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My taper progress - seeking guidance - Lorazepam


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Alright what period has gone by.  since we send our daughter to the day care we've gotten plenty of flues and the chicken poks. this time even more due to covid pushing forward other flues.

This had taken a toll on the taper process but mostly I continued.

We did not have covid yet. and I hope not to get it.

Currently we took her off day care as it was nuts. we had like 4-5 flues. It didnt stop so we took action.

Once we get the booster shot she can go back :)

 

Another thing was that the usual cut of 0.0625 was not working anymore as It was closing in to the 10%. ( I need to try and keep it between the 5-8%)

I tried it anyway and see where it took me well yes nasty (dangerous if you ask me) withdrawal symptoms. namely the heart.

I can still make the cut with the tablet cutter but its becoming a sort of an arT.

so now I try to go down by 0.042mg.

Bought a microscale for the times that lie ahead.

 

lastly, I was starting to notice that the day time dosages where causing more withdrawal symptoms then was good for me.

They functioned only as birdge to fill the gap for interal dosage withdrawals.

So I made a cut to them.

realising I cut them by 50% I still tried it seeing they where low dosage and I was on that daytime dosage stable for quite a while.

It did rev up some old forgotten symptoms gladly most where shorter lived this time around.

Then again it seems my dystonia symptoms are flaring up as well so I dont feel good about that at all.

I realized this could happen futher down the road, I healed from it once I can do it again is what I try to say to myself but its hard.

 

So far this update.

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If you are like me (the big issue was anxiety induced insomnia), then you are doing right by taking most of your benzo at bed.

During my withdrawal, I felt I could handle anything in the day as long as I got enough sleep.

 

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  • 4 weeks later...

I have joined a sleep therapy group to gather up on information and to see if I can treat my falling asleep symptom with cognitive behavioral therapy.

Going into the 3rd week now.

Also got an appointment set elsewhere (next to the hospital) to see if we can uncover if the falling asleep symptom is a physical symptom induced by that metoclopramide incident.

As of now I dont withness that symptom much at all when I go to sleep during the night with said lorazepam dosage.

Trying to fall asleep per daytime however the symptom has never gone away since that metoclopramide incident.

 

About the taperplan I am reducing the night time dosage by roughly 0.041mg cuts now.

I've decided to upscale the rate by 10 days instead of 14 days.

so I can cut about half of a 0.25 quarter pill in a month. (0.125mg)

 

 

Removed the following from my signature as I only used it as needed about 5 times

- Avena Sativa alcohol free tincture 5-10 drops as needed (normal dose is 40 drops) - 

 

Tried sun theanine 100mg chewable which worked great but Ive tried it only once and will save it for when I need it the most.

Did notice a small upthick in dystonia related symptoms afterwards.

so im not sure if this caused it but I remain warry of that.

 

Continuing onward  :smitten:

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Dystonia symptoms seem to be gone for about 2-3months now.

 

WOOOHOOOOOO!!  ;D ;D :'( ;D

 

When I read this back the moment still brings tears to my eyes.

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It is in reallife, covered by health insurance over here.

 

I could point you towards a self help book for sleep but would need to search one in english.

Which wouldnt be the same book I used anymore.

 

hhmmm

 

If you tell me specifically what your issue is with sleeping I could take it with me.

and give you feedback on what ive learned.

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Thank you for offering to do this for me.

 

I wake up every one or two hours.  Sometimes it is hard to go back to sleep but if I take 1/2 advil or asprin, I do go back to sleep.  This repeats 4 times a night.

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Honestly, I don't know how I would be able to taper without Medical Marijuana at night for sleep. Bob, I don't know if you have considered this. I take a teeny tiny dose of a tincutre. From Suterra Dispensary...called Dream.
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I will give it some thought.  It scares me because it is another drug, but sleep is vital.

Does it last all night?

I can fall asleep fine, it is the recurring wakeups every 90 minutes which are the problem.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Its hard to say during this withdrawal process if any if this is helpful right now but I believe some stuff does.

 

- Get up around the same time.  get two glasses of water, and go outside to see the sun, this sets your bio-clock.

- If you got an alarm clock throw it out. Watching what time it is a result of control that you are not letting go likely because of your anxious thoughts wether or not you are getting enough sleep.

Due to this anxiety your mind will basically set an internal clock for you to wake up to check what time it is. Throw out the alarm clock and not care what time it is the best way to break this cycle.

The first few hours are your most important sleep cycles anyway. most of the quality sleep and repair happens there.

- Light therapy perhaps

- Use the bed only for rest,sex or other relaxing comfortable stuff. associate the bed as such.

- If you have cold feet make your feet warm. helps fall asleep faster.

- Earplugs that feel comfortable and dont fall out during sleep if noise wakes you up.

- Nightcap if light wakes you up. otherwise make the room dark.

- activity during the day (can be low activity too) makes that you build up more sleep pressure. helping you fall alseep faster or sleep longer.

- Eat some f00ds that contain l-tryptofaan. when that doesnt get translated enough into melotonin try a 5-htp supplement.

 

- There are tables for cognitive behavior therapie excersises. to help you challenges disfunctional thoughts into a more helpfull and likely more reallisitc thought.

