Valium/Diazepam Support Group

[[Gy...]]

Hi all hope everyone had a great Christmas.

 

Need a little advice, It has been 8 weeks since I cut 0.5 mg of Valium per day, first 6 weeks were really hard anxiety was through the roof then I had what I dub permanent road rage that's what it felt like eventually that subsided and I began to feel somewhat normal and everything levelled off. I had Christmas Eve at mine with extended family over., didn't feel that great but got through it. Then Christmas Day the anxiety hit like being hit over the head with a hammer lasted all day. I took my usual 2 mg at about 1 pm (usually don't take till 4 pm) took ages to work then about 3 pm took my other 2 mg (usually take that at 7pm).

Could all this be a rebound from such a drastic cut 8 weeks ago. Any input would be greatly appreciated.

 

Another question if we are all trying to come off these dreaded bentos what do we take or do with all the anxiety and symptoms that originally got us on them in he first place.

 

Many thanks

Gypsygal

[[Sm...]]

Hey Gypsygal

 

Did you have any alcohol christmas eve? Alcohol reduces the action of benzos by taking up the same spots on the same receptors. I drak a little on christmas day but was fortunate to only feel a little fidgety with some difficulty sleeping for 24 hours.

 

Were there any other possible causes i.e hormonal? My pre-menstrual tension feels like benzo withdrawal - including anxiety etc. - since I've been withdrawing from benzos.

 

Other than that I have no real understanding why it might have hit so far down the track except to say that benzo withdrawal/healing is a windows and waves situation. So waves can potentially strike.

 

As for the anxiety post-benzos: if you need other meds to function with the anxiety there are lots of options. You are already on Endep. Personally endep makes me anxious but it shouldn't for most people. Other various Anti-deps have an anxiolytic effect.

 

Take care and good luck

Smiff

[[dr...]]

The holidays caught up with me.  Poor eating and drinking too much(I'm usually okay w a few drinks).  Had people over today and my anxiety was through the roof. I took a 2mg tab instead of .8. That is the first updose/rescue I have taken during my whole taper  of 1 3/4 years so far. While I'm not happy about it, it's done. Tomorrow is a new day and no junk food or booze for a while. Its amazing how much diet effects me.  I also ate dim sum at this one restaurant and every time I had anxiety after. While most Chinese restaurants here don't use MSG this one does.  Hit the trifecta. Booze, junk food, and MSG. Yay! 

 

Drew

[[Sm...]]

Sorry to hear that Drew. You could make your next dose slightly smaller to offset. But mostly one off up-doses don't seem to make much difference.

I got off lightly from my few drinks. I had some twitchiness and sleeplessness last night but 24 hours after the drinks I was mostly normal. At your dose though things probably wont be so forgiving.

 

Good luck for the rest of the holidays.

[[dr...]]

Smiff,

My cantering horse stumbled. Lol

[[Sm...]]

 

my tortoise is taking a rest till I'm eating right and back at yoga regularly too.

[[Gy...]]

Hey Gypsygal

 

Did you have any alcohol christmas eve? Alcohol reduces the action of benzos by taking up the same spots on the same receptors. I drak a little on christmas day but was fortunate to only feel a little fidgety with some difficulty sleeping for 24 hours.

 

Were there any other possible causes i.e hormonal? My pre-menstrual tension feels like benzo withdrawal - including anxiety etc. - since I've been withdrawing from benzos.

 

Other than that I have no real understanding why it might have hit so far down the track except to say that benzo withdrawal/healing is a windows and waves situation. So waves can potentially strike.

 

As for the anxiety post-benzos: if you need other meds to function with the anxiety there are lots of options. You are already on Endep. Personally endep makes me anxious but it shouldn't for most people. Other various Anti-deps have an anxiolytic effect.

 

Take care and good luck

Smiff

 

 

Hey Smiff

Thanks for the reply, no to alcohol haven't drunk any alcohol since 2007. However now that you mention hormones I am at the perimenopause stage, maybe that could have come into play, lucky me you think that things are settling down then this hits oh the joys of being a women 😊

Although will give myself a pat on the back as I didn't up dose just changed my times.

 

Many thanks

Gypsygal

[[jj...]]

human and etown, you guys are right. At this point it doesn't really matter, my experiences will be what they are and trying to imagine or anticipate what is going to happen really isn't going to be all that helpful. Eventually my CNS will heal at it's own pace and that is the only thing that really matters. In the mean time, I'll just take it day by day.

 

My mind had a tendency to spin even before w/d so this is a great place to get support in settling it down.

[[Di...]]

Well, my post-Christmas update is that I failed miserably  .  Yes I can laugh about it, because the alternative is pointless.

