Valium/Diazepam Support Group

[[or...]]

Grape I could never have tapered off Ativan. Even when I took it regularly the interdose withdrawals were too much for me. That's why I wanted off it . . . it was a bad drug for me. Crossing to valium . . . a much longer-acting drug . . . made a taper possible.

 

Hope this helps,

 

Okatz

[[jj...]]

Djd, when did you start titrating again and how fast are you cutting?

 

 

 

I started cutting from 40 mls July 17 and am down to 32.5 mls now.  Feel sick all day . Feel exhausted all day no matter how much rest I get .  Think I'm going to go crazy because how do you live like this and ever get off this poison??? And I have such a loooooong way to go.  I see people struggling with ✨2 mg of v and I think how lucky they are.  I've been just trying to cut teeny little peices off my pills - I'm not on liquid.  And it's still so hard when it hits a week later.  Oh please tell me this whole experience won't kill me.  I have NEVER been so chronically sick in my life and I feel like my life is ruined.  This is so awful.  Thank you for getting back to me.  I really appreciate it.  I feel like I could just hold forever and still not get any bettere.  I'm si k if I take it, I'm sick if I don't take it.  There's not good way. I would check into s facility if they worked but they don't have good outcomes from what I've read .  Plus I don't have the money.

 

Djd, it's hard to hear this where you are at (believe me, I've been there) but as bad as benzo withdrawal is, it's temporary. Your life isn't ruined and you will heal. The important thing is not too worry about how long it will take but how you can make this process the most painless than it can be. You will be able to get stable and find a rate of tapering that will make this all much easier.

 

The first thing is to do a hold and possibly a dose correction. Is there a dose where you can remember feeling better at? Our buddy etown uses the 80/20 rule, so that's 80% feeling okay. 20% manageable symptoms. If you can remember a dose where you felt that way then you might want to back up to that dose and do a nice long hold (two to four weeks). If you can't do the correction than do the hold. You should start feeling better and then we can figure out a taper that keeps you out of the weeds. Okay? Hang in there! You can get through this!

[[Gr...]]

Oregonkatz, have you been doing a daily liquid titration all the way from 15mg Valium, or did you do the cut and hold with it first?

[[or...]]

Grape I did cut and hold down to 2.5 mgs.

 

At that point I was having so many rotten s/x that I switched to a liquid taper and cut daily. I should have done it far sooner, but could just not wrap my mind around the concept. It's pretty easy . . . but I had advanced benzo brain as well as a lot of other rotten s/x.

[[Ki...]]

I just cannot fall asleep And I just checked calendar and it's full moon again

I just never sleep when is full moon I guess I am really crazy

Anybody having this issue?

[[mr...]]

I just cannot fall asleep And I just checked calendar and it's full moon again

I just never sleep when is full moon I guess I am really crazy

Anybody having this issue?

Full moon is when parasites are the most active, so it is not crazy.

[[Mo...]]

Hi Valium taperers, I have a question for those of you who attempted to taper off another benzo first, then switched over to Valium instead. Do you find the Valium taper so far to be easier compared to the taper of the initial benzo?

 

YES!!!

I've crossed over form Ativan which was impossible for me.

Valium has been my answer to inter dose withdrawal and overal it wasn't a picnic to get to today but it's been a blessing for me to have been crossed over.

 

 

[[Ki...]]

mrtmeo,

I've had parasites but killed most of them but still not sleeping and I am calm.

Well i used to be suicidal every full moon before so I guess I will just lay here fully awake

[[mr...]]

mrtmeo,

I've had parasites but killed most of them but still not sleeping and I am calm.

Well i used to be suicidal every full moon before so I guess I will just lay here fully awake

Have you tried Doxylamine for sleep?

[[Ki...]]

Yes I tried antihistamines they put me to sleep but its kind of weird type of sleep when I feel horrible

next day One time one psychiatrist did CT and gave me antihistamines and told me its benzodiazepine I might be crazy but not stupid. It didnt work at all

It was Atarax and she would fight with me that its just different type of benzodiazepine and I told her its not its antihistamine and doesnt cure benzo withdrawal. So she wrote in computer that I didnt want to cooperate

[[Di...]]

Diaz-Pam

 

thanks for the offer of help - It's good to know there are many BB's who have been so helpful and kind. 

 

No sleep for me tonight.  So early in my taper and already no sleep.

 

 

Someone else may have suggested this already (I haven't read all the posts following yours yet), but has doxylamine or amitriptyline been suggested to you yet?

 

Doxylamine is an over the counter antihistimine that a lot of BBers use to help with sleep. It's non-addictive, and is probably the most successful OTT sleep aid you can get. Most people only need a very small dose (approx 1/4 to 1/2 of a 25mg tablet). Careful about the directions on the box though because they say you can take 1-2 x 25mg tablets and when I first took 2 it knocked me out for about 12 hours....lol... Some of the brand names I know of are Restivit, Sleep Aid, Dozile and Unisom - just depends on what country you live in.

