So much better after detoxing with NAD+

[[Sh...]]

Ramcon I will head over there in a few weeks maybe. For now I'm just gonna stick to this thread. This is not a success story. I will not consider myself healed until my mental sxs are gone and I'm back to normal. That has been the no.1 problem for me the whole way through this nightmare. However, I decided to post because after kindling I got a whole lot of physcial symptoms and they are pretty much gone now just 1 month after NAD+. The main finding for me was that I got extremely bad physical sx about 7-8 months ago when I tried to get clean of both valium and lyrica...especially burning skin. With the help of NAD that symptom and others were no where to be seen and I haven't seen them since. I dare say that If I knew how bad this whole benzo mess was going to be, I could have detoxed originally with NAD in 2015 and got off with no symptoms. I think once the damage was done from the taper, that still must take time to get better.

 

If there are people that are literally stuck on benzos or whatever and cannot taper anymore, this would be a great option to get free and speed up healing.

[[Ba...]]

Ok buddies,

 

Here is what I know:

 

If niacinamide is a positive allosteric modulator at the GABA-A receptor, it is extremely weak.  And I usually trust wiki, but not this time.  It also lists plain old NIACIN in that same category as "others unsorted" and gives a does provide a reference for any of them, and I can tell you with 100% certainty that plain old niacin does not modulate GABA-A at all.  It does help speed away glutamate, but again no one knows how or if he does, he has not published.  I would not fear using either if anyone found either helpful, except don;t go overboard with plain old niacin because it will suck up your methyl groups, and we need methyl groups, another topic for another day but . . .

 

It brings us to folate and folic acid.  In a neurologically typical person, MTHFR or not, folate is a step in the methylation cycle, used to metabolize meds, hormones, and turn on and off areas of genes in cells.  If you are MTHFR that just means you have a little difficulty turning less active folic acid into more active folate.  It is really no big deal.  What is a big deal for us is that ALL forms of vitamin B9, folic acid, folinic acid and folate are all forms of glutamate.  For those of you who feel absolutely awful after you eat dark leafy greens, that is why.  I am purposefully folate deficient, because I cannot tolerate more than a trace amount in any food or I will be in agony and hysterical until I "burn it off."  For those of you who can tolerate niacin (I used to, but now it liberates too much histamine) If you did eat a bowl of collard greens and are now hysterical, take some niacin, and it magically goes away.

 

Now what I do not know:

 

NAD+ is a recent craze.  Does that mean it is not helpful?  Not it at all.  It might be THE answer to a lot of questions.  It only means we may not know exactly how it works yet.  Plenty of great things were discovered by accident.  Those of you who know me and are on Chewing the fat know I have my fingers in like 10 different pots right now, and I will put NAD+ on the list.  For it to make my "list," and item has to show how it could, at least in theory, change the expression of our glutamate receptors.  A 30 second look up had me find a few articles, like this one:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3944346/

 

So ok, it is on the list.

 

Shamo,

 

Can you do me a favor?  Would be so kind as to post your experience, you can copy paste quotes, etc, on Chewing the Fat?  Please be as complete as you can, "I was 'x' months clean.  I had 'y' major issues.  I did exactly this (describe the process, and how long ago as well), and I have noticed 'z' improvements as of now, 'q' months after the process."  There are a bunch of people looking into stuff there, and they will dig up lots of articles, and there will be dozens of replies in no time.

 

I hope you found the rest of this post helpful, and I will put NAD+ on the "list."

 

Ramcon1

 

Ramcon,

 

Thx for the reply.  Uh, I can eat a bowl of chard or kale or whatever and feel ok.  So does that mean anything? 

 

On occasion, my body temperature drops (I seem to have probs regulating it esp when I get sick on top of already having the benzo crap going on) and if I take a Niacin I warm up--  but since it is not pleasant, being 'prickly'  I sometimes take a half.  Is this bad ?  Only do it once in a while.  You are saying it is releasing histamine?

 

I am so not good at this!

[[Ba...]]

Shamo,

 

Are you saying your symptoms were mostly physical?

 

I'd say mine are mostly psychological, tho of course there are physical ones...  flu, itching, dizzyness, weakness, on and on.  But psych. ones are th emost discouraging the hopelessness, the fear, depression, agoraphobia and of course the no sleep, which was the reason I'm on these drugs ;(

 

With me it is I took mirtazapine, well, also took zithromycin for bronchitis...then felt bad, CT the mirtazapine (only was on 6 weeks low dose) and THEN I totally in acute.  Been a mess since.

