Need Help, Sharing Post with Parents That Are Cargivers

Hello,

I want to share this post with my family so that they can hear from other people.  My family doesn't believe me that I am still in withdrawal and they are looking for other answers (I'm depressed or their is some other medical issue). Last night my dad was frustrated and asked what my plan was. My mom thinks I am getting worse.  My primary symptom is brain zaps that leave me in bed for hours.  I have some restlessness and anxiety that comes and goes.  (If I do to much in a day the next day I get a lot of anxiety.) I can sleep most nights about 6 hours and I eat 2-3 meals a day.  I am now 7 weeks since I stopped. 

 

No one in my family has taken a benzo or known anyone that went through withdrawal.  The Dr. at the local clinic told us that she didn't think I was still in withdrawal because I wasn't on it long enough (I had it in my system for about 75 days).  Because she said this my parents don't think I am in withdrawal and that my medical problems are something else.  The Dr. and my parents want me to get an MRI of my head.

 

I am a 45 year old male that recovered from a medical crisis at my parents (gallbladder surgery that did not go well).  I consumed Valium (5MG) and Xanax (.5MG). I consumed the Valium in 1/2 doses over several weeks and most of the Xanax in 2-3 weeks.  I was in bed for 2+weeks in a lot of pain (that is when I was prescribed the Xanax).  The Valium withdrawal was causing cramps in my stomach and affecting the healing of the wound.  Once the wound was healed I figured out I was having withdrawal symptoms in between doses of Xanax in the morning.  So I stopped taking it.

 

I tell them that recovery is not linear and there is no defined recovery time-frame.  I also want them to know that I am not dying and that I will get better.  (no prior medical tests have shown any problems and the surgery is 100% recovered).

 

Please post a reply so I can have them read this.  Thank you.

I used benzo's for a short period. I guess it would be considered recreational use.  I was quitting suboxone, and used the benzo's to help me through the suboxone withdrawal. After several weeks of usings them, I was off of suboxone. For the first day xanax free, and 3-4 weeks suboxone free, I felt fine. The second day I did not sleep. That continued. By day five, I could not funtion at work. I was forgetting everything. A union representative came to speak with me about a grievance I put in. I couldn't even remember why I put a grievance in. I told him to call me later. I couldn't even remember my phone number. Once I realized I was now in benzo withdrawal, I began taking 1/3 of the dose I was taking over several weeks. I was still in withdrawal. My body was constantly tingling from head to toe. Cold chills, pins, and needles, covered my body. I could not sleep. I continued using that dose, and stayed in a state of withdrawal for nearly two months. I found a doctor to taper me. I am still not benzo free. I have been tapering since, I begin my taper started in February. I am in a constant state of mild withdrawal as I slowly taper my way down. Every two weeks I make a drop. Sometimes I can't even handle dropping .125mg of benzos. My doctor put me on gabapentin to help the withdrawal. Even with the gabapentin, I am still in withdrawal. I dropped another .125 two days ago. I am confused, shaky, forgetful, and in a constant state of fear. I get split second thoughts of suicide quite often. I shake the thoughts off, they just pop into my head. I was put on remeron to help with sleep and anxiety. I feel like nothing is helping. The Benzo's are overpowering. I am still taking two 1.375mg of klonopin per day. I have quite a long time to go before I am benzo free. There are plenty of success stories you can show your family. People that suffered for years before being symptom free from benzo's. What I planned to be a three week stent of benzo use, has turned into nearly a year on benzos, struggling the whole way through to get off of them. This drug is a nightmare, and there are thousands of people on this website that can confirm that it is hell. I hope you get through this.

To anyone reading this who is wondering about the people afflicted with this.

 

I had NO idea what these drugs could do, and here i am nearly 14 months off them and STILL suffering pretty badly.

we all actually do a disservice by calling it withdrawal, its more like a brain injury, our nervous systems are haywire and wreaking havoc on our lives.

 

its basically torture this ordeal, its the single hardest thing ive ever experienced by a million miles.

dizziness, phobic to everything, bowel problems, vision and balance distorted, feeling of about to pass out every moment, adrenaline surges, super panic attacks, massive fatigue, the list goes on and on and its all happening at once. its like being sick with 20 illnesses at the same time.

 

anyone whos suffered from anxiety, this is 100 times worse, like literally, i didnt know a human could be tortured like this.

 

i know i sound overdramatic to people who are just hearing about it, but i assure anyone who's reading this its not, words cant even do justice to how messed up we are from this, its awful, its nothing to do with withdrawal in the movies or being in a cold sweat for 3 weeks then basically being fine.

