wake exhausted and tired all day but energetic in the evening? wtf? adrenals?

[[al...]]

I had been doing so well......A really really long window, like a couple months! I was tapering my zopiclone sleeping pill and feeling better and better. I am at my last dose change before I jump. And then I will continue with my clonazepam taper which was put on hold to quit the z drug. I just fell into a funk. window slammed shut. I have zero energy ALL DAY LONG! I wake up tired, my blood circulation is terrible and my limbs keep getting a bit numb and pins a needles and light headed......I can barely carry on a conversation. After lunch I perk up a bit but then fall right back into the worse exhaustion of the day at 3-6ish pm. And then magically at 7/8ish I start to feel normal. My energy is back. I can have a conversation. I sleep really well and  finally dream again now that I am almost off the sleeping pill........But this daytime fatigue is horrible. I haven't had this side effect in months. It feels as if I have regressed 6 months. I know my energy levels correlate with normal cortisol times of low energy during the day but after talking to naturopaths and endocrinologists  in the beginning of my taper when i had this symptom badly they both tested and decifered I had either too low or too high cortisol,  4 different tests came up differently, I do not buy into the adrenal fatigue thing.........but I find it so hard to believe one could be so full of energy and living again and then BAM! back into huffing and puffing as I walk up the stairs and severe exhaustion...like one day to the next.........how is that possible?? can it really be the benzo's? Or an adrenal crisis? or what? Has anyone else went from totally functioning normally to regressing dramatically one day to the next? My w/d has been pretty linear.....for 14 months it has gone from worse to better. Why the regression now? out of the blue?

 

even if i had adrenal fatigue there is nothing i could do about it...i can't tolerate hydrocortisone, supplements, vitamins or stimulants. and high cortisol had the same symptoms as low cortisol according to my tests and everything they gave me made me crash..so i decided it must all be the benzo's ...but can it really be this f'd up? such linear healing for so long and now this........can anyone out there relate and make me feel not totally like i have regresssed, broken myself and will never be fixed again?

 

the worse part was that after having months of good windows i felt confident enough to graduate from a daily 3 hour volunteer job to a real part time job. i was so confident i was stable enough to do it...no healed of course, i still had many symptoms and i not myself yet but on the way.....i applied and got an amazing job last week. working with developmentally challenged children, my old profession.........and now i fall into a wave? wtf? there is no way in hell i have the energy for such a demanding job......i really thought i was out of the dark. i feel so discouraged right now.......i think i might have to quit before i start..i even got accepted into college as a mature student for september, i was feeling so hopeful and making future plans.....living a life! so shitty.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[[Ly...]]

I am experiencing similar stuff. i am off benzos for 7 months and was having some amazing windows but lately i have been having horrible brain fog and feeling super fatigued...and just like you usually at around 7 pm my exhaustion goes away and i start to feel a bit better..im confused about the adrenal fatigue thing to and dont really buy into it.

 

 

does your brain fog make your head feel clouded all day? that mixed w the exhaustion makes me feel like i am about to drop over..

2 weeks ago i was walking 5 miles everyday.

[[al...]]

i have light headedness......brain fog is more when you can't remember things? right? not sure exactly the difference....  this feels more like low blood pressure and bad circulation like oxygen is not getting to my brain so i feel lightheaded and can't concentrate.......too dizzy. i used to have it a lot but it just returned. my extremities keeping mildly falling asleep....but i feel like i have bricks under my eyes.....man two weeks ago i was laughing and energetic and having lunch with friends, cooking great meals, sleeping well....and now i am just a zombie........adrenal crash or just benzo crash? i feel like if it's adrenal than it will last forever and take forever to heal because there is nothing i can take  to help and that it is independent of benzos which makes me very worried but if it's benzo's than i can just sit back and know it will go away and that a window will come back.......apparently there is no windows in adrenal recovery especially if i can't do anything to help them! i just want to know if i caused this wave or if it's just random benzo w/d........want to know what i am in for..........so confusing.

[[al...]]

that's interesting that you feel better at night too......i was told by one practitioner that my cortisol was low during the day and high at night.....but the other one said i had severely high levels for a 24 hour period.........dunno.

[[ih...]]

Benzos mess with the HPA axis. Perserverance has a great thread on the particualrs. There is also some evidence that cortisol blocks GABA so while cortisol levels are fluctuating wildly, your GABA receptors are also being effected.

 

I had the same sorts of sx which would occur in unpredictable waves. These did not reliably improve until I was several months completely off. I also made work & school commitments too early in the healing process & was unable to fulfill them so I understand how frustrating it can be but all of my sx were bz related & I am now well on the way to safely being able to make commitments again at 9 months off.

