Starting detox soon

Hi Everyone,

    I was on 4mg Ativan daily for 3 years (2.5 daily for 3 years before, and a few years as needed before that)) and recently went to 6mg, within last two weeks. I am out of work on disability and need to deal with this. I am trying to get into a reputable hospital but i don't know what to expect or demand from the experience. I have severe IBS symptoms for 6 years. I feel I am in a position where I need to go inpatient. I also am on 30mg Prozac and I'm trying to wean myself off remeron, down to 1.8 mg at night. Remeron is a real tricky one esp in my position. Anyone out there been on this kind of benzo dose, or this amt of time, and/or been through a good detox? It will not be C/T.

BTW I don't know if I have stabilized at 6mg, I just felt that 4 wasn't working and I finally got the nerve to ask the Dr for more, knowing I am seeking help soon. I just couldn't imagine tapering down from some bad feeling withdrawal state for a year or so. It seemed impossible

Glad to be a member of this community

Drad dog

 

 

Hi dog, sorry but in my opinion there is no such thing as a "good detox" for benzos. Based on the dose of 6 mg of Ativan that you are taking now, and when 1 mg of Ativan = 10 mg of Valium you would be going c/t from the equivalent of 60 mg of Valium.

 

I understand you not wanting to taper for one year, but detox for some people can result in w/d and recovery for a very long time.......in some cases much longer than a taper. I am in month 33 and am still not completely healed yet. It took 2 years for me to have a 4 hour break from 24/7 symptoms. I have not had a sleep in almost 3 years without being shocked awake every 1 to 2 hours. I am sure you don't want to have that to deal with.

 

I am sure others will stop by and offer their opinion re benzos and detox and I suspect most will share similar experiences to me.

 

I wish you the best with whatever you decide to do, mandala

Hi,

  Well I am not functioning right now and have to do something. Tapering is something I want to do when i am more comfortable and survivable. I believe this program is not C/T. My understanding is that Phenobarb is cross effective with benzos and it may be of some use in these programs. I'll tell you more later this week.

 

Hi,

  Well I am not functioning right now and have to do something. Tapering is something I want to do when i am more comfortable and survivable. I believe this program is not C/T. My understanding is that Phenobarb is cross effective with benzos and it may be of some use in these programs. I'll tell you more later this week.

 

Going off benzos without tapering is c/t. It does not matter if you are given Phenobarb or not. I was given Phenobarb. It's a CNS depressant. Benzos were created as a "safer alternative" to phenobarb. They put you on it and ship you out and then when it wears off (long half life of up to 96 hours) the w/d from the benzos kicks in. Please read about down regulation of GABA receptors. There are no drugs that help with the upregulation of the GABA receptors and that's what has to happen to heal from benzos.

If anyone knows anything about detox it's me... and let me tell you...it's not effing fun.

I've been detoxed off alcohol...piece of cake compared to benzos.

I got thrown on benzos and have been paradoxical since the beginning, they do not agree with me I didn't know what the hell was going on with me for a  long time and thought I'll just go to detox I've only been on 2 months....WRONG.

 

Detox #1 - Off the equivaleny to 11mg Valium

Phenobarbital...oh what a nasty drug that is, you feel drunk and retarded all the time. If you are lucky it will make you tired if not you'll feel wired and tired, it masks some of the withdrawal until they rip it away from you. Once they took it away from me I went insane...I went completely freaking insane. I had numbness down the whole left side of my body and nerve damage that was so painful I can't put it into words but I still get to experience it everyday now. I ended up in the hospital first in a padded room for 8 hours it was not fun. Then transferred down to the detox center where I really lost my mind. Everything in my body went nuts, my nerves were on fire, I couldn't eat, I couldn't sleep, I paced for 20 hours straight and I tried to kill myself twice. Once I reinstated boom back to normal...but the drug didn't work as good as it previously did which isn't saying much.

