To answer your questions
1) it depends on each individual how quickly they recover after updosing. Both times when I updosed I felt back to "normal" within one day. But I've come to know I'm in the minority. I am yet to find another person who recovered this quickly. You should feel a significant difference within 3-5 days though. It also depends by how much you updose. If the dose isn't enough then you might not feel an effect. That's why I gave Hope4me two options as one updose might not be enough. What I have noticed though is that updosing works the majority of the time when you've clearly made big reductions.
2) I know people keep talking about kindling in updosing. I haven't found studies that support it. Kindling hasn't really been studied in benzo's but we do suspect it works the same as alcohol which has been studied. In alcohol the problem is stopping and starting the process (updosing is not cessation). Now I don't think it's good to regularly fluctuate your dose up and down simply because you need your blood serum levels consistent. When I updosed twice and then stabilized, my taper was functional and bearable. I have not been in benzo hell. If I was kindled I think I should've struggled immensely. There are people here who have never updosed and have worse symptoms than me. So in my opinion I don't think it's a big risk. We are more concerned about kindling when you've completely stopped and then start using benzo's again.
Thank for the reply.
Good to know that you go back to normal after a day to a few days. Question again LOL, do withdrawal symptoms usually go away too and the body returns to some sort of homeostasis? TBH, even though I'm managing the withdrawal okay right now, I'd rather play it safe than sorry. I have a lot of variables at play here, so even after 9 days of withdrawal, as in my case, I would reinstate original dose and somehow my body flips like a switch and in a few days all seems return to normal? I'm just worried about bringing about more symptoms that I don't need after reinstating...is there such thing as reinstatement symptoms though?
Also, let's say if I updose and reinstate my original dose from 0.25mg to 0.5mg (which yes was a hugh drop in dosage) how long should I stabilize on that before doing a proper taper? 14 days? One month?
If you're still managing okay right now and not getting worse it's probably not necessary to updose. When going through withdrawal we just need you to be functional. Functional means you're not feeling good or great but you're able to do what is expected of you on a daily basis. If you look at my signature you'll see at the start of my taper I went from 2mg Clonazepam to 0.5mg. I was really sick and struggled to function and didn't know it was the benzo reduction. Eventually when I figured it out, I updosed, BUT I only updosed to 1mg not 2mg. So I started with a 50% reduction. Then I made another 50% reduction. This time I became bedridden with severe acute symptoms - diarrhea, vomiting, could barely lift my head from the pillow etc. I couldn't function at all and updosed back to 1mg again.
However, I understand you're dealing with LC as well and if this cut is causing a lot of anxiety and stress and you feel mentally unsure about it, you can updose. Sometimes peace of mind is just as important. If you're going to keep stressing about the cut, it's not worth it in my opinion.
Withdrawal symptoms "doesn't go away" completely. When you make a cut it intensifies and then it becomes less intense. We talk about symptoms waxing and waning or windows and waves. So that's why I said I felt "normal" in inverted commas. In comparison to the severe symptoms I felt, I was back to a state where I could much easier manage my symptoms.
I would hold for 6 weeks just to be sure, especially with your LC. This is either starting from your cut or starting from the date of the updose. Your body has taken a big knock. I hope this helps.
Thanks for the advice. You’re absolutely right. When it comes to stressing over whether or not I should reinstate and updose and that I should just do it, it’s not worth the stress especially when LC is in play.
That waxing and waning, windows and waves analogy makes perfect sense. It’s all about management of symptoms and being able to function. We all learn from our mistakes and that’s what makes us a better person for tomorrow. Also, thank you for sharing your experience with me, let’s me know that I’m not alone in this and as humans we do make mistakes but we ultimately have control and power to correct those mistakes and come back next time into much well informed and stronger.
I’m still 4 days out to seeing if this cut truly worked, 10 days in now, feeling good, a little nauseous, woke up with a small craving too but it moved to a different area of the lungs, the sides whereas it mostly stayed in my chest in the beginning. It’s like it’s fading by moving downward as my breathing opens up and gets better.
But like you said, and it’s true, my WD symptoms are becoming less and less intense as days go on, I’m now breathing much better as of last night. I think that’s where I turned a corner right before day 10, but I’m trying to remain as positive and optimistic as possible, rebound WD symptoms are still a risk. I’m not out of the woods yet, but I turned that corner last night and can see the finish line finally. Just got to put in the work in order to get there and stabilize for 6 weeks at least.
But it might be longer than 6 weeks, and I’m ok with that, at this point in my LC journey I needed a win. I felt so defeated by taking a full pill, now that I’ve halved it, I can work towards another goal in the future by slowly tapering 0.25mg. Who knows when that’ll be but like I said, I’m okay with 0.25mg for a bit.