[[al...]]

ihope, my drugs are/were tramadol, zopiclone and clonazepam it is reassuring we have the same s/x's. including the low blood pressure/hypotension.. and that you recovered......i also have suffered major stresses over the past few years. i have read what perseverance wrote and it is very interesting and adds to the inofrmation i had received on my own and from various doctors and naturopaths. but it is all so contradictory the information on adrenals and cortisol and it confuses me terribly. because with the rational of cortisol blocking gaba than that would mean we would be more wired with no gaba to calm us down, no? instead of exhausted? more cortisol would mean more energy? or at least anxiety? i don't have either lol! so confusing.........

 

when my cortisol levels were at their highest i was told i had pseudo cushings.......i was so tired i could barely do the laundry. which is supposed to be a sign of cortisol that is low? adrenal fatigue........it probably has nthing to do with anything and everything to do with a system so out of whack in so many areas it is impossible to correct one because they are all so f'd up and the only thing to do is wait til they balance out........at least i hope that is what it is as i can't imagine healing from benzos and then having to start healing from adrenal problems.......

 

i actually started taking tramadol pre benzo, after i almost severed my leg, during a year of surgeries...i had no problem with it and quit c/t with a rough couple weeks but no biggie. i started using it for the past few months , during my taper, once or twice a week for massive headaches as nothing else worked....i stopped it two weeks ago and wonder if it triggered this wave i am having or if it crashed my adrenals? it was so helpful in increasing my energy and decreasing my pain, but i just thought maybe i don't need another drug to contend with.....

[[ih...]]

Tramadol includes a noradrenaline reuptake inhibitor which could increase the stimulus load which is probably not helpful in withdrawal. Cortisol is constantly trying to return the body to homeostasis which is why it tends to surge in stressful situations such as the imbalanced stimulatory neurotransmitters & hormones common during bz wdwls. That's why unduly high cortisol doesn't lead to you feeling perky as the healthy cortisol response has been overwhelmed.

 

During the worst of the wdwls, this effect left me feeling wired but exhausted. As glutamate starts to return to balance, feeling tired as a result of exertion is more likely to be accompanied by some level of calmness which facilitates rest.

 

It's a slow process though & now I find myself wanting to get back to achieving some life goals but can still get a wave of excess glutamate if I overdo things.

 

As for burned out adrenals, I am more inclined to the view that once the glutamate/GABA balance returns to homeostasis, the HPA problems will also resolve.

 

:hug:

 

[[Du...]]

I have some thoughts on this.

 

Before benzos I was suffering from adrenal fatigue, and it is what brought me to benzos. I for many year suffered from fatigue, and a complete wired but tired syndrome, brain fog, muscle wastage, zero stress tolerance, excercise intolerance, you name it. I could function, I would go to work but in three years I hadnt slept more than a few hours (i always wake at 3am, this has never changed) and ive never been able to get back to sleep...and experienced lots of 'mental chatter', adrenaline surges, shaking...and then eventually after being a medication guinea pig experienced anxiety and depression. I would 'crash' after excercise or long hours at work and it would take me weeks to get back on to my feet (i sometimes feel this is what people describe as 'waves' on here). My cortisol rose in the evening so much i was extremely fatigue and closing my eyes, but my body wanted to run a marathon...then it would spike at 3am and wake up ready to run a marathon, but so so tired.

 

I really feel benzo withdrawal causes AF/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and that the 'gaba/glutamate' scenario is NOT the whole picture, as I had never really taken a benzo in my life but experienced this entire fatigue and wired/tired syndrome. The reason why people 'heal' is not only due to gaba its because they are looking after themselves with diet, low acitivty and low stress lifestyles and lots of resting and time...this is what is prescribed in most AF cases. We are the unfortunate ones though as of the trauma we have experience and now we are so sensitive that we cannot take supplements to aid the process along at all...I manage vitamin C and Glutathione, anything else hypes me up...and magnesium now is offsetting my sodium so it makes me pee continually - all signs of weak adrenal cascade.

 

The term Adrenal Fatigue is debatable in its actual words, however the reality of the situation is that an illness does exist and is related to the HPA system and the adrenals play a huge part in that. Nobody know the actual cause, or what the body has done to change its homeostatis but normally AF comes about after prolonged stress, and or a reaction to chemicals,medication etc. There are multiple stages to AF, the resistance stage is what we are talking out, wired and tired, but there is also the burnout stage, where cortisol stays so low, but not in the addisons realm, yet means a person can bairly function. I have a good friend in this stage.

