Brain on fire

Hi..

 

Please! Does anyone else feel like their brain is on fire?? Literally! Like acid has been poured in to the skull???

 

Thank you!!

 

Diana

1) What date did you reinstate to 2mg, dido?

 

2) How long did you wait to stabilise after reinstating to 2mg, before making that 0.25mg reduction?

 

3) Are you aware that general guidelines recommend a 5-10% reduction from each new remaining dose?

 

Your first/last reduction was 12.5%. It is highly likely that you are reducing too fast after jumping and then reinstating, and you may not have stabilised properly on the 2mg dose before making that 12.5% reduction. Many members often discover reductions become increasingly difficult once they get down to about a 3mg dose (Valium). Your rapid taper off the medication over 7 days could easily be considered a C/T, and this would’ve taken quite a toll on your CNS.

 

You are on day 9 post reduction, so you won’t have had a chance to stabilise yet, and it may take longer because of the combination of above factors.

 

If I were in your shoes, I would trust that your symptoms, including your brain feeling as though it were on fire, will gradually begin to decrease over the coming days or week. Then wait until you feel you are quite stabile again, before resuming your taper at 5%, following a symptoms based taper.

I'm not sure what date I reinstated WS 😕 but I know I was on 2mg for 2 weeks, then I made my first 0.25mg cut on a taper that Bob7 set up for me. He told me to cut 0.25mg, then hold for 13 days, and so on till I'm off. I only have a limited supply of 2mg tablets so Bob7 did the best he could with them. I wasn't stable at any time WS. The most I took was 4.75mg per day and it was just enough to take the edge off of my panic attacks. So, I've never been what you'd call stable. I was still having severe anxiety even on 4.75mg but due to the doctors not prescribing them anymore I had to make do with what I had. It's such a mess 😢😕

Yeah, you needed much more time to stabilise on that 2mg before reducing at even a lower reduction percentage. Even when you’re in tolerance and can’t “stabilise”, there is still a baseline level of symptoms you eventually return to after reducing, it’s just that the symptoms don’t decrease to that level we would generally call “stabilisation,” but there is always a baseline to return to, even though it’s often still a highly symptomatic state.

 

I so wish I could offer you a silver bullet to fix this, Diana. I think you really need the support of friends and family to help support you (functionally)  through this, Dianna. Can you reach out for such support?

 

I have my two daughters one who is very poorly, the other has small children so I can't burden her. I have lost both parents. My children's father helps somewhat. That's about it. Sad but true 😕 I guess all I can do is face it, there's nothing else I can do..

I’m so sorry to hear you have minimal support, Diana. I have posted a request for information on benzo wise doctors in the UK. Let’s just wait and hope someone here can help provide you with other potential avenues… 

 

 

It's 5am and I'm really panicking now. Is it really going to be that bad for me??? I'm so scared!!

Your mind is overanalysing every moment as though it were eternal, but it’s not. It feels eternal because you are in the deep and feeding into the fearful thoughts. Keep disengaging your focus from how you are feeling in each and every moment. Distract your mind. As difficult as that is, the more you practice, the better you will become at severing yourself from those fearful defeating thoughts. You will still experience your symptoms, but you won’t have a running dialogue of how unwell you are feeling. When you are not feeding all of your consciousness into your fearful thoughts, your internal system can slowly calm, and the symptoms will gradually decrease in severity.

Yes it's SO Hard when it's spiralled out of control, like now! All I can do is think of the worst possible outcomes! I can't seem to bring myself out of it! But I'm trying!! Oh god I'm trying!!!