 

I don't even know anybody else who has had that experience.

 

I must be a genetic nightmare...

[[Sh...]]

Barbara my symptoms have been mental the whole time...really bad anxiey, ocd thoughts stuck in my head, depression, extreme fear and paranioa. Once I kindled myself a couple of years later when I went back on benzos my physical symptoms started...flu feeling a lot of the time, horrible after a lot of foods etc. Those symptoms are now pertty much gone 1 month after using NAD. I really want the mental sx to kindly piss off though. That will show me I'm really healing and that this treatment worked.

 

I'm not sure about the other meds you took but I know they made me worse too. I started an AD when I was early in WD and my gosh it was hell. The fear and anxiety skyrocketed. I stopped after 3 days on it and then after a couple of weeks I was back to my 'normal benzo withdrawal'. Lyrica actually helped a lot but then it started making me depressed and it was extremely hard to stop because it would give you insane insomnia. Like I'm talking you don't sleep a single wink for a week to start with. That was actually a really addictive drug too because you start craving it. I never really had that with benzos.

 

So I'm basically 5 weeks clean of two addictive drugs. And I feel pretty bloody good considering.

[[Ba...]]

Well congrats, Shamo.

 

You know I never could take ADs...  long long ago took zoloft, and it worked for sleep.  But then got arthralgia, and I was really young then... my knees were a mess.  I found one lone person on the internet with the SAME THING.  I stopped zoloft and it took a year for the pain to go away.  Later on tried it again, just to test, and within a day or two, knee pain.

 

ADs have never been my friend.  And mirtaz. just did me in on it, and off, tho off in total complete acute, bedridden.

 

Funny you mention Lyrica.  It is the only drug I've tried that makes me feel normal.  I sleep... have energy... like that.  I have taken 25 mg or 50 mg at night for that.  But I'm afraid of it, kind of have it for emergencies if that makes sense.

 

I cannot take the other adjuncts so many do-- the antihistamines and stuff.

 

So sleep a real issue; if I were to revert to my original prob:  insomnia nad my CRD... so what then?  I could not manage with that and had to earn a living and function.  Hence all of this medication...

[[Sh...]]

If lyrica is helping you sleep at that dose then it should be fine...it just got really out of hand with me and an addiction spiraled out of control. I couldn't even feel the relaxing effects of lyrica unless I took about 450mg on an empty stomach. I took 600mg for about a year which is a pretty high dose and then I even went way beyond when I lost the will to live because I was sick of being in benzo wd. I literally was taking like 3grams of the stuff some nights. I'm surprised I'm not dead. And my organs are fine after getting them all tested.

 

That's why I really think NAD+ is super impressive. I was screwed and destroying my brain yet here I am feeling better than I've felt since the beginning of my taper in 2015.

[[Ba...]]

So you think occasional use at low dose ok?

 

I'm sorry things got so out of hand for you...  yes, you are doing really well now 

 

I've never felt addicted to anything--  doesn't run in my family or anything.  But the need to sleep, well, that has long been a problem and likely related to early trauma.  And then anxiety about not sleeping.

 

I even wonder if I am a bit masochistic.  I did not have to come off clonopin-- I just figured it was not working so no point in taking as had no intention of taking more.  So cut on my own with no prob...  til the mirtaz/ zithromax.    THEN all hell.

 

I could go back to dose was on 3 years ago, about .25 clon, I believe, but after all the groups afraid of that.  But most people would say be functional and try it.  I wonder if I sabotage myself.

 

How many years were you on all this crap?

 

 

[[Sh...]]

I would think so...especially that low. Lyrica doesn't hit gaba receptors in the same way as benzos. However, I really can't be sure about much because nothing makes much sense with all this stuff. Intersting that getting off K wasn't what did you in...seemed to be the other meds?

 

I started using V in 2011 off and on but eventually was taking way too much because it stopped being relaxing anymore. What did me in was daily use for about 6 months though at a moderate dose. That was in 2015 so began my taper. I only really count my withdrawal from then. So it's been about 4 years.

[[Ba...]]

