Xanax tapering

[[Je...]]

Thank you Pam for those kind words. Yes, becoming a Grandpa is awesome. Yesterday I went to Dr to get checked out. Did a EKG and guess what? It was perfect. He said probably better than his. Lol. All chest and air hunger just withdrawal symptoms.  Same with ears ringing and popping. Also will be doing compete blood panels tomorrow to check everything out. Also,  I hope I am finally stabilizing on the 4 mg of Valium. Remember, I only started with 5mg without a loading dose and no taper from xanax , even though Ashton Manual suggested 10mg. Also just after first 8 days they cut me down to 4 mg daily. Been on 4mg for only 1 week.  I suppose no matter what as time goes by you should stabilize, just takes longer? I mean, people quit cold turkey and their brain adjust and stabilize at some point. Just is much worse withdrawls.  I was only on benzos 5 weeks though. So hoping for the best and get rid of this from my brain and body ASAP. Looks like Ashton manual recommends dropping 1mg every week or two when down this low correct? Thanks. Jerry

Edited November 1, 2023 by [Je...]

[[Pa...]]

Glad to hear you’re in such good health, we feel like we’re coming apart at the seams, but we’re really not.  

Most people do stabilize and yes, even those of us who quit cold turkey finally find our way out.  If you’re feeling stable, meaning you can perform your daily tasks then it might be time to reduce again, I’m still hoping you can do this quickly.  

[[Je...]]

Ok. Thanks again. So "stabilizing" does NOT mean we have no withdrawl symptoms,  it just means we can get through the withdrawl symptoms we are having. Correct? One more question. "Interdose withdrawl" would eventually subside if we don't start increasing our dose, which would than allow us to start a slow taper on any medication. Correct? Thanks. 

[[Pa...]]

Yes, being stable doesn’t mean feeling good, it just means you can take care of your basic needs, then its time to bring on the pain again, its a lousy system.

9 hours ago, [[J...] said:

"Interdose withdrawl" would eventually subside if we don't start increasing our dose, which would than allow us to start a slow taper on any medication. Correct?

I don’t understand this question.  Interdose withdrawal is the symptoms you feel before taking your next dose,  I don’t see it subsiding unless you split your dose and take it more often. 

[[VI...]]

6 hours ago, [[P...] said:

Yes, being stable doesn’t mean feeling good, it just means you can take care of your basic needs, then its time to bring on the pain again, its a lousy system.

I don’t understand this question.  Interdose withdrawal is the symptoms you feel before taking your next dose,  I don’t see it subsiding unless you split your dose and take it more often. 

I tend to disagree slightly here. Being 'stable' is an interpretation and everyone is going to look at it differently. For me, being stable means being about 90-95% w\d free, or like you said, 'take care of needs'. But some people's needs are more than others, so I guess some would call 70% 'good enough'. If you're symptomatic and calling it 'stable' it's basically an oxymoron. (to me) Wouldn't keep dropping down while experiencing moderate symptoms just increase symptoms, or at the least, you'd be symptomatic worse of than you could be all the way down? We all know, no one escapes pain free. There're no arguments there, but I feel like adjusting as much as possible is important, while keeping it moving ofc. Which brings me to Jerry's next question, because wouldn't that be the point? You want those interdose symptoms to start disappearing. You want to adjust as close to fully as possible, then drop down, adjust, drop down, repeat. Right? Correct me if I'm wrong. I'm not trying to sound like a 'know it all' but I've experienced that type of taper down where you're symptomatic all the way down and then miserable at the end, or the 'lousy game' you call it before via treatment center. So far, the way I've been doing it, I've been way way more comfortable than in previous experiences. But I guess then again, we all know each time you w/d it is different, even for the same person.. too many variables. 

[[Je...]]

So when I am done with tapering from Valium and I still have to wean off the Ambien, and it has a half life of only 2-3 hours,  and I am "possibly "  already having interdose withdrawl from the Ambien, how do I taper down without severe withdrawl symptoms? And my psychiatrist is not going to transfer me to Valium. Is there a link to "Ambien Taper" , or should I at least as my Psychiatrist to switch to Zoplicone since it has a much longer half life? Remember l have 12.5 mg Ambien that I cut up and take 6 mg at bedtime, 10 pm. And than get up 2 am. Go to work, than at 5 am off for 2 1/2 hours and take 1.5 mg to sleep 1 1/2 hours, than back to work, than 1 pm head home than 2 pm take the rest of my Ambien, about 5 mg. So only 1 pill daily, just that I cut it up. They are to cut up so pretty close to those mg mentioned each time. PLEASE,  don't respond with response that will give me worse anxiety. Like " I am in a terrible situation " or anything that might be negative, ( please). I want to here only positive thoughts.  Not trying to be rude just honest. I believe sometimes if our  feedback has negative or feedback that can cause people more anxiety could be damaging. Honest, is good with much POSITIVE statements included. Thanks. Love you all. Jerry 

[[Pa...]]