 

I am being investigated for cushions - adrenaline surges, but then my cortisol also bottoms out, so they think addisons, all in all they dont know what is wrong, and as doctors are ignorant to the term adrenal fatigue, maybe because of its terminlogy who knows, but there is a problem with cortisol and HPA - its even widly documented in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, but they refuse to acknolwedge it. If a person can have problems with their thyroid, hyp and hyper, why cant they have similar problems with their adrenals? It does not make sense to ignore it. But hey doctors are what sent us in to benzo hell right?

 

Are we ever going to have a definitive answer? probably not, but in all cases....rest, nutrition, basic supplementation (vit c, glutathione and b5 the most important), gentle energy restoring excercise like yoga, lots of meditation are the ingredients to adrenal recovery.

 

I feel our mental symptoms are the gaba connection and our physical AF/CFS.

 

This guy is a bit of a spin doctor but his knowledge is excellent. he also has good articles on brain fog etc..

 

http://www.drlam.com/articles/adrenal_fatigue.asp

 

I would also avoid ANY stimulatory pills or foods...gee'ing yourself up is a sure fire way to burnout..i spent years with coffee, sugar, tyrosine, cortisol boosters...anything to get me through the day and keep my job and excercise (which was my social life)...all in all, it brought me to benzos and put me into this nightmare.

 

As for waves and crashes - waves I feel our those complete mental shunts and lock downs (i never had these before benzos) and adrenal crashes are the shaky no energy mind racing wired but cant sleep and so exshauted you cant move scenarios. Rebalancing cortisol curves is extremely hard and Dr Lam focuses on basic yoga in the morning and evening the invoke the para-sympathetic nervous system, and supplements like Milk Thistle to help the body detox excess hormones like noephirine etc that are rampant in AF/CFS (hence the wired feeling - the adrenaline replaces the cortisol because the adrenals cant produce enough cortisol)...

 

[[al...]]

i was actually a patient of dr lams many years ago when i had hit tolerance and not realized it. his "therapies" sent me over the edge into a psychiatric hospital for 3 months, polydrugged and had to have ECT over a couple dozen times........fortunately they finally found out what my stomach problem was and realized i was did not have depresion or anxiety but a real physical and serious problem.......for which the benzo's were described in the first place. I have been withdrawing since then.  i am not a fan in a anyway of dr lam....sorry to say, i think he writes overly complicated articles that do not take other circumstances into play...which is what most of the "adrenal" specialists including endocrinologists do.

 

i know the adrenal fatigue feeling. i know the wired but tired. the adrenaline surges, the unable to fall asleep, the waking up at 6am with so much anxiety you want to throw up but need to go for a run or you will go crazy, feeling starving and having to eat all the time to avoid surges ............i don't have that at all. i haven't had surges in about 8 months. and i had them for 2 years.

 

i am just exhausted. period. i feel better at night, but not wired...just normal. and i have no problem falling a sleep.  thank you so much for this dialogue it is really helping me understand things more and thus relieving worry....i also read piano's girls re post of parkers article about what is happening in our brains........however it is all so complicated still! and i guess there is scientific data and then there is also our theories based on analysis and our own experience and research........

 

i feel like perhaps when i stopped the tramadol, which is a weak ssri and snri i left my brain in a deficit trying to catch up. which it clearly can't at the moment. then at the same time i did my second last dose change in my sleeping pill........those dose changes made me feel better not worse, but this time coupled with the tramadol c/t i think i went overboard and overwhelmed my body. i just thought taking tramadol a couple times a week ant the lowest doese would not have a w/d when i stopped....

 

the glutamate gaba thing makes sense because when they aren't working properly the adrenals, the neurotransmitters etc aren't working properly either.

so doesn't it make sense to add an snri or ssri to help carry the load and burden while the gaba/glutamate motherboard is repairing it...giving it one less thisng to do? and then once repaired taper the a/d? which tramadol was functioning as for me?

 

sorry just thinking out loud and appreciate the clever minds who are helping me work through this...so any of your thoughts would be tremendous.....

 

also what about taking added glutamate supplement when you are exhausted and the gaba seems to be in dominance? could that not give you a bit of a perk up? i remember taking it about year ago from a naturopath and it felt amazing for about a week and then i crashed........he had me on a very high dose! daily...but maybe a small dose every once and awhile?.

just as meditation and calming things help when glutamate is in dominance.........

 

thank you for the dialogue......

[[Ji...]]

Just posting here so I can follow this thread.

 

I cut last night and am totally immobilised with symptoms. Zopiclone is evil.

[[pr...]]

what about having your thyroid checked or checking your own by temps' in the morning. i think thyroid is over looked and it runs almost everything. i'm going to find a good endo and bring him all the stuff i'm reading about thyroid on how to test it properly. i know it's going to take time for the whole Gaba/Glutamate thing to balance. but there's stuff we can do. i know you're not into suppies. i am just starting some B12 to see how my body does with that and i've been taking colostrum fine for months.

