Phenibut withdrawal

Hi, to start off i should say i had a lorazepam addiction for 8 years, by the end of it i was up to 10mg a day. I booked into a detox clinic where they used diazepam to ween me off in 3 weeks. I had paws after that and ended up reinstating on diazepam at 15mg and spent a year tapering off that.

For some stupid reason i ordered phenibut from i herb and i liked it even more than benzos. It made me feel invincible and i was getting laid all the time. Always so calm but very quick witted.

I had only been taking phenibut for 5 months, and twice a week for those 5 months. Somehow my dosage increased to 15grams. I decided 7 days ago to stop and have been having some pretty serious withdrawals. Pretty much exactly the same as the lorazepam withdrawals. So far the only difference is that i dont feel as unattached from myself. But still finding it very hard to get out of bed. Be in public

Symptoms are paranoia, depression, no appetite (lost 4kg in a week) , extremely bad tremors, dizzy, tired, un sociable, hair loss and red eyes

 

I have been taking melatonin and seroquel at night to help me sleep which it does.

 

My real problem is i am going to see my phsych and also counciler tomorrow and i really dont want to have to tell them i got myself into this trouble agaim.

Is there anything at all i can do to seem stable?

Valium does nothing at all as far as these withdrawals are concerned

Would it be bad if i used 1mg of xanax for 14 days and then do a rapid taper? Or do i have a possibilty of becoming dependent again considering my past?

Hey Bigchinn, you need to reinstate on phenibut and taper it. 15g is a lot. I think I may be a phenibut lifer because like you, phenibut had an extremely positive effect on every aspect of my life when I first started taking it. It is quite an addiction. I stick with low doses but would really like to be off it some day soon. There is a compound called fasoracetam that you can take once or twice a day to reverse phenibut tolerance and withdrawal. You can also ask a doctor to prescribe you baclofen. Here is a case study that you can look at:

 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3604470/

 

Edit: I noticed you made it over 7 days. You should feel better by day 11 would be my guess. Not sure if you should reinstate at this point. That is insane how you CT'd such a large amount of phenibut. Your like a villainous superhero (:

That was my old account. I couldnt log in as my email has changed. The phenibut withdrawals lasted exactly 1 week. Even going cold turkey. Since then i have gone through several phenibut withdrawals. I decided to try baclofen recently and that was a huge mistake. For me, baclofen is much worse.

Anyone going through a phenibut withdrawal, just know that it doesnt last long.. Almost like a switch clicks and you are back to normal after 7-14 days. Do not switch to baclofen. It is a nasty nasty chemical.

It seems baclofen may be more difficult to withdraw from, I agree but phenibut WD is nearly as bad for me. Can you elaborate on your experience with baclofen. How long did you take it for recently? I recently swapped out one gram of phenibut for 10mg baclofen for several reasons, one being financial because I’m tired of ordering phenibut f.a.a. since the prices are higher. Im going to try to drop 1mg of baclofen every week along with 50mg of gabapentin for the next 10 weeks. Wondering if it would be easier to go back to phenibut and just drop 100mg per week instead now.

In my experience, phenibut is so much easier to tapee and has a much less withdrawal.

The reason for this is the same reason that people switch from xanax to valium, the half life is much longer.

Phenibuts half life is so much longer than baclofen, you only need to dose once a day.

I think 1gram of phenibut is more like 30mg of baclofen tbh

You could taper phenibut 250mg a day.

Ive done it before. I had a 3 day withdrawal, starting exercising on the fourth day and was fine. That was after taking 15grams of phenibut a day for quite some time

Yeh phenibut is not expensive if you consider some other mwdications and street drugs.

They banned phenibut in australia (so frustrating)

They will probably in america soon too.

I do however believe long term use of phenibut hcl at high doses causing bowel cancer.

I had 8 nasty polyps removed earlier this year. And was told that they are the kind that turn cancerous.

So get off it asap

I was never able to tolerate phenibut HCl for daily use. It would give me serious GI issues if taken daily, like liquid stools and cramps all the time. The only phenibut I can take daily is phenibut FAA, which just stands for free amino acid. I've gone back and forth from phenibut to baclofen at least 8 times these past few years, and I'm able to swap 1g of phenibut for 10mg of baclofen without much issues but I do it gradually. I do feel uncomfortable and there is some WD but the equivalent dose isn't much over 10mg from my experience. Now switching from 10mg of baclofen to 1g of phenibut I feel like I'm getting comfortably medicated. It's hard to say what the exact equivalent dose is but I'm assuming it may be slightly different. Phenibut's half life is a little longer and I also think it is overall easier to come off of. I'm going to order phenibut today and switch back to phenibut. I don't want to take baclofen anymore. I really only started taking it because I keep running out of phenibut cause I'm buying 40g containers. They are both such nasty drugs to take every day. I do need to get off it asap. I discovered I have a benign odontogenic cyst in my posterior mandible and I'm getting it treated at an oral and maxillofacial surgery clinic. I need to come off everything I'm on within the next 6 months and then get surgery. I figure if I'm not on any meds it should increase the chances of the cyst not recurring. But the doctors are going to need to do their part and remove every last trace of it. Despite these things being benign neoplasms they can come back and become malignant and they eat away at the jaw bone. I already lost a little bone in my jaw. I was never able to taper 250mg daily. I think I've just rekindled too many times on it. I've been on and off phenibut several times. It's never been so nasty. I'm going to order more and try to taper at least 100mg a week though. Those high school kids OD'd on it and that's why they banned it. Australia has tough borders it seems.

They bannes it before the high school thing. It was the same time they banned codeine. Anyway i hope you feel better soon. Soundsvlike you know what you are doing.

