Insomnia and benzo withdrawal

Hi. I had bad insomnia this past October. After trying benadryl, melatonin and cannabis to no avail (and cannabis gave me nocturnal myoclonus which scared the helll out of me), I began drinking 2-4 shots vodka a night to sleep as that's the only thing that seemed to work. Then in November I needed 4-6 shots liquor a night and still couldn't sleep more than 4 hours, so I begged some sleeping pills off a relative.

I took Estazolam (Prosom) 1 mg a night, sometimes with 1-2 shots of liquor if I couldn't sleep with the pill alone. That continued for a month and I ran out of Estazolam. During that month I developed fasciculations (muscle fiber twitching) and numb and tingly feelings at random places during the day. (Interdose withdrawal or some underlying neurological issue?) 5 days after running out of the pills I couldn't sleep at all, and had widespread painful fasciculations all times of the day, and rhythmic myoclonus every 5-30 seconds if I try to sleep (myoclonus stops immediately if I open my eyes or sit up). I tried phenibut which caused an awful worsening of fasciculations and myoclonus. Alcohol (3-4 shots liquor) relieved symptoms but I still couldn't sleep even when drunk. By the 7the day without sleep I started having daytime myoclonus or partial seizures or something. Random parts of me would feel weird and then jerk repetitively for a few seconds without me losing consciousness. This happened dozens of times that day. I thought I must have CJD/Mad cow or brain cancer. That was early Jan 2019. Alcohol later relieved the seizures but I still didn't sleep. Does this sound like benzo withdrawal? I only took a therapeutic dose for a month (albeit with some alcohol). Could dependency develop this fast and with severe withdrawal symptoms?

Anyways after about 10 days without sleep and with horrific CJD-like symptoms, I got some diazepam and took 15 mg. Fasciculations went away. Took another 5 mg and noctual myoclonus went away too and I could sleep just like normal. I took 7.5mg/d diazepam for a few days after that and felt almost completely normal without insomnia or twitchings or anything.

Now 1.5 months later I'm on 2.5mg diazepam + 3.75mg zopiclone a day. Could sleep OK (6 hours fragmented) and have minor fasciculations and the occasional hypnic jerk (noctual myoclonus). Now I'm stuck. If I tried to reduce either the diazepam or the zopiclone, or if I tried to switch over to just 5mg diazepam, I don't sleep at all. The noctual myoclonus /hypnic jerks would get so bad I can have over a hundred of those and they keep me awake all night. I'm wondering if switching to zopiclone alone (since my main symptom is insomnia and hypnic jerks)  and then tapering it would be feasible. Zopiclone does seem to be a stronger sleep aid than the eqiv dose of diazepam

Hello, Eric – welcome to BenzoBuddies!

It’s great that you’ve been able to stabilize somewhat on the diazepam and zopiclone – now you’ll have a good starting place.

As you probably already know, both of those drugs, as well as alcohol, hammer the neurotransmitters that allow you to sleep. So I’d highly recommend that you ditch the alcohol immediately, because it’s not only unsafe when combined with the drugs, but it causes terrible sleep and early wake-ups. I’m not a doc, but I sure do remember it from my own old drinking days.

Next, you may want to choose one or the other of the two drugs, and then get on a dose on which you can stabilize. After that you can begin to taper very slowly from there. Members here can help you figure out a taper plan that will minimize the insomnia and myclonus, both of which will fade as you recover from the benzos – although that may take some time.

I'm glad that you decided to join the forum – our members have gone through benzodiazepine use and withdrawal themselves, so you'll find plenty of information and support here.

Here are a couple of links that may be a good starting place for you:

  General Taper Plans

  Withdrawal Support

Please take a moment to Create a Signature – you can enter your pertinent drug and taper history in the box at the bottom. This will allow members to see where you are in the process, so that they can better support you.

Looking forward to seeing you on the forum!

Leslie 

The Ashton Manual is an authoritative resource on what to expect during withdrawal and recovery. It provides information that can be very reassuring during any stage of this process, including a list of common symptoms with helpful explanations.

For those who are currently tapering, a starting guideline is that the dosage not be reduced faster than by 5-10% every 10-14 days, although some taper even more slowly than that. One exception: very short-term users of a few weeks or less may be able to taper somewhat faster.

Yes I agree with the alcohol and haven't been drinking since I started the diazepam. I'm still not 100% sure though benzo withdrawal is what i have as opposed to some horrible neurological disease like ALS or vCJD, cuz the symptoms overlap.

One encouraging sign was when one day after 3 hours awake in bed I got frustrated and got up and took a 1mg Estazolam, in addition to my usual diazepam and zopiclone earlier that day. Slept to 2 pm the next day and had no weird symptoms for a few hours after waking too.

I ordered some flumazenil from China. I heard it treats both acute and protracted benzo withdrawal really well. Am planning to make it into a DMSO based gel and apply 1-2 mg topically every few hours and see how that goes.