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Irreversable brain changes after long term use of benzo's

Has anyone had a relapse after over a year of protracted benzo withdrawal actually help them? It happened to me. The few days after my benzo relapse were pretty shitty at times, but by the end of it, I actually felt quite a bit better. When the withdrawal went away days later, it went away quickly and more completely. Perhaps it was because the transition off of benzos was less of an intense event on this occasion, allowing my body to more gently adjust.
 
negro said:
Flurazepam is of interest in certain cases due to some unique pharmacological properties, as well as some pharmacokinetic advantages.
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Can you please elaborate about how flurazepam is unique? You called it a "partial agonist of sorts" in a prior post. What did you mean, more precisely? And what pharmacokinetic advantages does it carry?

ebola
 
11 years huh , that is a long long time to be on benzos. You probably won't get back to 100% Gaba function , but you should be able to manage your self. Who knows how bad your anxiety was before treatment though, taper your self off and judge it for your self. You may have to stay on like 5mg a day for life, or you may get by with no benzos at all but have to deal with an increase in anxiety over all.
 
Don't believe everything doctors tell you, they don't know all the answers. Every person is different. Some people suffer worse withdrawsl than others, some people heal more quickly, etc. If you really want off the benzos try a very slow taper, if you feel you can't handle it, at least then you know. I too was an opiate abuser and boozer, I believe I was mostly trying to numb my overwhelming anxiety. I have been on benzos about 5 years, but since starting my Celexa 3 years ago I find that I rarely need my Xanax. I would try looking into some different types of anxiety medications, and go slow. Take care :)
 
I just completed a 6 month taper to get me off of 10 years of prescribed benzo use (bromazepam 2 6mg daily). I have only been completely off for 2 weeks. Things are different. I am also 13 yrs on methadone.
 
Thanks for the replies. I was on 5 mg for 3months but the high anxiety did not improve. No quality of life. Seem to be able to barely cope on 8 mg /day.
Cheers,
N29
 
Excellent resourses on benzos is benzobuddies.org and benzo.uk.org All of the information I have gotten there is amazing. I tapered for one year to get off a 11 yr dependancy on bromazepam. Throw in alcohol/liquid benzos and long opiate addiction. What a cocktail. The worst started when I finished the taper. It came on so hard I was totally caught off gaurd. I spent 2 months hiding in my apt. My senses were so overwhelmed.
 
^those sites can be bad for ppl in benzo withdrawal i think, so many horror stories. its best to just follow a reasonable taper, jump off, and just grit your teeth and deal with it. i was in withdrawal for about 2 years but i'm basically 100% better now.

sorry for the non-advanced reply, but its the truth. "just do it" is the best advice concerning getting off of benzos.
 
Just do it informedly.
Crucial is finding the information necessary to figure out what tapers are reasonable and which types are counterproductive.

ebola
 
I am new to this site, and to this forum/online/etc thing in general. But as someone with years of experiences in med field, and also someone who has been on low-mod doses of Valium over past 8 yrs, I would like to say that 1st-I'm glad that the medical field is beginning to see past just the "Dangers of Addiction" when treating a patient with Benzo's and take into consideration what affect these meds have on the body, and how withdrawing them improperly for ANY reason, could be very damaging if not deadly!! As a medical professional, I had NO idea, until I myself decided I wasn't going to get my valium refilled which I had been on and stopped taking cold turkey. I started about 8 yrs before, taking as prescribed, 2-4mg/day, 4-5 days/wk, and gradually increased to, on average, approx 1-2 10mg/day, approx 5 days/Wk. I was & still am afraid of the symptoms I had, which were extreme & dangerous!!! Thankfully my husband called our pharmacist, who is also a friend, and he told him of the dangers of stopping cold turkey, filled & gave refill to husband with orders to crush & pour down my throat if I refused!! I believe that depending on the dose, AND just as importantly,if not more so, the length of time one has been regularly taking Benzs, that you should carefully follow a very slow, gradual taper, if YOUR M.D. agrees that the benefits of reducing or stopping the meds, outways the hardship on your body, heart & Central Nervous System that withdrawing can cause. If done properly, I think you have to allow time for your system to heal, and relearn how to deal with emotional & physical stresses on its on again, which may take awhile, I believe can be done!!!! I am still taking, after stopping for bout 2wks and getting dangerously sick!!! I am slowly tapering after a yr & a half!! I'm not determined to stop, I don't even take daily. But I'm in no hurry, but if I keep doing as well as I have been, I should be off in 6-8 months without any symptoms of withdrawal at all!! And that's saying a lot considering that I've been through more physical and emotional pain in past 2 yrs than ever in my life!!
 
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I found hearing other persons experiences and getting as much information as I could on what I am going through very, very helpful. I thought I was going insane until I found benzobuddies and read Heather Ashtons book. Information has empowered me. I am not alone. I will get through this. I could not just grit my teeth and deal with it without this kind of help and information.
Welcome to this site Brewdyann65. Nice to have you here.
 
Conceivably, you taper like you would with SSRIs. You find the drug in-class with the longest half life and attempt to phase it out. For SSRIs it is fluoxetine, for benzos it is diazepam. Slow and steady wins the race.
 
Don't be intimidated by all the complicated medical talk on this site. I find I can only understand very little of it without a medical dictionary. That is the nice thing about benzobuddies.org. No-one is showing off their medical terminology abilities. They talk down to earth for down to earth people finding themselves in these situations. I wish there was more of that here.
 
A roughly 25 percent reduction in dose every 2 weeks with the longest acting benzo you can get (likely valium) is appropriate for most people.