 

Detox #2.... HORRIFIC TORTURE. This was about 2 weeks ago. Off the equivalency to 9mg of Valium

I was on Gabapentin, Lyrica, Tegretol, Baclofen, Robaxin, Propranolol, Clonidine, and stuff like Ibuprofen and Pepcid. Withdrawal hit me day one... I was slammed out of my mind I thought it was bad I was like omg this is worse than last time because last time I didn't go nuts til day 10...well day 1 I started to really get hit hard. I thought oh okay this is as bad as it's gonna get.... WRONG. It got worse and worse and worse. I hallucinated every freaking day, aliens coming out of walls, ceiling vents dancing around, demonic voices, I was throwing up, I felt like I had the worlds worst hangover ever, everything ached, I had dp/dr like you wouldn't imagine, my tongue and mouth burned, my skin burned and was numb, I couldn't move my hands or feet, I couldn't pick up a fork or a pillow I was so weak, then shhhh really hit the fan. On day 8 I got put on a 5150 hold because they were going to release me from detox and I was like I am not safe like this you can't do that to me. So they put me in the psych ward. Yep. They took away detox meds except for Lyrica, Tegretol and Propranolol, they also made me take an antipsychotic because it was "required" for my insurance to pay....yep. I was sicker and sicker and got sicker and sicker. The mental torture I endured was  horrific hell each day it got worse and worse I was expecting it to plateau but it didn't it just got worse and I got weaker and weaker. I was lucky I got out of there and reinstated but guess what..reinstatement only worked for a day...yep and now I am in worse shape than before.

 

Do not make the same mistake....read the detox horror stories on here before you decide that is what you want to do. It is horrific.

So it's of no use to be in an inpatient program for benzos, regardless of whether you are functioning or whether you are tapering in the program? You do not believe there is such a tapering within an inpatient program that would help? Your constructive feedback is run away fast? To where? I have to get back to my job someday if its there.

DD

So it's of no use to be in an inpatient program for benzos, regardless of whether you are functioning or whether you are tapering in the program? You do not believe there is such a tapering within an inpatient program that would help? Your constructive feedback is run away fast? To where? I have to get back to my job someday if its there.

DD

 

Hi,

 

I did a voluntary 4-day hospital "detox" from Xanax in 2009, in a major U.S. hosiptal.  All they did was cold turkey me, monitor my blood pressure, feed me, and give me Neurontin to prevent seizures.  This cost me $15,000!  There was absolutely no follow up when I left the hospital and i was totally on my own. The symptoms produced by this "detox" were absolutely horrific, and resulted in me reinstating a few months later.  IMO, you may think that tapering is too difficult for you, but you have no idea how difficult things can be after a detox/ct.....

 

The basic issue is this:  Most detox programs last for a few days, a week, or a month at the very longest.  This is not enough time to taper safely off benzos if you've used them for any length of time.  Not only that, in most of these "programs" they immediately take you off benzos the moment you walk in the door!  That's a cold turkey by any definition.

 

Sorry if this sounds unsupportive, but it's only the truth as we have experienced it.  Of course, what you do is ultimately up to you.

 

I've heard several people on here describe it like this:

 

A cold turkey is like jumping off the top floor of a 20 story building.

 

A taper is like jumping off the 2nd floor.

 

The taper is the easier landing. It will take you longer to walk (i.e. taper) down to the 2nd floor, but the landing is much less intense.

 

My first cold turkey was 26 years ago - I was pulled off of Prozac, Lithium, and Xanax after an overdose. It wasn't pleasant, especially since no one (including the psychiatrist) knew anything about withdrawing from these drugs.

 

As bad as this is now, it was nothing compared to that nightmare.

 

I hope you do a slow taper. I also work, and I wouldn't be working if I had come off of Klonopin cold turkey in June. So far, I've only had to take 5 sick days, so I'm glad I found this site and was able to slow my taper down enough to stay employed.

 

We just want your landing to be as comfortable as possible. 