 

there's so much about health to learn about and do and trial and error. but i do think thyroid is a big key even in benzo w/d.

hope you can find your answers! hope i can find my answers too. been doing this way too long and still not well.

 

i am totally fatigued during the day--basically bed ridden but that's okay. i did a lot of damage--i need a lot of time, good nutrients, and good rest. at night i come alive but still can't walk around much as i still vibrate so violently. so i go from the couch to my chair and that's about it. and then a 5 minute walk during the day.

 

good luck to you alabamawerle!

[[Du...]]

I was a paitent of Lams as well funnily enough, and it did make me worse, because i was polydrugged too, so he should of looked into this, and we should not blame him entirely. I realised after six months that it was half his fault and half mine I never got any better. His system caters more for those in burnout, not in the stress resistance stage..and plus i was still working crazy hours, trying to train, and I was on Remeron. I really feel that one cannot heal from these types of disorders while the body and brain is muddled up by drugs. Yes they might make things more bearable and protect the mitochondia from stress, but ultimately your body is running on a pill, not on its own.

 

I see your point about whats the harm in using an SSRI at the moment to try and help things, and its one im pondered a fair bit. Unfortunately I had been down the various AD routes and all made me worse, we have to remember that SSRI's are seretonin recyclers , they dont create seretonin, that is done in your stomach and by, yes, the adrenals. Its so complicated and almost impossible to test for, so whatever we do we are just shooting in the dark.

 

I also looked into nutritional balancing and had a hair test done, it revealed some useful info but the programme has so many flaws i wouldnt know where to start.

 

Interstingly im like you alabamawerle at the mo, i dont feel particularly wired at night, just slightly better after the days of chronic exhaustion and varying panic attacks/adrenaline surges, and I am managing to fall asleep, just not stay asleep and as usual awake a few hours later. If i do any excercise though I become in 'overdrive' very easily and will go to bed fatigued but so gee'd up I want to run a marathon.

 

Did Dr Lam ever put you on his quantamax? I realised the other day it has a lot of glutamate in it, obviously a terrible idea for benzo vicims! I was even taking this stuff while on benzos, crazy. I think thats one of the areas lam falls down in, he is so fixated on adrenals and vitamin C that he forgets to include other nutritional support, which is a bit mad considering his wife Dorine, who i worked with, has three degrees in nutrition. The hair test revealed I had practically no magnesium in my system. I started supplementing as it helped the benzo WD, but now it makes me urinate to much, all through the night sometimes. When the adrenals are week, sodium is low, and magnesium lowers sodium even more.

 

I do feel some of the exhaustion is from the body requiring as much metabolic energy as it can get to fix everything, but unfortunately, I dont think its the entire picture, especially to those who have been suffering from prolonged periods of fatigue since benzos (and before).

 

The POV on the thyroid from most ND's is that the adrenals go first, and because western medicine only checks the thyroid, it is why people end up on thyroid medication for life and cant come off, because the adrenals are the ones that need fixing first. My thyroid levels have always been A1, yet my symptoms are classic alternating hypo/hyper thyroidism.

 

The AF you mentioned is classic resistance level of AF, the one I have lived with for years and years, the one before complete exhaustion, which you might be finding yourself in now?

 

Its all just theories thought isnt it! we will probably never figure it out. A lot of people on the likes of CureZone concentrate of heavy metal detoxing, some build up gently with vitamin C and then follow Lams book...all have had their own successes, but it has taken them years, sometimes i think, even if we just left all the supplements out, in two years we would probably be doing much better anyway from the stress free, resting, good diet lifestyle?

 

[[am...]]

I can relate to this...

 

I' m currently in a state of severe adrenal exhaustion after years of taking stimulants and a benzo.

I have no adrenaline rushes/cortisol surges though which is what you are supposed to have according to dr.Lam.

And I also can sleep 8-9 hours at a time despite tapering off Xanax which is great but really weird considering that I used to suffer from terrible insomnia for years. It would have been great except that I have absolutely NO ENERGY and I'm in pain all the time. It feels like I have no cortisol or adrenaline left in my body at all. I have problems breathing now and I noticed that it somehow relates to this very low energy state...

Amazingly just like you said after 10 p.m I wake up and feel like I can function.

 

 

I stopped taking Wellbutrin which is an SNRI a couple of months ago and a month later this hell started which I now believe is due to low circulating norepinephrine in the body. ( Low norepi => low epinephrine + low cortisol => my adrenal fatigue getting worse).

