Hello Benzobuddies

I'm a 27 year old female. I was diagnosed with anxiety and depression very young, but only began taking prescription Xanax during the summer of 2020. I've always dealt with high levels of anxiety but with the onset of Covid-19 and everything else going on in the world it had started to worsen in 2020. Insomnia, heart palpitations, episodic and irrational fear, daily panic attacks, you name it.

Well, I began taking 2mg xanax for around 7-8 months daily. At first it was great and seemed to be helping me quite a lot. I was no longer having panic attacks, I could sleep easier..it even seemed to make me more relaxed at work and in social situations. I began noticing some negative effects like irritability, rapid mood swings etc, as well as feeling myself become dependent on it (if I forgot to take it, that would enough to make me start panicking). A lot of my friends and family were pointing out these negative effects, which I usually brushed off or blatantly denied up until around 2 months ago. I was experiencing severe memory loss, depression, and lots of..negative thoughts..that were becoming harder to shove aside. My doctor and I began tapering about a month ago but it seemed to exacerbate my "negative thoughts". I woke up 5 days ago and decided to just stop taking it and go Cold Turkey. I'd done a lot of research beforehand to know that it was a risky idea, but I feared the taper would lead me to do something to harm myself or others, so I was willing to take the risk. I also figured that my dosage was low enough and that I hadn't been on it long enough to experience the more 'severe' side effects like seizures or death. WD is still incredibly unpleasant.

Day 1- Actually felt really good! I had resolve, I was still chatty and calm, i went to work fine, it felt achievable. I believe I still had the Xanax in my system from the day prior and was able to coast through to the evening. At night I had a few drinks (something I could never do while on Xanax) and slept like a baby.

Day 2- I woke up feeling extremely out of it. I didnt know what time or day it was. I worked this day too and I remember a lot of photosensitivy to the fluorescent lights. I remember being anxious about the volume of my voice. Conversations weren't flowing and sentences weren't forming. I felt on edge much of the day, with zero appetite. My stomach felt awful, kindof gurgly and acidic. I was clenching my jaw really bad. I had a bad taste in my mouth that brushing couldn't get rid of. I forced myself to eat something midday and I couldnt even taste it. I could only stomach a few bites. By the end of the day I was feverish and exhausted but at night I couldn't sleep due to the return of my heart palpitations. I popped a muscle relaxer and was able to sleep around 2am.

Day 3- Woke up and it felt like a train had hit me. My whole body was sore. I felt lethargic and sick, a little slow. Taste in my mouth is still there, stronger than ever. Stomach still very upset. Could barely eat this day either, everything was flavorless or made me feel nauseous. I briefly wondered if i had Covid. Began having major digestive issues. I developed a stutter I realized during a conversation on the phone with a friend who was checking up on me. I had involuntary muscle contractions (my leg would randomly kick). Anxiety was back full force, I mainly just wanted to avoid people all together. Went to the gym to work out and then popped another muscle relaxer to get me to sleep that night.

Day 4- Woke up and Instantly regret weight lifting at the gym, my whole body was so sore I could barely get out of bed. I texted my friend to update him that every day feels like a Bad Hangover. He wanted me get some support and recommended me a hotline, I told him I would look (today) as I had the day off. I went to the gym again but stuck to cardio and stretching, that seemed to help. I went to the health food store and got a healthy smoothie as well as some anti anxiety supplements just to get something in my belly as I knew I hadn't eaten much in days now. The smoothie was delicious. So I can taste fruit..that's good..I thought to myself. This was overall the hardest day for me. I had no motivation. Luckily I had off work. Much of the day was spent in my car staring at my phone doing benzo WD research. I focused on distractions and dragged through the day. The hangover feeling never went away. Had a few drinks that evening to sleep which really seemed to ease the symptoms. My boyfriend gave me a massage for my sore muscles. I slept like a baby.

