Muscle spasms/hard to breath/pee

[[fa...]]

My muscle spasms are rather bad right now from my head to my neck and back, but I also have the inability to relax my muscles for my head to relax on the pillow, sometimes it takes a minute to pee because I can't relax those muscles and I can't get a deep breath.  How can yhe brain ever recover from this type of damage? 

[[pi...]]

Hello @[fa...],

Although I didn’t have muscle spasms, I experienced a lot of tight and sore muscles. This is very common due to the fact that benzos are very efficient muscle relaxers. When reduced  or discontinued it takes time for the muscles to learn to relax naturally. I also found deep belly breathing was helpful for me. There are a lot of methods. For myself I inhaled slowly for a count of 3, held for a count of 3 and slowly exhaled for a count of 6. 

I know a number of people found success with epsom salt baths. I used heat and gentle stretching. I also used a non drug topical called biofreeze for my sore muscles. You can recover from this, I did. It does take time.

[[fa...]]

7 minutes ago, [[p...] said:

Hello @[fa...],

Although I didn’t have muscle spasms, I experienced a lot of tight and sore muscles. This is very common due to the fact that benzos are very efficient muscle relaxers. When reduced  or discontinued it takes time for the muscles to learn to relax naturally. I also found deep belly breathing was helpful for me. There are a lot of methods. For myself I inhaled slowly for a count of 3, held for a count of 3 and slowly exhaled for a count of 6. 

I know a number of people found success with epsom salt baths. I used heat and gentle stretching. I also used a non drug topical called biofreeze for my sore muscles. You can recover from this, I did. It does take time.

Thank you.  This is my last symptom that is regular.   Can I ask how long it took you to recover. I know it is different for everyone.  I could even handle 3 years if I knew it was going to go away.  It seems to give me some sort of DR/DP as there is tension in my forehead/eyes.  

[[WU...]]

Yep, me too, spasms in the head and face with no sign of them letting up after over 17 months. Such a peculiar feeling and not easy to do anything much. And the pain is unbelievable, unlike any "normal" pain. Nothing I do makes any difference. No timeframe it seems but everyone says it eventually goes away

[[fa...]]

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

Yep, me too, spasms in the head and face with no sign of them letting up after over 17 months. Such a peculiar feeling and not easy to do anything much. And the pain is unbelievable, unlike any "normal" pain. Nothing I do makes any difference. No timeframe it seems but everyone says it eventually goes away

I sure hope do. It is disabling. Do you ever get a weird tension throughout your body as if you are bracing for impact?  17 months. You deserve a break. 

[[WU...]]

6 minutes ago, [[f...] said:

Do you ever get a weird tension throughout your body

It is an electrical current feeling, up and down the spine, very unpleasant.

Are you off the drug now and if so for how long?  I went CT but from what I've read it seems tapering can still produce these long-standing effects.  Like you said if only we knew how long our recovery will take it would be a huge help

[[fa...]]

Just now, [[W...] said:

It is an electrical current feeling, up and down the spine, very unpleasant.

Are you off the drug now and if so for how long?  I went CT but from what I've read it seems tapering can still produce these long-standing effects.  Like you said if only we knew how long our recovery will take it would be a huge help

I took only 4 doses of ambien. Had a bad reaction and went onto lexapro for 3 months with a one month taper.  I guess I had an adverse reaction.  Been off everything 10 months. 

[[fa...]]

1 minute ago, [[W...] said:

It is an electrical current feeling, up and down the spine, very unpleasant.

Are you off the drug now and if so for how long?  I went CT but from what I've read it seems tapering can still produce these long-standing effects.  Like you said if only we knew how long our recovery will take it would be a huge help

I get that electrical feeling too. This is more like tension where my shoulders scrunch up and it gets a bit hard to breath because my stomach and chest tighten up

[[WU...]]

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

 

 

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

I took only 4 doses of ambien. Had a bad reaction and went onto lexapro for 3 months

Did you take any benzos? It seems any of these types of drugs produce these awful withdrawal symptoms.

11 minutes ago, [[f...] said:

tension where my shoulders scrunch up and it gets a bit hard to breath because my stomach and chest tighten up

I think tension is what the brain creates while it tries to fix things. It really is a horrible feeling, feet are not firmly planted on the ground, a feeling similar to motion sickness. Everyone says to exercise and go for walks which I would love to do but my brain says no, not having any of it.   But if you can do it then I think it would be good for you

 

[[fa...]]

1 minute ago, [[W...] said:

Did you take any benzos? It seems any of these types of drugs produce these awful withdrawal symptoms.

