Setback Improvement - Will continue to update

[[Buddie]]

Oh man I needed this today.  Thank you!  I am day 5 of a terrible setback worse than the worst of acute.  Hoping I heal as fast as you are healing!

[...],

I am so happy that my experience could give you a little bit of encouragement!

I'm still feeling around 90-95% better so I'm very hopeful that this trend continues and this really is the end of this setback.

Do you mind me asking what med set you back? Im so sorry you are going through something similar.

[[Buddie]]

I’ve been taking a nasal corticosteroid spray since april.  It started causing some issues so I stopped it.  3 days later i was in hell and still am 8 days later.  I feel I have gone way backwards now.  Only time will tell on how bad this will be.  People are telling me it is a cross-tolerant drug to benzos.  I dont exactly know what that means or why I was able to take the spray so long without problems.  The moment I stopped everything went crazy, just crazy.

[[Buddie]]

Those damn steroids. I'm so sorry that you are suffering like this! Now I could be very much out to lunch here, but I feel like with everything I've read, that many peoples setbacks seem to be alot quicker to come out of when the med they were taking wasn't taken orally. I assume its because it doesn't have the opportunity to build up systemically in our systems the same way that it would if we had been taking a much larger dose orally? Either way, I hope you come out the other side of this very very soon!!!

[[Buddie]]

Just wanted to update as it's been a week, I've had some random mild anxiety here and there, some light inner vibrations a few evenings and maybe some physical symptoms (headache, ear/tooth pain) but then again, those could be "normal" too, and now I'm just reading too much into every symtpom, imagining it's Benzo related. But I would otherwise still consider myself 90%+.
So thankful this setback was short liked.
Now I'm working on my fear of the future and fear of never actually healing to how I was before and always having sensitivities.. as many buddies and friends in this have told me, I can't let fear rule me and I'm genuinely trying to change this with the help of someone well known in the Benzo community as well as my local psychologist.

I hope everyone has a long amazing window today! 

[[Buddie]]

Well its been 3 months and 11 days since the setback hit - I know earlier on I has proclaimed myself as done with this setback but that wasn't exactly how things have gone.

The good news:
My symptoms have improved DRASTICALLY. The month of November and December consisted of windows (completely symptom free) and waves, now when I say waves I don't mean the terrible cant function all the nasty symptoms return type waves. They have all been mild and manageable, I have been able to live my life 100% normally and try my best to just ignore any lingering symptoms.

The bad news:
I suck these days at acceptance. I was fully expecting to feel 100% healed by this point and I'm just not there yet and this is incredibly frustrating to me. Now I've reset my timeline and am hoping to be fully back to my old self by 5-6 months post setback and if it happens sooner then I will be absolutely thrilled. Again I really want to reiterate to anyone reading this that when I do have symptoms they are more then manageable and its hard to remember how far I've come from the first month of this setback when I literally thrown back into a state worse then acute, I honestly didn't know how I was going to survive it, but I did and I am leaps and bounds healthier in comparison.

All of this to say I'm not 100% healed but I am getting there, there were definitely some bad days in between but I would say the worst of it was gone within the first 5 weeks.

If you are currently dealing with a setback please know that things will improve and that you WILL get better, just hold on!

[[Buddie]]

I just wanted to come back again and update, incase down the road there are others who are dealing with AB or med induced setbacks that don't completely "recover" within a few months. I'm now 7 months and 8 days out from my setback last fall. I'm sad to report that I am still not back to being completely symptom free but things have continuously improved. Mostly minor lingering symptoms here and there, life is very manageable. I'm returning to university by the end of this month (I've been off since my setback hit just because I didn't feel it was manageable to deal with on top of the setback), I'm spending time with friends again, I sleep great and I essentially live my life normally. Unless I told you that I was still experiencing some symptoms here and there you would never know. My wish and "goal" would be to be completely recovered by my 3 year benzo free anniversary this coming December.

I once thought that going through benzo WD would permanently alter my life, and although it changed me and my life in aspects it didn't have anywhere near as a profound effect on me as healing and then being setback has had. To say this setback has been severe is an understatement, it by far trumps the 13 months of my initial WD and had changed me, my views and beliefs more then I ever thought possible. I know some people say that they will return to things like caffeine and alcohol again and I once thought I would as well but I can confidently say now that I will never intentionally touch something again that could potentially harm me - unless for life saving reasons (like an AB or medical procedure).

BUT it does get better! It gets so so so so so so so so so so so much better! even a few months ago I would have absolutely longed to be where I am today. Life is good, even with the minor lingering symptoms! I healed once before and I know I am so close again. If anything this has just strengthened my belief in our bodies innate ability to heal itself and to overcome anything.

Hang in there, we will all get through this!