 

I shouldn't have stopped Wellbutrin almost CT because the stimulant WD on top of benzo WD and adrenal fatigue overwhelmed the body and it started to malfunction at its most vital systems like maintaining a stable heart rate, respiration and blood pressure.

 

It might be also true in your case.

 

I decided to take 75 mg of Wellbutrin XL despite the conventional logic suggesting to avoid all stimulants.

 

I hope this might help

 

Good luck

[[am...]]

Alabamawerle, after rereading your posts I realized that I have symptoms identical to yours. I'd be interested to know if you find a solution or figure out the cause. Pins and needles hit home for me as well as unexplainable weight gain...

 

How can you add a post to your favorites or follow smth/smb?...

 

About dr.Lam:

 

I respect his work greatly but why would he use the same protocol on people who are on/withdrawing from benzos?!!!!

It's nearly criminal imo...

He should have known better.

I can't even imagine what Dubjam and alabamawerle went through hoping to get better on vitamin C mega-dosing and other stimulating supplements. No wonder you were just disappointed, frustrated and ended up getting even sicker...

 

I remember going crazy from taking too much vitamin B complex when I tried to quit xanax years ago. Vitamin C would give me tension headache from hell too... It was before my adrenals crashed into oblivion, so I had very high cortisol symptoms and couldn't sleep at all...

[[al...]]

dr lam....what a man....honestly he wasn't the worse of it...i saw a dr hui here in toronto and was given intravenous mega vitamins, cortisone ,and put on a paleo diet........i felt like i was going to die. after a couple of months and thousands of dollars i nearly collapsed and he said well.....you know you are reacting very unusually considering your test results.........well if i had a nickle for everytime i heard that! shheeesh!

 

seriously this is a very complicated thing. i am so confused by all of it.......i am formulating my own theories because i cannot bare the idea of seeing another specialist, having another test or taking anymore supplements, vitamins, pills, detoxes, diets or advice from these people......they all contradict each other and my test results always come up different and conflicting depending who is doing the test......the one good consistent thing is my thyroid....always great and in good shape........my iron always low however iron supplements make me sick.......

 

i know i am probably deficient or in excess in neurotransmitters, nutrients and hormones......but i can't do anything about it because the minute i take something it throws something else off and i get a bad reaction. i guess the overwhelming feeling is that of being stuck in a really shitty situation with no way out. no way to fix the problems until the benzos are out and the damage repaired.

 

i think the overwhelming problem for me is stress.....because i don't get adrenaline surges anymore i figured i wasn't having stress because i wasn't feeling it......but i was.

 

the last dose change, and a miriad of other things sent me over the edge into exhaustion. is it adrenals is it benzos is it glutamate is it gaba is it magnesium is it my hormones....well who knows and basically who cares, i shouldn't fixate on it because i can't do anything about any of those things to fix it if they were f'd........because the treatments all cause terrible reactions.

 

it's the stress i have to concentrate on.........i really have to get a handle on it and worrying about all this shit doesn't help. i think i am going to also start titrating the end of my taper. it's too much to handle. i want to do it slowly and gently and stop fixating on getting off. i want to just do it without shocking my system too much and i think now that i am doing to the end of my taper the dry cuts are killing me.

 

it's interesting.......i thought the tramadol was helping because of the ssri and snri qualities...i thought it was giving me energy because of it and putting me in agood mood because of it. but it's not...tons of people feel energized by opiates.......not high and baked and zonked out like it's supposed to do. i always felt the same way when i was a chronic pot smoker.......i felt energetic, focused and full of life. i felt that way on benzo's too.....i never reached tolerance for any of them and never needing large amounts...tiny amounts always worked for me (not with the sleeping pill though that i reached tolerance fast!)

 

i think it's because it calms my system and when my system is calm i have energy. it's like someone here mentioned....i have only enough energy to repair my body right now and not to do extra things so when i stress it out with worry, supplements, physical stress, pain, benzo taper.....anything really...i just make a bigger deficit in energy..........i think my modus operandus form now on will be to keep this on an even keel. to stop the deficit. really focus on all aspects of stress reduction

 

accept this situation, titrate, enjoy things in life, recognize when i am stressed (physically or mentally) and rebalance in whatever way works for me. a walk, music, hot bath, seeing a friend, a glass of wine.......whatever.........enjoy my life regardless of my current situation....

 

i think that's why when i quit the tramadol i no longer had that chemical relaxant in my body, even if i only took it a few times a week and a small dose, it relaxed me. and the more relaxed i am the more i heal the more i have energy the more relaxed i am......the loop of happy.

 

does this make sense to anyone? or am i barking up the wrong tree? i just realized that i have paradoxical reactions to calming things, they energize me which means that in order to have energy i need to calm the f down. maybe then i will heal.........just my hypothesis...........for today anyway..lol!

