advise friend on lunesta crossover

Have a friend who wants to kick the lunesta as I am. He is only on 3 mg per night-i was on 4. I began with 10 mg valium for first two weeks. At 5 now but withdrawal joint pain pretty bad.

My question--what would be his starting valium dose? I know Ashton says 3mg lunesta=10 mg v , however I am at the point now I wish I would of listened to my Gp doc who thought 10 mg was too high and should have started with 5mg. The benefit would have been cutting this withdrawal time and misery in half. Well, that is if it would have been sucessful--at least I am sleeping ok most nights.

Anyone start with less valium then the recommended ashton dose?

Do you think the joint pain comes from lunseta w/d or valium w/d?

Hi curt,

I know you've not been happy with the method you chose to get off of the Z drug, so I was hoping you'd give your friend the benefit of your experience.  My suggestion would be to taper from the Lunesta directly and be done with it in a couple of weeks. 

I have a lot of experience with the Z drugs and a benzo as well, and I don't agree with the Ashton protocol of taking a benzo to get off of a Z drug, to me the benzo is far worse than the Z. 

I quit a huge amount of Ambien cold turkey and suffered no ill effects except loss of sleep, which came back as my body learned how to do it again.

Just a suggestion, I'd sure steer clear of the Valium.  I don't know about joint pain and Valium, you might try using the search function on the forum to see if others have talked about it.

Pam

thank you for your honesty. Perhaps I made a mistake going with V taper. Think I will advise friend otherwise. For me, I will stick it out -that was the choice I made. The important thing to for me to remember is that it is working . Just that some days are worse than others. Nice to come to this board on the down days. I believe your reply with allow me to quit this second guessing thing I have been obsessing about.

Time to forget, focus, and follow through.

Hi curt,

This process is all about second guessing ourselves, being consumed with doubt and indecision, all of these are so harmful to us.  I'm glad you're going to focus on the path to recovery you've chosen and make the best of it.  Who knows maybe it is the best, each of us are so different, what works for one may not work for another.

At least you and your friend share some things in common.  Many of us have only BenzoBuddies to give us the validation we need to survive this, you've got a real life Buddie!

Pam