Symptoms reappearing and new ones popping up

This is so frustrating!  After the first month off, the tooth pain I was experiencing went away!  It was a bit of a relief. At day 45 this dizziness, brain fog, and depression started to subside. Now on day 73 they are reappearing Aleksander ng with a new symptom. Every time I wash my hands with regular soap 🧼 instead of just using hand sanitizer my skin gets ridiculously tight over my hands and they weird. Has anyone else experienced this??  Like why do symptoms fade then come back. I’m devastated by this today. I thought I was starting to get better then BOOM!  Everything is just returning. 😔

Hello Paxia,

 

What you are experiencing is the nature of recovery, the waxing and waning of symptoms and yes, even new ones showing up. I do remember one birthday soon off benzos and in the middle of a bike ride I felt a dizzy, boaty sensation. That was a new symptom for me and an unwelcome birthday 'gift'.  It lasted for a few months and eased up.

 

It takes a while for the cns to reset from the massive changes that benzos make to it. Give it time, enjoy the times where the symptoms let up, it will carry you through the rougher periods.

 

It does get better!

 

pianogirl 

Thank you for the reassurance pianogirl!  I really needed that today. It was such a downfall of a day.

Oh yes..symptoms will shift and move..go away then revisit (but intensity mostly will lessen). others leave completely only to have a new one pop up.

Its def not boring..

 

But this is not to scare anyone - but to inform:) to know what can happen helps to make it less scary if it pops up.

Pretty much every bodily system is/can be impacted in benzo recovery. Gaba receptors are everywhere in our body (not just our head/brain), and it is involved in regulating everything!!

 

What you're feeling is your healing.

 

This dizziness is relentless!  I just almost fell like 6 times in the shower. I got shampoo in my eyes like 3 times, whenever I closed my eyes to rinse the shampoo out I had to open them because I literally felt like I was falling and couldn’t stand straight and was going to pass out!  I think I’m having waves and windows because there are times I can see that I put on 4lbs but then the symptoms come rearing back and I go back down to 90. How long do these waves and windows last?

It's because of your rapid "taper," I'm experiencing something similar too now that I had cold-turkeyed. Previous two times when I withdrew with tapers I was basically asymptomatic. Now, I'm barely holding it together.

How long have you been off benzos pacenik? And which benzo did you cold turkey from?  Some people are surprised I’m already having some windows. I don’t know if I’d call it windows at only 2 months but after 5pm I definitely feel more “normal “. Mornings and afternoons are the worst but by 5pm almost everyday I feel about as normal as I can during this time. I wouldn’t say ALL of the symptoms disappear but they definitely become WAY more manageable. Are you having any windows yet?  If so when did you first start experiencing them?

Almost 4 months. From diazepam. I took 60 mg diazepam in two days to control adverse reacton to amitriptyline. I hate that I tried amitriptyline. My life was going so well, and now it's down the drain. I used to tolerate benzos really well. I used benzos for sleep. When I started with benzos I started with lorazepam, and when it stopped working I would simply stop using it for a while and had no symptoms (actually I did, but I know that only now, in hindsight -- I had anxiety, fungal infections, the worst case of flu that I ever had, etc. but nothing compared to this hell). Then I needed to taper to get off, but my tapers were asymptomatic (the only symptoms were GERD and 3AM cortisol surges). Now I had to take large doses of diazepam for two days and I didn't want to taper half-a-year or more because of two days. It was a mistake. I didn't think it was going to be this bad. It just goes to show that kindling is very real.

I don’t know if I’d call it windows at only 2 months but after 5pm I definitely feel more “normal “. Mornings and afternoons are the worst but by 5pm almost everyday I feel about as normal as I can during this time. I wouldn’t say ALL of the symptoms disappear but they definitely become WAY more manageable. Are you having any windows yet?  If so when did you first start experiencing them?

After my current cold-turkey, I had that too. I would feel kinda normal in the afternoon. Now it's all over the place. Sometimes I feel intensely bad in the afternoon, and then around 11PM it's like somebody flicked a switch and it calms down. I had a few windows, followed by a really bad but thankfully short waves towards the end of month four. Then after those intense waves some symptoms dissapeared (electric feeling throughout my skin, acidic feeling in my brain, and adrenaline currents throughout my body, but I started feeling burning stomach and some sort of heaviness on the inside).

I’m hear you. I don’t think I’d want to take years to taper off of a short term dose either. Since we are kind of in the same boat and you aren’t too far ahead of me, we will have to stay in touch. See how we are both progressing with your cold turkey and my rapid taper. I’m sure I’ll have a ton more questions in the days to come.....  that sucks that you only took it for two days and you are suffering so bad now. I’m sorry for that.

Oh my goodness this dizziness is relentless!!!!  I am now lying in bed instead of playing with my two year old son because I kept getting so dizzy I almost fell off of the couch!  Uuggghhh, I hate this. Why can’t symptoms just stay away once they leave.

I'm now thinking that long taper should be used no matter the length of benzo use. Not only are there much less symptoms, they're much less severe.

I concur!  This morning my heart rate jumped up to 120. And I’m already taking Metoprolol.  A true sign it’s going to be a bad day of symptoms!  The dizziness hit before I even got out of bed too. I hate feeling normal for a short period of time and then being blasted by symptoms!  It like screws with you mentally! 

You are still in the VERY early stage of benzo withdrawal.  Give it time.  It takes a while for your system to stabilize.