Benzos GABAa upregulation

[downerman79]

I haven't asked about this in years, so I was wondering has someone in the meantime figured out some tricks to upregulate your GABAa receptors, and completely, or at least significantly reset your benzo tolerance after a long term use, like years or decades. I know, long abstinence, we all know about that. But what about quicker ways? I heard about Bacopa but haven't really taken it long enough to notice significant results. NMDA antagonists prevent glutamate from raging in your brain and ease withdrawals, but I'm not sure if they have much effect on benzo tolerance. I know fasoracetam upregulates GABAb but I'm interested specifically in GABAa. I know about flumazenil, but that's out of the question, too dangerous. I remember some 11 years ago, I was drinking heavily and was taking massive amounts of benzos. A pint of vodka would barely touch me. 20 mg of clonazepam wouldn't even make me sleepy. Then I did my blood work and it was bad, so I was put on a diet. I took a break from all drugs for a couple of months. Then, when I took a benzo, it wasn't like the first time, it was even better. Pure euphoria and bliss that lasted for 3-4 hours, and when euphoria wore off there was no drowsy sleepy phase, just a pleasant afterglow and muscle relaxation. Instead of stopping there and keeping my use moderate I went back to my old ways naively believing I'd be able to do it again, and it all went to shit after that, was never able to reset tolerance like that. I don't know what I did during that break, what I ate, what I took, I try to remember but I can't, but something that I did lowered my huge tolerance completely back to baseline. All I know is that I didn't eat junk food and snacks in order to lower my high cholesterol. Any ideas or tips? Thanx.

 

[downerman79]

Bump... anyone? Has anyone successfully lowered their benzo tolerance to zero after long time use?

 

[Snafu in the Void]

Intense aerobic exercise and a clean diet with lean meat and vegetables. Avoid sugar and carbs.

This is the only thing that helps me recover from benzos. Its more important than you think. Need to repair your receptors, not upregulate.

However, perma tolerance is a thing and after heavy use for years there isn't much hope of going completely back to baseline, unfortunately.

 

[downerman79]

Intense aerobic exercise and a clean diet with lean meat and vegetables. Avoid sugar and carbs.

This is the only thing that helps me recover from benzos. Its more important than you think. Need to repair your receptors, not upregulate.

However, perma tolerance is a thing and after heavy use for years there isn't much hope of going completely back to baseline, unfortunately.

Yeah, I figured diet has something to do with it, 'cause I was on a diet when I managed to reset my tolerance completely back to baseline after heavy use. First it was pure euphoria, then euphoric phase started to shorten, then it was just relaxation without much euphoria and now they only help with anxiety when I'm seriously tense and anxious, I believe anxiolytic effect is the only benzo effect that you don't build tolerance to. Zolpidem still gives me strong euphoria tho, which brings me to a conclusion that there isn't too much cross tolerance between benzos and z drugs, but that thing fucks me up way too much, I can't relax and watch a movie for example or play a video game, I just embarrass myself on social networks and stumble around. With regards to permatolerance, it possibly exists but there is no consensus about this in the scientific community. I read on reddit that one person mentioned that his tolerance wouldn't lower one bit after 6-7 month break, but after he took a 5 year break it was all back to baseline and 0,5 mg of Xanax knocked his ass off. So I figured if I focus on other things in my life for 3-4 years, I'd get that awesome feeling again.

 

[Snafu in the Void]

Yeah, perma tolerance is highly anecdotal.

 

[Conky]

Yeah, I figured diet has something to do with it, 'cause I was on a diet when I managed to reset my tolerance completely back to baseline after heavy use. First it was pure euphoria, then euphoric phase started to shorten, then it was just relaxation without much euphoria and now they only help with anxiety when I'm seriously tense and anxious, I believe anxiolytic effect is the only benzo effect that you don't build tolerance to. Zolpidem still gives me strong euphoria tho, which brings me to a conclusion that there isn't too much cross tolerance between benzos and z drugs, but that thing fucks me up way too much, I can't relax and watch a movie for example or play a video game, I just embarrass myself on social networks and stumble around. With regards to permatolerance, it possibly exists but there is no consensus about this in the scientific community. I read on reddit that one person mentioned that his tolerance wouldn't lower one bit after 6-7 month break, but after he took a 5 year break it was all back to baseline and 0,5 mg of Xanax knocked his ass off. So I figured if I focus on other things in my life for 3-4 years, I'd get that awesome feeling again.

I'm not so sure about this one

When I was still recovering from benzo addiction I went on a Zopiclone binge and still struggled with sleep

 

[downerman79]

I'm not so sure about this one

When I was still recovering from benzo addiction I went on a Zopiclone binge and still struggled with sleep

Of course, happened to me too, there is cross tolerance between all GABAergic drugs. I was just saying that if I take a 10 day break I can get really really high on zolpidem. Benzos on the other hand, I can abstain for months and they still won't do shit, maybe just make me tired. I'm a complete layman when it comes to pharmacology, but I believe zolpidem is very selective to the certain subunit of the GABAa receptor and also has pharmacological properties not yet figured out by science, like people waking up from coma, there's a video of a guy who lost his ability to talk due to nerve damage to his jaw, yet when he pops an Ambien he starts talking normally, dyslexic folks suddenly getting better etc. Crazy stuff...

 

[plumbus-nine]

Yeah, I've been on zopiclone for sleep during 3+ months and stopped without any problems. The same with lorazepam brought me anxiety attacks from hell but I thought it was because zopiclone only hangs around for 6-7h before being metabolized out so the brain has 3/4 of the day to recover.

It's true though that Z-drugs bind to a different part of the GABA complex than benzodiazepines. They were initially developed - as so much - to not share the addiction issues. When you take enough of zolpidem, you get serious addiction as well, my doc told me about a patient he had who took 2 boxes a day.

 

[downerman79]

Yeah, I've been on zopiclone for sleep during 3+ months and stopped without any problems. The same with lorazepam brought me anxiety attacks from hell but I thought it was because zopiclone only hangs around for 6-7h before being metabolized out so the brain has 3/4 of the day to recover.

It's true though that Z-drugs bind to a different part of the GABA complex than benzodiazepines. They were initially developed - as so much - to not share the addiction issues. When you take enough of zolpidem, you get serious addiction as well, my doc told me about a patient he had who took 2 boxes a day.

Regarding the addiction issues, I agree. Contrary to empirical data that a "safer" medicine often turns out to be equally dangerous and even worse, I'm inclined to believe that zolpidem, (probably other z-drugs too, I only tried zaleplon of the other 2) does indeed causes less addiction. This refers both to physical and psychological addiction. I like to have fun on zolpidem, had many many binges over the years, even taking as high as 200 mg (don't), but I have never experienced neither psychological addiction (cravings) nor physical addiction. Last time I took it was probably a couple months ago. I just don't have the desire. I take it when I want to have fun and screw around, (and of course for insomnia), but I just don't think about it really. Benzos on the other hand, those fucking things took my soul. When I take breaks to lower my tolerance I just can't stop thinking about them. I can't even imagine what would happen if good barbs like Seconal were available to me. Phenobarbital sucks donkey balls, extremely unpredictable and dangerous, but when I couldn't get anything out of benzos anymore I resorted to that. A couple of times it did actually give me euphoria, but it was weak and short lasting followed by extreme sedation that literally scared me (barely able to walk and speak, heavy nodding, etc). The scariest thing is, I didn't feel anything for 3 hours after euphoria wore off, and then it hit me like a ton of bricks. Could have easily taken more and possibly OD. Nasty old fucker...