Jump to content

Total and complete 100% success after 22 months


[lo...]

Recommended Posts

I have read so many success stories where the person says, I still have a few symptoms but am basically doing fine now. So I wanted to write mine. I have no symptoms at all. I am 100% back to normal, maybe better.

 

Through all of it I was hoping for some kind of insight into the meaning of life. I thought of ending my suffering so many times but refused to give up because my adult kids still needed someone, even if it was only to talk on the phone once a month. I think I have, however, found greater happiness than before. I appreciate small things like the taste of food, rain, cooking, giving my very old dog a massage. He can’t walk anymore but he can stand so I carry him into the backyard, wait for him to go, then carry him back inside. I would have considered euthanasia before, but I have a new appreciation for life now and he still wags his tail and enjoys French fries so I want him to have as much time as possible.

 

My speed of thought has increased tenfold in the last two months. My memories are now back and don’t come fluttering out of nowhere like a deck of cards thrown in the wind. My word recall is just as fast, maybe faster, than it was before. I’m no longer sad, or worried, or think about all that’s wrong in the world.

 

I started Klonopin about 10 years ago at .5mg per night for restless legs syndrome. Gradually I worked my way up to between 3 and 5mg per day. I started having bladder pain and urination problems and asked all the doctors if the Klonopin could be the cause. They all said no and gave me bladder pain drugs and Flomax and said all men my age develop those problems (I was 50). Nothing helped and it continued to get worse. I read everything I could and decided it was a side effect of the drug. I didn’t believe I had overactive bladder and benign prostate metaplasia simultaneously. My options were surgery or quitting the drug so I quit. I tapered for about three months and lost patience, then quit altogether 22 months ago.

 

Basically everything got worse and worse for about the first three months then leveled off at six months and I didn’t really start making progress until about a year to 18 months. I can’t remember all the symptoms but a few include: Feeling like a time traveler, feeling like I was outside the flow of humanity, obsessive thoughts, constant suicidal ideation, I didn’t sleep at all or in 20 minute periods for about six months. I am not religious in any way, nor do I believe in spirits, or anything remotely supernatural, yet I often felt pursued by a machine-like intelligence that enjoyed making me suffer. I felt like the world had turned evil, most people were bad, I often felt like I was tethered to a string, floating in space high above my body.

 

I had partial seizures where I would suddenly lose consciousness, then wake up a few minutes later and not know who I was, or if five minutes or a thousand years had passed. I felt like I had to urinate 24 hours a day and had severe pain. I would go the bathroom every ten minutes but it always felt like I had to go. Sometimes I did, sometimes I didn’t but it always hurt. I had spontaneous bleeding through the skin on my shoulders and chest. I guess that’s where the term sweating blood comes from.

 

I had the typical stuff too: incredible stomach distention, constant itching, my face would bleed when I shaved, my scalp itched, severe joint and back pain, blinding headaches, pins and needles in every part of my body. If often felt like my face was going to explode. My eyes watered constantly and stung and itched. My sinuses would swell and I couldn’t breathe through my nose. I had constant heart palpitations and my blood pressure would go to 240/160. I couldn’t watch movies – everything looked like a really bad high school play. I rarely read books, although I previously read up to four or five books a week. I hated music. I would have watery diarrhea followed by what looked like aquarium gravel. My teeth hurt so much and so often they felt like they were all loose. It was hard to eat because of the pain.

 

I had crying spells that would last ten hours. I envied other people who weren’t going through what I was. I had always tried to be a good person and I wondered why I was being tortured so horribly. My emotions would cycle from profound sadness to anger to extreme anxiety to hopelessness to complete out-of-body experiences that felt like I was spread across the Universe like the surface of a soap bubble. I felt like I was living in an old black and white Twilight zone in a ghost town where tumbleweeds rolled across the dusty streets and you could hear the creaking of the barroom doors swinging in the wind.

I would suddenly get searing pain like a sword had been stuck through my back, or a thumbtack driven into my knee. Those are all gone.

 

I couldn’t read the credit card swipe machines and had trouble filling my car with gas. My memories were often so unreal I wondered if they really happened at all. Even around 18 months I was convinced I had permanent brain damage and would never be the same.

 

I could list another hundred symptoms but you all know them. My point is that it has all gone. I feel smarter, happier, and wiser than I have in ten years. I have no anxiety at all. I laugh to myself at silly things, I love people more than ever, I feel connected to every living thing. I think I have actually achieved the wisdom I searched for all my life.

 

The last symptoms to go were extreme exhaustion and apathy. My depression lifted at around 18 to 20 months but I didn’t care anymore about anything and all I wanted to do was sleep. I still had pretty bizarre nightmares right up to about a month ago but those are now gone too.

 

My interest in work has returned. My sense of humor and wit has returned. My bladder works perfectly. No headaches, my teeth don’t hurt, my skin doesn’t itch; even my shoulder, knee and back no longer bother me at all. I feel competent once again. I can see better. I can multitask. I can make instant decisions. Even the texture of my hair and skin has changed dramatically.

 

I was taking seven different pills a day for blood pressure and now I’m down to one. My blood pressure is normal. I had gained

50 pounds and I’ve lost 30 of them in the last two months. My stomach no longer looks like I swallowed a basketball and I no longer have nausea or the spins.

 

I can drink coffee again. I have an occasional glass of wine and I can eat anything without being worried it’s going to result in an anxiety attack or crying spell.

