16 months off Valium, still major insomnia waves

I deleted my old account and never thought I'd be back here, I'm 16 months off of valium, roughly 2 year taper, and I just thought I'd be much further in my healing journey. I'm in the middle of a 14 day insomnia wave where I maybe sleep an hour each night, it's just awful, and no idea how I function, been torture this whole ride. There are moments where I'll have a 2 weeks window of feeling drowsy at night, falling asleep quickly and getting about 7 hours total even though I wake up all the time after a sleep cycle.

 

I'm just curious about the journey of people that have been off benzos for 16+ months and when they started to notice significant changes in sleep, just scary in these 2 week no perceived sleep waves where you just feel as though you've down permanent damage and you are back to square one.

 

Any feedback is appreciated.

I am 18 months off a cold turkey of short term (2 mobths) Xanax use. I also thought I would be much further along by now. I still have many issues but my main issue is insomnia. I get somewhere around 5 hours a night. I wake up every 1.5 hours wide awake and have to spend 30 minutes to an hour breathing deep to get back to sleep. It’s horrible and I also feel like I have done permanent damage to my brain that it will never fully recover from. I dream of the day that fully recover and never feel the urge to come back here again.

I would consider myself fully healed if I was getting 5 hours a night. Consider yourself lucky.

Hi, idunno don´t panic... we all have pass for that... In fact I´m just post a comment about how hard it was to get back to a decent sleep... I´ve modified my life in order to get it... like you fell you´re a disabled person... like blind or deaf one... because it change your regular life... But I can tell you that I think positively, in very small steps you can overcome it... Do you use any device to measure your dream?... I first don´t but now... not every night but in between I use Fitbit to see that the night I supposed it was a mess... It wasn´t that at all... that I manage to get at least 50min of deep sleep and 1.10 of rem... So It give me hopes that my body steel makes the effort... and also it calms me and get me feel relaxed the next night.

 

I´ve been the same time, like Xray say, I also wake every 1.5 hours and have to rationally relax or breath to get back to sleep. But not all the nights… this happened to me in summer but not so easily in winter… Also I´m swimming now, 2 times a week and It´s been a great help to keep longest period sleeping. I recommend it to you Xray!

 

Another think is, I use lot of melatonin to help during my getting out of benzos… but now I’ve realized (like the other staff) It’s not an option… when you´re in a seizure of not concealing sleep the only way is your own brain cooling down by itself… you breathing you relaxing you knowing that sleep is going to come… and if it´s not this night, is the next because your body needs it so it´ll find the way.

Forgive my bad English

19 months off, sleep still no rhyme or reason, i can also get 7 hours but will wake up at least 2 times or even 5... still many less than 5 hr nights always broken, some times even still the only 2 or 3 broken hr nights... just never normal and always broken. Stil weird hypnic stuff too, hard to believe i had great sleep b4 this

in the words of Aaron Rodgers (former Green Bay Quarterback) R-E-L-A-X.  Or do the best you can to relax.  I've been off a long time and so have others that I still keep in contact with and late insomnia waves can and do happen a lot more than people think.  In fact, I am sort of in one now.  I've had a few nights of no perceived sleep and several 2-4 hour nights since the beginning of May.  But I have also gone years...yes, years with decent 7-8 hours per night of sleep; taking naps here and there (as needed) and not ever worrying about sleep during that time. 

 

Mind you, the 7-8 hours is never continuous.  I wake up 2-3 times per night and sometimes 5-6, but the amount of sleep I get has allowed me to live a "normal" life as I did before Benzos.

 

It's amazing how even one poor night can throw you back into the feelings and thoughts you had during the worst of your WD!

 

Remember that healing and recovering from Benzo WD does NOT heal pre-existing conditions, but what it does do is allow you to develop "coping skills" so you can deal with lack of sleep better!  I went on Benzos a long time ago for some off nights.  In my experience, these "late insomnia waves" always even out given time.  My longest wave was about 7 weeks and the shortest about a week.

 

The good news is that I've always gotten a decent amount of sleep after a night of really poor or no perceived sleep. 

 

Sleep should and will even out over time, but those off nights or nights of poor or very little to no sleep may still crop up here and there for a long time?

 

Good luck!

They way

 

I am 12 months out and sleep is all over the place which I understand is normal at this stage…..my concern is that I am on one medication, low dose propranolol for blood pressure. It’s not a sleep or psych med. idk if it’s hurting my recovery? Any thoughts on this. Thanks

Almost 2 years out and I’m in a mini wave but I keep a diary so I can look back at other bad weeks to remind myself I came out of them and so this one will end too.

 

You need to let go of the search for a reason why it’s happened. You didn’t do anything wrong, the brain is just repairing a different area and unfortunately that might mean u need to be awake more (Parker’s post)

 

When I have a wave I also step up my self care. I make sure I hit my excercise goals, I eat well and I make those 4 hours before bed as relaxing as I can but I don’t get crazy about it. I read or watch some boring tv and I try again. Get up early and get in the sun, reset ur clock and trust that your body will eventually remember what is spose to do.

 

Also…. I think maybe Frankie said relax first 🤭

I have had such a rough time with quitting that I decided to see a Naturopath to help since I've tried most meds and various supplements and have undesirable side effects.

 

I am currently taking phosphatidylserine (PS 100 by Pure Encapsulations), Valerian root, a tincture of skullcap, kava, and passiflora, and Benedryl before bed. I am getting some sleep but unfortunately I wake up after falling asleep, having a surge of energy. I've read this is not uncommon after quitting a benzo. I eventually fall back to sleep by midnight and sleep til 6am. It's not perfect, but it's the best I've had after the countless times I've tried to quit benzos. If I don't take anything I'm awake all night. So don't give up, and make a back up plan like I did but using alternative medicine if you can. You can also do your own research. I've tried Ashwaganda in the past but I stayed awake, it seems to work for others. 5htp helped but gave me nightmares, but that's just me. It calms me so well so the side effect of nightmares is unfortunate as I liked it.

 

During the day I am taking NAC, Niacinamide, Magnesium, B vitamins, C, Omega 3, and a multi.

 

Just be weary of skullcap, passionflower and kava, pretty sure they hit same receptors as Benzos. Maybe ask on the alternative medicines board there’s some pretty knowledgeable people over there. X