I was on 8 mg of Ativan daily and went through a detox 11 months ago tomorrow. My benzodiazepines were stopped the moment I walked through their door. I was put on phenobarbital as a anti seizure medicine. It also helps with withdrawal as it is a very strong old school barbiturate. I left on the fourth day, which would begin the most horrific experience in my life. The mental torment of a cold turkey withdrawal was excruciating. I thought I was losing my mind. I thought I was going insane. I lived a nightmare of sheer terror. The thing about detox is that the real withdrawal comes after you leave their facility. A cold turkey withdrawal can last months and months, just spend sometime on this board and you can see the struggles of those who detoxed. One risks severe and prolonged symptoms with a cold turkey withdrawal.  The best advice I can give is to do a slow careful taper. In my opinion this can greatly reduce withdrawal symptoms.

I've heard several people on here describe it like this:

 

A cold turkey is like jumping off the top floor of a 20 story building.

 

A taper is like jumping off the 2nd floor.

 

The taper is the easier landing. It will take you longer to walk (i.e. taper) down to the 2nd floor, but the landing is much less intense.

 

My first cold turkey was 26 years ago - I was pulled off of Prozac, Lithium, and Xanax after an overdose. It wasn't pleasant, especially since no one (including the psychiatrist) knew anything about withdrawing from these drugs.

 

As bad as this is now, it was nothing compared to that nightmare.

 

I hope you do a slow taper. I also work, and I wouldn't be working if I had come off of Klonopin cold turkey in June. So far, I've only had to take 5 sick days, so I'm glad I found this site and was able to slow my taper down enough to stay employed.

 

We just want your landing to be as comfortable as possible. 

 

When I ended up in the ER 14 days into a cold turkey withdrawal the doctor described it to me as doing a cold turkey was like jumping off a cliff, and a taper was like jumping off the same cliff but with a parachute. It is a much slower fall.

Well i just want to ask: if you are intradose withdrawing, how do you get to a point where you can start a slow taper? Do you increase to a manageable place and then start? What if the Benzos don't work the same way anymore, and you can't drop the symptoms.

 

Hasn't anybody been in a program where they helped, consulted on stabilization, gave you a protocol, and let you go while you are on a taper assisted by Dr?

Thx

 

You are taking a very high dose of Ativan, going to a Detox program is going to hurt you so much and you will looking into reinstatement. You have to find the strength to go trough a slow taper, you don't have options. You should find a doctor who can help you and support you with the taper following the Ashton manual and use the valuable information and help of people in this forum to go through this.

You will regret dearly if you attempt fast tapering in a detox program or could turkey from that amount of Ativan.

Most of the people here have started their tapering already in interpose withdrawal, that is why valium is use instead, as it has longer half life.

 

Well i just want to ask: if you are intradose withdrawing, how do you get to a point where you can start a slow taper?

 

Interdose withdrawal is withdrawal between doses.  Many people who taper short acting benzos break up and spread out their dosing in even intervals throughout the day, to combat interdose withdrawal.  And some people do cross over to a long acting benzo like Valium to help with this.

 

 

Do you increase to a manageable place and then start? What if the Benzos don't work the same way anymore, and you can't drop the symptoms.

 

The need to increase ones dose to combat withdrawal does not sound like interdose withdrawal to me.  This sounds more like tolerance or relative withdrawal.  This is where the dose we have become accustomed to no longer works like it did before and withdrawal symptoms emerge while on our therapeutic dose.  It's possible to have both interdose as well as tolerance / relative withdrawal.

 

Hasn't anybody been in a program where they helped, consulted on stabilization, gave you a protocol, and let you go while you are on a taper assisted by Dr?

Thx

 

Since I never tried any kind of inpatient situation, I can't answer this question but I imagine this might be possible.  In fact, this would have been a dream situation for many of us ... to find a place to go where we could get stable and begin a taper.  The problem is that most doctors who are interested in this field are addiction type specialists.  Many of these doctors believe a cold turkey / rapid taper approach is best because they often do not believe withdrawal continues to occur past the time the benzos have cleared out of the system.  When withdrawal symptoms continue they often classify the situation as an emergence of the symptoms of the reason why the person was medicated with benzos to begin with or some other psychiatric condition emerging that was masked by the benzos.  This often becomes a situation of a psychiatric medication pre scripting cascade AKA, poly-drugging.  We have many members who wind up on significantly more drugs after a detox than what they were on when they went in and also facing more difficult withdrawal from the additional meds.