 

thank you for this dialogue it is so helpful for us to talk out loud and hypothesis and share information and ideas.i am very grateful for it....

[[pr...]]

that does make a ton of sense to me. the more relaxed and calm one is, the more the body and mind can heal--the more energy one can have. i know i've been stressing out on what cleanses, detox's and protcol's to start doing--what supplements should i start before too much damage is done. right now i'm worried about my liver, adrenals and thyroid and i'm stressing out about it.

 

i am still knee deep in benzo withdrawal, bed ridden during the day and looking at myself is really stressing me out. i look so unbelievably sickly and i feel like everytime i look at myself i need to do a liver cleanse pronto.

 

but all of this is going to take time. and i do think the best healing does come from a relaxed and calm mind and body. so meditation, good music, good friends & conversation, good food even if it's something you not supposed to be eating.

 

i do wish to discuss how to treat adrenal fatigue first before thyroid as i though maybe it it was the other way around and that thyroid had to do with everything. just from things i've been reading and researching. but i guess everything does go hand in hand somehow. i don't want to just have one or the other treated. but to support both at the same time.

 

so i would love to hear about how to do that when it's time?

 

alabamawerle, i do think it would be good for you to stop fixating on getting off the benzo's and to do it slowly and gently with a good titration plan to stick to...that was the one thing i just couldn't do and it was terribly stressful-- a stressor that nobody needs to go through--and then a cold turkey on top of that. and then deep hurtful family issues on top of that--it's way too much!

 

but i couldn't taper rightly for some reason, although i tried for 9 years! talk about stress. now i'm just glad i don't have to worry about tapering, although i do have to worry about it with the suboxone opiate and i am  so addicted to it. and having a difficult time even starting a taper/ i keep taking the same amount saying fuck it another day. and that's what i did with the benzo's until i did the cold turkey and i don't wish to do that.

 

 

but i would love to hear recommendations on how to treat adrenals and thyroid and the same time?

pretty

[[al...]]

yup day 2\ and I think my hypothesis is turning out to be right. I can focus on adrenals, cortisol, my weight etc etc but in reality those are down the line. the beginning thing, the root of the problem, the top of food chain, is a lack of gaba. period.    gaba is the motherboard of the brain and body right.......it calms down almost every nook and cranny in our body....so when there is a deficit and lack of it, like in benzo withdrawal, even minor stresses become major stresses. and the cascade effect will logically be a whole system..liver, adrenals, neurotransmitters, hormones ...that are out of whack because the chief of police is off duty! and even if they are functioning normally, even if we have enough cortisol, liver enzymes, serotonin, it will feel like too much or too little because we don't have gaba to balance it out so it will "feel" like there is something wrong when there isn't.

 

a normal person has minor stresses all day long. stresses they know about and stresses that they don't know about, chemical stresses that go on in the body without our knowledge, like a deficit in cortisol for a few days.......for example.....they wouldn't even feel it because gaba takes care of it. and when they do feel it, they can grab a coffee, smoke a joint, play football, pop some vitamins, do a health detox etc  to rectify it. we can't. and to top it off...we have very little gaba and I think it is used up just trying desperately to fix all the stresses we don't see or are unaware of, the invisible ones.....therefore normal day stress we are aware of, that normally would be minor, become major for us because we don't have fire extinguishers anymore. so we try detoxes, vitamins etc all the things we would have before done as a normal gaba happy person, a normal person's response, except we aren't normal. but we don't exactly know what we are so we don't know how to react exactly.....all we know is what we were used to doing in the past......but as it clearly shows time and time again by so many posts in this forum, is that those things we do to "fix" ourselves actually make us worse, sick, fatigued and miserable.........so from now on I am gong to treat every  single stress I am aware of like a major impediment to my healing.

 

I am going to treat minor stresses like major ones and keep on top of it. I am going to not do anymore fixing shit, no more cleanses, vitamins, naturopaths, tests, diets....I am going to breathe really hard when I am stressed, I am going to change my reaction to life and make it my new medicine. and I am going to start titrating.........I never reached tolerance so it's not a problem, I was just severely sedated, which the less I take the less I am sedated the less I feel depressed. so I should be in no rush to get off. I am going to take my time. it was a matter of principal getting off them....a victory. well living a normal life is way more of a victory now. functioning in the real world......so that is my focus now. and if it takes ANOTHER 6 months to get off so be it. it's been 16 months already, but hey...I quit three psych drugs in 16 months so pat on the back for me!

 

does this sound rational and logical to anyone else? or is it the ramblings of a person in benzo w/d who makes no sense........thanks again for listening.....alabama

[[Ki...]]