 

Amitriptyline is an older style sedating antidepressant. The one I used was Endep. Of course you would need a prescription for it though. It is also very good for sleep at low doses. I usually only needed about 10-20mg.

 

My routine was to use the doxylamine for 4-5 days and then if I was still having trouble sleeping I would switch to the Endep for another 4-5 days, and then back again to the doxy. I was pretty paranoid about becoming dependent on yet another med, so I found this worked really well for me, and neither med lost its effectiveness. Both meds were a total life-saver for me, because my insomnia was really bad during my taper.

[[Ba...]]

Diaz-Pam

I will look into the OTC antihistamines you suggested.

 

Pdoc had given me a script for hydroxyzine several months ago - way too strong  - used once or twice and wasn't good for me.

 

thanks

[[Mo...]]

Diaz-Pam

I will look into the OTC antihistamines you suggested.

 

Pdoc had given me a script for hydroxyzine several months ago - way too strong  - used once or twice and wasn't good for me.

 

thanks

 

I've used Unisom ( doxylamine ) throughout my taper. They come in 25 mgr tablets and a half is enough for most people. It sure is for me.

I've resorted to a whole one a few times but usually not necessary.

 

 

[[Di...]]

I usually took the doxylamine about an hour before bed, and it usually worked like a charm. As long as the dose was low-ish (less than the full 25mg tablet) I never felt any hang over effects the next day, although sometimes if I took it a bit too late I would feel a little groggy when I woke up.

[[li...]]

Unfortunately for me, a complication is that I take only a single dose of clonazepam a day.

 

So I can´t gradually swap doses of clonazepam for diazepam !

 

Lowering the dose of clonazepam and adding diazepam at the same time gives a very messy effect !

Also, diazepam can greatly potentiate ethe effects of clonazepam and lowering the clonazepam has direct physical effects !

 

While I could do something like adding a daytime dose of diazepam while keeping the clonazepam, the alternative is a direct crossover.

 

Btw, that ´Dr´ Reg Peart is not a medical doctor !! Physics ! That´s misleading. I don´t have a doctorate, would any of you take me more seriously if I had ?

How is it misleading when he suffered benzo withdrawal after 40 years of personal experience?

 

The title of 'Dr' suggests that he was a medical doctor.  He was not.  He is/was not qualified to give medical advice as an MD ! People can get fooled that way.

His personal experience with 'benzo withdrawal' is unrelated to this.

[[et...]]

Unfortunately for me, a complication is that I take only a single dose of clonazepam a day.

 

So I can´t gradually swap doses of clonazepam for diazepam !

 

Lowering the dose of clonazepam and adding diazepam at the same time gives a very messy effect !

Also, diazepam can greatly potentiate ethe effects of clonazepam and lowering the clonazepam has direct physical effects !

 

While I could do something like adding a daytime dose of diazepam while keeping the clonazepam, the alternative is a direct crossover.

 

Btw, that ´Dr´ Reg Peart is not a medical doctor !! Physics ! That´s misleading. I don´t have a doctorate, would any of you take me more seriously if I had ?

How is it misleading when he suffered benzo withdrawal after 40 years of personal experience?

 

The title of 'Dr' suggests that he was a medical doctor.  He was not.  He is/was not qualified to give medical advice as an MD ! People can get fooled that way.

His personal experience with 'benzo withdrawal' is unrelated to this.

 

People with a "Dr." before their name wrote/write the prescriptions that got us all in this mess. I'll take Peart and Ashton any day. Wait until you are done your taper before you become an authority on tapering or people won't listen to you either.

etown

[[or...]]

Basha some people find trazodone to be helpful with sleep issues. It's an old antidepressant which at low doses promotes sleep. You need a script from your doctor for this. I found it to be somewhat helpful but preferred Unisom. I never experienced any problems just discontinuing the drug -- it didn't need a taper.

 

 

[[bu...]]

Unfortunately for me, a complication is that I take only a single dose of clonazepam a day.

 

So I can´t gradually swap doses of clonazepam for diazepam !

 

Lowering the dose of clonazepam and adding diazepam at the same time gives a very messy effect !

Also, diazepam can greatly potentiate ethe effects of clonazepam and lowering the clonazepam has direct physical effects !

 

While I could do something like adding a daytime dose of diazepam while keeping the clonazepam, the alternative is a direct crossover.

 

Btw, that ´Dr´ Reg Peart is not a medical doctor !! Physics ! That´s misleading. I don´t have a doctorate, would any of you take me more seriously if I had ?

How is it misleading when he suffered benzo withdrawal after 40 years of personal experience?

