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This theory on Quora about PAWS is scary and gives hope at the same time


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TL;DR: Someone who suffered from PAWS seems to have found a solution and he doesn't believe that the solution is time. He emphasizes something about the receptors changing once benzos are used, with benzos being needed as a key after it. It seems that memantine and flumazenil after the taper can solve but I am not sure.

 

https://www.quora.com/I-am-worried-that-cognitive-impairment-from-chronic-daily-benzodiazepine-use-is-permanent-Does-it-return-after-stopping/answers/22308955?ch=10&oid=22308955&share=2e68536d&srid=DIJR&target_type=answer

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TL;DR: Someone who suffered from PAWS seems to have found a solution and he doesn't believe that the solution is time. He emphasizes something about the receptors changing once benzos are used, with benzos being needed as a key after it. It seems that memantine and flumazenil after the taper can solve but I am not sure.

 

https://www.quora.com/I-am-worried-that-cognitive-impairment-from-chronic-daily-benzodiazepine-use-is-permanent-Does-it-return-after-stopping/answers/22308955?ch=10&oid=22308955&share=2e68536d&srid=DIJR&target_type=answer

 

I see nothing of any value in here that isn't already known I am sorry to say.  What I see is someone spreading a very unproven theory they devised that goes against what all medical evidence and Benzos users have stated.  Yes Benzos cause temporary brain injury but not damage!  Look how many thousands and thousands of success stories are on this site alone even in those who had PAWS.  Turning to another medication that has MANY of its own risks such as flumazenil seems to be very ill advised to me.  The reality is Benzos have been used for what like 70 years now?  Millions and millions of people have used them and withdrawn globally and yet they heal in time. Flumazenil is useful in patience for benzo overdose but it will not permanently "reset" your receptors or anything.  It's a very short lived medication.  It truly angers me that people are out there spreading misinformation stating that we have permanent damage when ALL evidence is that we do NOT.  ALL evidence done in countless actual medical studies, including by Heather Ashton state that we heal.  His opinion is completely irrelevant and harmful to those susceptible to health anxieties and fears anyway.  I'm sorry but I completely disagree with this and find it very harmful.  The reality is the brain will heal in time, it seems he may not have had the patience to wait and decided to turn to more drugs which will keep him in a never ending cycle of psych meds.  Not a good path to be on...

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I respect your point of view and I agree with all the success stories but most of them seems like partial success stories such as years of suffering and never getting back to the baseline despite of getting better, this scares me a lot.

 

It makes me want to move and with what you know I ask you your thoughts about memantine. I ask this because before reading this post I was considering using it as I am almost surely autistic, I deal with OCD since my 12s and it seems a convenient option to at least taper and treat the OCD. I would really appreciate your thoughts.

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I respect your point of view and I agree with all the success stories but most of them seems like partial success stories such as years of suffering and never getting back to the baseline despite of getting better, this scares me a lot.

 

It makes me want to move and with what you know I ask you your thoughts about memantine. I ask this because before reading this post I was considering using it as I am almost surely autistic, I deal with OCD since my 12s and it seems a convenient option to at least taper and treat the OCD. I would really appreciate your thoughts.

 

Please do not take my post the wrong way, I hope it did not come across as in any way upset about you sharing it here.  That was NOT my intention at all, it upsets me that someone like that would share such unproven theories and things without any basis for it.  The reason why?  What you just said.  When you read it it scared you.  The LAST thing we need in withdrawal is fear!  If we think about the physical manifestations of fear and anxiety that alone can cause us many many physical symptoms and can increase our withdrawal symptoms as well as PAWS symptoms.  Fear will never help.  So the fact that reading that put more fear into you is what angers me about it.  Please please know that in time everyone heals.  I'm not saying its easy or pain free, trust me I'd like more than anything to be able to move on and get all of this over with but unfortunately I don't have that option and I know it will just take time.  I'm not saying we do not have a brain injury, but I am saying we do not have brain damage.  The difference being, an injury WILL heal!  Actual damage will not.  I myself had a brain CT and then a brain MRi a few months ago due to my bizarre symptoms.  The results came back perfectly.  That alone tells me it isn't damage, it's just injured.  And that matches what many others who've had scans have said as well as many medical studies that have been done.  I am not saying don't take meds if you truly have a preexisting condition and need them but you have to look at it as what were your symptoms prior to starting Benzos?  Were you already diagnosed with some other condition?  If so then yes treat it!  But if we are going purely by brnzo withdrawal symptoms to diagnose other medical conditions were all be on about 100 other meds through this! 