Very similar story with me. When I was tapering off Clonazepam, some days I had absolutely crushing fatigue. I really thought there was something very, very wrong with me. When I upped my dose to what it had been prior to taper, I started to feel better. But it was exactly as you describe.....wake in the morning exhausted, struggle through the day, nap (really, more like go comatose) for two hours, wake up exhausted, then start feeling better in the evening. It is absolutely maddening.

[[al...]]

i know! maybe we should all get night jobs! I just don't think i'd make a good hooker...lol!

[[re...]]

I had been doing so well......A really really long window, like a couple months! I was tapering my zopiclone sleeping pill and feeling better and better. I am at my last dose change before I jump. And then I will continue with my clonazepam taper which was put on hold to quit the z drug. I just fell into a funk. window slammed shut. I have zero energy ALL DAY LONG! I wake up tired, my blood circulation is terrible and my limbs keep getting a bit numb and pins a needles and light headed......I can barely carry on a conversation. After lunch I perk up a bit but then fall right back into the worse exhaustion of the day at 3-6ish pm. And then magically at 7/8ish I start to feel normal. My energy is back. I can have a conversation. I sleep really well and  finally dream again now that I am almost off the sleeping pill........But this daytime fatigue is horrible. I haven't had this side effect in months. It feels as if I have regressed 6 months. I know my energy levels correlate with normal cortisol times of low energy during the day but after talking to naturopaths and endocrinologists  in the beginning of my taper when i had this symptom badly they both tested and decifered I had either too low or too high cortisol,  4 different tests came up differently, I do not buy into the adrenal fatigue thing.........but I find it so hard to believe one could be so full of energy and living again and then BAM! back into huffing and puffing as I walk up the stairs and severe exhaustion...like one day to the next.........how is that possible?? can it really be the benzo's? Or an adrenal crisis? or what? Has anyone else went from totally functioning normally to regressing dramatically one day to the next? My w/d has been pretty linear.....for 14 months it has gone from worse to better. Why the regression now? out of the blue?

 

even if i had adrenal fatigue there is nothing i could do about it...i can't tolerate hydrocortisone, supplements, vitamins or stimulants. and high cortisol had the same symptoms as low cortisol according to my tests and everything they gave me made me crash..so i decided it must all be the benzo's ...but can it really be this f'd up? such linear healing for so long and now this........can anyone out there relate and make me feel not totally like i have regresssed, broken myself and will never be fixed again?

 

the worse part was that after having months of good windows i felt confident enough to graduate from a daily 3 hour volunteer job to a real part time job. i was so confident i was stable enough to do it...no healed of course, i still had many symptoms and i not myself yet but on the way.....i applied and got an amazing job last week. working with developmentally challenged children, my old profession.........and now i fall into a wave? wtf? there is no way in hell i have the energy for such a demanding job......i really thought i was out of the dark. i feel so discouraged right now.......i think i might have to quit before i start..i even got accepted into college as a mature student for september, i was feeling so hopeful and making future plans.....living a life! so shitty.

 

 

 

 

I can sure relate to you and it remains a mystery to me too. I was feeling fine and then Whamo! I feel terrible. And the hypersensitivity to sound is a major problem. Plus, the way I react to dropping even just a Kleenex. I overact as if I am dropping fine china. I jerk quite noticeably. I just made a post entitled "Extreme Physical Pain" I felt really good not yesterday but the Saturday before (a little over a week ago) and had several windows in a row before that Saturday. I too thought it was smooth sailing and felt like I could get back to living. So, why the change? I am with you on this one.

[[Ti...]]

Good thread as I have also been dealing with major fatigue the last year-was getting better but then 6 weeks ago was exposed to Cipro and went into severe withdrawal again and then 2 days later got a bad virus. My body has completely crashed.

 

The fatigue so bad I can barely get around my house-I am only 35! Just going from sitting to standing is exhausting. I also have severe muscle weakness, a constant/achy feeling all over my body, brain fog, dizziness and wake early wide awake but exhausted at the same time.

 

And today I found my cat's fur on a nearby hill-he's been missing 3 days. We think it was a coyote. I feel like I have been crawling on the ground the last 6 weeks (the last year and a half really) and his death feels like someone came along and kicked me while I am already so down. I am just so devastated and it's impossible to cope in the condition I am in, feeling so sick. Like someone said, we are not "normal" right now and every stressor is completely overwhelming.

 

Tina

[[al...]]

I'm sorry about your cat. it's really tough, they are like family . it hurts like hell......

