Check Your Salt Intake!

 

The last two months of my taper have been really bad. My anxiety has been higher than at any time in my life. Afraid to lay down and go to sleep. Crazy!

 

My eating habits have been pretty bad over the course of my taper. I eat a lot of salty snacks at night and during the day. Well, yesterday I stopped the salt intake to see what would happen and I felt much, much more relaxed. It is now very obvious to me that Sodium Chloride aka Table Salt has been a major contributor to chest pain, anxiety and insomnia. Going forward I will be very conscious of my salt intake. 5 grams is a healthy normal amount of daily sodium intake. Eating too little sodium also has negative consequences.

 

My point is this. If you are struggling with sleep and increased anxiety, please try to reduce your salt intake for a bit of time and see if it helps you like it helped me. I am glad I caught this problem when I did. I just kept blaming all of the issues on clonazepam withdrawal when in fact a lot of negative symptoms can be reduced by managing proper salt intake! Give it a try!

Wow - this is interesting! High cortisol actually causes sodium retention and potassium wasting, so you are probably on to something!

I think that a lot of people put healthy eating to the wayside when withdrawing from benzos. I could be wrong but in light of all the craziness, diet is most likely a secondary issue. I feel too tired and foggy most days to want to cook healthy meals from scratch every day. I woke up today with a headache and what felt like the flu. After a cup of coffee and toast I dont feel like I have the flu but my brain just feels foggy.

 

Anyhow, just give it a try for a day and see if it helps.

I noticed you are using Kratom. Does it work well for withdrawal anxiety? My only remaining symptoms are anxiety, though it's really more like mental "tension", random bouts of depression lasting a few hours (but wicked), and insomnia. I know it's controversial stuff and can cause withdrawals too, but I am just curious because I don't see it mentioned a lot.

 

As an aside, I have to supplement a little salt because my adrenal function is actually a little low so I loose salt and retain potassium. I try to eat as healthy as I can - whole foods and whatnot, but my appetite is not great.

I use kratom to abstain from pain pills and alcohol. It works well for that. It does not work for benzo withdrawal and probably just causes more problems. When I get off benzos I will need to taper off Kratom. I have had much better results with benzo related symptoms using micro doses of THC oil. But kratom is more of a lessor of two evils tool for me and it works for that but is not without dependency risks.

 

 

Several ppl I speak to have developed orthostatic intolerance and/or POTS in WD and have had to increase salt intake.

Thanks Multifilter, that makes sense and good to know.

 

Ajusta, you are right about salt intake being variable. Like I said, I am one of those who needs salt, as my adrenals are not putting out a lot of cortisol. Those with very high cortisol, though, would want to decrease intake. Testing is best as I would have thought I had high cortisol given my chemical anxiety over the course of this withdrawal.