 

I had a small family group at my place for Christmas. I didn’t eat too badly on Christmas Day itself, but of course I was left with all the left-overs to get rid of, and the garbage bin was not where they went, unless you call my mouth a garbage bin.

 

I had way too much sugar and I’m paying for it. I was already teetering on the edge of a bad symptoms re-appearing so you would think I would know better…… nope…

 

My insomnia had been ramping up over the last week or so, and even though I have been oh so vocal about recognising the signs and slowing down, I didn’t. You see, I have always gotten an early warning sign of headaches, but not this time. It was just BAM – full on insomnia, and when I get that kind of insomnia nothing helps, not even my usual go-to meds of doxylamine or endep AD. It’s a mystery why my warning headaches don't seem to be appearing. Maybe it’s because my dose is getting quite low now and the w/d symptoms are changing.

 

Anyway, long story short, I have done an updose to where I was a week ago, and I'm holding for a little while, and then I'm going to have to slow my taper even more. I was doing 0.006mg per day, but I’m going to try 0.005mg. I’ve plugged some numbers into my excel spreadsheet and it appears the maximum % I can tolerate seems to be around 12%. Reducing to 0.005mg brings me down to 10.3% on my current dose, so hopefully I can stick with that for a while before I have to slow again. Interestingly, that % has increased from what it used to be. I think it used to be around 9%, so hopefully it will continue to increase as I get lower.

 

When I'm experiencing these bad s/x there's a temptation to start thinking I'm never going to feel good again, but because I’m a natural optimist, I’m still quite positive. I had about 3-4 weeks of absolute symptom free tapering. So that makes me even more optimistic that when I finish my taper I will heal completely. Of course when that finish date will be is a mystery to all.

 

 

[[dr...]]

Diaz-Pam,

 

Sorry you had withdrawals.  I'm right there with you. I'm sure others will soon be posting the same. The holidays are brutal on us. Glad they are almost over.

 

Drew

[[Sm...]]

 

When I'm experiencing these bad s/x there's a temptation to start thinking I'm never going to feel good again, but because I’m a natural optimist, I’m still quite positive. I had about 3-4 weeks of absolute symptom free tapering. So that makes me even more optimistic that when I finish my taper I will heal completely. Of course when that finish date will be is a mystery to all.

 

Of course you have a lot to be optimistic about! You were in the zone: tapering and symptom free. You'll get there again This is just a blip in the road as there always are.

 

Hope you feel better soon too Drew.

 

I'm going to try to fast for 12 hours to see if that clears my body a bit. I hate the idea of fasting because I tend to come from the school of diet/nutrition that is anti caloric restriction. BUT fasting has been getting a lot of genuinely good scientific/medical backing particularly with regards to brain healing and function. Besides it will be good to feel an empty stomach again after being full for the last 3 days

 

Feel better soon BBs. I know you will xx

Smiff

[[or...]]

Pam, smiff and Drew:  Hope you are all recovered soon. I was sick over the holiday so didn't get a chance to indulge. My taper is where it was. Holding. Will re-commence in the New Year.

 

Let's all be well!

 

Okatz

[[...]]

Hi Everybody,

I hope this finds you all doing as well as can be expected with all of the added stress and temptations associated with the holidays.

 

Diaz-Pam, I am sorry that you had to up-dose and that your insomnia came back.  You were in the zone for a long time and you will be again.  Your success as you get lower is inspiration to me and I hope you make it back to smooth sailing quickly.

 

Smiff, Drew and Okatz, I hope your holds help and that you can resume tapering very soon.

 

Take care everyone 

[[mr...]]

Hi Everybody,

I hope this finds you all doing as well as can be expected with all of the added stress and temptations associated with the holidays.

Take care everyone 

Hi Eliz,

I hope your tapering is going smooth.

My mom has had some breathing improvements again and I hope they last this time.

She is down to .94mg and I am cutting .01mg per day.

I wonder if I should be slowing this down or not to something like you are cutting, .009mg?

[[...]]

Well, my post-Christmas update is that I failed miserably  .  Yes I can laugh about it, because the alternative is pointless.

 

I had a small family group at my place for Christmas. I didn’t eat too badly on Christmas Day itself, but of course I was left with all the left-overs to get rid of, and the garbage bin was not where they went, unless you call my mouth a garbage bin.

 

I had way too much sugar and I’m paying for it. I was already teetering on the edge of a bad symptoms re-appearing so you would think I would know better…… nope…

 

My insomnia had been ramping up over the last week or so, and even though I have been oh so vocal about recognising the signs and slowing down, I didn’t. You see, I have always gotten an early warning sign of headaches, but not this time. It was just BAM – full on insomnia, and when I get that kind of insomnia nothing helps, not even my usual go-to meds of doxylamine or endep AD. It’s a mystery why my warning headaches don't seem to be appearing. Maybe it’s because my dose is getting quite low now and the w/d symptoms are changing.

