Xanax-Valium for Seven Weeks Now Completely Off

Hi, I'm new to this forum. Here's my background. I was prescribed Xanax by a doctor about three months ago for sleep issues and anxiety. All I was told by this doctor was to take the medication as needed and do not take more than 8 pills in one day (each pill was .5 mg). I experienced almost immediate relief from Xanx and began taking it regularly over the next six weeks.

 

At week 4, I was taking around 3-4mg per day and started to notice symptoms in-between my doses (particularly at night). I would often wake up feeling nauseated and having cold sweats. To stop the symptoms I would take .5 - 1mg more Xanax and go back to bed. After Googling the symptoms I began to guess I was experiencing inter-dose withdrawal. I discussed this with the prescribing doctor and he switched me from Xanax to Valium since it's a longer acting benzo. I stopped taking Xanax and started taking 5mg Valium, which helped, but I was still experiencing the bad symptoms.

 

Things didn't really change over the next week or so and by week six, I was scared that I was now becoming more dependent, so I quit cold turkey. For the next three days I had pretty bad withdrawal symptoms (i.e. nausea, insomnia, cold sweats, ringing in my ears, spiked blood pressure and this horrible jittery hypersensitive feeling throughout my whole body ... similar to like an exposed nerve). By day four of withdrawal I relented and took Valium to ease the withdrawal systems. At that point I decided to speak to my primary care provider about the situation and my desire to begin a taper off of Valium. He advise a fast taper for about a month since I was only on the benzo's for a short time. I started a 5mg for a week, then 2.5mg for a week, then 1.25mg for a week, then 1.25 every other day, then off all together. During the taper process I took low doses of Valarian Root (100mg), Niacin - No Flush (500 mg) and a Cal-Mag supplement three times a day. I also took Trazadone 50mg for sleep. It seemed to help since the taper process wasn't too bad.

 

Thankfully, I'm now off of the Valium completely. It's been three weeks. I'm still taking Trazadone and Valarian to help me sleep. I'm still experiencing withdrawal symptoms, mainly periodic nausea and a milder form of the jittery/hypersensitive feeling in my legs and arms. I'm also finding I'm very sensitive now to supplements, many just make the symptoms worse.I know I don't have the long-term addiction story as others do, but for the short time I took Xanax/Valium, it has really left a negative impact on my mind and body.

 

Are the symptoms I'm experiencing now normal? Any advice from those who have gone through a similar experience? Has anyone had good luck taking Niacin, Valarian Root and Cal-Mag supplements post benzo's to help with withdrawal? Thanks in advance!

Hey there!

I'm so sorry you are a classic victim of docs just giving out benzos!

I'm glad you decided to get off them! My guess is that you will recover in a timely manner. But don't expect symptoms to just disappear over night, it usually takes longer than we want it to! Your time was pretty short, so that is in your favor. But yes, you can become dependant, reach tolerance, have inter-dose withdrawls, all in a matter of weeks unfortunately.

 

So ALL of your symptoms are very normal in benzo world.

I will tell you to research valerian root because it acts on gaba receptors similar to the way benzos do....so it can also cause symptoms and wd symptoms. Some people can use it, and many cannot. You can find threads about it if you do a search on it here.

 

And sleep....well.....it will return eventually. Trazadone is working for you now, but if you want to come off of it later, you will likely experience some sleep interruptions, but not a guarantee. Everyone is different. And everyone's healing timeframe is different.

I had hardcore insomnia with WD, and sleep was what I was prescribed benzos to begin with, so I was scared I would never sleep again....but I do!!!

There are many of us here who have made it through, so that should tell you that it IS survivable!!

Try and keep things simple for the now, and take the practical tips for getting through the symptoms. And if I were you...I would NeVER touch a benzo again! You can do it!!

 

I'm actually amazed you feel as good as you do, the dose the Dr had you taper from was woefully inadequate so I'm not surprised to hear you still felt awful after starting on the Valium.

 

Having said that I agree completely with SouthernBelle08, your symptoms are very common and it may take awhile to recover from this episode but kudos for getting off the drug so quickly, its actually fortunate the interdose withdrawal alerted you to your body's quick dependence to the drug.

 

I also agree about treading lightly when it comes to supplements, many members have found the central nervous system to be very sensitive during this process which can exacerbate symptoms.  We have many discussions on the Alternative Therapies & Supplements board in case you'd like to check them out.

SouthernBelle08 - Thanks for sharing with me your perspective. My symptoms are tolerable, but definitely hoping for them to start easing up over the next weeks. I guess I'll just have to be patience and accept whatever timeframe my body needs to heal. The symptoms that are bothering me the most right now are the general flu-like run-down feelings I have and the restlessness/raw-nerve feeling I'm having in my legs and arms. I guess, knowing all of it is very common brings me a lot of hope. I'm glad to hear you're sleeping now without meds. I look forward to that day when I don't need Trazadone or some other supplement to get me to sleep. 

 

Appreciate the words of encouragement!

