Tingling, muscle twitches, thermal sensations, "jelly like" muscle, muscle weakness, severe insomnia

[[Ca...]]

Hello guys!

I am a 29 year old female. And I am dealing with brutal withdrawls from antidepressant and benzodiazepine. It's been 3 months, and I am really desperate because i cant sleep and doctors keep trying to push more antidepressants. I Will recently go through nerve examination because my muscle symptoms match with polyneuropathy and I even developed swollen lymph nodes but Im pretty sure this is all from the withdrawls.

Doing my best to Stay here. But this hás been hell and Im so afraid ive burned my GABA receptors for life. Another plus was visual snow and floaters. 

Even when i sleep, Im not sure I've slept because i cant enter a state of deep sleep ( is this weird?)

Is there any specialist neuropharmacologist who I can videocall or someone specialized who can guide us? Im based in Portugal now, but hopefully will return to France if I can start working.

[[...]]

@[Ca...], hi and welcome to BenzoBuddies!

As far as i understand, you've been off benzo&antidepressants for 3 months, right? How long did you take benzo and which one? How often? What antidepressant? The information will allow our members to support and advise you better, although we're a peer support community and there are no specialists here, strictly speaking. Sure, lots of us could make good experts in this field through our own experience.

The good news is our GABA receptors can't be burnt. All the changes caused by benzo are reversible but it often takes time for our nervous system to recover. The symptoms you described seem to be quite common for the withdrawal and must settle down on their own  eventually. But, yes, they can give us hell. I do know what you mean. About your muscles, did you have any of the issues before? If not, I'm sure you're right and it's withdrawal all over again. I've had more than enough of "bad muscles" due to benzo. In fact, it's the only symptom left but it can be torturous even now.

Hope other members will stop by and share their experience and knowledge. Good luck to you!)

[[Ca...]]

Hey!

Thank you so much for your reply!! Means a lot.

So all this neurological non sense started after quitting cold Turkey 30mg of mirtazapine that i took for 6 months in January. (I now know. Wrong!) And didnt recognize the absolut insomnia that that caused. So then i was just given different a bunch of diferent antidepressants to try to put me to sleep ( trazodone, lexapro ) tremendous headaches and calf Pain and still insomnia 

The big problem came on march when a doc put me in 1 mg of Xanax for 2 weeks for the head pressure and then changed it to 0,5 clonazepam 1 time a day +mirtazapine 30mg. I instantly felt tingling from Toes even to my tongue. And had even and episode of incontinence.

And although the internal vibrations are not as bad as in the beggining, they are still here with some temperature changes itchiness. My abdomen dilated as well. I have a hard time digesting now. I feel like because of the constant twitches, my muscles have become jelly. Even internally. And because of the high cortisol I am now gaining a beard. Which is just awesome when you feel so so detalhes from your body and head already.

So, its not been fun times. And Im so deeply sad, its sad lol. Im afraid my muscles will beber wake up.

 

Right now Im on just 0,5mg clonazepam and 5mg melatonin. Still not sleeping most weeks but too scared to do more medication. 

[[Sw...]]

Hi there I am sorry for all you are struggling with. Everything you’ve mentioned is nothing that could surprise a benzo veteran. You’ve come to the right place. 
other members have experienced cold turkey withdrawals and they are terrible. I am one of them. I fortunately (maybe) started up my script again 2 weeks into cold turkey so I could taper but honestly not sure if I had already caused too much damage. 
nonetheless YOU WILL GET THROUGH IT.

how bad are you feeling on a scale of 1-10? 10 being the worst.

Can you cite any progress positive changes that have been made in the past 3 months? 
 

you might have hit tolerance on the klonopin and it might be causing more harm than good at this point. 

[[Ca...]]

I really hope so. I had a moment where my head pressure was sooooo sooo big and my memory was getting so distant that its like i could feel the neuroinflammation and toxicity in my head. I was afraid I wasnt even going to be able to be verbal. I really feel damaged in the brain, its so weird. And Im a dentist and have always been able to do quick maths, quick thoughts. Nothing now. 

Since that day where my body was internally vibrating so hard, I have this wish of just cutting my legs. Because the tingling crawling is so unbearable. I try to put tiger balm but not even that helps.

