Benzos Benzo, phenibut and lyrica withdrawal - help and opinions

[jambabomba]

Hi everybody,

I'm new here and my native language isn't english sorry about mistakes.

My problem relate to gabaergic drugs. Alprazolam, temazepam, lyrica and phenibut. First I only used one of them at a time, like temazepam in evening and phenibut at morning alternating them within few days. With phenibut I could replace Lyrica if I took big doses (>5000mg) so I alternate like three days on Lyrica 600mg a day and then tree days with phenibut 5000mg or more a day. Btw, I have used Lyrica 600mg a day almost three years for pain before those others.

Then I also started using xanax and temazepam and first I found I could replace phenibut and lyrica with benzos altough they act on a different receptor site. So I used three or so days of benzos and then switched to lyrica and pregabalin. That worked very very good and I could function and do things without my normal social and other anxiety and fears.

I just then made a mistake.. I have been benzo addict before and know something about withdrawals. But know I feel I have gotten myself to bigger problems than few years ago.

Because know I have used many months phenibut at least 5g a day, lyrica 300-600mg a day with xanax 2-6mg a day + temazepam 20-40mg a day. So I will have withdrawals with gaba-a and gaba-b drugs plus Lyrica (what receptor does it even interfere?)!

Last week I knew I had to stop this. I really need some help and opinion about my situation. Has anyone had a same kind of situation and how did you go through it?

Last week I started to drop my doses. First I was 48 hours without anything. At 24-36h point I was manic and feeling very good and I thought I hadn't get so bad addiction. Then about 48h after last doses I started to feeling vey bad. My sight was affected and I felt nauseos and very lethargic. Also my muscles start to have litle jerks. Then I took 2,5g phenibut, 0,5mg xanax and 40mg temazepam. Next day I felt very bad and started to having muscle jerks by the evening. Then I took phenibut 2g, 0,5mg xanax and 30mg temazepam. This week I have gone with those doses and I don't feel good and have been sleeping very poorly despit 7,5mg mirtazapin (Remeron), 100mg Seroquel and 10-20mg amitriptylin. Also I have taken doring days 1000-2000mg aniracetam, picamilon 300mg and L-theanine 1500mg. They have helped a little but I have been so lethargic that I have just been in my house.

So those who have more experience than I have with withdrawals what should I except? And should I taper xanax completely off now (I have been taken almost five days only 0,5mg and feels maybe that my body has started to adjust) and just take temazepam 20-40mg in evenings and 2g or less phenibut? Could I drop doses every night? Like today 1,5g phenibut, then 1g and so on? And 30mg temazepam, next day 20, then 15 and so on? Or is it too fast? Do you think it is doable without bigger problems? Or should I take some lyrica? I want to get off lyrica also so I would rather go some other route with this.. Or should I go to a doctor and ask diazepam and go with slow road? Rather I want to go this through as fast as possible..

Sorry about long story and thank you for any comments!

 

[drewbocop]

I've been hooked on a low-moderate dose of Xanax before and done all the GABA drugs, and my opinion is you need real medical help. Get a doctor's opinion on how to tackle this, because you could be in very dangerous territory. Don't even consider cold turkey'ing all that shit!

 

[tricomb]

You will need to consult a doctor and probably get on Diazepam.

Only a doctor can and will help you do a safe taper off benzos, they CANT take you off cold turkey, as that could result in a life threatening emergency.

GABAergic drugs aren't to be fucked with or underestimated when it comes to dependency and withdrawal.

 

[somewherehappy]

Hi, I have some experience with a few of these things. (not phenibut though)

Your post was a bit unclear about some things but I'm trying to make sense of it best I can to help.

Here's my advice. Do NOT go off them all at once. This would cause huge amount of withdrawal symptoms possible even a seizure because of all the activity of brain being changed of these meds.

