How many people HAVE to work while tapering

[[...]]

Onelove you said it much better than I ever could.

 

Etown is a Godsend!

 

Booooooooooo on slowing down though.  My natural impatience is likely to be the death of me if I don't learn how to control it.  :laugh: :laugh:

 

OneLove here is everything I take to help with symptoms:

 

Culturelle probiotics one every morning because I read articles that state they upregulate and help create more gaba receptors in the gut.  It is a capsule and you could pour out the powder to avoid the capsule which is gelatin

 

Vitamin B6 one 500mg capsule in the morning (you and I pm'd about this one)

 

Lactium (Swansons Womens Anti-Stress Formula) 2 capsules morning noon and night

 

Ibuprofin 600mg every day with lunch to hold back the afternoon glutamate storms

 

Vitamin C two tabs which equal 1000mg every morning only

 

Turmuric one capsule every morning only

 

Those are what I take daily except that on the weekends I do not need the ibuprofin since my home life is very calm and serene and I do not end up with symptoms when I am at home

 

Here is what I take only as needed on bad side effect days.  They are known to calm gaba receptors and therefore a lot of differences of opinion are out there as to whether we should take them or not, but I checked with Bart on all of them and not only did he also take them but did not believe they slowed down his healing at all.

 

L-theanine

Kava Kava

Passion Flower extract

 

I wonder if a bowel flush with an enema bag would clear out any bad stuff that might be hanging around in there in one fell swoop (just warm water - nothing else) and give you a clean start?  My grandma believed in them and gave herself one per week her entire adult life.

 

Everyone I pm'd OneLove that there must be something in the air this week.  We all seem to be experiencing an upturn in symptoms at the same time.........odd!

 

 

 

[[et...]]

Eliz and One - you 2 are just what I needed today. Just a wee glitch and slight uptick (as Bart would say) but I feel confident I know what to do so that's what I'm going to do! I feel blessed to be able to be a help to you. Heck if it wasn't for Benzos we never would have met. So there is a silver lining to this deal. We'll be fine just stick with the program. One if you are going to hang around that 3mg mark you may want to consider just going over you %'s on the way down again and maybe that will give you the confidence that a good long hold may help.

Thanks for the hearfelt gratitude and I will be here for some time to come.

I think I just cracked my first smile of the day

etown

[[...]]

Etown,

Anything, and I do mean anything I can do to help my friend - do not hesitate to ask.  You have helped me so much that I feel beholden to you! 

 

Well, in typical fashion, I believe the last two oddly symptomatic days caused me to over react and assume today would be worse.  But I decided to prepare for the worst and hope for the best.  I took my taper down dose today but prepared a dusting of .001 in case it turned out to be a third bad day in a row in order to hold at Monday's cut.  As it turns out - I am out of the woods.  My afternoon symptomatic period has passed and I did not need the hold dose!  Whew!

 

Honestly I have no idea why Mondays and Tuesdays are my worst symptomatic days unless it is the combination of having to come back to work after relaxing weekends and cutting after being at the same dose for three days.  I am anticipating that this trend will end when I am able to switch to the 2mg tablets.  It rattles the brain.  :D

 

Anyway, I hope everyone enjoys Hump Day.  Only two more till the weekend!  We are going to an Enchilada Dinner benefit to raise money for genetic childhood birth defects and to see the movie Captain Phillips.  :clap:

 

 

[[On...]]

Thanks for the very kind responses.

 

Etown, I look back over my frantic taper after switching to Valium and it brings back very foggy memories of a woman too sick and crazy to even think straight. At the time, I was teetering on the edge of life every moment and since I had JUST discovered it was the BENZO prescribed to help me that was actually killing me, I truly was frantic to unload as quickly as possible. I only knew the Ashton protocol in those earliest days and was determined to meet or exceed it. If I'd been able to get down to .5 quickly enough, I would have jumped pronto and thereby insured my probable death, seriously. You were the first one who introduced the notion of slower tapers and pointed out the suffering many who tapered too fast and jumped too high.