 

 

Little positives

Tingling a little less intense but still driving me completely nuts. Visual snow hard to tell if less intense but it depends on the day. I have less night time blindness. My headaches are also less intense. 

Its just my muscles that have gotten signficantly worse. Endocrine system also worse, more and more facial hair. Im assuming driven by cortisol. Digestion is the most recent symptom and acid reflux. There was a day where i tried drinking water, and it would just come out. Not like vomiting. Like a spasms. It was so weird. Nothing would sit on that day.

[[Sw...]]

I have  visual snow too and understand how weird that feels and reminds you how abnormal this all is. It gets better!

are you taking any other medications? And have you had your vitamin levels checked like vitamin d, b vitamins, zinc, iron, magnesium? 
 

sometimes we can become depleted of these vitamins in withdrawal and actually an abnormal zinc range can cause you to feel those tingles.

 

i get tingles in my arms and head like a snake is slithering around. I know it’s not fun. It does get better in time! 
 

if you’re very scared and anxious it can also exacerbate all your symptoms. Are you able to take a few deep breaths, a warm bath, or listen to calming music and try to tune everything down?

[[Ca...]]

Thank you so much for your repplies and positivity! Really!! 

 

My ferritina keeps decreasing, i have to take supplementation now which has zinc in it. However it hás ashwaganda which i have just read here that some people think its no good for us. I take vitamin D 5000 daily and magnesium.

I have a hard time managing. Everyday i get out of bed and go for 1 walk by the ocean. Im doing red light therapy. Trying to exercise, but I shake a lot in my legs. But at this time I cant really abstract myself. I Will be honest with you. I have this thoughts of just going to a forest completely isolated myself and cry until this withdrawl is eventually Over. If ever. Its been very hard on me and my mom that is around me, and sees my desperate just like a heroin addict or worse. I feel so not attached to my previous life and even the people in it, and me AAS well

[[Al...]]

Hi @[Ca...]

I'm really sorry to hear what you are going through. 

10 hours ago, [[C...] said:

Is there any specialist neuropharmacologist who I can videocall or someone specialized who can guide us? Im based in Portugal now, but hopefully will return to France if I can start working.

There is a doctor called Mark Horowitz who is an expert on antidepressant withdrawal. He does video consulting, but the sessions are expensive. If you are interested, you can visit his website below and use the contact form to ask about a consultation.

https://markhorowitz.org/

Another option is the Surviving Antidepressants website for peer support. It sounds to me like a lot of your problems are related to the Mirtazapine, so it might be worth asking the moderators on that website if they have any ideas about how to proceed.

https://www.survivingantidepressants.org/

Again, I'm really sorry for your suffering and hope things will start to improve soon.

 

 

[[Ca...]]

I think too! I have already filled his form. Thank you so much. Its a very severe form of the two at this point 

[[Ca...]]

I feel really hopeless and cannot picture a life where Im physically disabled with neuropathic Pain. I wish there was some institution on europe where I could Turn to. Even be taken care of 

[[Al...]]

Hi @[Ca...]

I know how you feel. I wish there was somewhere we could all go to heal the damage done by these drugs.

How long have you been on the Clonazepam by the way? You say since March, but how many weeks? If things started to get really bad when you started the Clonazepam, tapering might be an option. Hopefully, some of the experienced members of the site can advise you on this.

I also think the dose of Melatonin you are taking might be too high for someone in Antidepressant withdrawal. Melatonin is discussed in detail at the link below.

https://www.survivingantidepressants.org/forums/topic/189-melatonin-for-sleep/

They recommend a much lower dose of around 0.3 to 0.5 mg to start off with because higher doses can have a paradoxical effect on an oversensitive brain.

[[Ca...]]

Oh! I will lower my melatonin dose.

Im going to be honest, I think it was more all the antidepressants that I did that caused the nerve damage and muscle damage. I just wish I could find a clinic in Europe that would just take care of me, and not push me more drugs, and hopefully my neurotransmitters will heal. Even though I have my doubts due to the severity of my symptoms as soon as I started mirtazapine 30mg and clonazepam

[[Ca...]]

I have been on clonazepam for 3 months now at 0,5mg 1 pill at night.

Edited May 28 by [Ca...]