Has anyone heard of anything like this

I was on 1-2mg Ativan for a weak and a half after going to the hospital with tachycardia, chest pain, shortness of breath, and lightheadedness. All obvious anxiety symptoms but the difference for me is that they all started while I was trying a super low carb diet. On keto flue message boards iv found people complaining about all these same symptoms and even a few story’s of people going to the hospital and them not finding anything. I dint know about keto flue at the time so I was scared and trusted the doctors for some reason. I think keto causes some kind of invisible electrolyte loss and when I added benzos to that it amped the withdrawal up x10.

Problems after quitting Ativan:

Random sweating

Random chills

Sensitivity to sound

Moments of smeared vision

Hearing voices before deep sleep

Waking up gasping for air

Random Feelings of fear hours at a time

Shooting pains

Trouble swallowing

Body twitches/tremors

Adrenaline surges with heart pausing

Feeling like I’m going to faint

Strong heart jumps

Heart vibrating/trembling when I lay down

Sensitivity to supplements

Extreme fatigue

Bouts of weakness in my arms

Numbness in my hands

Worsening of original symptoms

It’s slowly easing up but Im 6 months out and still have half those things including my original problems. iv basically been in bed all day thinking I was dying. I feel like a complete idiot who ruined his body. Maybe I’m just crazy but I wanted to warn people of the possible interaction, get peoples opinions, and get any helpful in-site

This is only a guess, but it sounds like two things are going on here. Keto diets are NOT healthy diets. They are a fad diet that many think will help them lose weight and get more fit. No diet will do that and almost always fad diets causes problems, such as water retention,, electrolyte imbalances and other things that can cause some weird symptoms.

If I read you right, you did not take benzos long at all. Yes, a very few people may have WD symptoms despite this, but it is a bit unusual.

I would suggest normalizing your diet asap. High protein low carb diets can and do cause problems in some people. You don't mention your age, and that might be a factor, too, or how long you have been on this diet.

east

I've been coming off and on to benzo buddies for four years.

I've heard 50-75 people tell your exact story, especially with Ativan.

They took a modest dose for 7-10 days, then stopped and had a full blown reaction.

The Keto diet stuff was a factor but incidental to the classic benzo syndrome story.

Most people snap out of it in 4-6 weeks or 4-6 months if there's derealization involved.

For some people's brain chemistry benzos are poison, like pouring battery acid on your brain.

The medical word for it is "Paradoxical Reaction."

Good Luck

Accused.  Anxiety can happen while following a low carb diet!  And low-carb diets can definitely cause electrolyte imbalances ...  make sure you are getting enough sodium, potassium and magnesium. Are you still following the keto diet? If so, make sure to put extra salt on your food.

Ativan is straight up from the devil. I took it for 2 months ...  in retrospect, I believe that I reached physical tolerance very early on ( probably within the first month).

It sounds like you’re seeing improvement in your symptoms.  I expect that this should continue until you’re back at your natural baseline.  It’s absolutely crazy how the human body can react when we mess with it

Hi,

As a person who has never been able to do Keto, here's my two cents.

What's happening when you withdraw from carbs is that your body needs to make glucose somehow. This is called "gluconeogenesis" (make new glucose). It mostly happens in the liver, but also happens in the kidneys, and intestines (I believe). When this happens, your body releases stress hormones (corticosteroids). If you're highly sensitive to stress hormones, you can experience panic, sleeplessness, heart irregularities, etc.

I've tried it a few times and my body disagrees with it entirely. Without carbs, I'll just stay up all night listening to my heartbeat tap "carbonara" to me in Morse code.

If you're dead set on sticking with keto and waiting to slip into ketogenesis, drink a lot of broth for electrolytes, and heavily salt your food. Your glucose is bound up with water, and when your body runs out of glucose, your electrolytes can become unbalanced.

Better yet, try a 20/60/20 carb/protein/fat diet and increase carbs until you stop feeling like you're dying.

We don't have so many evolutionary selection pressures nowadays, so we have to accept that some of us wouldn't make it in the wild without a a bowl of rice or potatoes regularly.

Good luck!

Any low carb diet is bad for you, there is a part of your lower bowel that is exclusively for digesting carbs and if it doesn't get them, it starts to do all kunds of funky stuff. It's also been found that too much protein can accelerate the aging process. Also, your brain needs carbs as it uses so many calories, you could litrally be starving your brain of the nutrients it needs.

The best diet you can have is lower protein higher carb, eat fresh with as much fruit and veg as possible. Look at the mediterranean diet, it's not a diet as such, more of an example on what healthy eating looks like.

I'd recommend eating a lot of things like blueberrys and salmon, things that are proven to help your brain.

I agree with Kam. I used to be very obese. Almost 300 lbs and I am not tall. I had a gastric bypass in 2003 to lose the weight. Then, I could barely eat at all for a year. Yes, I lost all the weight but now struggle to maintain a healthy weight. On benzos I dropped to 85 lbs. I am 5'3". A walking skeleton with large breasts (due to plastic surgery after the weight loss surgery!) Several years ago I went on an active campaign to gain weight. I am now up to 115 lbs and want to get to perhaps 125.

Extreme diets will NOT help you. Sensible eating can and will, as long as you do it. The mediterranem diet is VERY healthy and focuses on fish, leafy plants and fruits, plus healthy oils. ( Sorry but I cant spell right tonight! LOL!)

The truly weird thing about diets is they all tend to fail, because they are too strict. We do have cravings and we should satisfy them in small ways. Just don't over do that!

I personally was addicted to MacDonalds fries and Quarter Pounders with cheese. I could easily have eaten four a day, God help me. And you know what? I STILL miss eating that horrible stuff!