Finally healed. Diet was the last piece of my puzzle. 10 year success story

It's been a looooong time coming (10 years!!!) but I think it's finally safe to write a success story.

 

My story in a nutshell:

 

Many years of being polydrugged by psych doctors, at one point I was on Xanax, Ativan, and many more, but the biggest offender was Klonopin which I was on for 4 years. I never abused the drugs and always took them "as prescribed," the problem was my doctor told me to take Klonopin "as needed," pretty much however much I wanted. I suffer from anxiety and so I'd take as little as possible whenever I needed my anxiety to go away. Well you can imaging what happened next, my body developed tolerance withdrawal and the same amount wasn't working anymore. So I'd take a little more (again, no one ever told me this wasn't ok or could harm me). It didn't help for long and since I was also worried about the dangers of these drugs in the back of my mind I took as little as possible to get rid of symptoms I was now experiencing...and it was a vicious cycle.

 

I completely lost myself and lost my soul in ways only you guys can understand I'm sure, I did and I thought a lot of things that don't make sense now that I look back on it, and with my brain in that state I couldn't understand what was happening to me and how could me feeling like I'm going completely crazy and dying all be the result of this tiny pill? I couldn't wrap my mind around it, plus the constant near panic state I was in from interdose withdrawal I was pretty much having a mental breakdown every single day thinking I had to be dying but no doctors knew what it was or how to help me. Seriously, not one of the the countless doctors I saw ever suggested it could be the benzo. Not one.

 

I'd rather not get into more of the depressing details of that time because it was so horrific and frankly indescribable. It's in the past now.

 

I finally found this group and it saved me. They confirmed what I was experiencing was from Klonopin. My health and mental state was so bad that I felt I couldn't stand to put those evil pills in my body any longer and felt I had no choice but to cold turkey and start healing as fast as possible, so I pretty much did a cold turkey (obviously, do not do what I did). Again, an extremely traumatizing experience including panic attacks, vertigo, hallucinations and more, and this all felt completely neverending.

 

 

The first 2 years were the absolute worst, I was non functional and not living. Couldn't sleep, couldn't do anything, in hell, I couldn't even watch TV my brain was that broken. By year 6 it started to feel like I was getting somewhere with healing. All this time I never really experienced windows, but I definitely experienced very bad waves. Healing started happening faster, but with the amount of time it took, it was more like a very subtle return to normalcy that I barely even noticed. One day I just thought hey, looking back on it I am a heck of a lot better. Finally.

 

 

Around year 8 I was still suffering from some severe symptoms including memory loss, brain fog, insomnia and fatigue. In desperation I saw a world renowned chiropractic neurologist who tried his best to help me. Some of it didn't help much, but the thing that DID help was he started helping me with an extreme elimination diet I wanted to try. This was really hard for me to do since I had so many symptoms and still felt like crap, plus had sugar cravings like crazy etc., plus food was a huge comfort for me. So I decided to go all in. I did the carnivore (meat-only) diet with this doctor's help for 3 months. It's technically a keto diet which explains how it helped me so much with my brain fog. That diet did help a little but I didn't start to actually feel better until I added in raw dairy - raw milk, colostrum, kefir and yogurt that I have shipped to me from a farm - and other fresh whole farm foods. I believe 100% that is what healed me the rest of the way. My brain fog cleared completely, although I do still have some permanent memory damage that I believe will probably will never heal. I am sleeping well. I no longer have the debilitating energy crashes. I feel totally "normal", and most days I feel GREAT! Now I will never touch another psych drug ever again.

 

 

So... if you feel stuck in your healing, in my experience there may be a component of gut health that needs to be addressed. God only knows the cascade of things this process sets off in our bodies, and I wonder if it could result in secondary conditions that could account for such a long term healing we have to go through. These "living" foods such as raw dairy will heal your gut, and many other things. I'm not going to say they'll heal benzo withdrawal of course, but I sure wish I'd known the healing abilities of raw colostrum 9 years ago.

 

 

That's where I'm at now. I feel human again and that's my advice to you. Never stop searching for answers, never give up, it's never hopeless. There's always something else to try and one day this will be behind all of us.

 

 

 

 

 

I'm grateful for this success story...so much. I'm 5 and a half years off this December and haven't had any real windows and there are very few success stories that reflect my experience. Protracted folks have to deal with things that others can't possibly comprehend and we don't have too many safe spaces or validation or a huge amount of encouragement. Thanks for coming back. It means a lot.

Holly,

 

I remember you very well and how difficult and challenging your withdrawal was. I'm thrilled you found something that works for you and gave you the last impetus for healing.

