diazepam withdrawal

[[Be...]]

I want to ask a question to people who abruptly stopped taking diazepam.  How many days after your last dose of diazepam did you start experiencing withdrawal symptoms?

[[Co...]]

Hello @[Be...]. Welcome to BenzoBuddies.

Yours is a 'how long is a piece of string' question. It depends not only upon dose and length of use, but it also heavily depends upon the individual. Two people, with a similar diazepam medication regimen, who cease use abruptly, might well have totally different experiences.

What was/is your situation? If you have ceased your use, when was this?

[[WU...]]

OK I will start. It was Day 11 for me, I will never forget it! I went cold turkey off 5 mg.  Had been taking it on and off for many years and then the GP told me to take it every day which I did for a month early last year. Final dose 3rd March. I didn't know about tapering and was impatient. Probably best to follow the tapering protocols as recommended by the experienced ones on here

[[Be...]]

26 minutes ago, [[W...] said:

ОК, я начну. Для меня это был 11-й день, я никогда его не забуду! Я резко отказался от 5 мг. Я принимал его и снимал в течение многих лет, а затем врач посоветовал мне принимать его каждый день, что я и делал в течение месяца в начале прошлого года. Последняя доза 3 марта. Я не знал о постепенном сокращении дозы и был нетерпелив. Вероятно, лучше всего следовать протоколам постепенного снижения дозы, рекомендованным опытными специалистами здесь.

Thank you.  How many years or months did you take diazepam?

[[WU...]]

My very first prescription was maybe 25 years ago. I've been prescribed it on and off since then but I never took it regularly.  Over the years  I think there is a cumulative effect, something they don't tell you!  I've probably taken it more in the last 5 years or so with various life events making life more difficult. One could argue that I had become less resilient to these life events because of taking diazepam.  How long have you been taking it?

[[Be...]]

9 minutes ago, [[W...] said:

Мой самый первый рецепт был выписан, наверное, 25 лет назад. С тех пор мне его прописывали время от времени, но я никогда не принимал его регулярно. С годами я думаю есть накопительный эффект, о чём вам не говорят! Вероятно, за последние 5 лет я принял это больше, поскольку различные жизненные события усложнили жизнь. Можно утверждать, что я стал менее устойчивым к этим жизненным событиям из-за приема диазепама. Как долго вы это принимаете?

I took benzodiazepines for 20 years

 

[[Si...]]

I took one too big dose of 100mg diazepam and a bottle of wine.  I had only taken diazepam on 2 other nights that year.  The one dose put me in withdrawal after 2 weeks.  I didn't know it was withdrawal at the time. Life ruined.  

[[La...]]

I would like to know it as well. Took my last dose of diazepam on January 3 and I'm getting slammed now three weeks later. I began to feel it after three days but it got worse after 15 days

[[Be...]]

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

I would like to know it as well. Took my last dose of diazepam on January 3 and I'm getting slammed now three weeks later. I began to feel it after three days but it got worse after 15 days

Thanks. For how long did you take diazepam?

[[kn...]]

I'd taken both klonopin and ativan for 30yrs before I started tapering in Sept. of 21.  My physician prescribed a "cross over" to diazepam and I started @ 60mg.  I made large cuts over 2.5 years until I got down to 2mg.  At each cut it took about 4-6 weeks to stabilize before I made another taper.  My last cut to 2mg was on Sept. of 23.  I've never 'healed up" since.  With some advice from the forum here and some re-dosing help from the triage nurses at the hospital, I reinstated to 4mgs.  I'm finally starting to recover, but I know that I would never have stabilized had I continued to hold at 2mg.  I'm now waiting to heal some so  that I can start micro tapering with liquid diazepam (again, more help from the prescribing triage team).  Diazepam does have a long half life.  That's the reason for the cross over.  But it's nothing to mess with, especially at the lower levels.  I have been bed ridden for the last five months.  Stayed home while the rest of the family vacationed in Hawaii, and have subsisted on crackers and runny oatmeal throughout.  I can't imagine going cold turkey, even at a low dosage.  Watch out.

[[La...]]

3 hours ago, [[B...] said:

Thank you.  How many years or months did you take diazepam?

I began in April 2022. Daily doses like 5mg to 10mg at first but I increased it. In September 2022 started taking Klonopin. Was on 3mg of Klonopin a day by January 2023. Crossed over to Diazepam during 2023 and tapered off.

[[Hu...]]

