Intro and symptom reassurance.

[[ry...]]

Hello, this is my first post ever and finally trying to be active and engaged in healing. I am roughly 10 months off cold turkey, years of being on benzo’s. By the grace of god I feel I am a few steps away from being a success story and can help others. I do relatively good now on a day to day basis but just can’t get back to 100% and doing normal activities. My concern that I still have is my heart and lungs. I used to be extremely fit and fitness is my passion, all I want to do is start exercising and I know that is a great healing activity. I unfortunately physically can not. I feel like my heart is being stretched all the time and flares up. And my breathing and lungs work extremely labored and out of sync. I have been to the E.R. and doctors. Is this common or a benzo thing? It is extremely scary! Reassurance is everything with healing and it just seems so odd. Thank you.

[[Pa...]]

Hello @[ry...], welcome to BenzoBuddies,

I love that you're anticipating your full recovery and wanting to help others, that speaks to your positive attitude which I'm sure has been tested by this experience.

At 10 months past a cold turkey, I'm actually surprised you're feeling as well as you are, I quit that way too and know what a challenge it is.  Heart and lung symptoms are quite prevalent around here so I'm sure you'll get some responses to your concerns.  If you don't get many on this thread, then a post with that in the subject title will do the trick.

I look forward to your participation and getting to know your story.

@[Pa...]

[[id...]]

It definitely took me longer than 10 months to almost fully recover (I never regained my ability to drive freeways). In fact I think month 9 was my worst month. 

However, I suddenly went into an acute-like state 6.5 years post benzos. I've heard of stuff like that but did not expect the intensity. So now I'm struggling with heart palpitations, tachycardia, definitely can't exercise (I started exercising about 2 years post taper), my breathing is labored, uncoordinated, just off. ECG was normal, lungs x-ray normal, oxygen normal.

[[ry...]]

8 hours ago, [[i...] said:

It definitely took me longer than 10 months to almost fully recover (I never regained my ability to drive freeways). In fact I think month 9 was my worst month. 

However, I suddenly went into an acute-like state 6.5 years post benzos. I've heard of stuff like that but did not expect the intensity. So now I'm struggling with heart palpitations, tachycardia, definitely can't exercise (I started exercising about 2 years post taper), my breathing is labored, uncoordinated, just off. ECG was normal, lungs x-ray normal, oxygen normal.

Thank you so much for the response. It’s incredible how much hearing shared experiences helps. The tiny little details that are silent no one else has any clue or can imagine. Even though I started driving a little bit, I noticed that the thought of driving on the freeway is not happening. It’s just weird! I can’t believe somebody else could relate so thank you for that.