From what I understand you want to get off the drugs to avoid things getting worse (tolerance and eventually worse anxiety even with taking it)

I would say keep taking the Lyrica in my opinion it's least dangerous of them all in these terms. The phenibut I've read can have nasty withdrawal so taper off very slowly is all I can say, as well as contact a dr you can trust to help.

Get off the benzodiazepines first I think but do so very slow reduction of dose. This is the substance with most potential for crazy tolerance I think out of what you listed that will also cause your anxiety to continually get worse over time.

Like other's said please try and see a dr!! This is a serious situation you have. Also Seroquel lowers the seizure threshold, withdrawal of benzo's therefore becomes more dangerous! Be aware of that please.

After you withdrawal of your benzodiazepines and phenibut leave Lyrica for last I think, I took it for a year. It has a pretty bad withdrawal but when I stopped with a relatively fast taper it ended fairly quickly like within a week for me and I was on over a year. Out of all your meds listed I'd say Lyrica is least dangerous to you and though some say it builds tolerance for me it built tolerance to most effects but did still help for my pain and slightly for social anxiety (very mild). Overall it's least of your worries.

On a side note, if I were you I'd try getting off the Seroquel after your done with this. It's a really dangerous and brain disabling medication over time. (causes brain damage)

 

[Znegative]

I agree pretty much with what somewherehappy said.

Phenibut activates GABA receptor B whereas alprazolam activates receptor A. This means that your in a sense dealing with two different monsters, as you cant just use diazepam or clonazepam to taper off phenibut and alprazolam. As far as the phenibut goes, you should try and taper with phenibut, or baclofen (though they both have a similar half life, so I'm not sure if one would hold any advantage).

With the alprazolam, people are usually switched to diazepam or clonazepam. I've preferred clonazepam as it is pretty much equipotent to alprazolam, which leaves any annoying albeit simple conversion calculations out of the way.

And like the above poster said, I would save the lyrica for last. You can probably switch over to gabapentin rather effortlessly. Staying on gabapentin and lyrica while you taper off phenibut and benzodiazepine's is probably smart as they both have anti-seizure properties.

 

[jambabomba]

Thank you all for your advices!

And yes sorry, I agree my message was maybe a little confusing. I had so much withdrawals at the moment of writing so I didn't took much time to write. And also my native language isn't english - not the best combination

Like I told at the first post I did taper Xanax radically at first week (from 2-6mg to 0,5mg at evening by thursday). And friday I took Xanax only 0,25mg and 40mg temazepam. So this is my second day (at the moment of writing it is sunday 7pm) without Xanax! Yesterday I got massive panic attacks, unreal feeling, some vision problems and by the saturday evening my muscles were feeling extremely thight and I was really scared about seizures. That feeling was so strong and scary I took Lyrica 225mg and 5g phenibut and it went finally away and at the evening I took 30mg temazepam so also tapered that 10mg down.

So today I have been two days completely without Xanax and I really feel better mentally now! Altough few hours ago my muscles again got very tight feeling and I got panic attacks and my moving became little difficult so I took 10mg temazepam, 150mg Lyrica, 4g phenibut and kava kava 10 tablets (2500mg, 30% kavalactones). Now I'm feeling good and relaxed. And not feel like cramping. Almost feels like the worst part of detox is over, could it really be??

Maybe I do as you suggested and leave Lyrica (or phenibut) last. What do you think, am I out of the biggest danger territory by now? Because I have been two days without xanax now and today only 10mg of temazepam, 150mg Lyrica and 4g phenibut took that tight muscle feeling, worst anxiety, fears and panic attacks away?

What do you think, could I somewhat safely continue to reducing now daily _all_ of those three? Like today evening only 10mg temazepam more and not more Lyrica or phenibut until tomorrow. And tomorrow phenibut 3g, lyrica 150mg and temazepam 10mg - or something like that.

Good point also that seroquel's effect on seizure treshold. I didn't remember that. Maybe I should'nt use it at all?

