Benzo Withdrawl Help

Hi,

New to this forum and never thought it would come to this.  Have been taking Diazepam for many years and cold turkey withdrawl apx 4 week ago.  I've been taking alot of GABA and other vitamins.  I'm sitting here this morning and not doing well as I have read for the last week many confusing answers about the symptoms.  Guess some are standard and some are of a one on one basis given your personal makeup, etc.  I'm worried about the seizure issue??  Also, am experiencing the most terrible tension that i can't describe in my shoulders and head!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Horrible taste in my mouth, ringing in my ears.  My eyeballs are going to shoot out of the sockets.  Should I have tapered off and if so, what should I do?

Sorry for the fragmentation and misspells, but just don't feel like thinking much. 

Johnny, your without a doubt going through w/d's.

Approximately how long and how much Valium were you taking? The answer to your question is yes you should have tapered, beings you've been off for appx 1 month I'm not sure if reinstating would help, I'll leave that one for Jana.

Most people cant tolerate vitamins/supplement in the beginning of their withdrawal (wd), the first thing you should do is drop the supplements, your CNS is extremely sensitive right now the last thing it/you need is something that's going to make a bad situation worst.

The best thing you can do for yourself at this stage is try to get plenty of rest, eat a diet that's high on protein stay away from ALL sugars and dont drink anything that has caffeine in it.

Last but not least, dont worry about your grammer everyone has on this board has gone thru it, we understand.

Dave

Hi Jonny,

Dave’s right; you are experiencing withdrawal symptoms.

Should you have tapered off? Yes.

What should you do now, at one month benzo free? No one can really answer that question, but you. Some people do well reinstating, and then following a more sensible taper plan. Others don’t fare so well, and never find a comfortable place to begin tapering from. One thing, if you are considering reinstating, you may not have to go right back to taking the largest dose you were on. Many find that they can reinstate on a much smaller dose, stabilize, and then move forward with a taper.

Other factors will also come into play as you make a decision. Do you need to work to support yourself? If so, are you able to in your current state of withdrawal?

The head and shoulder tension I can really relate to. I wondered sometimes if I didn’t have this huge, visible knot sitting on top of my right shoulder blade. And I think that at first I must have always looked a bit like this  as I walked around!

Dave’s given you some excellent pointers. Some people have trouble with supplements; some do not. I’m a firm believer in calcium and magnesium, but I know that others feel those supplements do nothing but aggravate symptoms.

I’m afraid you’ll find that while we can often see definite similarities with other benzo sufferers, we are all individuals and no one can say what is right or wrong for you.

Read up, and never be afraid to ask questions.

Welcome to the forum, Jonny.

Take care,

Jan

Hi Jonny,

Great advice from the others.

The only other thing that springs to mind when reading your post is the use of GABA supplementation.

I too tried using GABA when I was getting heavy w/d's and it only made matters worse for me.

I think the problem is that our brain needs to start producing it's own GABA & while you are supplementing with it, it doesn't see the need to - when you finally stop it can take a while to GABA levels back to "normal".

Just a point to ponder.

Cammo.

Hi Jonny,

Jana is the best person to answer this, but I too understand that GABA needs to be synthesised in our brains to be effective. If this is the case, I imagine it is because GABA cannot cross the blood-brain barrier. We do have to be very wary of supplements, both because they can make us feel worse sometimes, but also because some of the claims are plain untrue.

Probably the best approach is to play around a bit with the supplements you take, keeping a diary of how you feel with whatever you are taking at the time. It's not easy to estimate this kind of stuff at the best of times, and almost impossible during benzo-withdrawal - keep that diary!

Unless you have epilepsy or similar, I would think that there is little chance of seizures this far out. Also, since you were taking Diazepam, this helps protect against withdrawal seizures - Diazepam has such a long half-life, blood level decreasing slowly, you are in effect not cold turkeying of benzos. Think of it more as very fast taper!

This does not mean that you were OK to just jump off as you did, I'm sure that you are experiencing withdrawal symptoms. You could reinstate, but as Jan suggested, just a small dose. From my own experience - when I'd make rapid tapers off Clonazepam - reinstatement of a very small dose was all I needed to avert the worst of the withdrawal symptoms. Alternatively, you could take a few more weeks and see how it goes. There is no hard and fast answer I'm afraid - it is up to you in the end.

Welcome to BenzoBuddies, and hope you have a speedy recovery.

Hi Johnny,

I'm not saying that the answerers that you have are wrong, not at all. It's just that one  person's help is another's symptom inducer.

Dave is really sensitive to most foods and all supplements. I can eat anything and I use strong supplements. We're both post benzo, and we both tapered and we both had bad benzo times.

About GABA supplements: The GABA that is a supplement doesn't cross the blood-brain barrier. So it doesn't do a thing for the brain's GABA supply. Even if it did get to the brain, there's no way to tell it to slip into the GABA receptor. Yet we do need to manufacture GABA at the receptor site in order to get well again. To do this we must depend on the biochemical pathways that make GABA at the site. We can supply the raw materials. The raw materials are glutathione, cysteine, and glycine. These are amino acids and so come from protein. Dave must depend on dietary protein. I use whey protein powder, glycine and cysteine capsules, plus vitamin C and B complex to make the cysteine less prone to end up as the nasty homocysteine. I also use a good amount of omega 3 and E. I am fortunate to be able to do this. I was in a bad way before I stared these supplements.

This is support for the biological repair of the receptors. It isn't a magic "take the pill and feel well" kind of help. It began to help me in about ten days. I wouldn't be without this now.

Should you reinstate? That's for you to decide as Jan said. If you want my take on this, at one month off, it 's  still a question. After six months, I wouldn't try it. If you C/T'ed from a substantial dose, a reinstatement may be right for you.

I found myself at that point. I had been forced to make huge cuts far too close together and far beyond my body's ability to heal. The result was the end of the misguided taper, but not a tapered body. I had dropped 30.0mg as Valium equivalent, but my body really needed 15.0mg at that point. So I don't know what to call it, but I crossed to  15.0mg Valium and eventually found a way to taper that worked.

So the suggestion that you  don't have to reinstate the full old dose is absolutely correct. How much benzo does your body really need at this point? You must figure this out by adding a little at a time until you have a condition that is not great but that you can live with while tapering again.

I did really well eventually. I needed some time, some Valium, and no interference. So I emphasize that a nightmare condition can be  turned around. It's more difficult after a C/T, but it really is possible. The key is that you must be in control and it's you who must make the choices along the way.

We're here to help and share experience of course. I really understand how devastating this is, but it can be FIXED! Keep in touch.

Oh yes, how much benzo did you jump off from?

Jana

Dave is really sensitive to most foods and all supplements. I can eat anything and I use strong supplements. We're both post benzo, and we both tapered and we both had bad benzo times.

Jana's right, I've been off benzo's 6.5 months even though I'm seeing marked improvement I still have to be cautious about what I eat (I wont take supplements). This morning when I woke up I was feeling pretty good so I had some lasagna for lunch, a half hour after that I was pretty hard with some funky head sx's.

Jon, are you taking any other meds?

Dave