 

its an injury, and life and existence have been turned completely upside down. i had my life in good order, i was in the gym, i was sober, i was working, i have goals, but oh man it all came crashing down as i could literally barely walk through a lot of this.

our nervous systems are on fire basically, we are super super sensitive to any forms of stimulation, even down to conversations with people. its like if you even have a fiery conversation with someone, where in normal life you get alil worked up but youre fine, in benzo withdrawal, that tiny amount of worked up can lead to extreme discomfort, adrenaline spiking, and flight or fight going into high gear, which it is already. you get woozy and dizzy.

 

its truly a unique and practically indescribable hell living like this. drs dont acknowledge it, hospitals dont acknowledge it, they mostly seem to have no clue of the effects of these drugs on some of us. have compassion for those who are going through benzo withdrawal, its sincerely a hell on earth. the families and partners of people going through it are frustrated because they dont recognize just what the hell this is, or what they can do to help. they cant realize how difficult the simplest tasks are to the afflicted person.

 

perusing through these boards one will start to get a sense of how deeply affected people are. again, it all sounds a bit overdramatic to say the least, but its not, its sincerely torture this condition. sometimes you can barely walk. our heart rates kick up, our blood pressure, you feel like passing out or going unconscious all the time. stress and strain just flat out hurt.

 

i wish there was more understanding about this, its beyond what people could possibly imagine who havent gone through it.

 

i know, again, this sounds overdramatic, it isnt, it doesnt even scratch the surface. there are people who have experienced very serious illness who say benzo withdrawal is much harder to endure. its crazy.

 

good wishes and my best to everyone going through it or standing by someone who is.

some compassion is tremendous through this

To the famiy

 

I was on baclofen (simiar to benzos) for 2 weeks on a low dosage and suffered horrendous withdrawal. My withdrawal syndrome was also diagnosed by a neurologist who recognised it as withdrawal! She signed me off work for one year to start with.

 

Unfortunately doctors are not familiar with withdrawal syndrome. Pharmacists have a better understanding. Its not always time on the drug but what the drug has done..the action it does..it resets the nervous system so when you withdraw the brain takes time to catch up and go back to normal. Ive had over 100 symptoms. Its been the worst experience of my life.

 

 

Shania

 

 

To the famiy

 

I was on baclofen (simiar to benzos) for 2 weeks on a low dosage and suffered horrendous withdrawal. My withdrawal syndrome was also diagnosed by a neurologist who recognised it as withdrawal! She signed me off work for one year to start with.

 

Unfortunately doctors are not familiar with withdrawal syndrome. Pharmacists have a better understanding. Its not always time on the drug but what the drug has done..the action it does..it resets the nervous system so when you withdraw the brain takes time to catch up and go back to normal. Ive had over 100 symptoms. Its been the worst experience of my life . Ive lost my job as a result. Please read Heather Ashton's work.

 

 

Shania

Benzo withdrawal takes many forms and each person who takes these drugs react a bit differently. They are powerful drugs that affect the brain. The brain controls everything about a person, every function,l every sense - everything! If a person takes a drug that affects the brain, there will be a lot of surprising consequences.

 

Benzodiazepines are very powerful drugs. And they work on the human brain.

 

No one knows why, but some people seem to be super sensitive to their effects, and also super sensitive to getting off them. Tapering off these drugs, or going "cold turkey" can be extremely difficult for some people.

 

Your history is complicated because you also had surgery. It is common medical practice to give IV benzos before giving you anesthesia.

This is standard OR procedure and nothing for you to worry about.  Your body has to heal from the surgery, and now you are also telling it to heal you from taking benzos. And this is perfectly fine! Your brain WILL recover from this. Temporary brain damage from taking benzos does not mean a lifetime of hell. Withdrawal can be very unpleasant but it can be gotten through. Put yourself first right now. You have to heal yourself before you can help anyone else.

Did yall look at his dosage history? He used a total of four 10mg valium and four 2mg xanax. If he is still in severe suffering at two months  out i believe something  else could be going on and he should see a physician for testing.

You have the history all wrong.

 

I took about 25 doses of Xanax (I had 15 pills at .5MG.  Broke most of them in half and took them over 3 weeks).  Prior to that I had qty 10 valium that I broke in half, so they were 2.5MG.  That works out to 20 doses of valium, prior to the Xanax.

 

I've been to a Dr.  No tests have found anything.

