Benzos HELP Valium taper Phenobarbital vs Psychiatrist? Life on the Line (Thanks so much for reading this)

[liminal_j]

I have been trying unsuccessfully for 13 months to taper off of Valium 22.5mg.

I am holding at 19mg for the past 6 months because even making that much of a reduction was unbearable.

I am now disabled unable to work and have lost everything.

I have a Master's degree, moved to NYC when I was 23 and lived there for 12 years and was in a band. I traveled the world, I feel that Valium has taken all of this away. I have suicidal ideation currently.

I have been to 6 psychiatrists, an addictionologist, and a neurologist as well as twice on the verge of entering detox only to have the insurance fall through at the last minute (perhaps a blessing in disguise).

The current Psychiatrist I am seeing is an older man, he is absent minded but genuinely cares and has not force me to reduce my dose of V however after some months with him I have only shown a 5% roughly improvement in symptoms.

I fear the continuation of Valium is a ticking time bomb. He prescribed me trileptal for tremors, Lamictal for glutamate, mirtazapine for sleep which I currently take.

He also has prescribed gabapentin which unfortunately makes me feel like utter shit yet he is insistent on that and clonidine as tools I am not using that would help. I have a fast metabolism and tolerance build up.

I have tried 2 other things before seeing him, switching from V to Klonopin equivalency, and the other experiment being phenobarbital one dose for one day. Each time the doses wore off I had an insane rebound response to each.

The Phenobarbital was prescribed by the neurologist as the best method for tapering Valium because of the half life and I take it 3x a day for the past 2 and a half years.

The psychiatrist I am working with now is continuing to spend each session doing psycho analysis and saying that my childhood trauma and PTSD are the main culprits in addition to the 5 other disorders he claims I may have which I believe are mere bi-products of Benzo Withdrawal.

He is essentially saying "take 10 meds, you have trust issues, you have this and this.." over and over and it leaves me in a hopeless state. the other issue being there are no other psychiatrists in my state that will see me, they are either booked or have an extremely long waiting list, so essentially I feel I have run out of options and am stuck with no other options but to continue with this current Psychiatrist with underlying feeling he isn't helping.

He is adamant that he can help but my lack of trust is getting in the way. For example, he prescribed me 3600 mg of gabapentin and says if I take that high of an amount I will achieve a steady stream and avoid any negative experience and can taper after (he also believes gabapentin helps heal GABA which based on everything I've read is not the case.). He is an older man and set in his ways.

Long story short after feeling utter despair today I was taking something off the shelf and found the bottle of Phenobarbital sitting there from 6 months ago (30 mg). I feel like I am almost at the "fuck it" phase and maybe I should just go for it and try again.

What do you guys think? Sorry for being longwinded, I know I've posted before, but you guys are the best. Thanks so much again! Peace and Love.

Jonathan

 

[negrogesic]

I have been trying unsuccessfully for 13 months to taper off of Valium 22.5mg.

I am holding at 19mg for the past 6 months because even making that much of a reduction was unbearable.

I am now disabled unable to work and have lost everything.

I have a Master's degree, moved to NYC when I was 23 and lived there for 12 years and was in a band. I traveled the world, I feel that Valium has taken all of this away. I have suicidal ideation currently.

I have been to 6 psychiatrists, an addictionologist, and a neurologist as well as twice on the verge of entering detox only to have the insurance fall through at the last minute (perhaps a blessing in disguise).

The current Psychiatrist I am seeing is an older man, he is absent minded but genuinely cares and has not force me to reduce my dose of V however after some months with him I have only shown a 5% roughly improvement in symptoms.

I fear the continuation of Valium is a ticking time bomb. He prescribed me trileptal for tremors, Lamictal for glutamate, mirtazapine for sleep which I currently take.

He also has prescribed gabapentin which unfortunately makes me feel like utter shit yet he is insistent on that and clonidine as tools I am not using that would help. I have a fast metabolism and tolerance build up.

I have tried 2 other things before seeing him, switching from V to Klonopin equivalency, and the other experiment being phenobarbital one dose for one day. Each time the doses wore off I had an insane rebound response to each.

The Phenobarbital was prescribed by the neurologist as the best method for tapering Valium because of the half life and I take it 3x a day for the past 2 and a half years.

The psychiatrist I am working with now is continuing to spend each session doing psycho analysis and saying that my childhood trauma and PTSD are the main culprits in addition to the 5 other disorders he claims I may have which I believe are mere bi-products of Benzo Withdrawal.

He is essentially saying "take 10 meds, you have trust issues, you have this and this.." over and over and it leaves me in a hopeless state. the other issue being there are no other psychiatrists in my state that will see me, they are either booked or have an extremely long waiting list, so essentially I feel I have run out of options and am stuck with no other options but to continue with this current Psychiatrist with underlying feeling he isn't helping.

He is adamant that he can help but my lack of trust is getting in the way. For example, he prescribed me 3600 mg of gabapentin and says if I take that high of an amount I will achieve a steady stream and avoid any negative experience and can taper after (he also believes gabapentin helps heal GABA which based on everything I've read is not the case.). He is an older man and set in his ways.

Long story short after feeling utter despair today I was taking something off the shelf and found the bottle of Phenobarbital sitting there from 6 months ago (30 mg). I feel like I am almost at the "fuck it" phase and maybe I should just go for it and try again.