All I can say is I was tapering, on my own, not weighing or anything, just taking bit less, uneventfully for 2 years from 2 mg to a half mg or less.

 

mirtaz I would take get an instant headache, visual disturbances, and feel bouncy, dizzy.

 

until that point had none of that.

[[ra...]]

Hello Buddies,

 

First.  Shamo.  Take your time.  We are just trying to consolidate research threads in Chewing.  If I get some time in the next few weeks I may take quotes from some of the relevant parts of this thread over to Chewing where we are hashing out the pros and cons of various treatments.  If you can, make the post I requested right here, "I took these bad drugs for this long, had these symptoms, did this treatment, now I feel . . . "  That would be helpful.

 

Second what I know:

There are two parts two our illness, GABA dysfunction, downregulation and other things, what I call the "easy part" And glutamate receptor dysfunction, upregulation and other things, what I call the hard part, hard because this type of dysfunction relatively rarely occurs in nature, it does, IBS, PTSD, Autism, epilepsy, etc, but as you look at the list you see that those are conditions with no known cure (yet) so that is why it is really hard for us to heal from that part of the damage, and why a treatment that works would be so helpful.

 

Folic acid, folinic acid and folate are all forms of free glutamate.  They all have pteroyl-L-glutamate in their "real" names. If you are MTHFR, you produce less of the enzyme that converts less active folic acid to more active folate, but you still do it and it is not near as big a deal as some people have lead others to believe.

 

If you can eat a big bowl of swiss chard and feel no worse, it sounds like your glutamate receptors are healing up nicely and you are likely to be very healthy very soon.

 

Lyrica is dangerous because, Shamo is right unlike benzos it does not hit GABA receptors.  It is far more dangerous because it works purely by inhibiting glutamate transmission.  If like Shamo had done you take a boat load, you will feel drunk as if you drank alcohol, which also works by primarily inhibiting glutamate.  When you inhibit glutamate, you risk doing more of teh receptor damage from which it is very hard to heal.  I would not take Lyrica until I was 7 years off benzos and still suffering and/or I was 70 years old and just did not care what happened to me in 10 years.  I am 99% certain the regular use of Lyrica would kindle the hell out of a healing benzo person.  I chose Valium over Lyrica.  I am still on vallium, but I think I made the right choice.

 

What I do not know:

I have no idea what using Lyrica occasionally on a bad day would do.  There are those who say ocassional benzo use sets you up for badness, and I knwio taht happened to me, but Lyrica?  No idea.

 

What I also still do not know, but hope to in 6 months:

Why would NAD+ cure a benzo damaged person?

 

Again, Shamo, the better you can document your before during and after, the better it will help me.

 

Be well buddies and have a good day,

 

ramcon1

[[Sh...]]

That was a big worry for me Ramcon. The fact that I had stuffed up both gaba and glutamate receptors by being on meds for a long time. I really felt like I was a lot worse back in 2015 when I was tapering just benzos and had never touched lyrica though. Lyrica really did a number on some physical things. It stuffed up my gut and digestion to the point where I could only ever go to the bathroom by taking laxatives every 3-4 days. And my energy levels...it felt like without the drug I was a zombie during the day after I woke up. That has been tough to recover from but even that is almost completely better 5 weeks since the NAD.

 

It's scary to think about all the damage but I am free now and everyone heals eventually anyway.

[[Ca...]]

Hey Shamo...  Great to read of this big change for you..!!

Persistence paid off in the end by the looks...

Big effort, -Well done..!!

 

 

 

[[...]]

Hey Shamo, I'm overjoyed to hear this worked so well for you, and you figured things out with the lyrica. Thank you for posting too so that others can hear about this option. Keep us posted!

 

 

[[Sh...]]

Thanks. Really hoping the mental symptoms go soon too. They have been the most crushing through this whole thing. The physical didn't even bother me a whole lot...

[[Fi...]]

Hey NAD recipients. What symptoms did the NAD stop or significantly reduce?? I feel so stuck in taper, like I'm dying. My worst symptoms are:

-extreme hyperacusis with extreme startle reflex

-severe dizziness/boatiness/seasick feeling

-extreme visual overstimulation/everything too bright/visual migraines/eye pressure

-EXTREME AND HORRIBLE NONSTOP nausea and dry heaving

** if I taper too fast, bad insomnia and non-stop adrenaline surges (if I taper slow my Remeron is still healing me sleep).