 

Don't know if I ever said so here, so I will now.  I know I put it elsewhere in response to someone's question about such a small dose affecting me so much.  My ER trip on my signature was due to something more than just too rapid a taper, as if that wasn't enough.  I had 2 board certified doctors, distressed at not being able to diagnose me but clearly seeing that I was tanking, suggest medical cannabis. Since this is NOT a legal state, I knew they were really going out on a limb to suggest this and truly felt it might be life saving. Due to breathing trouble and heart issues, I wouldn't smoke it. I also learned there are a lot of cannabinoid receptors in the cartilage tissue of the ribs and sternum where I have a lot of pins and needles pain. So I had a massage therapist come to the house with his own infused oil and he gave me a nice massage. Felt pretty good, but no real noticeably different effects. When he left, he left me some "infused" coconut oil and suggested I ingest a tablespoon, which I did. I laid down to take a nap, waking in about an hour to severe acute pain in liver and pancreas and the walls waffling and weaving. My husband looked like an alien creature with a morphed shape and head of an animal.  I had just enough time and presence of mind to tell him I thought I might be about to slip into a state of psychosis, which I've never experienced before. Then, bam, I was GONE!  Between the screaming pain and walls, trees, and inanimate objects coming alive with movement and sound, it took 8 paramedics to get me into a rescue vehicle.  :o . Unfortunately, they drove up accompanied by a blazing fire truck and THEY all looked like aliens to me too and the siren didn't do much for my psychotic state. At the hospital, my pancreatic enzymes were elevated to a very painful pancreatitis that took a long long time to resolve. We learned later that infusing in oil potentiates the cannabis 5 times that of smoked. And the coconut oil, when ingested, goes straight to the liver without digestion in the gut needed. Not something I will be trying again.

 

Don't know why I'm telling this now, except you encouraged me to look at my tapering % and I realize how crazy it all was during those earlier times. At least I am more stable now, even if in pain.

 

Eliz, thanks SO VERY MUCH for the info on supps. It's time for me to get serious with that. On the vitamin B6, Bart had mentioned niacinamide but I thought he wasn't taking extra B6. Am I off track on this?  So, you are taking B6, which I read is a good thing because it is necessary for conversion of glutamines in the diet into the neurotransmitter GABA. It seems that it could help prevent the neural toxic buildup of glutamate. I 'think' the niacinamide has to do with a direct up regulation of GABA receptors??? I need to go back and read the niacinamide thread again.

 

Jerichodotm, WELCOME aboard!  You've found your way to a great thread and a wonderful group of people here. I hope you get better and better with each passing day. 

 

 

[[et...]]

Eliz - Mondays and Tuesdays are my worst days too. Haven't figured out why and seriously don't really care but I have been going through this should I fix or should I not for about 3 weeks now and today I think I am going to take a little break. Don't want to get too far ahead of the healing so be careful Tex.

 

One - I remember that night. I was terrified for you and wished I had have been the Medic that picked you up. I would have turned the sirens off and the lights down to try to comfort you. 

etown

[[...]]

Hi OneLove,

When I wrote B6 I meant to write niacinamide but I could not remember the name of it!!!  :idiot:

 

The niacinamide is preferable to straight B6 because it states that it does not cause the revving up that B6 is noted for.  I can attest to that.  I experience no revving after taking it, but it has the same benefits of the B6

[[...]]

I hear you Etown.

 

Tomorrow is a hold day and the last .001 cut of the week is Friday.  If I feel off again next Monday I will not cut but hold at Friday's dose for the week and give myself a break.

 

You have no idea how much it pains me to say that - I am a "get er done" kind of girl and this slow and steady wins the race crap is totally out of character for me.  Maybe by the time this is done, I will have learned how to be more patient.  My family would be so pleased!!!

 

I will also try 100mg of the trazodone tonight to see what if.

[[et...]]

Eliz - believe me if shyt hits the fan you will learn slow and steady! I'm same as you get er done but not in this game. No more spiral down for me. No more free fall as WW used to call it.

You're in the zone

Stick to the plan Stan

etown

[[On...]]

Ugh, if you want an example of a "get ER done" kinda gal, just look at the disaster I made of too rapid tapering!!!  No telling the neuronal damage I further created by this also, just making it harder and longer to recover.

 

Your dose is pretty low now, Eliz. You can afford to save your neurons the rest of the way on down.  Along with the "get ER done" maxim, I hear my mother's  favorite maxim "anything worth doing is worth doing right" and her second favorite " it's easier to do it right the first time than to have to do it again".   