I was referring to your actual intake in miligrams. Theirs a huge difference between “one dose” of a 2.5 valium vs. “one dose” of a 10 mg valium. There are FOUR doses of 2.5 mg of valium in ONE dose of a 10mg valium. So when i stated you took four 10mg of valium and four 2mg of xanax i was correct in the amount of mgs you took. Both xanax and valium come in those higher doses and many people take those higher doses. If a guy took “two doses” over the weekend of 10 mg valium and you took “two doses” of 2.5 mg valium the other guy actually injested four times the amount you did even though you took the same amount of doses. Similar to a shotglass of beer vs. a shotglass of whiskey. Even though they are the same “doses” you will be much more affected by the whiskey because it has a higher alcohol content. Hope this clarifys what i said earlier. Good luck! Ps. Also-i believe if you “reinstated” from taking essentially a weekends worth of pills you would view that as the biggest mistake of your life. You already got 2 months under your belt and you are close to this ending in my opinion with my decades of benzos use. Reinstatement is no panacea. You still must face the demon eventually and it would probably be much worse then it is now given your extremely minimal amount of use and your seemingly sensitive metabolism to benzo wd. I know a xanax sounds terrific at this moment but you must fight this beast and see it thru. Good luck to you and your parents who are also dealing with this. Itll be over before you know it!

The combined was 7.5mg of Xanax and 50MG of Valium.

 

I had this stuff in my system for several weeks.

 

Thank you for the feedback.

Aw, quit arguing over dosages! That is not the point.

When someone goes off benzos suddenly, they may suffer through some form of withdrawal. NOT everyone does. Just a few special people get to go through this mess.

 

We are here to help each other, offer support and suggestions on how to deal with all those awful symptoms.

Thank you

I took .5mg of Xanax in the evening as prescribed for only 4 weeks (as a sleeping pill) before I became dependent and began to experience inter-dose withdrawal symptoms (psych symptoms I never had before the Xanax such as agoraphobia and memory loss and confused thinking, and physical symptoms I almost never had before such as nausea and weight loss).

 

I have read of many other cases of people who have become dependent in a month or less. Once you are dependent, a slow, symptom-based taper is your best way off. If you rapid-tapered or quit abruptly, your withdrawal could be quite severe. And it could last a long time.

 

If you read the signatures of the members, you will see a pattern. The faster the person tapered, the more likely they are to have severe and long-lasting withdrawal. Benzo withdrawal is a unique kind of suffering, hard to compare to anything else. This is because benzos damage GABA receptors, which we have throughout our nervous systems. It is a huge job for the nervous system to repair itself from systemic damage.

 

BTW, I also find that if I over-exert myself, I get increased anxiety. I try to give myself a lot of reassuring self talk. "This is normal withdrawal. Let time pas. It will get better. My brain knows how to heal." Over and over. The best thing your family can do for you is reassure you when you are fearful. Over and over.

 

All that said, it does not hurt to have a check-up to make sure there isn't something else going on on top of the withdrawal. A primary care doctor would do this. I had my heart palpitations checked out. All tests came back clear, so my primary doctor said to just relax and wait for them to pass. I had my vertigo checked out. That turned out to be an inner ear problem, not the benzos.

 

Another BTW, doctors are generally clueless about the effects of benzodiazepines. Here's a link to a site that is up-to-date. Its advisory board includes doctors, pharmacists, and therapists who are keeping on top of the latest research and are helping sound the alarm about the dangers of benzodiazepines and the difficulty of withdrawing. http://benzoinfo.com/board/  If you click around on this site you will find lots and lots of useful information.

 

There is info out there for anyone who wants to look for it. Problem is, most doctors don't take the time. So you need to be your own advocate. I'm very fortunate that my family supports me and advocates for me, too. I don't know how I'd make it through this without them.

 

Gard

Thank you for the post.  I’m going to talk to my Dr Monday about reinstating the Xanax, stabilizing and then tapering.  Considering the last pill I took was a Valium the drugs have been out of my system for 5.5  weeks.

 

Btw, when I was taking the Xanax dose in the early morning I was getting WD symptoms every morning.  It was like am adrenal surge and a hot flash combined.  Within minutes of taking the dose, the WD symptoms went away.

 

My body couldn’t stand the Valium.

Thank you for the post.  I’m going to talk to my Dr Monday about reinstating the Xanax, stabilizing and then tapering.  Considering the last pill I took was a Valium the drugs have been out of my system for 5.5  weeks.

 

Btw, when I was taking the Xanax dose in the early morning I was getting WD symptoms every morning.  It was like am adrenal surge and a hot flash combined.  Within minutes of taking the dose, the WD symptoms went away.

 

My body couldn’t stand the Valium.

 

Just a heads up, my original prescriber had me dosing Xanax only twice/day. It is a very short-acting drug. Unless you are a very slow metabolizer, once you are dependent, you are going to have inter-dose withdrawal, and it can be nasty. When I was a wreck from my original prescriber's negligence, I switched to a psychiatrist who recognized the inter-dose withdrawal and switched me to dosing 4 times/day. I took the same total amount of Xanax but divided into 4 parts. My symptoms went away just like that. Xanax comes in a liquid form that makes it really, really easy to dose in smaller amounts more often. Liquid is easier and much more accurate than pill splitting.

 

I suggest you look for advice on Benzo Buddies about reinstating. I know the quicker you do it the more likely it will work.