 

Enjoy your freedom from benzos and wellness.

 

pianogirl

Congratulations 

OMG - thank you for hope. I mean 10 years timeline kinda scares the crap out of us....but regardless this gives hope that the madness of recovery ends.

In a bit of a setback so I needed this today.

 

Thank you so much!

OMG - thank you for hope. I mean 10 years timeline kinda scares the crap out of us....but regardless this gives hope that the madness of recovery ends.

In a bit of a setback so I needed this today.

 

Thank you so much!

 

Don't let the thought of 10 years scare you. For many like me it is ten years of UPS and downs. I emphasized the "UPS" because they increase. It does get better as you go. You will find that the nagging symptoms that hang on become your focus as opposed to has so many you can't even count them. You start to get greedy because you want to be 100%, but that just isn't always possible, but it doesn't mean you don't feel better!

 

Good luck to you!

 

-Jason

OMG - thank you for hope. I mean 10 years timeline kinda scares the crap out of us....but regardless this gives hope that the madness of recovery ends.

In a bit of a setback so I needed this today.

 

Thank you so much!

 

Don't let the thought of 10 years scare you. For many like me it is ten years of UPS and downs. I emphasized the "UPS" because they increase. It does get better as you go. You will find that the nagging symptoms that hang on become your focus as opposed to has so many you can't even count them. You start to get greedy because you want to be 100%, but that just isn't always possible, but it doesn't mean you don't feel better!

 

Good luck to you!

 

-Jason

 

I agree with this.

The huge majority of people will NOT take 10 years to heal. My situation was affected by years of kindling and a very rapid withdrawal. There's no reason to expect it to take 10 years in most circumstances. And yes, it absolutely did get better within those 10 years. I haven't been non-functional this whole time, symptoms became less and less severe as time went on.

Thank you so much for coming back to offer HOPE. Ten years, wow! You did it! 

 

I agree that diet makes a big difference  My neurologist put me on a keto diet to help control my seizure disorder, and I noticed huge gains in my memory, cognition, etc. 

 

Enjoy your wonderful life !

 

WR

I remember you Holly and I am so happy for you. Sure ten years is a long time but heck you feel great now. Good luck and continued healing.

 

Becky

WOW congrats! Way to stick thru all the up's and downs!

 

It sounds like the large amount of dairy you were consuming pushed you into a deeper state of ketosis. Is that fair to say? Were you eating any carbs at the time? Also, are you still on the same diet?

 

Thanks.

WOW congrats! Way to stick thru all the up's and downs!

 

It sounds like the large amount of dairy you were consuming pushed you into a deeper state of ketosis. Is that fair to say? Were you eating any carbs at the time? Also, are you still on the same diet?

 

Thanks.

 

I was in very very deep ketosis on carnivore. I was eating zero carbs for 3 months! But I still only felt better after adding the dairy. I'm not sure why. I remained in ketosis after adding dairy, but I don't think it was as deep. Now that I've added in carbs again I'm definitely out of ketosis. I'm still avoiding gluten although I don't feel I ever really had a problem with that. I tried to add back processed carbs and it seems the more of those I add the worse my sleep gets, so I'm staying where I am. It's basically grass fed meats, lots of raw dairy especially kefir & yogurt, and a few healthy carbs. I'm thinking of adding fruit back in soon.

 

Holly

This is great. Congratulations. What does your average couple of days of eating look like?

 

Did you ever get tested for dysbiosis over the years? SIBO?

 

Any nutritional deficiencies?

Thank you

Excellent news Congratulations   

I was also wondering about this. Did you ever have a benzo belly? I do, and stubborn weight gain.

 

This is great. Congratulations. What does your average couple of days of eating look like?

 

Did you ever get tested for dysbiosis over the years? SIBO?

 

Any nutritional deficiencies?

Thank you so much for posting this, I am grateful. It gives me hope. 10 years is a long time, but you did do a cold turkey.

 

 

I didn't know you could order raw dairy from farms! I drink Kefir, but its from our local store.

 

At 3 years out I'm feeling pretty depressed as I'm still suffering with severe anxiety.

I have been slowly changing my diet. I haven't been able to do Keto, but have been reducing the amount of carbs I eat. I feel like the anxiety and

long withdrawal might be related to my gut. I look pregnant but did manage to lose some weight (almost 20 pounds). The rest (have 30 more pounds to go) is slowly coming off.

 

Going to try brewer's yeast also and vitamin D.