I think tension is what the brain creates while it tries to fix things. It really is a horrible feeling, feet are not firmly planted on the ground, a feeling similar to motion sickness. Everyone says to exercise and go for walks which I would love to do but my brain says no, not having any of it.   But if you can do it then I think it would be good for you

I do mild exercise when able buy when muscle tension is extreme it does not help at all.  I read ambien acts like a benzo.  But after being in this and the survivingantidepressants.org  site I have to believe all the side effects and withdrawl are the same.  It throws your cns into chaos.   

 

It's crazy because stretching doesn't even help

[[WU...]]

11 minutes ago, [[f...] said:

It throws your cns into chaos.   

It's crazy because stretching doesn't even help

Yes agree stretching doesn't help at all, makes it worse. It is approaching things from completely the wrong direction. The tense, contracting muscles come from signals in the brain so we need the brain to heal first before doing any stretching. Even people who have never taken any of these drugs suffer from extreme muscle tension because their nervous system is in a "shocked" state for many different reasons.  Ours is in a state because of the drugs and perhaps also our underlying reason for taking these drugs in the first place. Trying to  be calm is not easy when the CNS is all over the place. So what can we do? I think it is just time and patience and trying to detach ourselves from the symptoms. So very hard because mine are absolutely raging, worse than ever as time goes on, but then I have also read that things can get worse before they get better. 

[[fa...]]

Just now, [[W...] said:

Yes agree stretching doesn't help at all, makes it worse. It is approaching things from completely the wrong direction. The tense, contracting muscles come from signals in the brain so we need the brain to heal first before doing any stretching. Even people who have never taken any of these drugs suffer from extreme muscle tension because their nervous system is in a "shocked" state for many different reasons.  Ours is in a state because of the drugs and perhaps also our underlying reason for taking these drugs in the first place. Trying to  be calm is not easy when the CNS is all over the place. So what can we do? I think it is just time and patience and trying to detach ourselves from the symptoms. So very hard because mine are absolutely raging, worse than ever as time goes on, but then I have also read that things can get worse before they get better. 

Do you ever get windows where it is better?

[[WU...]]

Sadly no, never had any windows, it is relentless. Plenty of others haven't had windows either. It is a mystery how the brain can even produce windows if it is in such a frazzled state, never understood how this was possible

[[fa...]]

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

Sadly no, never had any windows, it is relentless. Plenty of others haven't had windows either. It is a mystery how the brain can even produce windows if it is in such a frazzled state, never understood how this was possible

I 100 percent agree with that. 

[[WU...]]

Windows are The Emperor's New Clothes as far as I'm concerned !

[[pi...]]

23 hours ago, [[f...] said:

Thank you.  This is my last symptom that is regular.   Can I ask how long it took you to recover. I know it is different for everyone.  I could even handle 3 years if I knew it was going to go away.  It seems to give me some sort of DR/DP as there is tension in my forehead/eyes.  

You are correct, the recovery trajectory will be different for everyone. My muscle and nerve issues were the last to leave. I did start cycling at about 4-5 months out starting very slowly and gradually building up the miles. This helped me tremendously both physically and mentally. I did have a very big wave of muscle squeezing right before my healing at 15-17 months out. It was pretty intense and led to to seek medical testing to rule out other causes. Luckily there were none  and I healed completely after that last wave. 

[[fa...]]

23 minutes ago, [[p...] said:

You are correct, the recovery trajectory will be different for everyone. My muscle and nerve issues were the last to leave. I did start cycling at about 4-5 months out starting very slowly and gradually building up the miles. This helped me tremendously both physically and mentally. I did have a very big wave of muscle squeezing right before my healing at 15-17 months out. It was pretty intense and led to to seek medical testing to rule out other causes. Luckily there were none  and I healed completely after that last wave. 

Thanks that is helpful I am 10 months out and just started getting them to this degree.  They are either spasming or moving all the time. Sometimes they spasm around the stomach/chest where it is hard to breath.  As long as I know there is hope I can keep trucking.  The back of my head for some reason seems to be the worst right now.  

[[Wi...]]

On 18/08/2024 at 15:13, [[f...] said:

Thanks that is helpful I am 10 months out and just started getting them to this degree.  They are either spasming or moving all the time. Sometimes they spasm around the stomach/chest where it is hard to breath.  As long as I know there is hope I can keep trucking.  The back of my head for some reason seems to be the worst right now.  

I have this too in many spots. My legs are the worst. They started spasming and twitching a while ago but it is becoming more consistent. Sometimes my legs feel tight and a bit restless and sometimes it’s just like they’re moving inside and squeezing and it hurts like barbed wire.