*** if I taper too fast, racing thoughts, song looping, and agoraphobia

*** if i taper too fast, poor temperature regulation and runny nose

 

Note: I didn't have bad anxiety prior to these meds.

 

I'm down to about .135mgK and am considering a jump at .125k. I want to keep the Remeron for now. I can't keep prolonging this. It's putting my job in jeopardy and I need to find a way to jumpstart my healing. What do you guys think about nad helping with these types of symptoms?

[[...]]

Hey Fighterk, I wasn't having sxs prior to starting my NAD, I just went in and basically cold turkeyed. But 9 months prior I had finished a 3 yr horrible withdrawal from Cymbalta, so I didn't want to go through that again, and was on a mission to get off all my meds. I was also taking a low dose of Elavil, 10mg, that I also CTd with the NAD. But I popped in here to say that I don't think the specific symptoms you're having are what makes the difference. Everyone's symptoms can be different because of our unique make-up, but the process is still the same. I think the questions really are 1) can this tx work even if you are well into your taper or after you've stopped the med completely?  and my big question 2) are there any contraindications like other health conditions or medications one might have?  From what I've read here and elsewhere the answer to 1 is YES, and sadly the answer to 2 is they don't know. In my mind, it's that 2nd question that makes it nearly impossible to predict who will have a good outcome, but I'd say the odds are in one's favor. But I think it's incumbent upon any of us to find a practitioner you trust and discuss your whole heath history to see if they think you're a good candidate. So that's a long answer to your question, that I don't think your sxs or the fact that you're in a taper matter.

 

It's possible you may have to stop the Remeron too if you do this tx if it hits some of the same receptors. But you may be better off with that anyway!

[[Fi...]]

NFN-I'm in California, closest to the Ken Starr place by San Luis Ibispo. My dose is around 1.35/1.40K (I didn't do exact calculation in mg this week since my brain is fried, but I do track my mls of dose and could figure it out if I had to.) My Valium equivalent would be around 2.8mg. I called them for info. They haven't called back yet. Do they force you on seizure meds or Gabapentin? If I CT'd on my own first and went in like 2 weeks after would that be better? You CT'd from 5mg of Valium, right? What did the whole process feel like?

[[...]]

Wow, Fighterk, consider yourself lucky you live near Ken Starr! That's where I was going to go, but then found a place in San Diego where I live. I hope he's as knowledgable as he seems because I feel I've advertised his name on these boards, lol! Either the local chiropractor who told me about NAD or the Springfield Clinic gave me his name. I think he was trained in this by Springfield, but he was already a substance abuse doctor.

 

Anyhow, I believe anti-seizure med is part of the protocol if you're still taking a benzo. Unless you have a medical reason why you shouldn't take it, they probably have to give it to you. The gabapentin I don't know about, it wasn't part of my tx. Most of these tx also include a vitamin drip of some kind daily, and a glutathione or ALA push also daily to aid the detox.

 

I was never on Valium, only Xanax and Lorazepam. For the last couple years before I did the tx, I took 1-2mg nightly for insomnia. In the few days before my tx, I tried to limit myself to the 1mg. The doctor wanted to cold turkey me the first day, but I was nervous because when I was younger I had some seizure activity, though not medication related. So I took 1/2mg the night of my first IV day. And that was my last dose. I didn't have issues with seizures. My doc said he only had one patient that did, and it was a woman who had not disclosed that she had a seizure disorder.

 

I realize your situation more closely resembles Shamo here, and he's had a very good response so far!

 

It was a tough experience going through it but my case will be different than yours. Remember I was not in withdrawal when I started it, but it threw me into it suddenly on day 2. But for people like you that are already in withdrawal hell, you may only notice improvement or things starting to move more quickly. I got usual things like light and sound sensitivity, brain zaps, whole body vibrations, disequilibrium, insomnia of course, body temp fluctuations, etc. I got severe depression for 24 hrs! It just moves you through quicker. What was weird is that after the depression lifted by night 3, I felt happy and more clear headed, even though I had all the other physical symptoms. It was scary because I had no idea what to expect, and I didn't know about BB at the time . A woman I met there who I'm still friends with told me about BB.

[[Ka...]]