- Similarly there are also tables out there to help you work out repetitive thinking with solutions.

 

A lot of this stuff I already knew through out my burnout process but still its good to have.

One thing I didnt know was that most of the quality sleep actually happened the first few hours so lets say you sleep 5hours a day. thats fine.

 

This is all for now. perhaps Ill post more later when im bored and got the book with me. got enough on my plate right now  :)

Best of luck.

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Everything you said helps but it is limited by the anxiety induced insomnia which happens during the taper.

 

Once you are on zero benzos for a year or two, all these "helps" work 10 times better.

 

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Sir Deep Fry,

 

I have just read your excellent thread and loved it. What a fine attitude you have to life, love and getting well. Your daughter has excellent choice in birthdates. Same cusp, very different year to yours truly.

 

With mayonnaise,

 

Bancha

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  • 3 months later...

Hello guys and thank you Bancha for your loving post.

its been a while I am checking in to say its going well.

am on 0.20mg lorazepam now for the night dosage.

 

My daytime bridge dosage is somewhere between 0.0625mg and 0.0312mg basically nothing.

 

I am nearing the finish line which im going to approach slowly .

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Its good to see you again, can't wait for that benzo free celebration and then on to your success story.  :thumbsup:
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  • 3 weeks later...

Its not going good at all, I have so much trouble falling asleep got none yesterday.

Not the speak about all the withdrawal symptoms

The pressure of this and other things in life is getting to me.

 

Time for a change of approach.

Ive finally gotten myself to actually unpack the micro-scale and do the calculations.

 

It seems I have been reducing my last ninja cut by 12%. the two steps prior to that probably around that same number.

Ive set it with a handwritten log now on 8% reduction.

 

Wish me luck.

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I'm glad to see you're going to change things up, tapers need to be adjusted from time to time so we can remain functional, you stopping and taking stock of your situation is the exact right thing to do.

 

I hope you see improvement and please don't be afraid to hold your current dose until things settle down a bit. 

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Thank you Pamster ! I was getting more afraid lately to hold longer, as my rational mind is telling go slow and steady but my emotion want to be done with it and makes me rush, this puts pressure on it aside from other pressure sources that I am dealing with.

 

 

Oh I did it!

 

Last night I slept from 3 o clock till late morning 10:30 AM, only waking up one time.

 

I was watching the 3rd pirates of the Caribbean movie downstairs.

I went up to the bedroom, as soon as I hit the bed, my heart started to beat faster, cold sweat, weird feeling in the stomach, clear signs and all too familiar ones. anxiety of sleep had set in, one that I didnt have for a long time. this time it wasn't the benzo. it was all me. and I beated it!!  ;D :'( tears of joy.

Im so proud of myself.

From what I remember I said a few things to myself.

This Anxiety will go away in 20-30mins, 1hour max. by itself it always settles in, you cant have anxiety all the time so you will get a chance to feel drowsie.

The vicious cycle of what happens next, what you are afraid of by falling asleep wont happen, this time, its not the same.

Per feeling I was trying to ride the rollercoaster of emotions from the movie that I was in to get me in a different state.

I watched these feelings from a side and was in a mental state in which they didnt or couldnt effect me as much.

Funny enough, I didnt have to sleep yet as I was just upstairs in bed and allowed myself to still watch something on the Ipad but I didn't, I took it head on.

 

What else? acceptance of the situation, which I sort of describe here.

Earlier in the day I did read upon this thread to remind of a few things: http://www.benzobuddies.org/forum/index.php?topic=235100.0

I think that helped as well.

 

Ofcourse this anxiety was an escalation by the night prior by which I didnt have any sleep. that was from taking too large steps in my taper process, the last cut being 2-3 days ago.

This I adjusted last night to 8% as my message above said and what Pamster advises.

 

Now ofcourse these sleep issues are in a different class when it comes to the ones I had during my taper or from my metoclopramide incident.

For a change, it just felt nice to have symptoms that where my own so to speak.

Beaten an old huge nemesis.

 

I still have tears of joy.

 

Edit: Content

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You're amazing, you took control and bested the drug, I'm so happy for you!  I used to talk out loud to my fear, I needed to hear myself say the words and it helped me break through it. 

 

You have power, we all do but its so darn hard to harness it when we feel like we're drowning but you took your power and used it to get through the night,.  :thumbsup:

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  • 4 weeks later...

yeah I have covid now since a couple of days, it looks like after one very rough night my body was victorious in defeating the infection.

But yeah part of the tardieve dystonia symptoms I had came back, the stomach issue I had for months in which they prescribed metoclopramice two years ago are back.

Think in general some withdrawal symptoms are revved up and then some covid onces.

At home the pressure was getting to my wife which I took her out for a walk and we talked it over.

 

Am in a dark place.

>> http://www.benzobuddies.org/forum/index.php?topic=269471.0

 

The only highlight is well two highlights actually: my daughter and the fact that a got couple hours of sleep.

 

I have no idea what to do about the stomach issue. 2 years ago it ended up walking around with a blown up stomach all the time and food digestion took 8hours or something.

The spot on the left feels sore. not sure if thats benzo related.

Im not very knowledgeable about the stomach.

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