 

What I'm really trying to say is do not be afraid.  Reading horror stories will not help, adding meds will not help (unless they truly are for a preexisting condition) and fear will not help.  The biggest things we can do to truly speed along our recovery is accept that it is only bento related, accept that it will heal in time and all evidence points to that, and just work on staying as positive as possible throughout what is a truly terrible experience because we KNOW it is only temporary!  I'm not well off myself, you can check my YouTube channel and see if you like.  But even as bad as I've been my MRI and CT were normal. No damage.  So please try not to be afraid and know that one day you WILL feel normal again! :thumbsup:

 

 

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Thank you for being careful, you didn't offend me in any way and I hope I also didn't offend you. It's just that I felt some degree of despair remembering that my true horrible symptoms started when I finished my X to V crosstaper and they are here, even updosing. Makes me wonder if Xanax is holding the key as in his hypothesis.

 

For what is worth, I did some angioresonances and MRIs and they were normal, but I had a lot of episodes of "burning brain" after being overexposed to stimuli that makes me wonder if I had some episodes of glutamate storm. Also, maybe our MRIs are ok and the form of the brain is the same, but if a SPECT or maybe a fMRI is executed, then maybe some areas aren't working as they should? I don't know, this scares me, unfortunately I don't have access to fMRIs where I live because they are mostly restricted to academic environments.

 

I hope you are right, but I am so tired of losing my previous days, weeks, and more than one year I guess. Sorry if I am being annoying due to my reaction to this theory.

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Thank you for being careful, you didn't offend me in any way and I hope I also didn't offend you. It's just that I felt some degree of despair remembering that my true horrible symptoms started when I finished my X to V crosstaper and they are here, even updosing. Makes me wonder if Xanax is holding the key as in his hypothesis.

 

For what is worth, I did some angioresonances and MRIs and they were normal, but I had a lot of episodes of "burning brain" after being overexposed to stimuli that makes me wonder if I had some episodes of glutamate storm. Also, maybe our MRIs are ok and the form of the brain is the same, but if a SPECT or maybe a fMRI is executed, then maybe some areas aren't working as they should? I don't know, this scares me, unfortunately I don't have access to fMRIs where I live because they are mostly restricted to academic environments.

 

I hope you are right, but I am so tired of losing my previous days, weeks, and more than one year I guess. Sorry if I am being annoying due to my reaction to this theory.

 

No you're not at all!  And I truly am sorry that it's so bad for you.  But one other thing I had to learn, and this was incredibly hard for me, was to stop researching anything medical.  I come on here every now and then but I limit myself.  I've stopped googling medical things.  I realize that no amount of research on the planet will make this go away and all it will do is end up scaring me more, which then increases my symptoms.  A lot of what we feel I believe has to do with what we put in our minds.  Understandably we want to research and know and be informed, but there comes a point we have to stop searching for answers and just accept that it's our reality for now.  I find doing this helps me have slightly better days.  Unfortunately a quick fix just doesn't exist for this.  I, like you, do suspect that on an fMRi we may show a few abnormalities but again only temporary, I don't believe it's something that will not heal.  I would encourage whenever you feel the desire to read benzo related content or research benzo things, set out to find success stories.  Find the people who were bedridden for years and fully healed.  Seeing things like that confirm to me that time IS what heals, unlike that that guy said.  If we fill out minds with positivity and success we will have better results, even if only slightly at least our outlook will be better and we'll be in a more positive mental space.  Just my belief but I feel that will go a very long way in our healing! 

 

One thing too, just be very careful with updosing because again if the goal is to come off the Benzos that may be a bandaid to cover the symptoms but it will do no good in the long run.  It will only keep you in the cycle.  Before you know it you'll be up to 40mg Valium and it still won't be working and you'll be worse off than ever.  This is why I'm finally quitting.  I started with low dose Xanax, ended up on 2.5 mg per day with some days taking 3.5-4mg.  I journal everything.  Those days I took 3.5-4mg for my panic it didn't stop it and half the time I still ended up going to the ER for my panic.  Then I realized, the Benzos are my problem all along.  I functioned very well before them.  So just be very careful about adding a temporary bandaid and look at the big picture.  Its better to go through a miserable year or 2 and then have a life back vs staying on them and in this horrible cycle forever!

