How severe is your benzo withdrawal?

How severe is your benzo withdrawal? What score would you give to your degree of benzo withdrawal based on a symptom check against the list provided here - benzo withdrawal symptoms checklist?

This is in continuation to this post of mine.

As per google, 70% of humans suffer from a systemic candida infection. These people have diagnosed themselves to be suffering from "candida" by matching their symptoms with lists available on the net. What about benzo withdrawal?

Based on hearing the accounts of others here I don't believe that my withdrawal was quite as bad as it could have been but when you factor in that I have been dealing with this for a very long time I think it's safe to say that I have suffered with the best of them.

The only thing I know for sure is that this was the most difficult and painful thing I have ever experienced. I never could have imagined being this sick for this long and I know that I would never be able to handle going through something like this again.

Based on hearing the accounts of others here I don't believe that my withdrawal was quite as bad as it could have been but when you factor in that I have been dealing with this for a very long time I think it's safe to say that I have suffered with the best of them.

That is a very honest self-assessment I think. And yes, you have seen many come and go in the last ten years, so it isn't that you don't know how bad a withdrawal can get. I joined BB in 2012 but tapered only now. Almost all whom I saw when I joined have tapered and left. I remember you.

The only thing I know for sure is that this was the most difficult and painful thing I have ever experienced. I never could have imagined being this sick for this long and I know that I would never be able to handle going through something like this again.

I hear you. If you allow me to get a little flaky, I feel no one knows exactly what is going on in the universe. Why you are still in withdrawal is a big mystery. If you believe in God, you can say there is a reason behind it and that it is your challenge just as we have our own private challenges, or some, like me, have no challenges in a cushy life (at least not yet). I will leave you with the words of eli1111, who, I feel, had one of the most horrendous withdrawals:

My resentment built until one day it reached a climax. “Life’s not a vacation, you know,” I heard myself think. “Something happens to everybody—this is what happened to you. Some people win the lottery, others contract cancer or get hit by a bus. This addiction to benzos is what happened to you. You’re going to have to accept that. Being pissed of at the world is a waste of energy and it’s not helping you, so get over it.”

How severe is your benzo withdrawal? What score would you give to your degree of benzo withdrawal based on a symptom check against the list provided here - benzo withdrawal symptoms checklist?

 

If my back and neck didn't hurt so badly, I would actually be in decent shape . Sorry took a minute to knock on wood.  I expect to hear a big KNOCK from all around benzo buddies 

 

This is in continuation to this post of mine.

 

As per google, 70% of humans suffer from a systemic candida infection. These people have diagnosed themselves to be suffering from "candida" by matching their symptoms with lists available on the net. What about benzo withdrawal?

I hear you. If you allow me to get a little flaky, I feel no one knows exactly what is going on in the universe. Why you are still in withdrawal is a big mystery.

The thing is, it is kind of ridiculous to look at this as "withdrawal" after a certain point. It is pretty well accepted that after a certain period of time reinstatement won't work or at least it won't fully relieve symptoms. Being so far from my last dose I am certain that taking a benzo wouldn't relieve my symptoms. Judging by my reaction to alcohol I am guessing it would probably even make me sick.

If that's the case how could it be withdrawal? It's CNS damage, plain and simple, and if we look at it from that angle things start to make a lot more sense.

This seems like a rational answer to the candida question:  We All Have Candida and It's Okay

I'm the exception.

I hear you. If you allow me to get a little flaky, I feel no one knows exactly what is going on in the universe. Why you are still in withdrawal is a big mystery.

 

The thing is, it is kind of ridiculous to look at this as "withdrawal" after a certain point. It is pretty well accepted that after a certain period of time reinstatement won't work or at least it won't fully relieve symptoms. Being so far from my last dose I am certain that taking a benzo wouldn't relieve my symptoms. Judging by my reaction to alcohol I am guessing it would probably even make me sick.

 

If that's the case how could it be withdrawal? It's CNS damage, plain and simple, and if we look at it from that angle things start to make a lot more sense.

While I agree with you that it is no longer withdrawal, I do not agree that we know reinstatement will not work. I also do not agree that because alcohol makes you sick, benzos will too. Things are utterly unclear in the territory we are in and nothing is as simple or linear as we would like to imagine.

I am not saying that you should reinstate - how can I predict? I am also not trying to project that fundamentally man is ignorant (which is ridiculous skepticism).

Alcohol is way to complex to be comparable with benzos. It works in rehabs but I do not think anything more should be read into it. It works only to control seizures. I know so many alcoholics who rejected benzos after rehab -- it made them sick and not "high." Some went back to alcohol and some are still struggling.

I also do not believe you have CNS damage. That is another superstition we are cultivating. It takes a lot for a brain for get damaged like this. Even a damaged brain does not give up.