 

However, withdrawal often lasts much longer than many doctors believe, IMO.  I personally believe withdrawal symptoms will continue until our GABA receptors have up regulated, (literally grown back due to being pared down due to the benzo binding to them), and Glutamate receptors have down regulated, (paired back to normal because there is a hypothesis these receptors flourish in benzo withdrawal).  All of this leaves our central nervous system in a state of hyper excitability, IMO.  And CNS healing can be extremely slow, not like a broken bone or a cut.

 

If you will go to our Chewing the Fat section, there are several well researched articles pinned at the top of the forum that explain some of the things that are hypothesized to occur inside our nervous system related to benzos and you might come to the conclusion as I have, that a quick detox off benzos is ill advised.  In fact, I believe a quick withdrawal might cause symptoms to last longer than they would have lasted, had the person elected to taper off slowly.

 

We will of course support you no matter which route you decide upon. 

Well i just want to ask: if you are intradose withdrawing, how do you get to a point where you can start a slow taper? Do you increase to a manageable place and then start? What if the Benzos don't work the same way anymore, and you can't drop the symptoms.

 

Due to the fact that Ativan has a short half life, interdose w/d can happen. So based on that, many people who are tapering have to dose several times a day to try and prevent this. You mentioned earlier that you had to up your dose....I think you said from 4mg to 6mg to get the same effect or any effect at all. To me this signals tolerance w/d. This is what happens with benzos. The dose you were on does not have the same effect b/c of tolerance or more accurately relative w/d and you have to up your dose. Problem is there is no end to this for some peope. You up the dose, develop tolerance again, have w/d symptoms and have to increase again. It's a no win situation.

 

To answer your other question the ultimate goal is to try an find a dose that you can stabilize on, or feel stable on b/c your body in my opinion is not stable physiologically while on benzos, and then taper from there. But some people for whatever reason never are able to stablize on benzos and have to taper even with symptoms.

 

It's so different for everyone. So nobody can say for sure how it will go for you. The important thing I feel is to find a dr who will support your taper, and allow you to be in control of your taper. You also might want to consider the possibilty of crossing over to Valium which has a long half life. This means less dosing and less chance or no chance of interdose w/d.

 

These are all just suggestions. Educate yourself just like you are doing. Then make your decision based on that information.

 

Juliea basically said the same thing while I was typing this......

Thanks to you all. I really value these insights greatly. I called the rehab today and it seems that it is a 5 day deal, and I am seeking a new psychiatrist and a cross over benzo now instead. Valium is not used in my hospital system and I have yet to connect with a Dr who is more open minded. The other problem around here is that you can't see anyone in a hospital unless you have another Dr (most likely PC there) I have been phoning everywhere and everyone constantly for a couple weeks now. Everything just falls through. Thanks and I will probably enjoy chatting with you here more than anything else I do in the next 12-24 mo. (;0)

Glad to hear that you are diligently looking into all your options. Not sure what country you live in but here are a couple of links to Benzo Wise doctors. Have to read and reasearch these as well b/c as you can see from some of the feedback how wise they are varies from dr to dr but maybe it might lead you to the right person. BB is a lifeline for many while tapering and afterwards. 

 

http://www.benzodocs.com/

 

http://www.benzosupport.org/benzo_wise_doctors.htm

I was on Klonapin 6 mgs nightly which is an enormous dose. And I went cold turkey. I went into a detox program (inpatient). They did not offer to start me on a taper, so essentially they forced me to cold turkey. NO ONE should ever cold turkey off a benzo, no matter what the dose! It can be dangerous, and may cause the person to have a longer, much worse withdrawal. I didn't even begin to feel "normal" until I had been off one whole year, and its taken me two years to truly feel all right. Its now been 26 months, drad dog, and only a couple months ago did I start to have anything like normal sleep. I still have some symptoms, such as tinnitus, and in many ways, I feel I have been through a PTSD-type experience.

In my opinion, there are very few detox programs that are worth going into. I would only suggest one in very limited situations. One - if the person truly feels they cannot do a taper, then maybe going in patient would be okay. That is not a popular opinion around here, but I feel its the truth. Second, if the program is at least 30 days long, and starts each person on a slow, gradual taper, then it should be okay.

