Valium/Diazepam Support Group

[[et...]]

Hi Gra - you are right you will need to step up. As a BB used to say " tapering Benzos is not for the faint of heart" and she was right. Get your ducks in a row before you get going for sure. It can be a long haul and as you know just adding more Valium may not be a good plan.

 

CC - You have had a few better times lately. I always find when I feel better and then suddenly worse I really remember what it was like to feel good.

etown

[[or...]]

CC, smiff and all:

 

I'm in a major funk too. Just about got all my bothersome symptoms worked out with my long hold and split dose . . . but now am getting cold feet about crossing to liquids and tapering again. So don't want to get in the weeds.

 

Real life stressors are making me want to lie down, too -- chasing two clients who say they've paid me but haven't .. . . need to contact my pdoc to change an app't and SHE WON'T CALL ME BACK!!!!! So I'm chasing her, too. All this with benzo brain. It all seems magnified and like a freaking Shakespearean tragedy, but it's just life. All this would have been handleable before benzos. Now it seems like a catastrophe.

 

Smiff, you're certainly right about seeing things through the benzo lens.

 

And a BB I've been following and have been in touch with has inexplicably left the forum. No posts from her since Dec 10th. Does this happen? People just disappear and you never know why? So damned depressing.

 

Have to go see a client in an hour or so. Need to be positive and get out of this depressive downturn.

 

Okatz

[[hu...]]

It's time for acceptance of my natural self in it's natural state.

 

Right on, Workin'! Beautifully said.

 

I see a total corollary there with benzo w/d. Just as we may have at some point accepted the opinion of the big pharma/medical establishment that we need their drugs for our brains to work properly ... we may also have accepted a distorted vision of physical beauty as sold to us by the mass media/madison ave/corporate america.

 

In either case, the truth lies within. We are beautiful and powerful beings in our own right!

[[dr...]]

CC, Katz, and Smiff-I am unhappy to report I am right there with you.  I returned to work today and I only slept who hours last night.  I am finally getting back into my routine which I hope lifts the mini depression I entered.  I had no structure and too much time on my hands.  Unfortunately, that time was filled with withdrawals   They seem better but my feelings of self worth is in the toilet along with terible obsessive thoughts.  I have been doing about two hours of self guided meditation a day and writing out all of my crazy thoughts which is helping a bit. 

I am going to change my taper to .05 reduction every three days which is slower than what I was doing and hopefully will give me more time to correct any bad feelings.  I am very depressed I have to slow down even more.  going in and out of a very dark place since xmas.

 

Drew 

[[et...]]

Drew,CC, Okatz and Smiff. I wish I could wave a magic wand and bring you all some joy right now. Things are ok for me right now. Weird how this works eh? On off on off! What a merry go round. You will all come out of this in great shape. Take the time supplement and do all those little things that have worked before and you'll be there to help me when I do my next face plant.

etown

[[Sm...]]

I'm actually not too bad. I'm not in full benzo w/d anymore. Just the post benzo w/d funk where you are: I hate this crap and the hold it has over me. I've been unwell too - part of the breathing issues - and will be better once that is through and I'm back at yoga.

Everyone else also in a funk: we all know what to do: we hold, updose, adjust and move on and things turn around. Sure there will be another benzo induced crisis down the road but if we are careful we wont be too far from stable. And sure we'll again hate this drug and we'll resent the reduction in dose and then we wont because acceptance is the only choice we have.

It is what it is...

 

Hugs and love though dear BBs. If I didn't have you being the only people who could possibly understand I really would think I was going mad.

love

Smiff

[[...]]

Drew, CC, Okatz and Smiff

I think I am with you right now.  The last 6 days have been less than ideal and my taper is on hold at least for a few more days.

