Why is the second year harder than the first?

[[ti...]]

I am finding the second year so much harder than the first. I still have brutal mental and physical symptoms. Anyone else?

[[an...]]

Following 

[Guest [Ho...]]

I feel like its harder because we are just so exhausted of suffering for so long. We start to question if its withdrawal or if its our new normal, our previous underlying issues coming back full force. We can start to lose hope because it feels like it will never end.

[[Pt...]]

Yes. My symptoms increased to 60+ physical symptoms from only mental initially. Last year I could walk, swim, distract. Now I am bedridden 24/7 in pain everywhere.

[[Go...]]

I don’t know but I am way more sick now than I was a year ago. Ugh

[[Se...]]

I am wondering too why its harder... Following

[Guest [su...]]

I feel like its harder because we are just so exhausted of suffering for so long. We start to question if its withdrawal or if its our new normal, our previous underlying issues coming back full force. We can start to lose hope because it feels like it will never end.

I totally agree!

[[Pt...]]

I wonder if there’s a new component / ingredient in the drug these days that is causing so many to suffer and get worse. It may not be the traditional benzo that got into the market first decades ago

[[Su...]]

For someone like me who is 6 months post-jump, this thread is pretty scary...

SG

[Guest [su...]]

This is just my thought I dont know if this is right but I had read about glutamate and benzo w/d a lot..we all know I guess that glutamate is not good for the brain. In a brain with no normal function GABA receptors it is WAY too much glutamate cirkel around  and this cause damage to the neurons myelin sheat in the brain. If glutamate is there for a long time i think it might cause us to feel worse and there for get more severe symptoms all bc of all glutamate messing up our brain.

I think that ppl who heal faster do feel better bc they have functional GABA receptors and this lower glutamate in the brain

Myelin sheats grows back to the nerve if damaged.

This glutamate damage to the brain is called Excitotoxicity

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excitotoxicity

[Guest [su...]]

I have only got worse as time has gone on as well. My symptoms are very neurological now and I am very scared I have a neuro disease in top of withdrawal. Vision is shaking and blurred, can’t be in light, spasms, pulling, burning, numbness, muscles moving and vibrating, weakness on one side. I dunno why some of us just get worse but I spoke to someone recently who said his 2nd and 3rd year was worst than his first. He is over 6 years off now and much better. I think it’s because it’s non linear so it can get worse before it improves. I see it a lot in people who kindled and had bad toxic reaction to drugs.

Sounds like my sxs. Very neurologic...i am.3 years off 11/1 and feel worse than acute

[[Pt...]]

So if there is always an excess of glutamate (which is what my body feels like 24/7) doesn’t that mean we’ll just continue to get worse and worse and worse?

 

I can just tell there’s so much glutamate in my brain and body damaging everything

[[Do...]]

The second year has been a breeze compared to the first.  I am 19 months off and doing pretty well.  I agree that we become so fatigued of fighting w/d that depression and hopelessness can really set in at a year.  It did for me too.  But my overall sxs have continued to improve.  Any underlying issues are also going to surface.

 

My healing has been more linear when I look at the bigger picture.  The majority of the people I started with here on BB are long gone and said they healed at 12-14 months.

[[Su...]]

My second year was much worse than first, who knows why, but it was. After 30 months off things got much better, I feel that’s where I turned a corner in terms of healing.

[Guest [su...]]

So if there is always an excess of glutamate (which is what my body feels like 24/7) doesn’t that mean we’ll just continue to get worse and worse and worse?

 

I can just tell there’s so much glutamate in my brain and body damaging everything

Yes. Right i think so. I think thats why we gey worse. We who dont get better instead feeling worse and worse. Like bad 1 year really bad second year

Brutal extreme third year

Make it sence? I guess it does

My brain is toxic.

[[Su...]]

The second year has been a breeze compared to the first.  I am 19 months off and doing pretty well.  I agree that we become so fatigued of fighting w/d that depression and hopelessness can really set in at a year.  It did for me too.  But my overall sxs have continued to improve.  Any underlying issues are also going to surface.

 

My healing has been more linear when I look at the bigger picture.  The majority of the people I started with here on BB are long gone and said they healed at 12-14 months.

 

Hey DovLuv

Thank you for such a reassuring post!

SG

[[le...]]

Nearly 18 months off definitely worse than 6 months ago. Could be because took anti depressants to help made things worse. Was asvised by a suppirt line here that year off is early days and most people don't improve until 2nd year. Don't think lockdown has helped, being stuck at home no social interactions gives you lot more time to focus on your problems.

[[tr...]]

Doveluv and sunshine...thanks for posting hope:) This whole process can be so discouraging and scary. Its always good to get  some encouragement bc some days its just really hard to stay focused. 

[[Pt...]]