 

The title of 'Dr' suggests that he was a medical doctor.  He was not.  He is/was not qualified to give medical advice as an MD ! People can get fooled that way.

His personal experience with 'benzo withdrawal' is unrelated to this.

 

I know a lot of PhD's.  If they want to advertise their credentials, they usually just say "John Smith, PhD."  About the only time they call themselves "doctor"is to make resteraunt reservation.

 

Outside of academia, PhD's rarely use the title "doctor".

[[Ki...]]

Ok so I finally fell asleep after slowly increasing Seroquel,woke up at 2:30pm feeling really bad

[[Ha...]]

Finally got under 4mg diazepam.  Cutting 0.05 mg/daily.  Seems like it took forever but I feel so much better than I did when I was at 5mg. My main symptom is really tight back and Chest muscles.  Did anyone else have this expirence as they got lower?  Also is 1mg a common jump off dose or do most daily taper to zero? 

[[Gr...]]

Finally got under 4mg diazepam.  Cutting 0.05 mg/daily.  Seems like it took forever but I feel so much better than I did when I was at 5mg. My main symptom is really tight back and Chest muscles.  Did anyone else have this expirence as they got lower?  Also is 1mg a common jump off dose or do most daily taper to zero?

 

Hamm -- your taper seems pretty fast and may be too aggressive. Builder or SG57 can help you with a schedule. I am tapering off of Valium by .015mg a day. As you get to the lower dosage amount, a .015 mg cut can be a 10+% two-week reduction (which would be too high), so you want to take it really slow to avoid symptoms.

 

Here's a link to a spreadsheet on liquid titrating from the Ashton Manual that I'm using. I am on liquid Valium, but if you can't get it, you can make your own by dissolving pills in a small amount of vodka or whole milk. Based on the spreadsheet, I look at the column that shows my Valium intake amount for the day. Using 10 and 1 ml syringes, that's the amount of Valium that I put into the syringes and then drink with a small amount of water.

 

Here's the link to the spreadsheet: http://benzosupport.org/Get%20schedule.htm You can customize it to set up your plan. Be sure to look at the instructions in their Powerpoint presentation (you don't need Powerpoint to see it) about how to use the spreadhseet and how much to decrease by (for instance, it says to not drop more than 10% over to weeks.) The spreadsheet will calculate the percentages for you.

 

I'm now at 3.6 mg and began tapering from 3.75 V about 7 days ago. I have had almost no symptoms this past week. As I get closer to 2 mg, I'll need to slow the reduction amount so that I don't drop by more than 1% a day.

 

Last, just about every post I've read on here, people continue to slow taper from 1 mg to 0. So, based on that I would not jump at 1 mg. Take it super slow following a schedule and you hopefully will have minimal symptoms.

 

 

[[Mo...]]

Finally got under 4mg diazepam.  Cutting 0.05 mg/daily.  Seems like it took forever but I feel so much better than I did when I was at 5mg. My main symptom is really tight back and Chest muscles.  Did anyone else have this expirence as they got lower?  Also is 1mg a common jump off dose or do most daily taper to zero?

 

IMO 1 mgr is way too much to jump from...

I'm going to taper off all the any to 0.

 

I did have tight back muscles , not chest muscles, though.

I know of some people who do.

 

 

[[...]]

Thank you Oregonkatz- that is exactly what I plan to do.  do you know what a reasonable about to taper is?  Percentage wise ? Like per week or ten days?

Thanks for all your help! Bless you-

[[Gr...]]

Djd -- In my signature is a link to a spreadsheet by Ashton Manual. If you follow the link it will show you a link to a Powerpoint presentation on how much percentage-wise to not exceed. For instance, I believe it says to not go down more than 1% a day and 5% over 2 weeks. Definitey double check that, but you can customize the spreadsheet with your dosage, dates, etc. You can then see what percentage you are dropping by and if it's too much.

 

I felt bad for a couple of weeks and was worried I would have to hire someone to take care of my kids while I went through this. Thankfully the symptoms went away after I held where I was at for a couple of weeks before continuing the taper. So far I'm not having symptoms as I'm tapering. You may just need to hold a bit and let your brain adjust to your current dosage. If it's sleepiness and not panic feelings, tingling, depression, etc., then it may be okay to go ahead and continue the taper. I'm sure others here will have suggestions for you as well.

 

I hope you feel better soon!

[[be...]]

Hi Guys:

 

Sorry I haven't been posting this week but I had to take a last minute trip to LA on business. But now I am back (phew). Just wanted to say hello again and I hope everybody is doing fine. I haven't yet read the pages I missed so I don't know where everyone is at, but I will do so later on. I  have a bunch of things I have to do today but will try and catch up later on, if possible. In the meantime, I hope every V-er here will have a great day.

Bets