What do you guys think? Sorry for being longwinded, I know I've posted before, but you guys are the best. Thanks so much again! Peace and Love.

Jonathan

I would just continue to with the diazepam taper at a very low rate.

They come in convenient 2mg tablets, one quarter of which equals 500 micrograms. Even if you decreased only 500 micrograms a week, which should produce no perceptible effect, you will be making progress. You can even crush the pills up into a powder and mix with propylene glycol to create an oral solution of a known concentration, which will make it easier to dose in even smaller increments. For instance, you could take a 2mg tablet, crush it and mix with a sufficient volume of propylene glycol to get a solution of say 2mg/10ml (ie, 200ug/ml). Even in the most sensitive person a reduction of say 100ug would impossible to perceive.

I would avoid the phenobarbital, it is a dirty feeling compound, and the gold standard for cases like this is simply a slow diazepam taper. I was able to successfully get off a habit of around a gram/day of nordiazepam raw powder using diazepam tablets. It was not easy nor will i ever be quite the same but I did it.

I would ditch the gabapentin, and if you do go that route I would recommend pregabalin over gabapentin. This should be considered carefully as pregabalin also produces dependency.

 

[axe battler]

How long have you been taking the gabapentin? I think @negrogesic is right that you should sack that off but it has quite shitty withdrawal so please be aware of this and taper.
Ofc if you need to taper the gabapentin then don't reduce the diazepam at the same time or it'll hurt more.

You take phenobarbital as well? Or you used to?

It seems like your system is awash with drugs that are renowned for shit withdrawals and you need to reduce them slowly, 1 by 1, starting with the gabapentin (depending on what you take).

What drugs are you on at the moment OP? And for how long have you been on them/dose please

 

[liminal_j]

thanks for the replies guys. was prescribed but i don’t take gabapentin.

I take lamictal 50 mg for reducing glutamate storm, trileptal 300 mg 3 times a day for the tremors and mini seizures, and remeron 7.5mg morning and night for appetite and sleep. i was having insomnia and lost 50lbs in 10 months.

i have a liquid version for dose 1 that has been reduced from 7.5 to 3.8875 dose 2 still 7.5 dose 3 still 7.5.

i intially cut 2.5mg and was insane for 3-4 months. then i cut 1 mg and was insane for 3-4 months. then i cut .125 mg and was insane for 3-4 months. So now i’m holding for the past six months because i was extremely suicidal.

The psychiatrist promised he could help he thinks my underlying trauma is the root and not the valium but i never had psychosis or anything before benzo withdrawal.

I read horror stories that others are fucked for years. It’s my brain can’t even tolerate a drop of taper.

what i’m prescribed and don’t take is gabapentin and baclofyn unless i’m insane then i break glass and take one 100 gabapentin or one 10 mg baclofyn.

I haven’t had a drink in months.

I do take Kratom once every week or two.

I just feel like I’ve hit a wall, another psychiatrist said to switch to klonopin because valium has more metabolites that stay in your body fat and take months to be cleared from the body and because my body has built up valium i have to get that out or else it’s gonna keep being a never ending slog.

It just sucks because everyone else is on another benzo and then gets to switch to valium which is the longest lasting and make the taper more bearable.

Thanks again for the responses guys!

 

[axe battler]

Nah they fact that valium lingers around in your system is good for tapering. However a change of benzo might help, clonazepam could be more effective for you.
You could always give it a try. It's good you're not taking the gabapentin every day at least.

I really am quite surprised you feel insane for months from dropping .125mg. It's a negligible amount really. Hopefully others can chime in.

 

[liminal_j]

Nah they fact that valium lingers around in your system is good for tapering. However a change of benzo might help, clonazepam could be more effective for you.
You could always give it a try. It's good you're not taking the gabapentin every day at least.

I really am quite surprised you feel insane for months from dropping .125mg. It's a negligible amount really. Hopefully others can chime in.

yeah same like .125mg wtf

 

[cdin]

i had a nearly identical experience. It took 9 mos of brutal taper in which i was basically 51/50 material. I used amanita muscaria tincture/tea on drop days to stabilize my GABA system. quite honestly - I would get off all that other shit. the lamictal especially if it hasnt been long (it has it's own totally brutal wd). I would take about 3g amanita on the days i reduced, maybe one more day then just proceed at reduced dose. it helped a lot. still took a ton of time and effort. I wish there was an easier way. I will say - it totally gets better and is worth every second of hell. you might just have to give yourself over to this as full time job/experience though (that was what i had to do)

 

[liminal_j]

i had a nearly identical experience. It took 9 mos of brutal taper in which i was basically 51/50 material. I used amanita muscaria tincture/tea on drop days to stabilize my GABA system. quite honestly - I would get off all that other shit. the lamictal especially if it hasnt been long (it has it's own totally brutal wd). I would take about 3g amanita on the days i reduced, maybe one more day then just proceed at reduced dose. it helped a lot. still took a ton of time and effort. I wish there was an easier way. I will say - it totally gets better and is worth every second of hell. you might just have to give yourself over to this as full time job/experience though (that was what i had to do)

appreciate the response, can i ask where you got the amanita tea/tincture? i got some of the dry amanita it’s been sitting in a jar for a year though not sure if it’s still good. If the lamictal is that bad i’m not sure if i could bear going through the wd of both. been on lamictal and trileptal for about 4 months it has made it so i can actually move around before i literally couldn’t leave my bed or open my eyes and was out of my mind.