 

Right up to two months ago I would wake up and wonder if I could make it through another day. Now I wake up happy and eager to get to my list of things to do.

 

Concentrate on the symptoms that are better or you no longer have. Don’t think about what is still wrong. Compare yourself with six months ago and you can see the difference. If you concentrate on the symptoms you still have it doesn’t feel like you’re making progress. Between 18 and 20 months I was on autopilot. I just kept going, feeling like it would never completely go away and I would never be the same again. I had come to terms with that, and then a month later realized that I was beginning to want to do things again. I noticed my speed of thought was increasing weekly and my cognitive precision was back. My memories are now back in order and I am able to recall them in vivid detail, but now they have time tags on them and no longer just pop up randomly.

 

Physically and mentally I feel as good or better than I have in ten years. I have recovered completely and have no lingering effects. My success story has no qualifiers. It has been 22 months and I’m like new.

 

For some reason, 12 to 18 months was the most difficult. I think it’s because you’re so exhausted and feeling hopeless. After 18 months it begins to get better but you feel like you’ll never be the way you were before, that there will always be some lingering symptoms. For me it began to really accelerate at around 20 months. I could tell I was beginning to get better but I had given up on being the person I once was.

 

I have been waiting to write this until I was positive I was completely healed.  I am.

 

Thank you everyone for all your help and support during the last two years. It made all the difference to know I wasn’t alone. Neither are you. You will get better. I promise.

 

  • Like 5
  • Love 6
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Amazing story! Great to see this.  Did you have agoraphobia and general anxiety/panic attacks at all and if so, when did it lift?
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Congratulations.  Thank you for posting this story.  It has brightened my outlook and I know it will do the same for others who are still patiently waiting to heal.  Thank you. 

 

M

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Wow. What a great and lucid account of your journey to full recovery. I am very proud of you, indeed. You have given me a great deal to look forward to, even as I consider the journey through the abyss that goes before the light.

 

Thank you for your courage and sharing your story.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Lost dog

 

Thank you so much for sharing your story.  I am getting ready to jumpin a little less than a month.  You give me hope that I can heal.  It has been such a long road already.

 

Thank you,

 

Golden

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thank you for your great success story.

Looking back, do you feel anything in particular helped or hindered your healing? Also, if you could do this again, is there anything you would have done differently?

Thanks, man. Great job!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi lostdog,

Thankyou, I seriously needed that right now!

May we all get there!!

Hope it all continues to be wonderful for you!

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks for posting that great success story.  It comforted me to hear about the floating feeling you were having and feeling tethered, and bleeding through your skin, since I've had nosebleeds and cherry red feet and legs at times.  It reassures me that it's w/d. 
Link to comment
Share on other sites

[9d...]

Thanks, Lostdog.  I jumped same time as you after a 3 month taper.  I've experienced many of the same symptoms and interestingly, same as you, found the 12 to 18 month period the most brutal.  I also thought I was getting back to normal a couple months ago but got slammed into a setback in early June which has continued through now.  Very strange because I did nothing out of the ordinary.  I experienced intense symptoms I hadn't had in almost a year.  Anyway, I have also had a few extremely lucid days mixed with the bad so I know it's temporary.  You just tough it out and move forward!

 

I accept the possibility my recovery could take 3 years, but your post makes me realize it could come much sooner.  Thanks for that.  I try to maintain a positive attitude with realistic expectations...

 

Joe

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Wonderful success story - thank you so much for taking the time to write it in such great detail.  It gives us all so much hope...we need these stories like we need water....

Hoping2BFree

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Lostdog,

 

That is an all-time great success story! So happy you have taken the time and effort to leave this gift for all of us. Your descriptions of the journey are so well written and detailed. It brings me great joy to read that this hell has been put in your past. Enjoy your second chance with renewed focus on just how wonderful life can be. Take care!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thank you so much for taking the time to share your story! I am just over 22 months off and still struggling. You give me hope that healing may begin to accelerate and recovery could be right around the corner. Congrats on your healthy, med-free life!!! :)
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Lost Dog,

 

Tomorrow I'll celebrate one year. It'll truly be an Independence Day for me and your story gives me so much yet to look forward to.

I'm truly happy for you and wish you all the best.

 

God Bless.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Awesome story lost dog. Kept my attention, even through my Terror. You mentioned you had Depression up until month 20. How strong of a Depression was it? As strong as the early acute stages? Or had you seen improvement? I ask because that is my main symptom along with Terror especially in the morning. Any feedback from you would be appreciated... Best of wishes

 

-M.T.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Dear Lostdog,

  Thank you for bringing your moving experience to the library of success stories. I am very happy for you. Enjoy your new clarity. I am so appreciative for the hope you have shared.

Carita

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Lost Dog,

 

Congrats!!! :thumbsup: That's such wonderful news! I'm so happy to hear that and so happy for you! I'm 20 months out and feel like I'm dying. I hope I can be as lucky as you! Enjoy your new health and freedom!

 

watersong

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thank you lostdog for your inspirational, heartfelt success story.

 

You are to be congratulated for your success and we all thank you for posting.

 

All my best,

Ig

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yes, my speed of thinking, word recall during conversations, precision thought, memory, everything came back slowly but really sped up at about 18 months. It would kind of go in and out for about three months. I would have really good days and then a week or two of glue-like thinking. Finally around 20 months it all cleared up very quickly and my clarity and everything else came back as good or better than before.

 

 

 

did you recover all your brain powers?

if so, when did you recover those?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

×
×
  • Create New...