 

I had to go back to .64 from .62 and have been holding there ever since.  I did not want to return to work already overly symptomatic, and have my first day back worse than it was already going to be.  This .1mg from .7 to .6 has been inexplicably rough and I am going to hold tight until I feel tip/top for at least a few more days before I start back down again.  So....tip is...don't be afraid to do a slight up-dose and hold if you find you are not feeling right.  Better to be functional and give yourself a little break from tapering than to end up in a mess.  Also, don't be too stubborn (like I can be) to lower your reduction rate if you find that it becomes too much to handle.  I have been reducing at .007mg daily, but will probably go to .006mg daily when I start cutting again.  Today I have felt almost symptom free so I think at least two more days and then start back down again on Thursday or Friday.

 

It is what it is.  Since I had such a long stretch of feeling pretty good - I have become a much bigger wimp about side effects and want to keep my taper symptom free the rest of the way down to zero.

 

It was going great for a long while, and it will be again.

[[...]]

Hi all,

 

Hope everyone is feeling well.

 

After losing 20lbs. in tolerance w/d and detox, I now have regained to the point of not fitting into my clothes and buying a new wardrobe is definitely not do-able. I need to lose a good 5-10 lbs.

 

I'm just wondering what everyone's take is on trying to lose weight while tapering? I am otherwise asymptomatic at this point.

 

TIA,

 

Workin

 

Unfortunately, losing weight will never be a straight forward thing, especially for women, and more especially if you are menopausal like me.

 

It is never as simple as calories in/calories out, or high fat/low fat, or high carb/low carb, or even high protein/low protein. Hormones (especially estradiol and progesterone) tend to trump the lot. This I know from a lot of experience. I have probably gained about 10kgs over the last couple of years, and no matter what I do, or how much I exercise, it stays puts.

 

I hear ya ladies!

I lost 30 lbs in one month while I was on the clonazepam.  It just did not agree with me and completely took away my appetite.  When I switched over to valium, I was so sedated for about two weeks that I had no interest in food so I lost another 10 lbs.  Since then, however, I did not want to gain any of it back because I was over weight to begin with so in order to keep losing (but in a healthy non-drug induced way) I have reduced my portions and eliminated sweets and non-nutritive carbs like white bread, white rice and pasta.  I have lost another 16 lbs just eating this way, but much slower like 1.5 lbs per week.  The way I reduced my portions was to eat my meals on a smaller salad plate instead of a dinner plate, and eat nuts or fruit in between meals. 

 

Workin, maybe you could try something similar - just keep eating what you normally eat but smaller portions?

 

Good Luck, I have no choice now but to buy smaller clothes because mine are falling off.  Before I went out on Holiday vacation, I had to buy pants because I was holding them up at work when I had to leave my desk!  :laugh:

[[...]]

JJ you hang tough during your cross over and once you get there, all will be much better.

 

I did mine before I found BB following Ashton more or less, but had no idea I was going to be experiencing w/d from the clonazepam all the while being overly sedated from the valium.  That was a very weird and unsettling experience.  Once the sedation wore off things got better fairly quickly.

 

I hope it ends up that way for you too!

[[mr...]]

How do we know if symptoms are from a cut or just the normal waxing and waning of underlying w/d symptoms.

 

 

[[...]]

How do we know if symptoms are from a cut or just the normal waxing and waning of underlying w/d symptoms.

 

Hi M,

For me personally, I have a three day rule.  If my symptoms increase for three days in a row, then I am cutting too fast or too much and need to stop and re-adjust.  If I am having symptoms one day, then the next day and the day after I am back to what passes as normal, then I chalk it up to being just one oddly symptomatic day.

 

Hope that helps!

[[et...]]

Hi all I use the same rule as Eliz. Not saying it works 100% but what does? We all get fooled at times.

etown

[[mr...]]

How do we know if symptoms are from a cut or just the normal waxing and waning of underlying w/d symptoms.

 

Hi M,

For me personally, I have a three day rule.  If my symptoms increase for three days in a row, then I am cutting too fast or too much and need to stop and re-adjust.  If I am having symptoms one day, then the next day and the day after I am back to what passes as normal, then I chalk it up to being just one oddly symptomatic day.