 

 

Excellent news congratulations. You finally made it thank god  

 

About the diet would you say as a preventive measure taking probiotics like spiruella or yakult would help gut health in this battle?

Thanks for comming back to reach out.. hope to oneday be able to live free from a pill and be able to function from those that at first hand i got put on against my will... congrats,

 

 

I assume you were taking a colostrum supplement. If so, what brand and how much were you taking per day?

I assume you were taking a colostrum supplement. If so, what brand and how much were you taking per day?

 

I was actually drinking raw colostrum If you're in the US there are several Amish farms that will ship it. It's good stuff.

Excellent news congratulations. You finally made it thank god  

 

About the diet would you say as a preventive measure taking probiotics like spiruella or yakult would help gut health in this battle?

 

You would really have to try and see what helps you. I had tried all sorts of probiotic pills and didn't really feel much of an effect from them, that's just me. I've never tried spirulina or yakult

This is great. Congratulations. What does your average couple of days of eating look like?

 

Did you ever get tested for dysbiosis over the years? SIBO?

 

Any nutritional deficiencies?

 

I was tested for nutritional deficiencies, I was deficient in vitamin d, magnesium and a few b vitamins. I corrected those pretty quickly. The change in diet also helped my ferritin levels a bit.

 

I was tested for SIBO which was negative.

 

My average day of eating might look like some eggs/bacon in the morning with a small glass of kefir (I usually dilute it with a little milk since plain kefir can be very tart). You'd be surprised how satiated this makes me feel. For lunch I might have some leftover roast chicken, or a steak, basically any good source of solid protein, and I'll usually have it with a small serving of kefir/milk again or plain raw milk. I find I feel best when I have a little raw dairy with each meal, not sure if it helps my digestion or what but it makes me feel really good. I do allow myself snacks but I'm really strict, one of the farms I order from makes small gluten free organic cookies and I'll allow myself 1 occasionally which is more than enough since I feel satiated, I haven't had any problem with eating those cookies either. They also make things like healthy bread options, so I have an option for bread if I need it but I don't crave it often. Also I found some meat sticks I really like and will often eat those with some raw cheese, it's good and filling. I just keep it low carb and protein based. I'm hesitant to share details like this since I realize farm foods would be hard to source, but maybe it will still help someone. You just have to find what works for you and what you like. For dinner I don't usually eat much since I'm still sometimes satiated by then, I will sometimes have another small serving of kefir and whatever I feel like cooking up, I love to cook so I will let myself get creative here and sometimes make a healthy soup or other recipe, but I still always try to keep it as healthy as possible (such as a Whole30 recipe, there are some really delicious ones).

 

Honestly if I were you and I was looking to heal my gut I'd just start with trying to find some raw milk kefir and see how that made me feel, that's what seems to make the most difference for me in my diet.

I assume you were taking a colostrum supplement. If so, what brand and how much were you taking per day?

 

I was actually drinking raw colostrum If you're in the US there are several Amish farms that will ship it. It's good stuff.

 

Oh, OK. I've been using Symbiotics' Colostrum for a couple of weeks now and I do feel a difference. I also started making my own kefir but it's nowhere near what my favorite store bought brand tastes like. As far as store bought kefir goes, have you ever tried Nancy's kefir? Wow, that stuff is highly addictive. I could drink an entire carton in one sitting it's so good. Ever since I started the colostrum my fatigue that kicks in at midday has gone away. Thanks for the info!!

I assume you were taking a colostrum supplement. If so, what brand and how much were you taking per day?

 

I was actually drinking raw colostrum If you're in the US there are several Amish farms that will ship it. It's good stuff.

 

Oh, OK. I've been using Symbiotics' Colostrum for a couple of weeks now and I do feel a difference. I also started making my own kefir but it's nowhere near what my favorite store bought brand tastes like. As far as store bought kefir goes, have you ever tried Nancy's kefir? Wow, that stuff is highly addictive. I could drink an entire carton in one sitting it's so good. Ever since I started the colostrum my fatigue that kicks in at midday has gone away. Thanks for the info!!

 

That's awesome! Yeah I believe the colostrum was a big piece of my healing puzzle too. Colostrum and kefir are the only things i've found that make me feel noticeably better right after eating them! I haven't heard of Nancy's kefir but now I'm curious... I tried making my own for a while, it was a little tricky to get a good texture and I didn't have time for it. I have more time now, maybe I'll give it a try again.

Hey Holly. I’m very glad that you’re better now. I recently ran across a post about you describing eye focus issues and your eyes just sing out and having a difficult time trying to get them to focus on things. Has that gone away for you?