Pamster - Can you explain what you meant by, "the dose the Dr had you taper from was woefully inadequate so I'm not surprised to hear you still felt awful after starting on the Valium." Do you mean switching to 5mg Valium was not high enough coming from 3-4mg Xanax? Or were you saying my taper was too fast? When I initially switched to Valium it didn't really help, but after a week it did seem to keep my symptoms under control. Thankfully, the fast taper off of Valium went really smoothly with little withdrawal symptoms. During the taper, I was taking Niacinamide (500mg), Valarian Root (100mg) and Cal-Mag Citrate (120mg) three times a day. I wonder if those three helped control the withdrawal symptoms? Most of the withdrawal symptoms I'm now experiencing came shortly after I stopped taking Valium about three weeks ago. I do wonder if those three supplements would help ease my current symptoms? They did seem to help a lot during the taper, but maybe I just had enough Valium still in my system the true withdrawal symptoms hadn't hit me yet.

 

Appreciate your and SouthernBelle08's advise about Valarian. At the moment, the only supplements I'm taking are Vitamin C and Valarian, but now I'm thinking about reducing the Valarian to stop it all together. I just want to heal without additional supplements possibly complicating things. I'll have to tackle Trazadone separately later. Thanks again!

We don't like to see short term users taper for longer than they were on the drug so your taper rate was probably what it needed to be and while your Dr didn't put you on the correct equivalent it seems to have worked for you.  In the case of a longer term user, that low dose would have likely left them non-functioning, but it seems to have worked for you.  Here is the chart we use.  https://www.benzo.org.uk/bzequiv.htm

 

To tell you the truth, I don't put much stock in supplements, I've seen too many negative reactions to them by members, one size certainly doesn't fit all but if you feel they helped you I'm glad.  Valium does leave the system very slowly so you're probably correct when you mention the possibility that you might still have had it in your system after 3 weeks.

 

I worry about you making more changes at the moment though, if you're okay then I'd hold off removing anything else at this time unless you feel the Valarian is contributing to some discomfort.  The Trazadone can wait until you're free of withdrawal symptoms, don't rock the boat for now if you can help it.

 

 

I quit CT after 6 weeks use and I was fine after a hellish 2 weeks.  Too fine because I took more then hit WD again 5 months later.  I'm Perry much fine now,  but I did have a few more lingering symptoms this time,  the inner restlessness is very common.

 

I quit everything,  not even a multivit, no coffee,  no green tea, not even decaff, just water. Cleaned up my diet and went keto, which seemed to help in other ways too. I'm sleeping fine now and I'm over it,  the last bit too go being the intrusive thoughts and worrying.

 

Promethazine helped me, but It wipes me out next day, so not something I like taking,  but it let me sleep when the irritability was bad.

Thanks, Pamster. Appreciate the explanation. Yeah, I guess I was little lucky with the switch to Valium not being more difficult than it was. I'm leaning more and more toward the "no supplement" approach. They do seem to only further complicate the symptoms and leave you guessing if its withdrawal or the supplements making you feel a particular way. So I'm taking your advice and not making any further changes until the symptoms somewhat normalize. For now, I'll stay on Valarian (only at bedtime) and of course Trazadone (50mg). Really appreciate the support and advice. This site is such a great help and source of comfort. Thanks again! 

Nipster - Glad to hear you're completely off the benzo's too. So after 5 months you started taking them again, which caused more withdrawal symptoms? Yeah, the restlessness/edginess is probably the most annoying symptom (well, that and the ear ringing). I'm thankful it's not worse though. I'm still drinking coffee (just in the mornings). It's tough to give that one up,    but I've stopped just about everything else other than the two meds I mentioned. It's easier this way. Instead of supplementing, I'm trying to focus on eating well, drinking a lot of water, getting sun every day (if possible), doing regular light exercise, stretching and general sleep hygiene. It seems to be helping.

 

I'm not sure if Promethazine is similar to Hydroxyzine. If so, I tried the latter and found it also destroyed me the next day. I was almost nonfunctional feeling so sedated. A lower dose of Trazadone (50 mg) taken with a small snack seems to provide some benefit. I heard taking it with food helps so down how fast it's metabolized in your system. I'm finding the lower dose with food greatly minimizes the bad side effects I was experiencing when taking 100mg of Trazadone.

Thanks, Pamster. Appreciate the explanation. Yeah, I guess I was little lucky with the switch to Valium not being more difficult than it was. I'm leaning more and more toward the "no supplement" approach. They do seem to only further complicate the symptoms and leave you guessing if its withdrawal or the supplements making you feel a particular way. So I'm taking your advice and not making any further changes until the symptoms somewhat normalize. For now, I'll stay on Valarian (only at bedtime) and of course Trazadone (50mg). Really appreciate the support and advice. This site is such a great help and source of comfort. Thanks again! 

 

Excellent decision to keep things simple, keep us posted on your progress, its so important for short term users to have an idea of what to expect.

Pamster - Last week I had several days where I was feeling really good (almost back to normal) and was sleeping better too. My legs were cramping so I took some Magnesium (thinking it would help) over a couple days and it seems that has almost caused a rebound with my previous symptoms. For the last three days I haven’t slept well, the leg cramps are back and my legs/arms have that raw-nerve edgy feeling. One step forward two steps back, I guess. Is this normal to regress some? I’m now not going to touch any supplements for a while and see if things improve. I will say, I also have been under more stress lately which I’m sure is attributing to all this. So important to stick with what’s working and not change things up. Keep you posted.

You're so right, its so important to stick with what works and keep it simple!  Who knows what caused your symptoms to ramp up again, it could be the stress or the magnesium, both have been known to cause problems.

 

Hang in there, you'll feel good again.