[[Mr...]]

Hello everyone, well E town has helped me so much with my slow taper, it took me soo long to learn about benzo WD and a taper that worked for me. I must admit before my hip

Surgery Sept 25, I felt way better then i do today.. I took hydromorphine as prescribe by the doctor and after a week I was so sick... It effected my CNS and now still trying to feel better from that. So

I'm going keep holding my 4.5 mg valium until I feel better and recover more from my surgery. I find taking Vistril little red gel caps really help me sleep.... And even take away some day time anxiety when my micro cuts catch up to me. I take the 50mg Vistril caps my doctor prescribed them to me. I also found that on really rough nites taking around 7.5 mg of Remeron really knocks me out and gives me a great sleep.... Trazodone is ok only if I take 25mg, I find if I take 100 mg Trazadone it gives me anxiety after about 30 minutes after taking it, also notice makes me feel like it's hard to just swallow as it kicks in.... Very strange feeling for me( well just my thoughts) Well time to try to get a bit more sleep maybe... Lol Have a great day everyone!!! Heal well my friends... Mr scared Ottawa.

Btw BB and great threads like this from E Town sure have saved my soul and life on many rough rough days.... I'm am soo thankful to all my friends here on BB... You are all wonderful beautiful people to me always.... Thank you!!!!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[[et...]]

Thanks Ottawa - I am so happy you have a plan and are committed to sticking to the program. Your whole post seems so much more "you got it" and I'm very glad for you. When we first met you were all over the place. Now it seems you have the confidence to do this. Too bad about the reaction to Morphine. But it had to be done so you know what to do and are doing it so you'll be ok.

etown

[[...]]

Hi Mr Scared,

Etown is a gem isn't he!!!  I am seeing more and more bb members thanking him for his help and I am of course one of them as well.  If I had not had his guidance setting up the scale method, I probably would be stuck in a cut and hold nightmare by now and not able to figure out what I was doing wrong.

 

Etown and OneLove, I am going to be circling the runway at my posted dose for the rest of this week and probably most of next week as well before I continue my decent.  I am not in a mess yet so don't worry, but I am paying close attention to my body and my benzoition tells me that I need to take a mini break.  I know when I had to stop and hold at 2mg (per my signature) resuming after that was much easier and I think I am at a point where that is necessary again.

 

If I cannot get to sleep with the 100mg of trazodone I took last night then I have gotten ahead of my healing rate and need to put on the brakes.  I am fatigued and found myself heading out the door to my car this morning still in my flip flops and without pants!  WTF!!!!!!  :idiot: :idiot: :idiot: :idiot: :idiot: :idiot: 

:2funny: :2funny: :2funny: :2funny:

 

At least I am not in pain, nor experiencing any miserable intolerable side effects, so that is good.  I am disappointed but at least I do not have to updose and this way I will for sure be able to enjoy my weekend and not find myself having to spend it in bed.

 

One more day till the weekend!  Yay!

[[et...]]

Eliz - I had the baseball bat out and ready to hit myself on the head but then had a flashback to my weekend with my wife in Frankenmuth Michigan and realized I am not a true 70/30. Same thing as you why push it we've come this far. I have to keep telling myself to be vigilant and stick to the program. So decision made and acceptance done. On with it, when things get back to a true 70/30 down we go again.

I should hit myself over the head for missing the subtle signs

Love you guys

etown

[[...]]

Etown,

Don't be hard on yourself.  If you are like me, a long stretch of things going well will allow your mind to ignore subtle changes thinking that they are just temporary oddball issues.  I assumed a daily micro cut taper would mean that I could do this all the way down without pausing, but our bodies are in control not our determined minds.  Stopping for a few days or a week is a drag but in no means an indication of defeat.

 

I am so happy to be able to discuss this on BB with you and the other members.  I tend not to want to overburden my family with my daily decisions regarding my taper since they would likely tire of listening or start to regard me as obsessive.  My daughter works 30 hours a week and is finishing up her third year in her nursing degree.  She has enough stress without me adding to it and besides, there is actually nothing she can do - this is all on me, after all.

 

It helps to know that BB members like Bart, Diaz-Pam and you, Etown have all had to slow down or even updose slightly at points in the taper.  It gives me confidence to know I am doing it right and even then, stepping back and re-evaluating is going to be necessary along the way.