Also FYI phenibut faa turna into hcl in th stomach. It might be better for your teeth but its still doing damage to the liver, kidneys and bowel at anything about 1gram

 

I wonder why I never had the same GI distress from the f.a.a. then. I seriously just get sick to my stomach when I use the HCl. My blood work has been normal thus far but I try to take care of my self by eating right and exercising to process these poisons. I just put in an order for another 40g jar of phenibut f.a.a.. I'm thinking about trying to go on 1.5g of phenibut and just stop taking the baclofen. It will be a punishing drop for me though. My goal is to be on a gram or less of phenibut by July. Tapering baclofen is as bad as it gets. I just don't want to face that shit. I think it is potentially worse than benzo wd even if you do it too quickly. 

Yeh i agree with you there.

Baclofen seems to be physically worse. I cut off 150mg cold turkey.

I guess that is quite a bit but im not a stranger of taking 15grams of phenibut either.

Benzo withdrawals are more intense as far as anxiety though from my experiences.

I have never felt like i was going to have a heart attack as much as i did during baclofen withdrawals.

I detoxed a hell of alot of benzos in 3 weeks under medical supervision and my blood pressure and heart rate were extremely high and dangerous. It would be interesring to see what they were like after baclofen.

I find phwnibut withdrawals seem to be the worst in the mornings. For me when i want off it i just go ct and find that somewhere between 7-10 days i have no more withdrawals and things just get better. I must have rekindled on phenibut 15 times by now.

But im still in love with it. And i need to figure out a way to really control it.

Phenibut makes me just want to go abit crazy sometimes. I had about 15 grams, 6mg of xanax, two bottles of wine, 2 grams of weed and some coke one night. My tolerance was so high i felt like it was normal. I think if i had that same combination now i would probably not be alive anymore.

I hope your taper is not too bad. Take it at your own pace,

I see. My problem is anxiety. If my BP is too high I'll obsess over it until I panic which just makes it worse. Maybe if I was in a hospital under the care of doctors it would be different. I'm also using cannabis which can cause panic attacks for me if I take too much while making drops. I was drinking coca tea which has small amounts of cocaine in it but stopped because my anxiety has gotten so bad. I'm using small amounts of kratom now which seems to be agreeing with me more but it is a little too stimulating at times. I take matcha green tea in the morning for my caffeine fix usually or a small cup of black coffee. Caffeine relieves the pain and depression. How old are you? I'm 34. I'm assuming you are younger than me if you are able to cold turkey such large amounts. I've just been through too much. I've used opioids on and off since I was 18 and have been through quite a bit of trauma. I also seemed to have triggered a panic disorder from using lots of psychedelics as well some years ago before I started taking benzos after getting injured. This panic disorder can be triggered by cannabis unfortunately, especially edibles. I was using edibles everyday but had to take a break. I wish I could taper faster but I'm afraid of damaging my brain. Fear prevents me from making progress. I also can't stop dibbling and dabbling with all sorts of substances. I have issues with taking to many things and supplements. So are you all back to normal? Where do you stand now as far as how you were before you started messing with these GABA drugs?

 

I wonder if I should get a colonoscopy when I'm off this shit too now. How do you know if you have anal polyps? I did have a few hemorrhoids recently.

Im 32.

I noticed last year i saw quite a lot of blood when going to the bathroom twice. It was like haemaroid blood. I could tell it came from my bowel. I ignored it.

I was really sick this year and i didnt know it was mono, had some tests done and it was showing that my bowel was inflamed.

Phenibut totally destroys my stools. They are nwver solid and even months off they still never go back to being solid. Thats why i blame the phenibut.

But then again it could also be alchohol and smoking.

To be honest getting off gaba a drugs was a much longer withdrawal. Benzos really like to drag it out. Alot more symptoms too. Strangely enough i have never been physically sick from benzo withdrawal

Gaba b drugs have a much shorter withdrawal, but cause me to be extremely nauseous, especially in the mornings. I lose a lot of weight in a short time from throwing up so much.

 

The bp seems to be my problem too. The one thing that makes me feel better is exercise and i get scared to do it when my bp is high.

I notice occasional small amounts of blood on the toilet paper and had a few hemorrhoids. The blood seems from the healed hemorrhoid sacs tearing while wiping with toilet paper. Noticing small amounts of blood on the TP happened literally once or twice in the past year and it is something that has happened occasionally throughout my adult life so I don't know what to think. My rectum just feels soar from wiping all the time and I have had a lot of issues with IBS and a feeling like my bowels are frozen when I don't have enough meds in me, like phenibut or gabapentin. I feel like I need these drugs to get a bowel movement. My stools are usually solid but I can't say if they are ideal since I've been on a ketogenic diet. They do look overall normal I'm assuming.

 

I guess I need to make an appointment to see a GI doctor, which can finally justify my desire to get an MRI of my abdomen which I wanted to get to rule out any lesions. Since recently, I've been trying to get a thorough workup. I had an MRI of my brain, face, and neck, which is how they first identified the cystic lesion in my jaw. I got a bunch of blood work which all came out normal some how. Overall, I feel fine though.

 

When taking the HCl in the past my bowels were like water, were yours like that too?  What tests did you get done for you bowel troubles? It makes sense that some of the FAA can convert into HCl before absorbing in the SI but I'm not sure how much. I did notice some issues when I was taking larger amounts but not nearly as bad as the HCl. I got as high as 4g daily. Been taking this crap on and off for years. I switch to baclofen sometimes because the phenibut makes me feel like crap mentally but it could be related to my GI health I just never made the connection until now.

I personally don't have experience with phenibut withdrawal, but read a great articl e here https://www.ncsm.nl/english/nootropics/phenibut that should shed light on this topic