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Help! Hitting a brick wall at 2mg zopiclone...


[Su...]

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Hello All,

 

I thought I would share with you my journey through hell...

 

Anyway, first some background info: I took a course of corticosteroid for 6 weeks until end of November last year and developed severe anxiety and insomnia as side-effects. The GP prescribed me zopiclone in October and, when that wasn't enough, prescribed me diazepam in November.

 

By end of November, I had been taking 7.5mg zopiclone per night for 1.5 months and 4mg of diazepam for 4 weeks. My GP, alarmed, refused to repeat prescription for both. I went into a withdrawal shock and developed severe tinnitus and anxiety (along with many other horrible withdraw symptoms - see below).

 

After repeated complaints, my GP put me back on zopiclone (one and a half 3.75mg tablet, so 5.6mg). I decided to taper down zopiclone, reducing my dose on a weekly basis by a quarter of a pill (i.e. reducing by 0.93mg on a weekly basis). The first 2 weeks of December were very difficult but then things started to improve a bit.

 

I continued my Zopiclone tapering and am now at around 2mg (well, one half of a pill, which is 1.88mg, plus a tiny fraction of the other half, which I guess makes overall quantity equal to circa 2mg). This is were I hit a brick wall: anxiety, insomnia, severe depression, debilitating pelvic cramps, diarrhea, restlessness, etc. Of course, the tinnitus (and hyperacusis) are still with me :-(

 

I don't think I could get lower than 2mg now until I feel better with the dosage (2mg). I do not know how long it will take for me to get better. Any idea how long people take on average before moving on to the next taper dose?

 

* Is my tapering too fast compared with others?

* Is dry-tapering appropriate? The Ashton manual says that dry tapering on zopiclone is possible but the pill size makes it difficult to obtain consistent amounts when cutting it. Any views on that?

* The Ashton manual also talks about crossing over from zopiclone to diazepam as diazepam has a much longer half-life making interdose withdrawal symptoms more bearable I suppose. Any views on this? Anybody managed to withdraw off zopiclone without crossing over to diazepam?

* Are there any successful withdrawal off zopiclone who would be willing to share their experience?

 

Regards,

SurreyGuy

 

 

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Hello SurreyGuy1976,

 

Can I ask, when you started back on the Zopiclone, did you feel completely better or were there some lingering symptoms?  I guess I'm trying to figure out if your issues now might be related to the Valium withdrawal as well as the Zopiclone?

 

Pamster

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Hi Pamster,

Thank you so much for taking the time to reply my post!!!

To answer your question, yes I did experience very similar (perhaps worse?) symptoms after the GP cold-turkeyed me on both diazepam and zopiclone. This was on December 3rd. After complaining, I was put back on zopiclone on December 5th.

My symptoms (in particular tinnitus) improved after a couple of weeks (December 17th) - though tinnitus is still loud and more than annoying. Throughout this time, I have been tapering zopiclone from 5.6mg to 4.7mg (by December 17th) and now (today) I am down to 2mg...

So yes, it could be diazepam post withdrawal symptoms (I have been off diazepam for a month now) or it could be the zopiclone...

I was just wondering if your knowledge of other people experience may shed any light on my case.

Keep up the good work at BB and again, thank you so much.

SurreyGuy

 

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I'm so frustrated to know your Dr put you back on the Zopiclone instead of the Diazepam, it would have been so much better to taper from!  Zopiclone is so short acting, you're probably noticing withdrawal symptoms increase the further away from your dose you get, it's designed this way to allow users to wake up refreshed.

 

I'm of the opinion your symptoms are related more to the Diazepam than the Zopiclone, but be that as it may, this is where you're at.  I know Professor Ashton mentions crossing over to Diazepam to taper but with your relatively short time on the drug, I hate to see you do this.

 

If it were me, I'd keep tapering the Zopiclone pushing through the symptoms, once off of it completely I think you'll begin to feel better, at least the interdose withdrawal symptoms will be gone.  I quit Ambien, another z-drug cold turkey and aside from some insomnia and bad dreams when I could sleep, I felt better in just a few days.  I'm not recommending this for you, I'm just incapable of tapering, I have issues.  ;)

 

Hopefully others will stop by with suggestions, that's the great thing about peer support, lots of different ways to look at things.  :thumbsup:

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Well, to be fair to my GP, he asked me which one (out of zopiclone and diazepam) I wanted to continue and I picked zopiclone on his advice (he said zopiclone is not as bad as diazepam though, after reading the Ashton manual and your message, I realise this is not quite the case when it comes to tapering).

 

Anyway... I too think it makes sense for me to continue with the zopiclone as I feel I am not too far from completing my tapering.