3 hours ago, [[k...] said:

I'd taken both klonopin and ativan for 30yrs before I started tapering in Sept. of 21.  My physician prescribed a "cross over" to diazepam and I started @ 60mg.  I made large cuts over 2.5 years until I got down to 2mg.  At each cut it took about 4-6 weeks to stabilize before I made another taper.  My last cut to 2mg was on Sept. of 23.  I've never 'healed up" since.  With some advice from the forum here and some re-dosing help from the triage nurses at the hospital, I reinstated to 4mgs.  I'm finally starting to recover, but I know that I would never have stabilized had I continued to hold at 2mg.  I'm now waiting to heal some so  that I can start micro tapering with liquid diazepam (again, more help from the prescribing triage team).  Diazepam does have a long half life.  That's the reason for the cross over.  But it's nothing to mess with, especially at the lower levels.  I have been bed ridden for the last five months.  Stayed home while the rest of the family vacationed in Hawaii, and have subsisted on crackers and runny oatmeal throughout.  I can't imagine going cold turkey, even at a low dosage.  Watch out.

Wow. That's quite a story! Good that you could reinstate and do it the proper way.

60mg D is a lot. How did you feel on that? Must have been like being a zombie. 

[[kn...]]

Actually, I felt great.  No anxiety; no obsessive compulsions.  With diazepam I was able to cut 10 mgs at a time until I got down to 15 or so.  Of course, now that I've found out what happens when you get to the bottom that fast, I regret such a rapid taper.  My provider had pushed me on, but it was me who finally put the brakes on.   I appealed to the clinic director for a new medical provider, my therapist advocated for me and I did get set up with a great and knowledgeable physician.  I saw him for 6 months and he decided to leave the hospital for a new position elsewhere.  So I've been on my own for awhile while I await his successor.  There are still many avenues to assist me at the hospital.  The triage nurses are very helpful and willing to  listen and pretty much have my own way.  With the help here and others at the hospital, I'm moving forward, but no more huge cuts.  My first provider would not Rx liquid diazepam.  That's the main reason I decided to move to another.  He was also a very a very difficult person to deal with and knew very little about the medications he was prescribing.

[[Hu...]]

13 minutes ago, [[k...] said:

Actually, I felt great.  No anxiety; no obsessive compulsions.  With diazepam I was able to cut 10 mgs at a time until I got down to 15 or so.  Of course, now that I've found out what happens when you get to the bottom that fast, I regret such a rapid taper.  My provider had pushed me on, but it was me who finally put the brakes on.   I appealed to the clinic director for a new medical provider, my therapist advocated for me and I did get set up with a great and knowledgeable physician.  I saw him for 6 months and he decided to leave the hospital for a new position elsewhere.  So I've been on my own for awhile while I await his successor.  There are still many avenues to assist me at the hospital.  The triage nurses are very helpful and willing to  listen and pretty much have my own way.  With the help here and others at the hospital, I'm moving forward, but no more huge cuts.  My first provider would not Rx liquid diazepam.  That's the main reason I decided to move to another.  He was also a very a very difficult person to deal with and knew very little about the medications he was prescribing.

Thanx for your reply.

It can indeed be quite a hassle to get enough of what you need. Luckily, that was not your problem. Some members here have to calculate, hoard, do all kind of tricks to have enough tablets for a slow enough taper. I've struggled with that in the past. Nurses, who just cut me short, forced me to taper in their preferred speed.

My lorazepam equivalent is 27mg of Diaz. I am half way there. But I feel often very fatigued. I hope it will get better for me. Cutting 10mg sounds like a lot. That must have given you withdrawal symptoms right?

 

[[kn...]]

I developed neuropathy right off the bat.  I called my PC and got a referral to the neurologist.   He gave me a thorough exam and wasn't sure if the symptoms were from BZ WD or had just coincidentally appeared at the same time.  And yes I was bloated, had the head pressure, etc.  Just like everyone else.  My original psych wouldn't acknowledge the symptoms as having anything to do with the BZ's and kept pushing.  So I kept tapering.  Things were bad all the way down to 2mg, but I was always able to stabilize enough so that I felt like I could continue tapering.  But, as I said, I held at 2mg for the last five months and never healed a bit.  Hence my plea for help and the whole reinstatement thing.  I should add that since my original provider would never acknowledge what I was experiencing, I spent almost a whole year running from Dr. to Dr. trying to figure out what was wrong with me.  I stumbled across BB while looking for help online and finally realized what was going on.