No-one is showing off their medical terminology abilities.
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I don't think many people are on here though. Sometimes, using the appropriate term just allows for necessary efficiency (putting everything sans jargon could require an over 100 percent increase in sentence length to maintain the same precision).

ebola
 
bluelight is very good for drug info generally. how i got off benzo's was by switching to lyrica and tapering that. unpleasant but the longer you leave it its not going to get any better.

to be fair i was only taking benzo's daily for 4 months (after on off dosing for a year or two that slowly escalated) but it was bloody awful to come off them, but in time you do feel better
 
jippytheclown said:
Don't be intimidated by all the complicated medical talk on this site. I find I can only understand very little of it without a medical dictionary. That is the nice thing about benzobuddies.org. No-one is showing off their medical terminology abilities. They talk down to earth for down to earth people finding themselves in these situations. I wish there was more of that here.
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For problems like this where you need to talk to people with first hand experience may I suggest the Other Drugs or Basic Drug Discussion subforums? I think you'll find most of the threads on those subforums are filled with down to earth language and plenty of experienced and knowledgeable individuals.

The Neuroscience and Pharmacology Discussion subforum is intended for people who want to talk about the scientific and medical properties of drugs, so you shouldn't be surprised if some of the language requires a medical/scientific vocabulary.
 
jippytheclown said:
I just completed a 6 month taper to get me off of 10 years of prescribed benzo use (bromazepam 2 6mg daily). I have only been completely off for 2 weeks. Things are different. I am also 13 yrs on methadone.
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Well done. I got my bezo's down to 2 mg and kept it there for 4 months of very high anxiety. Too scared to swim although I swam for 20 years previously. Back on 8mg /day. Concentrating on reducing opiates at 2mg /fortnight. Long way to go but any faster and the pain and withdrawals win out.
Thanks for your interest and I hope you can cope w/o any more benzos. I have to accept and be patient or I will lose everything again.
 
almost everyone suggests a diazepam taper plan much like Dr Ashtons... i am one of the few who disagree.

i was on the full spectrum of benzos for 3-4 years, illigitimately, so doses up to maybe 6-8mg alprazoloam a day (as well as diazepam, anything really).

anyway, to finally jump off the benzos, i found it much easier to switch to clonazepam for several weeks (or months) rather than ending it on diazepam. everyone says the half life is so much longer with diazepam that it is so much easier, but half life isnt the only factor affecting withdrawal by any means. it is also active metabolites.

clonazepam has one active metabolite (or maybe just itself), whereas diazepam has many, many active metabolites. it has always been significantly easier to get off, in the very end, on clonazepam. i've done it multiple times. i feel that maybe it is perhaps because you're not coming off essentially a handful of active benzo compounds, just the one (clonazepam). i feel like it is getting your brain adjusted to only a certain drug and reducing dose, rather than bombing a broad range of receptor subtypes via diazepams slew of pharmacological byproducts.
 
i are spectre said:
almost everyone suggests a diazepam taper plan much like Dr Ashtons... i am one of the few who disagree.

i was on the full spectrum of benzos for 3-4 years, illigitimately, so doses up to maybe 6-8mg alprazoloam a day (as well as diazepam, anything really).

anyway, to finally jump off the benzos, i found it much easier to switch to clonazepam for several weeks (or months) rather than ending it on diazepam. everyone says the half life is so much longer with diazepam that it is so much easier, but half life isnt the only factor affecting withdrawal by any means. it is also active metabolites.

clonazepam has one active metabolite (or maybe just itself), whereas diazepam has many, many active metabolites. it has always been significantly easier to get off, in the very end, on clonazepam. i've done it multiple times. i feel that maybe it is perhaps because you're not coming off essentially a handful of active benzo compounds, just the one (clonazepam). i feel like it is getting your brain adjusted to only a certain drug and reducing dose, rather than bombing a broad range of receptor subtypes via diazepams slew of pharmacological byproducts.
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might also be that since clonazepam has a shorter total halflife that it builds up much less than diazepam so that when either is stopped the concentration has more to fall from diazepam.
 
i are spectre said:
almost everyone suggests a diazepam taper plan much like Dr Ashtons... i am one of the few who disagree.

i was on the full spectrum of benzos for 3-4 years, illigitimately, so doses up to maybe 6-8mg alprazoloam a day (as well as diazepam, anything really).

anyway, to finally jump off the benzos, i found it much easier to switch to clonazepam for several weeks (or months) rather than ending it on diazepam. everyone says the half life is so much longer with diazepam that it is so much easier, but half life isnt the only factor affecting withdrawal by any means. it is also active metabolites.

clonazepam has one active metabolite (or maybe just itself), whereas diazepam has many, many active metabolites. it has always been significantly easier to get off, in the very end, on clonazepam. i've done it multiple times. i feel that maybe it is perhaps because you're not coming off essentially a handful of active benzo compounds, just the one (clonazepam). i feel like it is getting your brain adjusted to only a certain drug and reducing dose, rather than bombing a broad range of receptor subtypes via diazepams slew of pharmacological byproducts.
Click to expand...

See, I've actually heard one of the best benzos for withdrawal is chlordiazepoxide. Good ol' Librium ain't seen too much these days, which is a shame because its really a pretty good benzo (medically, not recreatioally).

There are some promising results with using phenobarbital for benzo and alcohol withdrawal/addiction. There was also a study that found that in very severe cases, a dose of phenobarbital followed by small repeated doses of pentobarbital was incredibly effective in treating benzo withdrawal in the hospital setting.
 
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