holding to eliminate symptoms

hello forum.

 

i am currently at 1.6mg down from 10mg and have experienced a lot of

rapid heart rate mostly at night when i am trying to sleep.

 

i have been holding now about 12 days and not much improvement. does anyone

have an opinion on this, i.e. think that holding longer will eliminate the symptoms.

Gets kind of scary thinking it may not improve since i have several months to go

here and the rapid heart rate is difficult to deal with.

 

thanks.

 

Hi Jerusalem.

 

If you've come from 10mg Val to 1.6mg since 09/12/14 it may be catching up with you. A good long hold may be what you need at this point. Also, things get harder for many of us, myself included, below 2mg.

 

I'm sure your current symptoms will improve eventually as you continue to hold. If they get worse, you could always bump it back up a little. I know it's been a bit discouraging for me to have to slow down at the end when what I want to do is sprint to the finish line, but that's the way it is for me. Good luck and try to be patient.  -UTC

thank you for answering my forum question.

 

you aren't on valium, what drug is that you are on?

 

it looks like you are about finished?

 

what kind of side effects are you having?

 

yes, i intend to  hold. i have had to hold only twice since i have begun. made it to 3mg before having to hold the first time. i will keep in touch.

 

have a good day.

 

i notice many have long holds as they get to the lower numbers. if you know diaz-pam who is no longer on the forum, she tapered 5mg valium over

2 years, and the last 9 months was 1mg after a three month hold. unbelievable.

thank you for answering my forum question.

 

you aren't on valium, what drug is that you are on?

 

it looks like you are about finished?

 

what kind of side effects are you having?

 

yes, i intend to  hold. i have had to hold only twice since i have begun. made it to 3mg before having to hold the first time. i will keep in touch.

 

have a good day.

 

i notice many have long holds as they get to the lower numbers. if you know diaz-pam who is no longer on the forum, she tapered 5mg valium over

2 years, and the last 9 months was 1mg after a three month hold. unbelievable.

 

That does sound incredible, but she jumped off basically healed. That's so encouraging!

 

Jerusalem,

 

I am too tapering Valium after c/o from Klonopin in spring of '12. Switched to liquid titration July, '13.

 

I am in my final days of tapering. I've been going slowly enough to maintain a decent level of functioning working part-time. I feel I've been doing a lot of healing over the past year. My main symptom still is general fatigue. I used to want to just lie in bed all day and could have slept away most of those days. Recently I've been able to get up a little bit easier. I've also lost a lot of muscle tone and gained weight around my stomach.

 

I have gotten very familiar with how my symptoms wax and wane according to how much liquid I cut daily. At this point, I'm reducing by just .005 mg/day. For quite a while, I was making good progress at .01 mg/day. If I try for .01 mg now, after about three days I start feeling achey, my head starts ringing and I can't sleep. So I hold for 2 -3 days and start feeling better again, then resume at .005 mg. I'm just going to stay there from here out.

 

I've got less than 5 ml left in my jar now after my draw and it's getting hard to get the liquid out accurately since my syringe gets all full of air bubbles. (I know, that should be your worst problem, right?) Still, I'm going to try to get down as close to zero as I can and hopefully be able to just "step" off rather than jumping and landing hard.

 

And yes, I am familiar with Diaz-Pam. I got to wish her well when she stepped off. She has always been a voice of reason around here and has helped a whole lot of people. I have followed her example of going as slowly as it takes to avoid needless suffering. 

 

Feel free to PM me if you like.  -UTC 

Hi there - I know you want to avoid any medications, but would  consider looking into atarax (hydroxizine) while your holding. Its an antihistimine (the old version of Zyrtec) with strong anxiolytic properties. 

 

When I get rapid heart rate at night from time to time I take one and it works very well. It has helped my during much stronger symptoms when I was doing Ashton cuts. Harmless.

 

Theres always green tea, sleepy time tea, etc.

 

M

 

hello murphy. looks like you are really finishing your taper, i am glad.

 

it looks like the hold is finally kicking in, after almost 2 1/2 weeks, ,so yikes.

 

i can't take antihistomes. anyway, i  do  have sleepytime, love all the celestial seasonings.

 

i will be taking a 3 month break, then starting up again first of july with a 1/2 ml cut, hope to finish the

end of the year if i have no further problems. but got plenty of pills--enough for 15 months without

even saving the drug milk, which i plan on doing.

 

so glad you are finishing up.

 

take care and i will keep in touch!

 

 

I had bad palpitations just under 4mg V equivalent, I was prescribed 10mg Propranolol to take every morning and that stopped the palps pretty much completely, 10mg Propranolol is an extremely low dose to be on, just do not take it at night as it can cause dreams to be strange (that is what I was advised by my doc).

 

Why suffer palps if you don't have to, lose the beta blocker much later on, losing 10mg should be pretty easy and not like benzo withdrawal at all... although they should be tapered slowly.

 

 

Either that one or Clonidine. Although the Clonodine isn't working as well as it has in the past for me,maybe because I'm at a lower dose of K.

agree completely with the beta-blocker. don't suffer when you don't have too.

appreciate all the comments regarding beta blockers. i am an asthmatic and some of the

drugs i can't use since the first side effect is the repression of the respiratory system.

 

hopefully the cardiologist has something i can use. i will keep everyone posted.

 

 

thanks again!

You can take an beta blocker at low dose if your asthma isn't severe - just a beta 1 selective (atenolol metoprolol toprol xl).

 

Good call to speak w cardiologist

thanks everyone for your input! after a month of holding and updosing a little bit, looks

like the symptoms may be abating. starting to taper again at 1/2 ml so i hope to go

as far as i can on it. we will see what happens.