The benzo withdrawals really come on in waves. After feeling pretty decent all day yesterday and posting here about it I was sure I was going to have a seizure late last night. My heart was racing, my arm was tingling, and my brain felt like it was tightening up, and my tremors got really bad. Luckily I didn't have a seizure and was actually able to sleep about an hour or so after bugging out.
Congrats Tommyboy! I swear it's harder to come off benzos than dope. I've been on benzos since 2002 or something and can not go more than about two days without them. I am much better than I used to be but I gotta have *something* in my system or else I'm awake for three days, kind of like dopesick without the sweating and kicking... So man, you did good. Did they taper you down or did you cold turkey under supervision at the rehab/detox place?
So proud of you! xoxoGwennie
I wanted to cold turkey it in the detox since I knew that I wouldn't really feel the withdrawals or be at risk for a seizure until a few days after the benzos were out of my system, but the doctor there made me take Librium for 3-4 days, reducing the dose each day. I was on day 3 of no Valium when I got there, and the last dose I had taken was only 2.5mg of Valium so it was probably just about out of my system when I got there which was why I didn't want any Librium.
The first day I didn't feel much relief, but after that the Librium must have built up in my system because I was knocked out for a few days. My opiate tolerance had gone down since I was taking a lot of days off towards the end, so my initial dose of 20mg of methadone held me just fine, and when they gave me 10 more mg a few hours later I actually got a little buzz from it. On the 2nd and 3rd day they gave me 10mg of done 3x a day, then on day 4 they did the same but with 5mg each time, then on day 5 they gave a single dose of 5mg then sent me on my way. Some people got moved down to the 5mg 3x a day on day 3, and were discharged on day 4 after taking the last 5mg dose, but I wanted the extra day there due to the benzo withdrawals so on day 3 when they gave me 5mg in the morning the doctor called me in and asked how I was feeling and I lied and said the dosage drop came too quickly so I felt shitty so he upped me back to the 10mg for an extra day before dropping me back down to the 5mg. Most of the people managed to get an extra day out of the detox by doing the same, or in the case of the alcoholics some of them had too high of a blood pressure to be released so were given the extra day as well, so although it was a 3-4 day detox almost everyone was there for 5 days.
People were talking about the various detox facilities they have been to and said this one was the best aside from one other that started you on 50mg of methadone (this place did 20mg as the initial dose, and if you got in before noon you got two more doses of 10mg, but barely anyone got in that early since the process took so long, so most people never got more than 30mg in a day unless they got there really early or complained late at night that they were still sick) then lowered you by 10mg a day, then gave you 5mg the last day, so basically had you there for a week. They said another place used Suboxone for the detox which I'm sure a lot of people didn't like since they want to get high right before going in which wouldn't work out well if you were going to be taking the Suboxone, so that's why methadone is preferred. Then they said the worst detox was one that gave you 5mg of hydrocodone every 6 hours. What a joke that must be.