As a friend, I would urge you to seek alternative cures. Hypnotism (it is real -- we don't know how it works), meditation and consider other drugs. There are a lot of great psychiatric drugs out there in my opinion. But before assuming you "can" meditate or exercise, let me ask you a question. Is your lingering withdrawal just mental (poor cognition, ennui, low mood) or mixed (terror with bodily sensations, no appetite, tinnitus etc.)?

I have been around here long enough to know that after a few weeks reinstatement will not likely result in a favorable outcome. Many people have tried it and some seem to have gotten some relief from it but I can't think of one instance where reinstatement provided complete relief from symptoms.

As far as alcohol goes I agree that it is different than benzos, but there is no doubt that there is cross tolerance between the two and that's why benzos are used to prevent seizures during alcohol withdrawal. I am only guessing what taking a benzo dose now would do and we will never know because I had my last dose over 7 years ago and there is no way I will ever touch that poison again. I don't think it is a stretch to assume that I won't react well to it though.

If this isn't withdrawal and it isnt CNS damage, what is it?

Dr Breggin knows what these drugs are and what they do the human body- https://www.madinamerica.com/2018/01/what-really-call-psychiatric-drugs/

FG, because the subject of antidepressants is very close to me, I could argue with you till the cows come home. But before I do that, I should know whether you are interested in arguing to examine if Dr. Breggins is wrong and whether you could be wrong. I was reading about Christopher Reeves the other day and I am now reminded of what his wife, Dana, said to him when he suggested that he be allowed to commit suicide (this was when he regained consciousness after the accident):

After considering his situation, believing that not only would he never walk again, but that he might never move a body part again, Reeve considered suicide. He mouthed to Dana, "Maybe we should let me go." She tearfully replied, "I am only going to say this once: I will support whatever you want to do because this is your life, and your decision. But I want you to know that I'll be with you for the long haul, no matter what. You're still you. And I love you." Reeve never considered euthanasia as an option again.

A bit of interesting trivia: Dana died a year after Reeves -- she succumbed to lung cancer at age 44 (that was detected after Reeves died).

I have no doubt that some psych drugs have helped some people. Probably even saved some lives.

But what do the statistics tell us? Since the advent of psych drugs, the illnesses that these drugs are supposed to "treat" have increased exponentially. We have dozens and dozens of different drugs to treat depression, anxiety, ADD, bipolar, even schizophrenia. If these drugs actually did what they are supposed to do we would see LESS mental illness, but that simply isn't the case.

What it boils down to is that these drugs are nothing more than rough hacks to the CNS. They cause a myriad of different (often unpredictable) effects, some "desirable", some not. And the problem is that there is absolutely no way of knowing how any individual is going to react. Look up the side effects of any of these drugs. Are you going to be the one who generally benefits from the drug, or are you going to be the person who becomes suicidal? A friend of mine from high school took his own life after taking the acne drug Accutane. I'll bet he would have loved to have known more about the potential problems that drug could cause before he started taking it.

Will the benefits outweigh the drawbacks? Maybe the drug will provide a net benefit allowing you to live a better life. Or maybe they will provide some benefit while at the same time slowly chipping away at your health in general, completely unbeknownst to you. Or maybe they will make you want to kill yourself. No way of knowing and good luck finding a doctor who has a good understanding of these drugs and has a healthy enough amount of respect for the problems they can cause to actually be able to spot problems when they happen.

So you can espouse the virtues of these drugs all you want but the proof is in the pudding. I realize that if you believe that you are or have been helped by these drugs it is very difficult to acknowledge the dangers and when you are on the drugs the spellbinding effect https://breggin.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/spellbinding_psychiatric_drugs.pdf makes it very difficult to see the problems they might be causing, but if you truly value your health you will take this information into account when making decisions about whether or not to use these drugs.

FG, I am not sure when this discussion turned into about what I am being prescribed. But since you broached the subject, I must thank you for the concern. I do not intend being on prozac indefinitely. I started it only to overcome the debilitating depression I found myself in after I quit booze. I consulted BB then and figured that I must be suffering from tolerance-withdrawal. I also saw a few members use antidepressants to get stable, taper their benzo and then taper their antidepressant. I decided to follow in their footsteps.

Back in 2008, my doctor had misdiagnosed my benzo-withdrawal for a major-depressive-disorder (we both were ignorant then). I found out about benzo-withdrawal a couple of years later and promptly stopped my prozac. I did not get any prozac-withdrawals then. So I had no hesitation starting it again.

I'm almost done tapering my benzo. I'll start tapering my prozac after a couple of months for I have this sneaky feeling that prozac might be masking my withdrawals right now (I hardly felt the taper).