy for going on two years now, and none of my symptoms have improved. The insomnia I have now is far worse than the insomnia that made me start taking that rat poison. A typical night got me is to go to bed around 10 pm. I normally fall asleep by 10:30 pm, but only for a short duration, maybe 1/2-1 hr or so. I then wake up fully, but usually can fall back asleep after a little while. However, as this repeats, it becomes more and more difficult to get back to sleep. My skin starts to burn, and I wake up in a state of terror with my heart racing and beating forcefully. This cycle repeats till around 1:30 am when the suffering becomes so intense that it is no longer possible to get back to sleep. At that point my abdominal muscles on my left side cramp severely and painfully and it is not possible to get them to release. I got so desperate for additional sleep two nights ago, I drank a beer, took melatonin, took valerian root, and took chamomile tea extract. This didn’t help at all and made me feel worse the following day. That rat poison took away my sleep drive completely. Now I never get sleepy tired, ever. Usually, I don’t take anything, and certainly never any prescription rat poison. I am really at the end of my rope here. I have been off all that poison for ten months, but I continue to get worse. I tried Benadryl and Unisom, but that only made me feel worse and didn’t give me any sleep. During my three month stint with doctors, I tried trazadone, Lexapro, Paxil, and other poisons of that type, but none worked and all had severe side effects. I had hoped that staying clean would allow my brain to rebalance, but thst is apparently not happening. Has anyone else found themselves in the same situation and recovered? I have no joy in my life anymore. I am a walking zombie who only feels pain and suffering. Please, any advice is welcome.

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