 

Anyway, long story short, I have done an updose to where I was a week ago, and I'm holding for a little while, and then I'm going to have to slow my taper even more. I was doing 0.006mg per day, but I’m going to try 0.005mg. I’ve plugged some numbers into my excel spreadsheet and it appears the maximum % I can tolerate seems to be around 12%. Reducing to 0.005mg brings me down to 10.3% on my current dose, so hopefully I can stick with that for a while before I have to slow again. Interestingly, that % has increased from what it used to be. I think it used to be around 9%, so hopefully it will continue to increase as I get lower.

 

When I'm experiencing these bad s/x there's a temptation to start thinking I'm never going to feel good again, but because I’m a natural optimist, I’m still quite positive. I had about 3-4 weeks of absolute symptom free tapering. So that makes me even more optimistic that when I finish my taper I will heal completely. Of course when that finish date will be is a mystery to all.

 

Hi DP

Sorry to hear about your symptom increase. Mine flared up too this Holiday season, no doubt due to way too much sugar, missed workouts, etoh, missed meditation sessions, etc. I also went to 0 on my dose.  So far I won't clean up my act until after New Years as I'm having too much fun and the symptom increase isn't too bad and and most of the time remains gone. If things get worse and symptoms start persisting, I'll have to clean up my act a little. Just do what you need to do and you will be fine. Life is fun.

Bart

[[dr...]]

Congrats Bart on going to ZERO!

 

My flare up was minor compared to when I was cutting much quicker. Come to think of it...even my bad days are nowhere as bad as they were in the past.  Hoping my symptoms stay at this level or less going forward.  I even have been going for three mile walks as most of my muscle pain is gone.  It is taking me about an hour to do the three miles though. Back on track as of yesterday.

[[Sm...]]

Congrats Bart!! Have that fun! You deserve it. And it is inspirational to us to think we can slide off at 0 and almost mostly live normally. You've done it and you did it so well many, including myself, are following in your footsteps. Gone are the days of believing there is 'no pain no gain' with a benzo taper.

Congratulations again, be well and thank you xx

 

Drew I agree: You get a slight symptom flare and you think 'uh-oh' but if you are going slow enough it only takes a day or 2 of holding and looking after yourself - week tops - for things to settle. Hopefully it stays that way for me. Spiralling fully out of control is no fun. Just slow and careful and our respective horse and tortoise will get there.

 

love to you all

Smiff

[[mi...]]

Can you guys that made the switch please tell me why you went over to valium? If I am some what stable on .5  Xanax three times a day, would it be best to taper with that or do the switch? What are the pro and cons? I need to move 1200 miles in March to a new home, I can not see how I can start a taper before that. what do you think? I was thinking of taking that 1 /1/2 mg of X and splitting it up 5 or 6 times a day to keep that steady level to act like a V.. any thoughts? thank you

[[mr...]]

Bart congrats!

Thanks again for all your experiences and a protocol that gives hope.

[[dr...]]

Can you guys that made the switch please tell me why you went over to valium? If I am some what stable on .5  Xanax three times a day, would it be best to taper with that or do the switch? What are the pro and cons? I need to move 1200 miles in March to a new home, I can not see how I can start a taper before that. what do you think? I was thinking of taking that 1 /1/2 mg of X and splitting it up 5 or 6 times a day to keep that steady level to act like a V.. any thoughts? thank you

 

 

-The half life of V is much longer than xanax. Since the valium half life is longer it takes longer for it to leave your system than other benzos.  You will not get the jagged or spiky withdrawals at the same level as xanax.  If I knew how much better it would have been to switch over I would have done it when I first started my taper-. 

-  switched over from klonopin because the withdrawals were becoming really bad.  i even had withdrawals between doses.Valium dosing usually will not need to be as frequent.

-once you get near the finish line it is harder to reduce xanax since 1mg is roughly equivalent to 20mg of Valium   

-Valium comes in liquid form which is worjing great in my daily titration

 

As to your question of when to start your taper, if you are feeling okay on it I would wait until the move is completed.  If you are feeling crappy now then start now.  This has been the most brutal thing I have ever had to do in my life!  That is my experience not yours.  Hopefully it will be okay for you. 

 

 

good luck!  Drew

[[mr...]]