 

My main concern is the tinnitus... it is still quite loud after 1 month but I hope, once I have completed my tapering, it will gradually reduce to a level I can live with... I hope... I am not banking on it completely disappearing. From what I read, it's one of the most protracted symptoms... :-( but maybe there are some success stories where tinnitus went away?!?

 

Peace & love,

SG

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@[Pa...]

 

Well, I managed to break through that 2mg zopiclone brick wall after all!!! I went to 1.88mg and had a couple of good nights and decided to further taper as it was more or less a week I was in the 2mg-1.9mg "zone". I am now down to 0.94mg...

 

Last night was my first night at 0.94mg. Needless to say, it wasn't pretty  :crazy::idiot: (no sleep I believe).

 

SG

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Congratulations on breaking through, of course, that means no sleep so not sure why we're celebrating!  :tickedoff:  You're going to get there, natural sleep is so wonderful, I'm still so grateful to be free of nasty Klonopin and Ambien, I just know you'll get there too.
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@[Pa...]

 

A quick update on my zopiclone taper.

 

I have been on 0.94mg zopiclone (i.e. a quarter of a 3.75mg pill  equivalent to 0.625mg of diazepam) for nearly seven days....

 

Tomorrow was supposed to be the day when I jump but it won't happen. I had a sleepless night when I went down to 0.94mg last Thursday and I had another sleepless one last night which puzzled me and freaked me out in equal measures becausr the previous nights were ok-ish (not great but manageable). It seems I have not stabilized at 0.94mg yet hence the decision of  not jumping/further tapering until I get a minimum amount of sleep.

Painful w/d symptoms: insomnia, anxiety, abdominal cramps and back muscle spasms, loud tinnitus.

It's so hard to take all that in I need to share my misery with other BBs hence this message...

I fear I may updose in the end which annoys me...

SG

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Yuk, I can feel how miserable you are, no sleep on top of all of the other symptoms. 

 

I quit Zolpidem cold turkey, I'm not advocating that, it just seems to be the only way I know how to do things.  What if you sped up your taper instead of slowing it down?  I know you're miserable but it looks like you're going to be miserable anyway.  Once I got off the Zolpidem, I began to feel better almost immediately, within 24 hours.  I still had difficulty sleeping, but the interdose withdrawal and most of the symptoms were gone.

 

Ashton had people jumping off of Valium at 1 mg, I know some go down even lower, but jumping at .625 or .5 isn't unheard of.

 

Let me know your thoughts and please, we'll support you no matter what you decide, I'm just providing a different point of view.

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@[Pa...]

In the end, I updosed a bit (1.06mg instead of 0.94mg). Not a big deal given that my tapering has been in constant 0.94mg increment. Also I am doing dry tapering and conscious of the limited accuracy of the scale I am using. I will do a couple more evenings at 0.94mg and then jump over the week-end... I agree that prolonging the tapering may only prolong the suffering. I can afford to be non functional over the next few days and will aim at jumping. Fingers crossed.

Your message has given me hope!

SG

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You have a plan, I think just taking control of this situation instead of it controlling you is empowering, good for you!

 

You know you're not going to sleep, you're doing this when you can afford to, you're accepting what will be and this can give you strength to do what you have to do. 

 

I hope it brings you to the other side, life is so good without this nasty drug. I'll tell you that Ambien gave me the darkest thoughts, they scared me pretty bad, so I have a healthy fear of Z drugs.  Please come back and let us know how it goes. 

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Ok, so I jumped last night (the previous night I was on 0.85mg of zopiclone). I was very apprehensive given the traumatic experience I had in December.

 

As anticipated I did not sleep well (woke up a few times but had no problem falling asleep) but felt surprisingly refreshed in the morning. It seems the anxiety and, above all, the depressive mood have both vanished overnight. Tinnitus (faint, very high pitch hiss/ring) and abdominal cramps remain, though they are not as bad as they were say 3 days ago.

 

I do not know if this general improvement of my condition will be short-lived or not. Hopefully, I am now benzo-free and this is the start of my post-withdrawal recovery.

 

SG

 

PS: I will post a copy of this message in the Z-class support group.

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I'm so glad you checked in, I've been waiting for your update, and it sounds great!  The same thing happened to me, as soon as I had the drug out of my system for about 24 hours, I felt wonderful.  The dark thoughts, the anxiety, the trembling, all gone.  Of course, I still needed to learn how to sleep on my own, that took a little longer but it came. 

 

Just this morning as I awoke I marveled again at how restful real sleep is, it takes me longer to wake up because I've gotten the real stuff.  I predict you'll feel better and better as you lean how to sleep naturally again.

 

Thanks for the update.

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