 

You hang in there Etown and keep doing what you are doing.  We all love and support you just the way you have for us!!!   

[[On...]]

Can someone remind me once more how long a 'corrective' dose and hold should take before relieving symptoms?  Have you ever heard of anyone getting pulling pain throughout the spine, head to tail, from too rapid a taper?

 

 

.

One - I remember that night. I was terrified for you and wished I had have been the Medic that picked you up. I would have turned the sirens off and the lights down to try to comfort you. 

etown

 

Etown you are truly, absolutely the best!  I guess I should tell you that, when I was at my very worst, even with reality morphed beyond belief, I thought of YOU, remembering that you are a paramedic from the night you stood watch online when I nearly died from refeeding syndrome at 77 pounds. You saved me that night too. Everyone of the 8 paramedics 'became' YOU in my delusional mind, and it was calming enough that the chief had half of them stand down.  You WERE with me on that wild and crazy ride to the hospital. I thank you for that.  

 

[[...]]

Hi OneLove,

did you have to updose after all or are you in a holding pattern?  I hope whichever it is that you start to feel better really soon!

 

:smitten:

[[et...]]

One - not sure what Liz is getting at but maybe the same as me. The other day I was talking about being sure of your current dose to make a hold effective. Have you calculated your taper rate and speed of taper since 5mg? A dose will only work over a 7- 10 day period if you are at the right daily dose in comparison to the healing rate. If the dose is low lets say 3mg and the brain is at 4.5mg you can't expect a 2 week hold to be effective. We are at that sweet spot in our daily taper but have to keep a really close eye on the smallest of changes to symptoms so that one of these corrections will work. It is such a fine line day to day that being substantially lower on your dose than your healing rate will trump and maneuver you do to correct the situation. If your daily dose is right mathematically you should feel better with a hold in 7-10 days no more than 1 month. Read DP's post about how even a headache tipped her off that something was wrong. You may be expecting a hold to work when your brain is telling you something more drastic is needed or you tough it out and wait for your current dose to stabilize. Just my opinion and whatever you do I will be here in support.

etown

[[et...]]

One - am I right in saying you went from 5mg to 3mg in like 9 days?

etown

[[On...]]

One - am I right in saying you went from 5mg to 3mg in like 9 days?

etown

 

Uhmmmmm, yeah.  :brickwall: :brickwall: :brickwall:

 

The 5 mg was extremely sedating, as was 4, and I had previously cut Ativan to .25 once a day before I ever found BB at all.  So I "thought I could drop to 2.5 Valium quickly and easily. Duh.

 

Looking back, I realize that, even though I had gotten down to .25 Ativan, I was crazy sick AND had just increased to .5 2xday for my trip home from hospitalization out of state. I was exceedingly ignorant of all things benzo back then. In fact, I don't believe I even KNEW the term "benzodiazepine" until I googled Ativan after getting home and Benzo Buddies popped up. After reading at BB for only a few minutes, the lightbulb that went on was more like a gazillion megawatt spotlight that blinded me. I was absolutely frantic to get off this stuff. And in my impaired state, I also made a grave mistake in calculating dosage for a week and in my disappointment, decided to simply ignore that week and dropped from 4.5 mg to 3 mg overnight.   I've learned so much since then. ~sigh~

 

Eliz, I did updose back to 2.58. My doc has been pretty good about what he considers to be the slowest taper in history and it doubt he will prescribe for me if I go back to 3 mg. that's the dose I started seeing him at. It was another doc that had given me the 5 mg tablets and that had been way back in the spring when he felt Valium would be a better drug than the Ativan they had given me in the hospital. I took it only one night back in March, had a bad reaction and couldn't sleep all night (sudden shift from Ativan) and my husband talked to the pharmacist about the difference in the 2 drugs. The pharmacist talked me out of switching to Valium back then for several different reasons, but I still had the bottle laying around when I found BB and the switch was highly recommended. My mistaken week at 4.5 mg, which was supposed to be 2.5, was due to miscalculating a mixture of 5 and 2 mg tablets.   My head is getting sore from all this head banging. 

 

I've really messed myself up, but then, you did some pretty fast tapering yourself at the beginning. I'm really hoping a slight updose will be enough to set me right, but I've never "been right" since I started, so I don't even know if that's possible for me.