Can you guys that made the switch please tell me why you went over to valium? If I am some what stable on .5  Xanax three times a day, would it be best to taper with that or do the switch? What are the pro and cons? I need to move 1200 miles in March to a new home, I can not see how I can start a taper before that. what do you think? I was thinking of taking that 1 /1/2 mg of X and splitting it up 5 or 6 times a day to keep that steady level to act like a V.. any thoughts? thank you

Hi mike,

I had my mom switch to valium because it is longer acting.

She was not able to wait 6 hrs to her next dose with lorazepam.

Also, I think lorazepam caused an autoimmune allergic reaction.

If I had to do it again, I would switch to valium.

However, there are those that might benefit from tapering their drug very slowly in order for their cns to reverse that imbalance created by that drug.

Dr Ashton says a benzo effects the same receptors, but I don't agree with this.

I think fast acting benzo's effect certain gaba receptors that may not be the same as the valium effected receptors.

 

There are those who are not able to cross over and choose to stick with their benzo and taper.

It is difficult choice to make without much real experiences to consider before making a choice.

Good luck on what ever you choose and make sure it is an informed choice.

[[Ks...]]

Hi everyone, I am on ativan not Valium but was advised to ask on this thread about the Gemini scale. Mine is not working. The scale gives me different readings every time I put a pill on, even if it is the same pill and I take it off and put it on again. I wait 30 seconds for it to get a reading. Then when I try to shave off the dose, in spite of shaving off the same amount every time, sometimes the scale will tell me the exact same weight as if I haven't shaved off anything. I am micro tapering because I am having such problems with tapering and have gotten nowhere basically, and this is just making it more impossible.  I have tried re calibrating with the given weights but according to the scale one of the weights is 9.940g not 10, a significant difference, thus re calibrating it has in fact made it more inaccurate. Every time I re calibrate it gives me lower and lower values for the weights. Is there a better scale? I am trying to see if I can return it...I just am so fed up, nothing is working...

[[mr...]]

Hi everyone, I am on ativan not Valium but was advised to ask on this thread about the Gemini scale. Mine is not working. The scale gives me different readings every time I put a pill on, even if it is the same pill and I take it off and put it on again. I wait 30 seconds for it to get a reading. Then when I try to shave off the dose, in spite of shaving off the same amount every time, sometimes the scale will tell me the exact same weight as if I haven't shaved off anything. I am micro tapering because I am having such problems with tapering and have gotten nowhere basically, and this is just making it more impossible.  I have tried re calibrating with the given weights but according to the scale one of the weights is 9.940g not 10, a significant difference, thus re calibrating it has in fact made it more inaccurate. Every time I re calibrate it gives me lower and lower values for the weights. Is there a better scale? I am trying to see if I can return it...I just am so fed up, nothing is working...

Hi Ks,

Are you zeroing out the scale before use?

Hit the tare before putting the pill on the scale will zero it out.

 

[[jj...]]

Hello all, I hope that everyone is recovering well from whatever Christmas holiday adventures that they had.

 

I'm going to go talk to a pharmacist today about compounding my current dose of k into three doses so that I can get started with my c/o next week when I see my pdoc. I don't want to put myself behind, but I was thinking about asking to increase my dose to .6mg k to make it easier for myself and my pharmacist and also hoping to get a little more functional and stable in the process. The pharmacist said that he would be able to provide the v drops (with an Rx, of course) but didn't know about the k when I talked to him on the phone. Anyway, in the long run, I guess it won't matter since I'll be able to just make the liquid suspension myself thanks to the info on this site!

 

I had a really rough night last night, felt like I was on fire and totally drenched the sheets, so I'm already experimenting with splitting up my doses suspecting that I'm not only in just regular w/d but maybe having interdose w/d. Hope I don't end up regretting it tonight!

[[Ks...]]

Hi everyone, I am on ativan not Valium but was advised to ask on this thread about the Gemini scale. Mine is not working. The scale gives me different readings every time I put a pill on, even if it is the same pill and I take it off and put it on again. I wait 30 seconds for it to get a reading. Then when I try to shave off the dose, in spite of shaving off the same amount every time, sometimes the scale will tell me the exact same weight as if I haven't shaved off anything. I am micro tapering because I am having such problems with tapering and have gotten nowhere basically, and this is just making it more impossible.  I have tried re calibrating with the given weights but according to the scale one of the weights is 9.940g not 10, a significant difference, thus re calibrating it has in fact made it more inaccurate. Every time I re calibrate it gives me lower and lower values for the weights. Is there a better scale? I am trying to see if I can return it...I just am so fed up, nothing is working...

Hi Ks,

Are you zeroing out the scale before use?

Hit the tare before putting the pill on the scale will zero it out.

 

Yes, of course, I am familiar with scale use but this one is not working...