I dunno. I’ve come to the conclusion that not everyone heals. I don’t get hope from reading other people’s improvements or Success stories anymore. The trajectory is just too different in everybody’s case, the timeline is different, The symptoms are different, and there are still people on every forum suffering years on out with no improvement. MY own trajectory is also a linear worsening since day 1. It’s most likely a matter of genetics and how badly we were injured. I’m doing everything right and it’s still getting worse.

[[...]]

I'm in total agreement with you Sundance about excessive glutamate is the root cause of bwd sx, at least for my case.

 

Anyone think or know if we try to control the glutamate level by diet for enough time, the benzo receptor would heal and get the glutamate benzo balance back?

[[Gr...]]

That is interesting about the glutamate.  I wonder what sugar's role is, in this. 

 

For me, my second year has been so much better, with things basically improving along the way.  I still get waves, but each wave is a little less bad then the one before. 

[Guest [su...]]

I'm in total agreement with you Sundance about excessive glutamate is the root cause of bwd sx, at least for my case.

 

Anyone think or know if we try to control the glutamate level by diet for enough time, the benzo receptor would heal and get the glutamate benzo balance back?

But glutamate in food is it the same in the brain? I dont think so.

I think it is glutamate toxic levels that do this to my brain and to me. I am more sick than year one or two. Soon in year 3 and it wont stop. Its brutal. Its torture

[Guest [...]]

I haven't posted in a very long not feeling that I could positively contribute to a discussion on healing..........but, here's where I am at now.........

 

In my first year, I felt that I had experienced healing, could quantify improvements and be certain that I was healing with time.  Now, I am not so sure.  My thoughts have gone in other directions than, "we all heal". 

Like Tweed and Sundance, all my symptoms are all neuromuscular in origin with the intense pain cycles specifically tethered to sleep and hormone cycles.  And, not a single physician I have approached and worked with has understood the exact origin of this pain.  I have searched the globe for answers: John Hopkins, University of Arizona physicians currently studying iatrogenic benzodiazepine injury, McLean Hospital in MA, Mayo Clinic, several top physicians in LA and Chicago and several others in the US and in Canada.  I've thoroughly exhausted both the traditional medical model and holistic providers focused on methylation, genetic testing, liver pathway issue, cellular wall dysfunction, nutrition, nutritional deficiency and a whole host of other esoteric and fringe "diseases" or sensitivities or metabolic/genetic weaknesses and sex hormone irregularities that may elucidate the origin of this pain.  Nothing. 

 

I've thoroughly explored immune response or lack of, rheumatology, pheochromocytoma, and other HPA axis dysregulation and dysfunction issues and, though two physicians believed that HPA axis dysfunction to be the possible origin of my pain, neither could accurately capture through blood work or imaging or repeatedly quantify and expose the exact nature of the pain cycle and how to repair the injury.  And, all the suggestions to mitigate this "unacceptable and unheard of" pain in the absence of the origin have been pharmacological: Lyrica,gabapentin, CBD, LD naltrexon, depakote, ketamine, beta blockers, methocarbamol for starters.  With the exception of the advice from one pharmacologist, who suggested a nerve root simulator given my less than optimal liver enzyme response (a known genetic issue), all roads have pointed to polypharmacy. 

 

I am exhausted from the effort that began in 2012 with my first attempt at a direct withdrawal from klonopin with many "mistakes" and CNS injuries along the way from misguided but well intentioned physicians in the traditional medical model with an entirely poor understanding of the mechanism of injury for those of us genetically predisposed or vulnerable to this class of drugs.  All along I hoped that once off the CNS and endocrine disrupting drugs that my body would be able to find a way back to homeostasis and wellness.  Maybe that's down the pipline in time and the answer is in the future, and I certainly hope that to be the case, but my belief has waned and I add my voice to those questioning a "healthy" future post benzo withdrawal for those highly symptomatic during a ridiculously slow micro taper off a small dose of benzodiazepine.

 

[[ch...]]

For someone like me who is 6 months post-jump, this thread is pretty scary...

SG

 

 

And for me too at 7 months off, 

 

Extremely so when 75,  My goodness I might not live long enough to recover,  as I have gone through a really awful time with this drug , 

 

It makes me feel doomed, and why bother with the fight to recover,

 

I mean if it takes 6 years to feel better,  not necessarily recovered fully I would be 81, I mean this is really too upsetting for me

 

 

[[Pt...]]

I dunno. I’ve come to the conclusion that not everyone heals. I don’t get hope from reading other people’s improvements or Success stories anymore. The trajectory is just too different in everybody’s case, the timeline is different, The symptoms are different, and there are still people on every forum suffering years on out with no improvement. MY own trajectory is also a linear worsening since day 1. It’s most likely a matter of genetics and how badly we were injured. I’m doing everything right and it’s still getting worse.

 

Reading stuff like this just makes me want to give up. I don’t know how you can keep going if that’s what you believe? How do you do it?

 

Bc i don’t have the courage to pursue the alternative