Only you can decide how serious you are about getting off the benzo, and how disciplined you are. If you believe you can do a taper, then please do that, and don't think about going into a detox.

east

I didn't do it inpatient but I did it exactly like my doctor wanted me to as if I was inpatient. I was given phenobarbital for 7 days and depakote to take for 6 months to a year. I think the depakote helped at 1000 mg but once I got off it I was still in bad shape. I CT off 4 mg of valium after I tapered from 30 mg. I'm still suffering 14 months later! I can't say a slow taper will be any better in the long run but it sure helps keep u sane I  your way off.

Hi Cool35,

  Im just curious: did you have an unusual Dr. Did he suggest this, or did you? Did he support you all through it?

DD

I got detoxed off 40 mgs valium while in severe tolerance. It was horrible but I hung in there and it worked for me. Hold on tight and congrats on finding a solution.

Hi dog, sorry but in my opinion there is no such thing as a "good detox" for benzos. Based on the dose of 6 mg of Ativan that you are taking now, and when 1 mg of Ativan = 10 mg of Valium you would be going c/t from the equivalent of 60 mg of Valium.

 

I understand you not wanting to taper for one year, but detox for some people can result in w/d and recovery for a very long time.......in some cases much longer than a taper. I am in month 33 and am still not completely healed yet. It took 2 years for me to have a 4 hour break from 24/7 symptoms. I have not had a sleep in almost 3 years without being shocked awake every 1 to 2 hours. I am sure you don't want to have that to deal with.

 

I am sure others will stop by and offer their opinion re benzos and detox and I suspect most will share similar experiences to me.

 

I wish you the best with whatever you decide to do, mandala

 

Mandala is right on all accounts. fwiw, I went into detox to get off 13 mg of Xanax which I had been taking for a decade and they stripped me all at once, plus they took away my 40 mg of Paxil the same day too. Needless to say it was a horror show to the nth degree and I ended up reinstating. Detox means detox. Even if they taper you off in a few weeks, it's not nearly enough time to do a proper taper. I wouldn't wish it on anyone. Never again.

If anyone knows anything about detox it's me... and let me tell you...it's not effing fun.

I've been detoxed off alcohol...piece of cake compared to benzos.

I got thrown on benzos and have been paradoxical since the beginning, they do not agree with me I didn't know what the hell was going on with me for a  long time and thought I'll just go to detox I've only been on 2 months....WRONG.

 

Detox #1 - Off the equivaleny to 11mg Valium

[b]Phenobarbital...oh what a nasty drug that is[/b], you feel drunk and retarded all the time. If you are lucky it will make you tired if not you'll feel wired and tired, it masks some of the withdrawal until they rip it away from you. Once they took it away from me I went insane...I went completely freaking insane. I had numbness down the whole left side of my body and nerve damage that was so painful I can't put it into words but I still get to experience it everyday now. I ended up in the hospital first in a padded room for 8 hours it was not fun. Then transferred down to the detox center where I really lost my mind. Everything in my body went nuts, my nerves were on fire, I couldn't eat, I couldn't sleep, I paced for 20 hours straight and I tried to kill myself twice. Once I reinstated boom back to normal...but the drug didn't work as good as it previously did which isn't saying much.

 

Detox #2.... HORRIFIC TORTURE. This was about 2 weeks ago. Off the equivalency to 9mg of Valium