In most situations, I suggest members taper the shorter acting drug first, but because you’d been on the Valium for such a short time, I was hoping you’d be able to escape its clutches by tapering off of it first.  If you’re concerned about interdose with the Ambien then perhaps you should taper it first. 

PLEASE do some research on the platform to see what members have to say before considering crossing to Zopiclone. 

[[Je...]]

Hello Pam. I don't believe my psychiatrist is going to let me do that. I will ask. But I don't think She will let me go back and forth with which one first. I really don't want Zoplicone,  just seen it has longer half life,, eally don't want to get more drugs involved. Can a person just wean off Ambien? Thanks. Jerry

[[VI...]]

2 hours ago, [[J...] said:

Hello Pam. I don't believe my psychiatrist is going to let me do that. I will ask. But I don't think She will let me go back and forth with which one first. I really don't want Zoplicone,  just seen it has longer half life,, eally don't want to get more drugs involved. Can a person just wean off Ambien? Thanks. Jerry

Yeah you can just wean off it. That's why I was saying a while ago wean off that first possibly because it was the shorter acting drug since you switched over to valium and was building that up in your system because it would cover up effects from that since they're closely related chemically. You just need to spread the doses out more. and then slowly lessen the amount. It's no different than basically any other short acting drugs. short acting drugs are harder to taper only for that reason, you need more doses, and have to be consistent, and then once its down to super low numbers, its harder to obviously spread them out through the other doses. I don't think going back and forth is in your best interest. It starts getting things confused and messed up. You do ultimately have control over what goes in your body. Don't like what your doctor is doing, speak up. Say that you don't feel comfortable about what is going on. They expect you to just 'go along' with things sometimes. You have a right as a patient to question things. I mean I had to switch doctors personally. Mine was trying to give me 100mg gabapentin to come off of about 5mg equivalent xanax tolerance. That literally would have landed me in the ER. I now have a new doctor, that Im starting to really trust and am super fond of her. She actually knows what the heck she is doing. Sometimes that's what it takes. But really most importantly, be open and honest with your doc. I'll tell you this. Doctors don't like being 'shown' up, so don't go in there with that type of attiitude, but be assertive. It's YOUR BODY. Not theirs. I know I sound like a broken record by saying this but listening to your body. Keep doing it, and RELAY that info over to the doctors. You have the right to say 'this is too fast for me' 'this is too slow for me' 'im not taking that' 'What other options do we have here' things like that. Dont forget that Jerry. 

[[An...]]

On 28/10/2023 at 07:27, [[J...] said:

Also. Is it ok to stop small amount of Ambien and instead ad something that is more safer and does not affect GABA. Like Tylenol PM. Or some marijuana.?

If the Tylenol PM helps, I would take it. It will not hinder your benzo withdrawal recovery progress but like Pam said, not much can help the insomnia caused by benzo w/d.

[[Pa...]]

Many members have been able to taper Ambien without much trouble, sure they have insomnia but for many, it doesn’t produce the horrific symptoms benzo’s do.  The same can’t be said for Zopiclone withdrawal, it’s too similar to a benzo, I’ve watched too many members suffer getting off of it. 

My cold turkey from a massive amount of Ambien was pretty uneventful, I couldn’t sleep for a few days and had some awful slasher dreams (when I was finally able to fall asleep) but I felt so much better, I didn’t care because the horrible symptoms the Ambien gave me were gone.  

Are you still at 4 mgs Valium?  How long has it been now, do you think your body is dependent on it?  

 

 

 

[[Je...]]