Day 5- (Today!) Woke up feeling *slightly* better. Soreness had gone down significantly but still feeling "hungover" with a horrible taste in my mouth, almost metallic. The day has just begun but I was already able to eat a full breakfast. Going to the gym today later, as I believe the cardio is helping me a lot. Created a BB account while in my car doing research.

Benzo WD is no joke!! I'll be happy to be rid of this for good. Can already tell my symptoms are improving but know I may need a few more days to feel any sort of "normalcy" again. Thanks for hearing me out ❤ looking for all the encouragement to keep going, and stories from the other side.

Hello PostBenzopause, welcome to BenzoBuddies,

Thanks for detailing your benzo journey, I can see it's been pretty rough, this is to be expected with a cold turkey, they're brutal.  I'm actually surprised you're feeling as well as you are but don't get complacent, our symptoms will come and go, sometimes morphing into new ones with others returning, our recovery isn't linear. 

If your symptoms become too much for you a possible solution would be to reinstate and do a slow taper which consists of a 5-10% reduction of your dose every one to two weeks depending on your symptoms, they should guide you.

I'm glad you're doing your homework on this process, the more we know the less we fear which by the way is a symptom of withdrawal.  You're welcome to post on our support boards to compare notes with other members or if you're interested in reinstating, I'll give you a link to our taper boards too.

We're glad you found us, I'm happy to hear exercise is helping you, some of our members swear by it, others feel it ramps up symptoms too much.

Let us know how we can help you.

Pamster

The Ashton Manual

Planning your taper (Taper Plans)

Post-withdrawal Recovery Support 

I have some experience with Xanax as I use to be prescribed a few years ago by the same doctor. I never use to take it every day though, as it was mainly for my panic attacks so I think I only ended up filling one script and never thought about it much again until 2020. I've had anxiety all of my life, long enough to develop techniques that help me a lot. I'm basically trying to treat the increased Xanax anxiety the way I would treat my normal everyday anxiety in the past.

For me, Cold Turkey is the only option. The tapering was just as bad if not worse than this, due to the nature of the thoughts I was having. It felt like "I might as well just stop if I'm going to feel this way" I feel like the taper was exacerbating my depression, and I was making everyone around me miserable because I was miserable. I was having more Mental distress in Taper, while I feel more Physical distress Cold Turkeying that distracts from the mental. It was on a whim to stop doing it and I think the fact that it came down to me stopping it and having a few left over to rescue dose if needed really keeps my anxious thoughts at bay. It's more like a battle of willpower for me right now. I'm very focused and all of my energy is going into this recovery. I'm avoiding triggers and other people during this as much as possible. I haven't had a panic attack yet but I basically just went right back to managing my anxiety the ways i use to (Healthy foods, the gym, talking things out with friends)..things that went down the tubes in 2020 due to the shutdown. I'm starting to see the bigger picture of why my anxiety was so bad last year to begin with.

That being said, my palpitations are coming and going throughout the day today..stretching the shoulder and pecs and deep breathing is how I use to deal with that, it's been offering me some brief relief but not much. I only use to get these as night, now they are pretty much happening anywhere and everywhere.

Appreciate all of your advice and support so much it helps immensely just to talk this stuff out so it's not sitting in my mind driving me crazy. And dont get me wrong, the WD is rough I'm only slightly better than yesterday due to the reduction in my body aches (i think the massage helped a lot too). The main reason I created an account here was to hear more about "Benzo Flu" because just feel so darn awful physically every day. Drained, exhausted, nauseous, dizzy, upset stomach..wondering when that lets up but I know timetables are different for everyone.

Never taking benzos daily ever again.

It sounds like you have some great coping strategies, they should serve you well.  I know many of our members have trouble with heart palpitations, some will take other medications, you can take a look at our Other Medications board, I've seen propranolol mentioned.

Benzo flu is common too, you'll find many threads on the subject but you're welcome to start one to get feedback.

As for taking benzo's daily, many members have said that they've been able to come off benzo's previously without much difficulty until they can't and they get hit with symptoms, it seems our body is keeping track of how many times we can get away with this.