 

I need some GABA receptor rebuilding enhancements badly.

 

[[et...]]

Maybe the trick would be to taper up if that makes sense until you find your right daily dose and then start the micro dailt taper from there. Is this a consideration?

etown

[[On...]]

Maybe the trick would be to taper up if that makes sense until you find your right daily dose and then start the micro dailt taper from there. Is this a consideration?

etown

 

Etown, my friend and hero, ANYTHING you suggest is ALWAYS a consideration!

 

I'm a bit disturbed that after my second updosing, last night and this morning, my right ribcage liver/gallbladder area and midsection are hurting like CRAZY. And I mean crazy, I feel like my GB is about to explode kinda pain. This might be unrelated to updosing; it could well be the 1 tsp of coconut oil I've been eating every meal for 2 days now to try to get a few extra calories. I'll be quitting that pronto. It's back to hurting as much as it did when I went to the Mayo clinic. I've also added an estrogen patch and estrogen exacerbates GB problems, but I wasn't taking estrogen when it was this bad before so I want to stick it out if possible. SOMETHING is causing this and I want to know what, if not the benzo itself. It hurts and pulls all the way to my sacrum and down my legs. Withdrawal sx maybe?  If so, up dosing should pull me out of this, right?

 

On the subject of NIACINAMIDE, I found the direct GABA-receptor up regulating effect very interesting. The only version my local HFS has is all rice bran, polishings, and rice bran oil. Is anyone taking this and what do you think of it?  Also, I took sodium ascorbate last night before bed and it bloated me out something crazy and I couldn't sleep til about 4am. Why was that? I'm trying to up my vitamin c but having a hard time with ester c and sodium ascorbate both.

 

Here's a shout out to all those participating in this thread. Hope your work day has been tolerable, maybe even pleasant. WWWI and Magga, where are you and how are things? You are missed. <3

[[et...]]

One - I have always had this feeling that if we had met when you were at 5mg it would have been a whole different ball game. I don't know what that number is exactly but I still feel there is a number between 4 and 5mg that would settle things for you. I realize this would be a big decision for you but if you look at the past 4 months if your had have started your daily taper at 5mg where would you be right now. I think that 9 day rapid taper of 9 days has taken its toll and is been very difficult for you to stabilize because of that. It needs to be your decision of course. I would not tell you what to do but I think you should think this over. Again I will support you no matter what. Its just getting hard to know what to say other than just encouraging you and I'm feeling you are seeking answers not just lip service. I'm not sure the supplements are going to be strong enough or even tolerable for you. You know I take a lot of supplements but I have not added any since I started tapering and just refuse to keep trying all the stuff that effects Gaba or glutamate just because I want my body to heal under normal circumstances and eventually achieve homeostasis on its own. I went through the whole supplement experimental stage and only found short term relief if any at all.

I hope that helps my amigo

etown

[[Sk...]]

I am going back to school to learn something new.  My dad said that there will come a time when if you aren't educated enough with extremely useful things to do, then the new world order may not want to keep you,.. um,... so.. I am going back to school.

 

-SZ-

[[...]]

Hey Everyone,

My decision to hold the rest of this week at my posted dose was the right one.  I feel much more even today and no shakiness or jitters that I was starting to experience since Monday.  I think I caught myself in time to prevent a meltdown!

 

Etown, I slept last night more than any night in the last few weeks, I think.  I made the adrenal cocktail but mixed it in chamomile tea instead of orange juice.  I was wondering if the sugars in the oj was having the opposite effect on my adrenals.  Anyway one success does not a trend identify, so I am going to repeat this tonight and see if it works again.  I hope your decision to hold is working for you too.  Hey, work is stressful and you have had a steady march down for awhile just like me.  Maybe we both just need a break! 

 

I hope everyone has a good weekend.  Personally I am glad this week is over 

[[et...]]

Me too eliz - I'm starting to feel like 70/30 again. Small mistakes = small corrections. Weather is supposed to be crappy this weekend so maybe I'll lounge and drink tea all weekend. doubt it though we will probably do some running around as usual. I'm glad you slept well. the substitution may well help with sleep. The liver does need to sugars to regenerate but whatever works you can regenerate your liver later lol

etown