Almost benzo free, I hope

[[fu...]]

Hey all,

 

I am 31yo and I might be very close to stop taking my valium.

 

My problems with benzodiazepines started on august/18 when I had a major new obsession (I am diagnosed with OCD) that was almost unbearable. I was then prescribed Prozac, something that made me very very anxious and messed with my sleep by that time. Started on 20mg, and when I was finally feeling stable and good on 20mg a doctor raised my dosage to 40mg.

 

I was very unstable in general but there was this day that I had this stupid idea about drinking a couple beers with my friends and the same doctor was telling me to take quetiapine to sleep, 25mg just for that. The next day, my mind was racing, my BP was having strange ocilations and the anxiety was unbearable. I waited all day long for this to pass, and it didn't. Things only stop feeling bad when I took .25mg of Xanax. Oh, the peace.

 

The awful thing was that I started to feel this agitated everyday, and I needed a couple of doses of my Xanax. Not much time passed until I was needing 1.5mg a day and 2.5mg over special circunstances. This was in october/18.

 

Meanwhile, I read a lot about all the medications. My antidepressant was changed to Zoloft (I am today at 100mg). And I got familiar with the Ashton Manual.

 

On november I went to 1mg of Xanax daily. By december, I switched .25mg of my Xanax dosage to 5mg of Valium, taking then the regimen of 0.75mg of Xanax + 5mg of Valium daily.

 

Time passed and in relatively small steps and also in my time, I went to 0.125mg of Xanax + 2.5mg of Valium until 1 month and 3 weeks ago... this regimen endured 4 months and by the end of the third one I developed tolerance I guess because I was very unstable and hypersensitive in so many ways.

 

I then stopped taking Xanax and used only 2.5mg of Valium for 3 weeks... this was a tough change that implied in me getting my brain overheating after every 2 hours of thinking/developing code at work. The quarentine helped me, but even remotely things get hard sometimes to do my job well.

 

Then, 2 weeks ago, I decresed my Valium to 1.25mg daily. The additional difficulty wasn't as problematic as when I stopped the Xanax, but still things got a bit worse.

 

Yesterday, I didn't took my 1/4 of Valium before my sleep and now I am wondering if this was a good decision. I am over the fence because a few things:

 

* I am not stable in my current dosage, but who knows if I will be? If I developed tolerance while on .125mg of Xanax + 2.5mg of Valium, why would tolerance withdrawal get better while still tapering?

 

* I see a lot of people on reddit saying about the 10% rule, but the Ashton Manual guidelines recommend a unit decrease for each step after 10mg of Valium. Also, I wonder if the 10% rule applies more to high doses. And also, maybe I wasn't on all this for so long? I don't know.

 

* Where I live, the smaller dose of Valium sold is 5mg. A doctor that I mentioned tiltration told me that this proccess might not good as the proccess itself could mess with the properties of the benzos on the exposure with the solvent or something like this.

 

That is my journey until now and it will be great to have help on this.

 

I hope things get much better for all of us.

 

Cheers

[[Br...]]

Hi fullofdetermination,

 

Welcome to BenzoBuddies!  It's terrific you've made so much progress in your taper.  It looks like you're in the home stretch of getting off valium.  I'm so glad you've joined the forum.  You've come to the right place for good information but also support from others who understand what this is like.

 

We typically suggest making cuts of no more that 5-10% every 10-14 days or as your symptoms dictate.  As you near the end of your taper it often helps to make smaller cuts - so you may want to consider making 5% cuts or smaller, making the next cut when you feel your symptoms have stabilized.

 

Please explore the site - I'll give you some links to get started and when you feel comfortable please feel free to post your questions.

Planning Your Withdrawal (Taper Plans)

Withdrawal Support (during your taper)

 

Other members who want to reply to your posts find it helpful to know where you are in the process, so here’s how to add your benzo info automatically to your posts: go to Profile, then Forum Profile, write your info (which benzo, dose, taper history) in the text box and save. Thanks! Let us know if you need help with this.

 

We're glad you're here.  Please reach out and ask for support.

Brighterday 

[[Ja...]]

I used water titration myself. The docs can think what they want but the proof is in the pudding. Almost everyone here titrated with water or alcohol and it works just fine.