Thanks for all your feedback.. I have been on 4mg of Valium for 10 days now. I feel like I can go down to 3mg now. I know when I get any sort of withdrawal symptoms in the past 5 or 6 days, and it comes time to take one of my 2mg Valium it only get rid of maybe 40% of the symptom. But if the withdrawl symptom was coming on and it was my time I would take some Ambien, 90% of the withdrawl symptoms go away. I am not saying they are super terrible symptoms. Just that the symptoms I do have are relieved better by my Ambien dose than Valium. I am not saying rescue dose at all, just regular dosing time.  Seems like this means interdose with the Ambien is why I am having any symptoms at all. So just get this darn Valium over with than deal with the Ambien? Thoughts? Also if I drop 1mg of Valium how long does it take to affect a person? One more thing, when I am having a withdrawl headache symptom at time of getting ready for Ambien dose, 20 minutes after dose it goes away. But when I wake up it is back. Headache and ears ringing. Which are definitely not super terrible withdrawl symptoms.  Very annoying.  Why? UPDATE! Posted this about 1 hour ago. Went outside to take down Halloween decorations,  all of a sudden the " BENZO WITHDRAWL DEMON" got ahold of me for about 1 hour. Flu like symptoms, little confusion, and little memory loss, and little air hunger. But 1 1/2 hours later, mostly gone. I am no pro at this, but I must say that when I withdrew from about 35mg of Oxycodone and 30mg hydrocodone daily these same things happened. And when I finally stopped after 4 1/2 months of weaning. I continued withdrawl symptoms for around 6 weeks. And I will tell you, I used the Opiates for around 6 years. Very similar to these symptoms now. Not constant, but sometimes all of a sudden the "Oxy withdrawl Demon" would just all of a sudden show up, flu like symptoms and ears ringing, etc. Just had to fight through it. I hope that we all that taper off this horrible drugs don't have to go through any withdrawls, but I just know that's not possible for me. I don't care about people being  celebrities and does not impress me. But I have read stories of many famous celebrities who are EXTREMELY wealthy, and had their own personal Doctors and Nurses like living with them through tapering off of benzos, opiates, etc. And they have the best drugs to help withdrawl money can buy. And they still said it was HELL. So this tells me the BENZO DEMON does not care what money can buy, just that it will get you no matter who we are. The only thing that might matter is some people's body take it better than others. We are different. I heard a specialist explain one time everything that could affect withdrawl for each person is mind blowing. And that is why he did not like to say things like" acute withdrawl will last any certain amount of time". So much goes into it, he mentioned stuff like, age,male or female, what kind of drugs have they done over their lifetime, how many times someone has come off drugs, how long they used, how much they used, have they been to jail, do they have anxiety and psychological problems, etc.etc.etc. I believe this can be true. Now I am blabbing. I sure wish we could come up with something to make it so EVERYONE coming off any drug did not have to suffer so bad at times. Thoughts?

Edited November 4, 2023 by [Je...]

[[Pa...]]

I hope you can get off of the Valium soon, you’ve been on benzo’s for over 6 weeks now.  If your symptoms are too much, you may need to resign yourself to a slow taper off the Valium.  If that’s the case then it would be better to taper the Ambien first but you say your doctor won’t allow it? 

 It makes me crazy to know your doctor put you more at risk by prescribing an addictive medication to address the symptoms of another addictive medication.  They should know better.

[[Je...]]

If I cut out 1mg starting Monday like Ashton manual says when on 4mg, how long will it take for your body to know if the decrease was ok or to much? I WANT OFF THIS CRAP ASAP. And still be as functional as possible. I  know there will be some symptoms but I had them with opiates everyday during  taper period. Some days worse than others. 

Edited November 4, 2023 by [Je...]

[[Pa...]]

It could be a few days before your body fully realizes the reduction, it depends on how fast your body metabolizes the drug  You can expect symptoms but will they be too much for you, I don’t know.  Tapering is an experiment with you as the subject but we don’t know any other way to get this done. 

Its important to know this process isn’t linear, you may feel okay one day, then feel like you’ve taken steps backward the next.  This can be a problem because it may prompt you to adjust your dose when holding steady would be the better option.  With Valium, everything moves in slow motion so its important to react in slow motion.  I equate it to steering a boat, over correction can be a real problem so its best to hold steady and make very small and deliberate corrections if need be.

 

[[VI...]]

^ THIS. Like I was telling you. you may be stuck at a certain milligram for 5 days, or could be who knows 16? It's not linear. And my own journal is telling me this as well. Listen to your own body. And with valium, it stacks like we talked about before. Just because you're taking 4mg a day now, you're body probably has more than that in it at this point since you were taking it every 12 hrs and its half-life being way above, which you should also take into consideration before making major adjustments. I say major because at those lower doses, even 1mg is a lot. For example: I would highly suggest not dropping from 4 to 3 in 1 swing, (I am not a doctor and no expert). However, looking at it in percentages: That's a 25% decrease. That's a lot to handle, you may or may not notice it immediately since you're on a long acting drug but.. I'd imagine you'd notice it pretty quickly if you weren't ready to drop, within a few days at most. If that's the case you could try 3.5 and ease that into 3 over 3-5-7 days if everything is going okay. But even that's 12.5% at 4MG. Which, still, on the higher end, but more do-able (just ime) I'm trying to keep my drops at around the 5-8% maybe 10% at MOST range (which is what works for me at this point) Might be a little slower than I want, but it is what it is. Progress is the most important thing (to me) even if its just some at a time. Even none on a certain day is still progress. Some days are worse than others even at the current dose I'm at.. It def. plays with your head. At first I was forced to make a 25% drop. It was painful and I was certainly not anything close to 'functionable' for about 7-10 days... on xanax. I eventually adjusted though. But then again, being functionable is different for everyone because of what their needs may or may not be. If you have no obligations at the moment, and you feel like that's what you're ready to do, give it a go. There's no harm in trying it, seeing what the result is, and if it's too much, go back up to say 3.5 or even 4 for a little longer. literally no harm in it at this point. 

