Too scared….

Reading around here is inspiring however some things I read coupled with my recent bad exp is making benzo free seem impossible.

 

How long does it take to fully get through..??

 

10 days cold Turkey did not seem to work for me . Did not see any end in sight . Couldn’t function. I couldn’t afford to loose my job . I ended up non functioning and completely mentally detached from existence…

 

How much time do I need to put aside?

 

Will a supplement and tapper work better.

 

I’m so scared it will last…. Weeks ? Months ? A year???

 

Man….

It will help us help you if you put your medication situation into your signature, that way we can see at a glance what's going on.  Here are the instructions but if you need help, just put the information here and a team member can take care of it for you.  Add your history/signature 

 

How long it will take depends on a lot of things, how long you've taken the drug, your general health, genetics, stress levels and countless other variables so we really can't tell you this. 

 

Tapering is using the drug to minimize symptoms while we remove the drug, it's not easy but it can be done.  Many can work while tapering and it's challenging but most of us can't afford to quit our jobs or take a leave of absence, this is why we taper slowly to hopefully allow us to live our lives while getting off the drug.

 

I'm not sure what you mean by supplement but there isn't anything that everyone can agree on, what helps one person hurts another. 

 

Recovery is possible but it takes a long time.

Hi P! I'm going through difficulties myself during withdrawal. However, I do know to tell you to please taper VERY slowly! This is something that cannot be rushed. It tapering happens to go faster: great! My dosage is small to go (.5) but I shave my pill down ever so slightly. I'd love to go faster but found it unliveable. Please don't do cold turkey again! We're all together here! Take care!!!!

:smitten: :smitten: :smitten: :smitten: :smitten:

Thanks ! You are a huge help around here. Long time . it’s going to be a tough journey I see now . I’m 37 been on it about 6-7 years at various dosages . I’ve quit before with close to zero issue …

 

As you mentioned that’s kindling?

 

It seems logical to switch to something with a different action span .

 

I could see why Xanax to Valium is popular one .

 

I appreciate you shooting me straight and stressing the importance of a tapper.

 

I’ve been on and off tramadol which is it’s own kind of hell . But it’s very predictable…

 

The physical lasts 5 days tops . The mental , bad for a few weeks . Then some just lingering weirdness for a couple of months .

 

I can handle that .

 

I’ve had to decide living in pain or dealing with that addiction as well.

 

Let me tell you .

 

This most rescent cold Turkey attempt off the Xanax about had me thinking I would end up in a psychosis . The physical was bare able . It sucked but bareable.

 

This new symptom of derealization had me completely out of my mind scared and not ok .

 

I’m on a lower dose . 6 to 4… but I would have loved to come out the other end of that 10 day hell at something around 1-2 …. Man …

 

I’m just so scared to experience that again . It’s been 8 days I’ve reduced down to 3.5mg and no symptoms so far so I’ll keep doing like .5 every 2 weeks ??

 

I’m so scared to end up in a nut house.

 

I had a terrible bout of adult chick n pox , mono, kidney stones , covid ….

 

I never thought anything would top the chicken pox . Till covid. Then I thought nothing would top the covid till this last wD…

 

It’s absolutely insane . …

 

Ugh I hope tapper makes it more manageable…

 

It’s even worse than lupus flare ups . It’s single handedly the worst experience of my entire life

 

 

It will help us help you if you put your medication situation into your signature, that way we can see at a glance what's going on.  Here are the instructions but if you need help, just put the information here and a team member can take care of it for you.  Add your history/signature 

 

How long it will take depends on a lot of things, how long you've taken the drug, your general health, genetics, stress levels and countless other variables so we really can't tell you this. 

 

Tapering is using the drug to minimize symptoms while we remove the drug, it's not easy but it can be done.  Many can work while tapering and it's challenging but most of us can't afford to quit our jobs or take a leave of absence, this is why we taper slowly to hopefully allow us to live our lives while getting off the drug.

 

I'm not sure what you mean by supplement but there isn't anything that everyone can agree on, what helps one person hurts another. 

 

Recovery is possible but it takes a long time.

Thanks for adding your signature.  I need to caution you about your taper rate, it seems too fast to me.  Many members have said that reductions can catch up to you, you feel fine so you keep reducing until you get hit hard, I'd hate to see you have to updose again.

 

Remember you're using the drug to mitigate withdrawal symptoms, to lessen them so you can keep going to work, once you're off of the Xanax, you won't have any help with your symptoms.  Recovery after you're drug free can take many months so allowing your brain to heal on the way down will hopefully mean an easier recovery.