NFN thank you so much for sharing your experience, this is so interesting, I'm looking into NAD tx right now too and I'm wondering how soon after the treatment did you feel the improvement? How soon were you completely healed? Did you have any mental symptoms during the NAD treatment or after at all? this is such a new treatment and nobody knows much about it, I was trying to look it up on the internet and there aren't that many people who have done it, so your info is really really appreciated:) Shamo and how are you doing with your mental sx right now? Are they getting easier at all? I almost have no physical sx but mental ones are terrible and don't seem to improve at all((

[[Sh...]]

Fighterk I was the one who got off 5mg V but I was also taking higher doses sporadically every few days too. NFN is someone I got a lot of info from before I made the plunge and she helped me through it.

 

I am not a doctor but can say for 100% sure that it worked better for me to use the NAD to detox the benzo while there. It blocked a lot of the symptoms for me and really kicked in around day 3. I started to feel pretty awful for a day or 2 but then it took over which was great. I can only take an educated guess but it feels like it somehow protects your brain and CNS from damage. I think doing the CT and then going in a week or 2 later would be a mistake. I'm sure that could still help people but if you have the choice then use to it help get you free.

 

Whatever damage we currently have is still going to be an issue for a while though. I still have the original mental sx I had before doing the NAD although everything seems to be improving really quickly. At 1 week after NAD I thought I'd made a mistake and was in for a long time of hell but then I started improving rapidly and any physical sx I had started vanishing by the week.

[[Sh...]]

NFN thank you so much for sharing your experience, this is so interesting, I'm looking into NAD tx right now too and I'm wondering how soon after the treatment did you feel the improvement? How soon were you completely healed? Did you have any mental symptoms during the NAD treatment or after at all? this is such a new treatment and nobody knows much about it, I was trying to look it up on the internet and there aren't that many people who have done it, so your info is really really appreciated:) Shamo and how are you doing with your mental sx right now? Are they getting easier at all? I almost have no physical sx but mental ones are terrible and don't seem to improve at all((

 

I still have them Kathy but they aren't too bad...just annoying and I'm sick of them. I'm only 6 weeks off a CT so I'm not expecting a miracle but if they are gone within 6 months that would be amazing so I'm hoping for that. I already had a window a couple of weeks ago where everything dropped away and I felt amazing. I hadn't really had one prior to NAD for about 3 or 4 years.

[[Ka...]]

Oh good for you, what an amazing progress, it really makes me want to try NAD even though its so expensive and ive been off benzos for a long time, but i just don't see any progress with mental sx at all and it's very discouraging, thank you for starting this thread, its really helpful!

[[...]]

KathyM, I started to have glimpses of feeling better about a month after the tx. This is part of what was scary for me is that I didn't know for a little while how it was going to turn out, and since I was not in withdrawal before I started, I was in a bit of a shock and wondered what I wasted my money on. But then things started improving pretty quickly. I'd say by 3 months I was starting to have most of my days being good and sleeping more, by 5-6 really good. I still don't consider myself completely healed. All I notice now is difficulty getting to sleep some nights, but my quality of sleep is SO much better than when I was on benzos! I'm also still sensitive to some supplements I'd like to take. What I notice is after a few days of trying a supplement that I have a return of some of the withdrawal symptoms I had after NAD, but much more mild. I don't know if more NAD would be helpful (one of my docs thinks so), or if I just need to let my nervous system take it from here. You have to look at NAD as a means to jump start the healing, not to do it all. I honestly don't know if I would've been able to stomach the withdrawal on my own, and think I would've stayed on benzos forever. It was well worth it for me to take a few months out of my life to get the rest of my life handed back to me.

 

The only other mental symptom I had, other than my 24hr depression, was some generalized anxiety. That presented itself as an oversensitivity to disturbing news or movies/tv shows. I had to avoid the news for a while, and could only watch comedies or HGTV. My family got so sick of HGTV! And of course anxiety over whether I was going to get better. But other than that, I was fine. It's really impossible to say how anyone else is going to respond. I wish more was known about why some people get certain symptoms while others don't.

[[Ka...]]

NFN, that sounds great! Most people that too benzos for 12+ years suffer terribly for 2-3 years after from what ive seen on here, with terrible mental and physical sxs, this tx sounds almost miraculous:) thank you for sharing your experience.

[[...]]

You're welcome. Yeah I guess I should consider myself very lucky. I hope you're able to find some good info about it to see if it's right for you.