 

There's also a support group called the Long Hold support group. The members are holding at their current doses for a long time (months) to stabilize before they resume their tapers. I did it myself when I tapered too fast. I held for nearly a year. Once you get badly destabilized (sounds like you are), it's important to get stable again before starting to taper. In the "old days" people pushed through nasty symptoms as fast they could thinking the faster they got off, the faster they would heal. Except in cases of adverse drug reactions (rare, but it happened to me from a different med years ago, so I sympathize) we have found that is not true. The nasty symptoms are a way of your nervous system telling you that you are tapering faster than it can repair itself, and you need to slow down or risk a big post-taper crash.

 

Those of us who are sensitive to benzodiazepines will have symptoms no matter what. You will need support from your family, especially while you are getting your feet back under you. It could take awhile, but you'll get there.

 

Gard

Aw, quit arguing over dosages! That is not the point.

When someone goes off benzos suddenly, they may suffer through some form of withdrawal. NOT everyone does. Just a few special people get to go through this mess.

 

We are here to help each other, offer support and suggestions on how to deal with all those awful symptoms.

 

You musunderstood me EC. He did five 10mg valiums and three  2mg xanax. Total. Have you ever heard in your life someone suffering for 2 plus months-horrendously-for taking essentially a weekends worth of pils?  Thats not even getting into valium to Kpin equivilance ie 50mg of valium is what, 2mg of Kpin? Something like that. What if a guy came on this site and said he did three valiums and hes still suffering months later? What is your cut off point to where you think something else may be at play here? Five valiums and two xanax? What if it were three valium and one xanax? Two valium? What is our  cut off point to where you think the benzos may not be the real culprit? Simply curious. The OP made it clear his “parents are his caretakers” and dont believe him. Ive never heard someone suffering so much after injesting again-a weekends worth of benzos.  Not even close. Have you? So back to my original point: I continue to believe something else may be at play and the op has possibly another issue going on besides benzo wd because again, i have never known even a single person to suffer so much over so little-and i personally have taken equivalent dosages several times thruOut life with minor effect. Certainly not months of suffering. And now the op is going to “reinstate” the xanax because everybody assured him that it is only benzo withdrawal. Reinstate from what? His minimal low dose usage was essentially already a “taper.” So hes reinstating xanax from a five 10mg valium and three 2mg xanax usage history? What would you do EC? If you used the same amount the op has and then you kicked for two months would you reinstate? I believe he is close to being completely healed (because of his usage history) and reinstatement from such a minimal amount to begin with would be an absolute disaster and prolong the op’s suffering by leaps and bounds.. Do you really believe its wise to reinstate after using so little to begin with? Especially after hes got two months under his belt now? Because thats what everybody just talked him into and i believe it would be the biggest mistake of his life because if he is struggling to kick such a minimal habit even at two months out, when he is SO close, then his “taper” may end up him becoming a “lifer” and him having to deal with this madness for years  to come, along with his parents who are caring for him.

I would give your family and physician this to read: http://benzoinfo.com/faq/ It explains things about benzos that most families and the medical community don't know. We also have Christy Huff, a cardiologist, as a member here on BB. She is now tapering and has gone through her own harrowing details with this. Benzos are considered long-term more than 2-4 weeks. So your doctor saying that you couldn't be in withdrawal at 75 days is utterly WRONG. It sounds like she's clueless, as so many of our doctors are.

Windwalker, stop.  You don’t have the dosing right at all. 

Old studies done in the early 1980s using diazepam tried to study the development of physical dependence.

 

I don't have the exact numbers. The greatest predicator was daily intake of diazepam for a sustained duration of time. 6 months ? About 50 % developed withdrawal symptoms after stopping the drug. (no taper)

 

If you want the exact numbers you'd have to look for the studies yourself, done in the UK in the early 1980s.

 

There are many variables, and duration of intake (days, weeks) is likely more important than dose.

 

gettingoffthisbus, please keep in mind that diazepam has a long half life and even more so if you include the metabolites. Again, I have no source at hand but it has been stated that after taking diazepam for some time it can take up to two months to get all the benzo out of the system.

Diazepam itself accumulates 5-8 times the daily dose, then there is desmethyldiazepam with the very long half life (50-100 hours??) and oxazepam and temazepam.

Please carefully consider the implications of reinstating.

I have to work and manage my life.  Thank you for the feedback/post.

offthisbus, I believe you are suffering from withdrawal. If you took a benzo for a month, you can be dependent and experience withdrawal. Xanax is known for causing particularly nasty withdrawal symptoms. That said, I hope you have researched reinstating. It doesn't always work. The sooner you do it, the more likely it is to work, but I don't know what would be considered soon enough. You might want to start a separate thread asking for people's experience reinstating.

 

Gard