How true is this?

[[US...]]

Downregulation of GABA through benzos is not permanent. Why some people never recover is because benzos are fat-soluble molecules therefore they are stored in body fat and are sporadically used by our body from time to time.

This is the explanation to why some have a lot of difficulties to recover and why people on benzo withdrawal feel happy and recovered one day and crash 1 week after.

The solution to that is make a lot of exercise so that cells can excrete toxins and lose weight.

You may also use detoxifiers such as MSM, chlorella to clean up all the benzo rubbish. And of course water supplementation is needed.

 

How much Benzo can I acutally store in my fat after taking 13 mg in weeks.  between .5-.25 mg. 

[[os...]]

I read that valium gets stored in the fatty tissue more that the ones with a faster half life

[[re...]]

 

Question: Is the Post-Withdrawal Syndrome caused by benzodiazepines being "locked up" in tissues for years or is it the result of brain damage occasioned by long-term benzodiazepine use?

 

Answer: Benzodiazepines are fat soluble and do enter fatty tissues including the brain. But these tissues are in equilibrium with the blood, so that if the concentration in the blood is lower than that in fat, some will come out of the fat and re-enter the blood where it is metabolised and excreted. This will again lower the blood concentration, so more will leach out of the fat, and so on. So the body is more or less cleared, even of long half-life benzodiazepines, within 30 days. There is no evidence that benzodiazepines are "locked up" in tissues for years. I have looked into this question with an expert pharmacologist, Dr Clare Stamford of University College in London. There is a reference to this in the Manual (Chapter III, pp 33/34 in the UK version). http://www.benzo.org.uk/ashanswer.htm

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How long do benzodiazepines stay in the body after withdrawal? This question is often asked by people with long-term symptoms. Is it possible that one cause of protracted symptoms is that benzodiazepines remain in the body even after months, lurking perhaps deep in such tissues as brain and bones? Could slow elimination from these sites keep the withdrawal symptoms going?

 

Like many other issues concerning benzodiazepines, the answers to these questions are still unclear. Benzodiazepine concentrations in the blood have been measured and shown to reach undetectable levels in 3-4 weeks after cessation of use in people withdrawn from clinical doses. Information on benzodiazepine concentrations in the brain and other tissues is difficult to obtain, especially in humans. Benzodiazepines certainly enter the brain and also dissolve in all fatty (lipid-containing) tissues including fat deposits all over the body. It is possible that they linger in such tissues for some time after blood levels have become undetectable. However, most body tissues are in equilibrium with the blood that constantly perfuses them, and there is no known mechanism whereby benzodiazepines could be "locked up" in tissues such as the brain. There is no data on how long benzodiazepines remain in bones, which have a lower fat content but also a slower rate of cell turnover.

 

Nevertheless, the concentration of benzodiazepines remaining in body tissues after withdrawal must be very low, otherwise the drugs would leak back into the blood in discernible amounts. It is difficult to imagine that such concentrations would be sufficient to produce clinical effects or that any direct effects could last for months or years. However, it is not inconceivable that even low concentrations might be enough to prevent the return of GABA/benzodiazepine receptors in the brain to their pre-benzodiazepine state. If so, the receptors would continue to be resistant to the natural calming actions of GABA (See Chapter I), and the effect could be to prolong the state of nervous system hyperexcitability. http://www.benzo.org.uk/manual/bzcha03.htm

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So apparently Prof. Ashton does not think it likely, but cannot completely and absolutely rule it out.

[[Te...]]

Dang! I was just going to say all that but redevan beat me to it!

 

[[...]]

Valium is stored in our tissues, particularly fat, up to around 8x our regular dose according to articles by  Reg Peart. Occasionally it is stored up to 20x. I think the  idea that this stored drug persists for a very long time and gives us symptoms as it sporadically comes out is nonsense. These tissues are in equilibrium with our serum levels and the drug steadily comes out during a taper as our intake drops off and then stops. I disagree with Ashton on this one as drugs simply do not persist for extended periods of time in the body. They are entirely eliminated in a manner closely related to the serum half life. IMO, the major reason our symptoms vary is because the various biochemical pathways that are re-regulating do so at different rates. Our shifting symptoms are due to shifting relationships between the different pathways. Variations in diet and lifestyle are lesser players in symptom variation.

 

Bart