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My EEG are very bad explaining all the symptoms. No one can say when which symptoms will resolve for someone. It is for the unlucky of us a very tough road to be on yes. I think personally things like alternative therapies and mild hyperbaric oxygen therapy seem to have better science behind them than more drugs. Also flumazenil seems very unsafe for benzo injury tbh. Indeed only seems okay for overdose or after a surgery. Not for us.
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> "Find the people who were bedridden for years and fully healed."

 

This is what depresses me. I don't want to lose the potential prime time of my life. My friends on their 30s are enjoying life and I hate the idea of being passive and just waiting. What a horrible drug.

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My EEG are very bad explaining all the symptoms. No one can say when which symptoms will resolve for someone. It is for the unlucky of us a very tough road to be on yes. I think personally things like alternative therapies and mild hyperbaric oxygen therapy seem to have better science behind them than more drugs. Also flumazenil seems very unsafe for benzo injury tbh. Indeed only seems okay for overdose or after a surgery. Not for us.

 

It seems he recommended flumazenil only after taper but it's just a theory of him and there is no answer to that thread from him anymore. During the taper, it seems he used memantine and it helped. I only consider memantine because I am not getting the proper OCD treatment.

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TL;DR: Someone who suffered from PAWS seems to have found a solution and he doesn't believe that the solution is time. He emphasizes something about the receptors changing once benzos are used, with benzos being needed as a key after it. It seems that memantine and flumazenil after the taper can solve but I am not sure.

 

https://www.quora.com/I-am-worried-that-cognitive-impairment-from-chronic-daily-benzodiazepine-use-is-permanent-Does-it-return-after-stopping/answers/22308955?ch=10&oid=22308955&share=2e68536d&srid=DIJR&target_type=answer

 

I see nothing of any value in here that isn't already known I am sorry to say.  What I see is someone spreading a very unproven theory they devised that goes against what all medical evidence and Benzos users have stated.  Yes Benzos cause temporary brain injury but not damage!  Look how many thousands and thousands of success stories are on this site alone even in those who had PAWS.  Turning to another medication that has MANY of its own risks such as flumazenil seems to be very ill advised to me.  The reality is Benzos have been used for what like 70 years now?  Millions and millions of people have used them and withdrawn globally and yet they heal in time. Flumazenil is useful in patience for benzo overdose but it will not permanently "reset" your receptors or anything.  It's a very short lived medication.  It truly angers me that people are out there spreading misinformation stating that we have permanent damage when ALL evidence is that we do NOT.  ALL evidence done in countless actual medical studies, including by Heather Ashton state that we heal.  His opinion is completely irrelevant and harmful to those susceptible to health anxieties and fears anyway.  I'm sorry but I completely disagree with this and find it very harmful.  The reality is the brain will heal in time, it seems he may not have had the patience to wait and decided to turn to more drugs which will keep him in a never ending cycle of psych meds.  Not a good path to be on...

 

Sorry to burst your bubble but no, Heather Ashton did not say that we all heal and in fact she stated that there have been no long term studies to see if the cognitive damage that some people suffer is permanent or not. Also, the type of brain damage caused by benzos would not show up on a CT scan or an MRI. You would need to have neurocognitive testing.

 

 

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True. Many people heal or get to a decent extent but not necessarily full recovery. Things change and you can never undo it all. It is a brain injury. There's this joke they make in politics when politicians here temporarily set certain rules "there is nothing as permanent as something temporary".
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I'm sorry. I don't mean it in a bad way. I just don't think we will be the same person when we went into this. That doesn't mean we wouldn't be great or okay.

 

I mean in my case, before meds my life was awesome and I basically had no reason to be on cortisone and definitely no reason to be on clonazepam so I miss my old self immensely cause it's all for nothing and I was very young and driven and not an anxious person or easily sick person at all. I could handle a lot. And then one time I couldn't because of meds. And then I ended up on more meds.

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