 

I was thinking...you know how when you do something good for yourself, like a diet...say you are 50 pounds over weight....you go on a diet and it's stressful, but soon you start dropping the weight and the health benefits start to show and you start to feel great and your body starts repairing itself and you look and feel amazing and the good starts to out weigh the bad?......that can never happen to us until gaba is restored......because we can never get over the stressful part . we can't get to a place where we can benefit from lifestyle changes and they outweigh the stress. the stress will always win. it will always dominate, through no fault of our own. it is like a disease to us. we could never get to a place where taking vitamin c would help because the stress would never let up enough to let us benefit from it and in turn heal the imbalance....we don't even make it out of the gate.

 

I am so tired of being tired. i think i spend too much of my day adding to my stress and i think when night comes i think maybe i associate night with relaxation so my body automatically relaxes and i perk up because it's no longer stressing about ...how am i going to get through this day, what should i eat, why don't i have the nergy to get out of bed, why is this happening to me, this is so unfair, i want my life back, i want to have a job, i need to fix this, i need to get some vitamin c in me, maybe i need to see the doctor, is it my thyroid, maybe i have chronic fatigue...will i ever feel normal again....did my blood pressure just drop again....on and on and on and on...........but somehow at the end of the day i think, man made it thorugh another day maybe i will wake up tomorrow in a window and i feel hope......

 

just reading that makes me feel stressed, if i have thoughts like that ALL day long it's no wonder i am so f'n tired! why am i putting gas on the fire...........i need to take a chill pill! hahahahahaha oops already tried that!

[[pr...]]

Good thread as I have also been dealing with major fatigue the last year-was getting better but then 6 weeks ago was exposed to Cipro and went into severe withdrawal again and then 2 days later got a bad virus. My body has completely crashed.

 

The fatigue so bad I can barely get around my house-I am only 35! Just going from sitting to standing is exhausting. I also have severe muscle weakness, a constant/achy feeling all over my body, brain fog, dizziness and wake early wide awake but exhausted at the same time.

 

And today I found my cat's fur on a nearby hill-he's been missing 3 days. We think it was a coyote. I feel like I have been crawling on the ground the last 6 weeks (the last year and a half really) and his death feels like someone came along and kicked me while I am already so down. I am just so devastated and it's impossible to cope in the condition I am in, feeling so sick. Like someone said, we are not "normal" right now and every stressor is completely overwhelming.

 

Tina

 

i am so very sorry to hear about this! what a terrible thing to happen when your CNS is so sensitive. i have had this happen to me to and it's just the worst thing in the world. i was 15 yrs when a coyote got my blue russian. i got another cat right away that i had for 27 years! and she really was everything to me.

 

i don't care if your not in a benzo w/d as this kinda thing is so beyond stressful. i had to reinstate when my 27 year old cat started her transition. i couldn't take it. i truly hope that you can find some comfort somehow! when i read this i just started to cry for you. i wish there is something i could do for you! i just hope you can get through this time if that is truly what happened. so sorry :'(

[Guest [Be...]]

Alabamwerie that's exactly how I feel and I couldn't have put it better. Tired of being tired even though I've just slept nine hours.

 

I'm sorry about Your cat TinaCA we get so attached to them. My cat is 19 and seems to have dementia. She spends most of her day walking backwards and forwards to her feeding bowl but not eating the food when she gets there. There's nothing wrong with her apart from old age so we can only look on sadly knowing her time may soon be up. It is upsetting.

 

Benzo withdrawal makes us feel everything so much more intensely but I find it hard to cry as my emotions feel frozen. I think when I can cry freely again I will be healed.

 

 

 

[[pr...]]

Alabamwerie that's exactly how I feel and I couldn't have put it better. Tired of being tired even though I've just slept nine hours.

 

I'm sorry about Your cat TinaCA we get so attached to them. My cat is 19 and seems to have dementia. She spends most of her day walking backwards and forwards to her feeding bowl but not eating the food when she gets there. There's nothing wrong with her apart from old age so we can only look on sadly knowing her time may soon be up. It is upsetting.

 

Benzo withdrawal makes us feel everything so much more intensely but I find it hard to cry as my emotions feel frozen. I think when I can cry freely again I will be healed.

 

oh God! Beth, this is killing me tonight. i am so sorry about this. i swear, i absolutely adore the felion kitty cat especially since my girl lived for so long. and she went so cleanly. i waited a full month for her transition. i am so sorry to hear about you cat going back and forth to the feeding bowl. you know, when my cat had some kind of disorientation and i thought maybe it was some kind of dementia. it wasn't, she just needed some SubQ fluids for her kidneys. the kidneys are usually what makes them do things like going back and forth to the feeding bowl. so maybe you can have you kitty's kidney's checked and i know that the SubQ fluids really help keep them comfortable. i hope it gets better.

 

xx

pretty