I was on Gabapentin, Lyrica, Tegretol, Baclofen, Robaxin, Propranolol, Clonidine, and stuff like Ibuprofen and Pepcid. Withdrawal hit me day one... I was slammed out of my mind I thought it was bad I was like omg this is worse than last time because last time I didn't go nuts til day 10...well day 1 I started to really get hit hard. I thought oh okay this is as bad as it's gonna get.... WRONG. It got worse and worse and worse. I hallucinated every freaking day, aliens coming out of walls, ceiling vents dancing around, demonic voices, I was throwing up, I felt like I had the worlds worst hangover ever, everything ached, I had dp/dr like you wouldn't imagine, my tongue and mouth burned, my skin burned and was numb, I couldn't move my hands or feet, I couldn't pick up a fork or a pillow I was so weak, then shhhh really hit the fan. On day 8 I got put on a 5150 hold because they were going to release me from detox and I was like I am not safe like this you can't do that to me. So they put me in the psych ward. Yep. They took away detox meds except for Lyrica, Tegretol and Propranolol, they also made me take an antipsychotic because it was "required" for my insurance to pay....yep. I was sicker and sicker and got sicker and sicker. The mental torture I endured was  horrific hell each day it got worse and worse I was expecting it to plateau but it didn't it just got worse and I got weaker and weaker. I was lucky I got out of there and reinstated but guess what..reinstatement only worked for a day...yep and now I am in worse shape than before.

 

Do not make the same mistake....read the detox horror stories on here before you decide that is what you want to do. It is horrific.

 

Had done the C/T business twice just like her and I had the same symptoms and even more. I bet her list runs longer than posted. At least I was not 5150. I just ran out of there like hell and went home only to realize that NOTHING had changed. NOTHING!

Well i just want to ask: if you are intradose withdrawing, how do you get to a point where you can start a slow taper?

 

Interdose withdrawal is withdrawal between doses.  Many people who taper short acting benzos break up and spread out their dosing in even intervals throughout the day, to combat interdose withdrawal.  And some people do cross over to a long acting benzo like Valium to help with this.

 

 

Do you increase to a manageable place and then start? What if the Benzos don't work the same way anymore, and you can't drop the symptoms.

 

The need to increase ones dose to combat withdrawal does not sound like interdose withdrawal to me.  This sounds more like tolerance or relative withdrawal.  This is where the dose we have become accustomed to no longer works like it did before and withdrawal symptoms emerge while on our therapeutic dose.  It's possible to have both interdose as well as tolerance / relative withdrawal.

 

Hasn't anybody been in a program where they helped, consulted on stabilization, gave you a protocol, and let you go while you are on a taper assisted by Dr?

Thx

 

Since I never tried any kind of inpatient situation, I can't answer this question but I imagine this might be possible.  In fact, this would have been a dream situation for many of us ... to find a place to go where we could get stable and begin a taper.  The problem is that most doctors who are interested in this field are addiction type specialists.  Many of these doctors believe a cold turkey / rapid taper approach is best because they often do not believe withdrawal continues to occur past the time the benzos have cleared out of the system.  When withdrawal symptoms continue they often classify the situation as an emergence of the symptoms of the reason why the person was medicated with benzos to begin with or some other psychiatric condition emerging that was masked by the benzos.  This often becomes a situation of a psychiatric medication pre scripting cascade AKA, poly-drugging.  We have many members who wind up on significantly more drugs after a detox than what they were on when they went in and also facing more difficult withdrawal from the additional meds.

 

However, withdrawal often lasts much longer than many doctors believe, IMO.  I personally believe withdrawal symptoms will continue until our GABA receptors have up regulated, (literally grown back due to being pared down due to the benzo binding to them), and Glutamate receptors have down regulated, (paired back to normal because there is a hypothesis these receptors flourish in benzo withdrawal).  All of this leaves our central nervous system in a state of hyper excitability, IMO.  And CNS healing can be extremely slow, not like a broken bone or a cut.

 

If you will go to our Chewing the Fat section, there are several well researched articles pinned at the top of the forum that explain some of the things that are hypothesized to occur inside our nervous system related to benzos and you might come to the conclusion as I have, that a quick detox off benzos is ill advised.  In fact, I believe a quick withdrawal might cause symptoms to last longer than they would have lasted, had the person elected to taper off slowly.

 

We will of course support you no matter which route you decide upon. 

 

Great post. Right on.

 

This is so true.

That post describes to a T my horrific detox experience.

 

Just cut and pasted to my family.

 

THanks Mandala,

 

Satch

That post describes to a T my horrific detox experience.

 

Just cut and pasted to my family.

 

THanks Mandala,

 

Satch

 

The description of the detox is from Timeforachange....not me