Southern star not shining well

I was given Valium 2.5 mg for 6 weeks for muscle spasm prior to spinal surgery in July 2017. After successful surgery I stopped taking it, mr dr had told me that it was perfectly safe and that I would not become addicted. I descended into hell and to cut a long story short was tapered far too quickly, the withdrawal symptoms of racing heart and severely elevated blood pressure resulted in me having a stroke in November of last year, the hospital directly attributed this to the severe withdrawal as I had had a full cardiovascular workup prior to surgery which had given me a clean bill of health. I am 63 years old with no history of any prior mental or physical health issues. I finally jumped off the Valium at 0.125 mg at the end of December 2017. Since then I have had horrific waves both mental and physical, I had been experiencing some windows but then month 5 was a nightmare, month 6 was tolerable and now I am going into month 7 I am in hell again. Thought I'd join BB as I feel very isolated and need support through this horrific journey.

Hello Welcome to BenzoBuddies!

 

Glad you found us, I am sorry for what you have gone through. I hope you are recovering as well as possible from your stroke.    It only takes a few weeks for the body to become dependent on benzodiazepines.  Any withdrawal symptoms are temporary but it can take quite a while for them to settle, you will eventually recover from this ordeal

 

We have many supportive and kind members here, I think you will find some comfort communicating with those who are in the same situation as you are.  Feel free to check out the forum and post to any of our dedicated threads.

 

The Ashton Manual is an excellent resource about these types of medication and their effect on the body.  It provides withdrawal information and includes a list of common symptoms 

 

I will leave a few useful links

 

Professor Ashtons Manual

 

Post withdrawal recovery support.

 

Cold Turkey Detox & Rapid Withdrawal Board

 

When you have a chance please write a signature line that will appear at the bottom of each post, describing your medication history. Here are the directions to do that: Create a signature

 

Welcome aboard

 

Magrita

 

 

Hello Southern Star,

I'm sorry to read of your getting t-boned like that. I am glad you're 7 mos. out keep it up. Maybe others will have some tips for post withdrawal, I'm not there yet. Just remember you are one day further away than you were. You will shine again! And, you'll be helping us in the dim spots.

Peace and hope,

Eutychus

Thankyou, this sure is the ride of a lifetime and not one I ever want to repeat.

Healing hugs to you

Hi southern star My sympathy to you of course I am to understand you never went back to any dose of Valium after going relatively cold turkey? Have you found any M

D's that specialize in these withdrawals? For me just a general MD prescribed this, so I assume Psychiatrists specialize in this I am very new to all of this, and just trying to understand

After I realised I was having severe withdrawals from the V I reinstated back on to 2.5mg daily, my generalist dr, (who had originally prescribed it for the muscle spasm whilst I was awaiting surgery), wanted me to taper off in one week, Yeah WTF??? I sensed this was not ok and so started a taper dropping 0.5mg a week for the first 3 weeks which was way too fast and sent me into a hell I cannot describe, when I reported this to my dr I was told "the withdrawals will end soon, you just have to tough it out". I never went back to that dr and saw another generalist dr who said she couldn't believe i was "so sensitive to the V", yep, again totally clueless but she agreed I needed to taper more slowly, so i then dropped by 0.25mg every 2 - 3 weeks which was still hell but I was pretty clueless too as I wasn't aware of BB and the help I could get here. My HR and BP were sky high hence the stroke. The drs in the hospital said that my cortisol levels were so high that they had damaged my blood vessels which had formed a clot in order to repair themselves. The massive glutamate storm that came with the severe symptoms caused my heart muscle to really rev up and go into an abnormal rhythm and dislodged the clot that caused the stroke. I finally tapered down to 0.125mg a day and jumped off that end of Dec 2017, so a 5 month taper in all and in hells kitchen all the way. Thankfully I have recovered from the stroke, but I guess what I am trying to say is that a slow, slow taper is the way to go. As for a psychiatrist, one thing I know now that I didn't get before is that withdrawals are not a mental illness so why go to a psychiatrist, we are suffering from a neurological injury caused by a drug therefore any mental symptoms are caused by the drug. I also found that neurologists, whilst being able to explain the process of withdrawal are unable to help really, the one person who did help was the cardiologist at the hospital who prescribed me a powerful anticoagulant to prevent another stroke (which I now have to take for life) and a beta blocker to ensure my heart rate stayed relatively normalish. The anger I feel at my generalist dr who prescribed this poison is immense. I will never trust any dr ever again, i will never take another medication again unless it is to literally save my life.