 

Hope that helps!

Hi eliz,

thanks for the info.

My mom was going along good and then got hit with a bad electric shock headache for 6 days.

I held her dose for 2 days but the headache got better, so i cut again and the headache returned for a couple more days.

I held again and the headache is gone, but her panics increased.

Oddly, while she had the headaches, she didn't have the panics.

I think I will have to hold for 3 days at a time instead of 2 days.

[[...]]

I kept a simple daily logbook with a rating of my symptoms on a 1-10 scale. If  the numbers  trended up over a few days or occasionally jump up suddenly I would make some sort of change to my game plan.

[[...]]

Hi M,

If you find that you are holding your mom more than you are cutting, then you may need to bite the bullet and start diluting the liquid valium so that you can make smaller daily reductions.  When I was using the scale and reducing by .001 grams on the scale daily, it was .013mg that I was cutting.  I used that method all the way down from 2mg to 1mg then could not do it anymore.  Faced with cutting every other day and or every third day helped me make the decision to dissolve and dilute.  I feel I have actually for the most part been moving along faster this way, than if I had stayed at .013 but cutting less often.  It has certainly been a much smoother ride this way.

 

Of course everyone is different.  Hope your mom feels better soon 

[[ge...]]

Bart,

 

As per my PM here are my questions since I am doing the most ridiculously slow taper similar to yours  :

 

What were your cuts under 0.1mg and under 0.01mg?  How often did you cut at this stage?  Every day or every few days or so? 

 

Did you hold at these stages and for how long was each hold usually? 

 

What about the 10% rule?  How did that work for you under 0.1mgs?

 

Did you end the taper at 0.001mg? 

 

About the "fumes" – did you dose once a day and then every two days, then every three??  How many days did you leave between doses at the end and how long did you do the "fumes method" for? 

 

You said in previous posts that the last few months of your taper, you had no symptoms to speak of – under what dose did you feel they faded away? 

 

Thanks,

 

gts 

 

Hi to everyone on this thread - I am a lurker and an extremely slow taperer.  I will post more and introduce myself properly (to all the new faces here!) when it's not midnight in the UK!

[[...]]

Hi Getting There Slowly,

Lurker or not, you are at a very low dose now and that is fantastic.

 

You may find the rest of us asking you for advice 

[[et...]]

It's the new year and we have some new people on here so how about a few new year warnings that I dealt with in 2013.

 

Lots of people like to do cleanses in the new year. I used to do one in the spring and fall every year. All filtering organs and elimination organs. sometimes I would do liver cleanses 4x per year. Anyway, did a big cleanse in April 2013. A really bitter product that cleanses the liver squeeky clean. Big mistake lowered my total Valium levels dramatically and was a few months recovering. Wait until the you recover to cleanse. IMO Watch out for activities that make you sweat excessively. I fell asleep in the pool in the sun for about 1/2 an hour and sweat like crazy like being in a sauna and paid for that for about a week. Same thing cutting the grass in very hot conditions.

 

I experimented with lots of different supplements. The ones that effect GABA or glutamate are out for me. IMO again, let the body heal itself because whatever helps short term you may have to pay for long term. The brain has to heal supplements or not. I take a lot of supportive supplements that I took pre w/d with no issues. Like I always say the best supplement is TIME.

 

MSG or Mono Sodium Glutamate is a food enhancer that has been added to a huge number of processed foods. Glutamate is a neuro toxin. If I eat anything with MSG I can't sleep worth beans. Be careful of caffeine, sugar, sugar substitutes and alcohol. Diet means a lot to a successful recovery.

 

Anyway a few thoughts from a guy that keeps making mistakes so I can encourage you not to.

etown

 

Doing too much and stress. Many have proven that exercise in the right amounts can improve and accelerate healing. Too much activity can be bad for kicking up w/d symptoms. Both the mental and physical stimulation is still stimulation and the brain spends too much time on this and less on healing. This is a big one for me as I usually go overboard at least once per week and end up paying with elevated symptoms. I walk and exercise moderately and add a bit at a time to avoid flare ups.

