Reinstate, Upodose, or Hold?

Hope you’re all doing well (and hanging in there!),

 

Apologies for making a similar thread to my last, but some interesting developments have occurred.

 

I was put on 2 mg of klonopin/day + 10 mg valium/day in fall of 2021 (don’t have exact date). On top of the benzos, I was also drinking quite heavily. Not constantly drinking, but when I would drink I would drink a significant amount.

 

Fast forward a year, and I was in rough shape. I CTed off of the alcohol in October of 2022, and then asked my GP to switch me over to all valium from klonopin, as I thought I was experiencing tolerance withdrawal to the benzos, and had read a little bit about the Ashton manual.

 

In early November, 2022, my GP agreed to switch me over to valium from the klonopin, but instead of getting the 50 mg/day like the conversion would indicate, he only prescribed me 40 (not a benzowise doctor). Things seemed okay at first, but then some pretty horrific panic attacks kicked in and I started taking anywhere from 40-70 mg a day throughout all of November.

 

My life completely fell apart at that point. Panic attacks. Constant anxiety. Couldn’t be around people or look them in the eye. Didn’t want to leave my room. Developed a severe phobia of driving/car rides.

 

Being scared and not knowing what to do, on December 4th, 2022, I drove out to California from Pennsylvania to a rehab center that claimed to use the Ashton method in their advertising. They told me to “take whatever I needed to get there”. The car ride took 3 days (friend drove me). For those 3 days I was taking 120-150 mg. I checked into the center on December 7th.

 

When I got to the treatment center, they started me on 90 mg of valium a day, then upped it to 120 after maybe half a week, then started to pull me off at a rate of 10 mg every 5 days, until we hit 40 mg, when it became 5 mg every 5 days (also put me on 2400 mg gabapentin and a beta blocker).

 

On Feb. 24th, I finally hit 23 mg and was out of juice and, frankly, destroyed. I was left bed ridden and with zero quality of life. The increasingly worse symptoms I had been experiencing during this rapid taper had all seemed to pile up at once. I was trapped in this little treatment center and I have been bed ridden for 90% of the day with severe symptoms since Feb. 24th.

 

I finally realized that I needed to get out of that isolated horrific joke of a “treatment center”  and find a benzowise doctor. Friend flew in from Pittsburgh last night and picked me up, I knew I wasn’t going to be able to see my friend and do the hour long car ride to the hotel on the 23 mg/day they were giving me, so I decided to take an extra 2 mg of valium in the car, putting my daily total at 25 mg (03/18/2023).

 

To my amazement, the 2 mg almost made me feel kind of like a normal 25 year old again. I was having pretty significant anxiety, but I was able to at least make it through the car ride to the hotel without a panic attack, interact with my friend, laugh, eat, and watch TV.

 

So a couple questions/thoughts now: How was 2 mg able to affect me so significantly? Did my GABA receptors heal/resensitize from that horrific semi-rapid taper? Was it just an endorphin surge from leaving the horrible situation I was in?

 

Now the big decisions I have make:

Do I switch back over to klonopin from valium? Do I reinstate and then try tapering MUCH slower? Do I try updosing just a little (25-30 mg), and seeing if I stabilize and then continue the taper?

 

I read an anecdote on another thread about a guy who CTed from 120 mg/day of valium and then reinstated 4 months later at just 10 mg. While I didn’t CT, I did come off of enough valium to sedate a baby elephant in about 3 1/2 months. His story reminds me a lot of mine

 

I think only you can decide unfortunately. I would go with the benzo you felt best at. I laughed with the baby elephant comment, thank you for your wit. Also 25 only btw but never drank alcohol and that's how I ended up on this lol. I knew it was bad for the brain 

Did you start to have tolerance w/d?

Yes. I took it for 12 days for insomnia recommended by a CBT therapy center. The GP had first given me alcohol and aome OTC painkiller to sleep which I didn't do, then halcion which I didn't do either cause I was warned "not to get stuck on it" and then when asked whether rivotril was safe and what it was she prescribed it without telling us anything. I never felt good on it, in a thick fog from the start but I was so slowed down and in a fog that I was not able to communicate that and had multiple doctors/therapists tell me to take it so yeah weird how I didn't realize this. In hindsight I got tolerance symptoms day 5 already because I felt electricity in my brain (honestly I literally think this is the exact moment my brain fried due to the benzos, and I felt it, extremely scary but also kinda interesting in a very dark way) and then I started having some tingling in my hands or feet and one time a twitching eyelid but didn't realize this was a dangerous drug as I specifically asked not something like that and no sane ethical doctor should prescribe a benzo to someone refusing another benzo, and also didn't realize these were from the drug as a sleeping feeling sometimes happened. I then got cut after 12 days to 0.4 and then in a matter of days to 0.3 mg and oh my god hell broke lose. Still in hell with some very serious longer lasting damage from this in the form of a tremor top to bottom that has been constant for 6 months (and many other symptoms).

Yes. I took it for 12 days for insomnia recommended by a CBT therapy center. The GP had first given me alcohol and aome OTC painkiller to sleep which I didn't do, then halcion which I didn't do either cause I was warned "not to get stuck on it" and then when asked whether rivotril was safe and what it was she prescribed it without telling us anything. I never felt good on it, in a thick fog from the start but I was so slowed down and in a fog that I was not able to communicate that and had multiple doctors/therapists tell me to take it so yeah weird how I didn't realize this. In hindsight I got tolerance symptoms day 5 already because I felt electricity in my brain (honestly I literally think this is the exact moment my brain fried due to the benzos, and I felt it, extremely scary but also kinda interesting in a very dark way) and then I started having some tingling in my hands or feet and one time a twitching eyelid but didn't realize this was a dangerous drug as I specifically asked not something like that and no sane ethical doctor should prescribe a benzo to someone refusing another benzo, and also didn't realize these were from the drug as a sleeping feeling sometimes happened. I then got cut after 12 days to 0.4 and then in a matter of days to 0.3 mg and oh my god hell broke lose. Still in hell with some very serious longer lasting damage from this in the form of a tremor top to bottom that has been constant for 6 months (and many other symptoms).

 

I never updosed because the GP kept saying not to updose and my parents and I were still trying to figure out what happened. Also as I never felt good I just left it and thought to sit it out like she told us to. It would have been smarter to updose. Best to do that asap if you want to updose I think. I only found this forum weeks later and by then it felt too late to do so (I don't know though cause who does) and I stopped listening to the doctor telling me to lower and just tried to stabilize. My "stable" now is tremor, muscle spasms, neuropathy, burning skin, nausea, cog fog, inability to visualize, sleeping issues, memory issues, neuroemotions, blank/dark brain. I did two smaller cuts with lots of vomiting again and intensity increase in symptoms.

If you felt that good on 25mg I'd stick with that and what you know now (valium).  Being in a better situation with your friend will help too.  Just my opinion