Nine Months Down...HOLY MOLE’!

Yesterday I was officially NINE MONTHS C/T JUMPED from a relatively occasional, short, and light course of Xanax for RLS. For the record, even before all of this, I don’t drink, don’t smoke, don’t vape, don’t snort, don’t pop ANYTHING — I am SUCH a boring broad! — and, consequently, had ABSOLUTELY NO idea about ABSOLUTELY ANYTHING when it came to stopping a prescription medication safely and properly.  I took approximately #60 pills over the course of about six months. My resulting story has been like almost everybody else’s on these boards: SHEER HORROR.

So far, I think I have had about 40 or so symptoms...the current worst, most persistent being:

*AGONIZING Internal tremoring

*AGONIZING External tremoring

*Buzzing electricity running through my body a vast majority of the time — mostly my extremities...arms, legs, hands, and feet...though it also shows up between my shoulder blades and just throughout my entire CNS

*Visible muscle twitches a vast majority of the time — also mostly in my extremities...arms and legs, mostly lower legs, though occcasionally my ENTIRE RIGHT EYE SOCKET FROM EYEBROW TO CHEEKBONE (I’ve had more than one guy mistakenly think I am flirting with him standing in line at Target. THINK I HAVEN’T?)

*Numbness, tingling on face, head, arms, and legs

*QUEASINESS

*JITTERINESS

*THE GURGLE, THE CHURN, THE SLOSH, and THE BURN in my GUT

*Lightheaded, Leadheaded...sometimes at the exact same time; go figure

*Chronic eye pressure

*Swollen eyes

*Blurry vision

*Burning skin

*And, for the past month or so, the most DELIGHTFUL spasms in my UNDERCARRIAGE, both front and back. HA!

And, as if all of that is not FUN ENOUGH...last Monday I went to a movie and lunch and accidentally ingested a walloping serving of caffeine (which I have not had a SINGLE drop of since C/T any and all a year ago) that came via a delicious, seemingly-innocent restaurant cheese enchilada combination plate that was DRENCHED in Mexican Dark Chocolate Cacao-based mole sauce. Seriously. It was like four shots of espresso to a nervous system that is already BARELY SURVIVING FROM MINUTE TO MINUTE AS IT IS. As careful and paranoid as I am about ingesting ANYTHING in my current state, it didn’t even occur to me when they brought the dish out that way, the way it comes default, that anything might be dangerously amiss. I just dug right in, and luckily only ate ONE of the pair.

Two hours later I honestly thought I was DYING. Nausea, jitters (worse than my USUAL WD jitters and that is SAYING something), cold, clammy skin over my entire body, the whole back of my head COMPLETELY NUMB. I honestly thought I might be having a stroke — until my husband came onto  the boards and saw that most CRAZY ROGUE WAVE incidents like these are caused from ingesting something verboten to those in WD and we fastidiously backtracked and uncovered the dastardly culprit. Since then, every morning  I have woken up REELING with a MEGAWATT Cortisol Spike (which heretofore has not been a regular visitor on my Symptoms List Of Hell) along with the usual Cortisol accompanying horrors. And, just to really ramp up the fun, I have also had daily agonizing jittery, shaky,  chronic reactive afternoon low blood sugars since The Fateful, Hateful Mole Incident...in the low to mid-70s no matter what I do/eat/don’t eat. And, as anybody who has dealt with chronic profound hypoglycemia during their WD knows...it is like WD PHYSICAL TERROR SQUARED. Anybody else have hideously unstable blood sugar through WD? DO TELL!

So, now I am just here riding it out in my little walnut shell boat until this unfortunate uptick settles down, praying for some calm seas in the currently crashing waves that batter me. Like all of us on these boards just trying to survive and heal and hope and believe, my entire life feels like some bad horror version of Groundhog Day. Honestly, in my entire life, I never even knew that relentless, seemingly-endless physical agony and suffering like this (that isn’t going to KILL YOU) even existed. I just slowly open my eyes every morning...in SHEER DISBELIEF that, after nine months, I am still here and that this is my life.

But, this I vow:

That no matter what...THIS BENZO B*STARDO WILL NOT WIN.

I WILL.

Neely

xoxo

PS) All of my love and thanks to the MAGNIFICENT Ms. Sofakingdone for getting me THIS far. You, my DARLING Sofa...are my wise, loving, patient mentor, nutritionist, savior, champion, and guardian angel...and I shall love you and cherish you UNTIL THE END OF MY DAYS...of which I have many left...so that’s a LONG, LONG  TIME. xoxo

Neely! Thanks for your story! I'm so sorry, that you have to suffer through this.

You were so strong, that made an effort to be among other people. We want to feel normal, and do things that belong to life.

And I know, 100%, how your body reacted - BAM! It's terrible, and so much suffering.

But you seem to be so strong, and you can do this. Together, we will find the light in the tunnel, we will do it!

Hi

I experienced the low blood sugar about two weeks ago and like you my withdrawal sxs ramped way up. I checked my sugar and ate a meal which made me feel better. When I start feeling bad I check my sugar now.