[[...]]

It's the new year and we have some new people on here so how about a few new year warnings that I dealt with in 2013.

 

Lots of people like to do cleanses in the new year. I used to do one in the spring and fall every year. All filtering organs and elimination organs. sometimes I would do liver cleanses 4x per year. Anyway, did a big cleanse in April 2013. A really bitter product that cleanses the liver squeeky clean. Big mistake lowered my total Valium levels dramatically and was a few months recovering. Wait until the you recover to cleanse. IMO Watch out for activities that make you sweat excessively. I fell asleep in the pool in the sun for about 1/2 an hour and sweat like crazy like being in a sauna and paid for that for about a week. Same thing cutting the grass in very hot conditions.

 

I experimented with lots of different supplements. The ones that effect GABA or glutamate are out for me. IMO again, let the body heal itself because whatever helps short term you may have to pay for long term. The brain has to heal supplements or not. I take a lot of supportive supplements that I took pre w/d with no issues. Like I always say the best supplement is TIME.

 

MSG or Mono Sodium Glutamate is a food enhancer that has been added to a huge number of processed foods. Glutamate is a neuro toxin. If I eat anything with MSG I can't sleep worth beans. Be careful of caffeine, sugar, sugar substitutes and alcohol. Diet means a lot to a successful recovery.

 

Anyway a few thoughts from a guy that keeps making mistakes so I can encourage you not to.

etown

 

Doing too much and stress. Many have proven that exercise in the right amounts can improve and accelerate healing. Too much activity can be bad for kicking up w/d symptoms. Both the mental and physical stimulation is still stimulation and the brain spends too much time on this and less on healing. This is a big one for me as I usually go overboard at least once per week and end up paying with elevated symptoms. I walk and exercise moderately and add a bit at a time to avoid flare ups.

 

Great Post Etown and very very good advice!

[[jj...]]

JJ you hang tough during your cross over and once you get there, all will be much better.

 

I did mine before I found BB following Ashton more or less, but had no idea I was going to be experiencing w/d from the clonazepam all the while being overly sedated from the valium.  That was a very weird and unsettling experience.  Once the sedation wore off things got better fairly quickly.

 

I hope it ends up that way for you too!

 

Thanks for the encouragement! I've prepared myself as best as I can for a rough ride, but as we all know benzo w/d just laughs in the face of preparation. I've started acupuncture which hopefully will give me a tiny bit of relief through this. We shall see.

 

I spoke with my boss today and let her know what was going on with me. She was more supportive than I could have ever hoped for. If there is one silver lining in this whole catastrophe it's finding that there are amazingly supportive, understanding and compassionate people in this world. BB is a great example of that!

 

As far as the weight thing, I've lost 15 pounds in two months and I keep going down. I wouldn't eat at all unless I mentally reminded myself. I might have to stay off the scales for a bit because it's pretty alarming. I wanted to lose some weight as well, but this is not quite what I had in mind.

[[Wo...]]

You are the best Etown, thank you for the advice!

[[dr...]]

Jj really glad the talk with your boss went well.

 

One thing I know I have learned along with many others here is that we have a new level of compassion for others. I am no longer a muffled  feeling benzo zombie.  We are going to take many positives out of the experience.  What a damn high price to pat though.

 

Drew

[[Co...]]

Feeling better! Not sure if my funk was benzo related or not. Went to work and was busy and feel better.

[[dr...]]

Cc, glad to hear it. I returned to work today too and I have my first rehearsal/practice for my improv troupes tonight  in over a month. I usually don't like the holidays so I'm sure it contributed to how crappy I feel. I'll know for sure if I feel better after  playing around with my fellow players wether it was seasonal plus benzo or mainly benzo. Throw in a fight on nye with my gf and I have a recipe for disaster.

[[Co...]]

Hey Drew... I had a fight w BF this morning also. I hope you feel better. It seems as tho everything caves in at once.