[[Je...]]

Thanks Victor. Today has been a little worse day. My damn ankles feel tingly. Little confusion. Little Air hunger. Fatigue. Is it ok to exercise with these symptoms? I believe I know what it going on, it is the Ambien. It was not like this until the Benzo was added by my Doctor in September.  This Ambien has a very short half life. The Valium is not doing much for helping with the Ambien. But if I am having rough withdrawal symptoms it dissappears when  my dose of Ambien is due. But does not dissappear when Valium dose is due. Seems like the Ambien is causing all my withdrawls. Question I take 12.5 mg daily of Ambien. Could I spilt this up into 4 doses, like 6mg at bedtime and 2mg every 6 hours? I won't be upping my daily dose, just spreading it out , with most at bedtime. I have never had any bad affects,   like going shopping, or driving somewhere and not remembering what I did like some people have had. And ofcourse will wean off soon as I jump from the Valium. So have you all had some good days along with some bad days ? Thanks Jerry

Edited November 5, 2023 by [Je...]

[[Pa...]]

@[Je...], some people swear by exercise, they say its key to their recovery, others are exercise intolerant so I’d start slow to see how it affects you.

You can break up your dose of Valium and Ambien however you choose, whatever helps you get through the day and night. 

[[Je...]]

Ok. Awesome. I have been exercising about 5 days a week . About 20 minutes on treadmill. Just checking if ok when having these withdrawal symptoms of shortness of breath. I know it is only a symptom, as I posted my EKG was perfect. I believe I am going to go down on Valium this Monday 1/2 mg. Pam. I don't want to be nosey, but how many mg were you taking of Ambien and for how long when u quit cold Turkey? 

[[Pa...]]

I’m glad you can exercise, I can see with your crazy work schedule you’d need some sort of outlet to keep you in balance but yeah, the shortness of breath and chest pressure can be unpleasant but I don’t think they’re dangerous. 

@[Je...], I’m not really sure how much Ambien I was taking, I was in real trouble when I quit, I was taking it all day and night to stop the pain and to sleep but it didn’t stop the pain or help me sleep.  But once I quit, the inner trembling went away, the dark thoughts left and the anxiety and nausea was gone. I couldn’t sleep for awhile but I didn’t care, I had my life back. 

[[Je...]]

Good for you Pam. Have a good night and rest of weekend.  I know I will get there Pam, and can hardly wait. But I know going forward with patience is key. I force myself to exercise and go to work. I know the more I sit around the more dangerous of a place is my head to be in. Lol. I remember when coming off the heavy opiates the clearness in my brain was wonderful. Thanks. Jerry 

[[Gr...]]

@[Je...] Jerry, have you had any burning on V? If so, did it pass and how long after?  

[[Je...]]

Hello Pam. Just want to give u update. The past couple days have gotten worse symptoms for me. I am baffled. I thought when the Valium stacks up it should get better? My symptoms everyday are headaches, tinnitus, flu like symptoms,  and the chest discomfort and shortness of breath, fatigue, weakness,  with some confusion.  I remember Dr Ashton mentioned that when these withdrawl type symptoms are happening,  it is your brain and body healing. But all of a sudden I will have a decent day, but last couple terrible. I don't know how to do paragraphs on these posts. Sorry. Let me also share all my medications.  Ambien 12.5 mg, Valium 4 mg, Lisinopril 100mg, Gabapentin 900 mg, Protonix 40mg, and Baby Aspirin 81mg. These are all daily doses. The Valium does not seem to be doing all that great. Been on the 4mg daily for 12 days now. Any suggestions? Thanks . Jerry

Edited November 5, 2023 by [Je...]

[[Je...]]

10 minutes ago, [[G...] said:

@[Je...] Jerry, have you had any burning on V? If so, did it pass and how long after?  

I have some burning in ankle area. Still having it. Not sure I like this V. Have you had headaches? Or shortness of breath, or confusion?

Edited November 5, 2023 by [Je...]

[[Pa...]]

Hey @[Je...], I’m so frustrated with your situation, your doctor added Xanax on top of the Ambien then switched you to Valium without a plan to eliminate the Ambien, so now you’re on more medication and it appears you’re feeling worse. 

I really don’t know what you should do, did you feel these symptoms before you  started on the Valium, they seem more like benzo withdrawal symptoms to me rather than z-drug symptoms.

I guess if your doctor wants you to taper the Valium first, then you might as well do that since you feel like crap anyway.  Then I guess you work on the Ambien, it’s not ideal but none of this is. 

It doesn’t look as if your other medications are causing these issues.