 

Please try to learn as much as you can about this process so you won't fear it as much because fear is one of our symptoms too. 

 

 

Pampatwr

 

Your experience shows.

Yea day just. Before rounding the corner with lowering to 3mg I started getting hit hard out of the blue with a similar to the cold Turkey atempt.

 

I’ve gone back to 4mg for a little while then back to 3. Seems fine .

 

Do you know if maybe flip flop tapper is good ? Can that preven this zz

 

 

Yes I’m rushing it. I’m so done with this nightmare . I never want to feel like I did when I first posted here ever again.

 

Still waiting for my doc apt .

 

Thanks for your spot on advice .

 

I’m being impatient . Your so right…

 

It’s almost like prolonging unnecessary symptoms .. I see now . I see.

 

Timing seems important too . Before I was doing twice a day.

 

I’ve now done research on it’s half life and 3x a day seems to be a better sweet spot

 

Thanks for the support !

 

Thanks so much !!

  hey pixeldenny.  sorry you are going through this nightmare.  my first 2 attempts  to taper were unsuccessful and wound up in the hospital both times.  the way the drs. say to taper is a joke and i new i had to figure something out on my own.  i have taken 2.0 mgs of klonopin a day for 25 years.  so for me a super slow taper works best.  since i have gotten down to half a pill in the am and the same at night, i have been symptom free.  actually feeling better than ever.  i noticed that when members of bb would taper many would have symptoms all through the taper and for year or more after their taper.  so for me, i'd rather take the 3 years to taper slow enough to be symptom free.  i was able to save up my meds so i dont need my dr. for refils anymore. i have enough to continur tappering for another year.  i do i micro taper, but im going down 1 number a week not a day.  so a quarter of my pill weighs .43.  in a week i will go to .42 and so on.  it seems like it takes a few years anyway to feel healed if you go faster .  good luck in your journey... once you figure out the taper that works best for you, im sure you will put this nightmare behind you.  love & light..  jill

jillybean, did you have symptoms before starting your taper? Had you hit tolerance?

hereforhelp...  yes..  i started experiencing crazy adreanlene surges and had panic all the time.  i new it was the meds , so i thought i'd taper off and thats when i realized it was going to be a big problem.  the first two times i tried to taper off i was put on the psych ward and spent 5 months bedbound. i had every one of the 1000'sof symptoms.  i really thought my life was over.  i went back up , almost to my original dose and after some months i started to taper slower than anyone probably  lol.  and even though i want this done and over with, i just follow what my body is telling me.  i havnt and any of the mental or physical symtoms since ive been going down so slowly.  i was origially put on klonopin for panic.  i only get that way when i have a doctor or dentist problem. so last year i had to have some oral surgury and i went into a panic like i used to before the meds. i had to updose a bit  and hold which set me back about six months.  but once i felt like me again i continued and hadnt had any issues .  im basically back now to where i was before the oral surgery.  i just cant wail to be finished with this for good.  god bless & best wishes    jill

That's wonderful. I've tried slowing up a couple times without any noticeable improvement. It's actually gotten worse. And I've held for a week or more without any change. So now I feel like I just have to keep moving down no matter what I feel.

Like others have said, it's difficult to say how long it will take because there are so many different factors for each individual, but I can tell you it is possible to get off completely and heal from this.  I was on a high dose of Clonazepam for a few years before I started tapering and was extremely sensitive to changes in dosage so it took me a few years to taper off completely. I'm sure it could have been quicker, but I paused my taper a few times (For sometimes months at a time) when stressful life events came up. I was able to go to school then work full time during the whole process.

 

I also tried to stop cold turkey one time and felt like you described with the derealization. I had to get back on and take it slow. In general, my pace was about 10-14% every two weeks. Your experience will tell you how quickly you should taper. For me, being uncomfortable, especially the first day or two after dropping the dose was fine, but unbearable meant I was going too quickly. If I dropped the dose too quickly then I would give myself an extra week or two before I resumed.

 

When it comes to supplements, none of them seemed to help me and I tried just about every supplement you can think of. The only things that seemed to help was trying to eat as healthy as I could, staying away from refined sugar and soda, and drinking lots of water for the first few days after I dropped the dosage which seemed to speed up the process just a little.

 

Be careful when reading about bad experiences/horror stories. It’s good to relate to the experiences of others, but it’s important to find a balance and remember your mind can be in a state of panic so it’s easy to get worked up about negative things you read. Eventually I had to take a break from reading about symptoms. With that being said, it’s just as important to read or hear about success stories and get support. What helped me was finding local recovery support groups for addiction.