Edit: Forget to mention on thing. I have a little worry about that phenibut because I have only about 30-40g left. I should get it next week but I might not so there is possibility I don't have enough Phenibut to taper it down properly. So I'm a little worried what would then happen. Do you think I should then take more Lyrica? Or is the phenibut smallest of my worries and won't cause nothing major?

 

[chrisalt]

You are going way to fast. you need a doctor or medical detox at hospital. This is no joke.

 

[jambabomba]

I haven't been posting here because I have been so scared about my situation and didn't want to increase my fears by reading here how dangerous my situation could be. As I tend to become very hypocondric/paranoid with things happening in my body during withdrawal.

My situation was going good when I last wrote and I had got off from xanax. But then about week later I needed to take xanax again because I got work etc.

So I went back using xanax about two or three weeks and used phenibut, lyrica and tenox also.

About two weeks ago I did stopped using xanax again and did very rapid withdrawal. Dropped 0,5mg every day (from 2 to 0mg) in four day and then suffered about three or four days until it got better.

Also I have forgot to say but I also have used tramadol and codeine with those. Tramal I have been using 300mg/day (many months) and codeine 150mg at the evening with xanor. Codeine was easy to leave (mentally hard of course because now I can't relax at evening and am craving codeine all the time!!). But tramadol - as I stopped it with xanor about two weeks ago - gave me BIG withdrawals and of course with xanor withdrawals it was hell. But I have withdrew tramal many times so I knew what was it going to be. Severe depression, anxiety, extreme fatigue etc. + xanor withdrawals panic attacks, unreal feeling etc. At that time I used DXM about 60-120mg/day to help with withdrawals and also L-theanine and mega dose magnesium to help. I think those helped.

Anyways I have survived those withdrawals and I have been now (if I remember correctly) at least two weeks without tramadol and xanax!

After worst part of xanax and tramadol withdrawals had gone away (about in week) I started to took temazepam away. I had used that at 40mg in evening. First I dropped 10mg. It did feel pretty bad. Then about two days later dropped to 20mg. And I did rapid taper and dropped it to 15mg in about week. Of course I didn't sleep very well and I had bad withdrawals at the evening before dose. Then at last wendesday I got valium from my friend. I took 10mg at wendesday and dropped temazepam away. I had anxiety next day and took 10mg at thorsday evening. Then friday I took only 5mg. And yesterday I didn't took any at all! So now it is sunday and I haven't taken any benzo in allmost 48 hours!

I know valium has long half life (allmost 100 hours?) and it will get worse. But why should I took that valium if I only have anxiety. If I go with Dr. Ashton and do take it every day then I will build up bigger benzo levels in my system that has been with equvivalent temazepam dose and I think that is simply stupid to saturate now my gaba receptor again with bigger doses when I have allready suffered big withdrawals with rapid tapers from xanax and temazepam and receptors might have recovered little.

So what do you think? Is it better to now go without valium and let it self taper itself as it has so long half life? Or should I build up valium to my brains - and get higer level of benzos than was with temazepam - as Heather Ashton suggests? It doesn't make sense to me.

Also I have used phenibut 5g/day and lyrica 300mg with phenibut dose. So I have got 300mg off from lyrica.

I think that I keep taking pheni and lyrica at those doses so long that I know I don't have any benzo withdrawals. Is that a week or two now if I don't take valium any more?

At least I have pheni about 500g (over 1lbs) in stock and lyrica enough.

Also what I have done during withdrawals is that I have been trying to stay in ketosis. An also fast every day 16h and eat only in evenings. Fasting has been showed to be neuroprotective and ketones has good effects on brains. Ketosis also protects from seizures supposedly partially due to ketones betahydroxy butyrate (wich has similarities with ghb and might effect gaba receptors same way) and acetoacetic acid. If I remember correctly. I think it just stupid to try to eat (especially.carbohydrates like bread etc.) during withdrawals especially if one doesn't have any appetite. I believe it is body's signal to tell that it is time to fast wich protects cells against stress. If i remember correctly Hippokrates said that "food is your medicine but when you are sick eating is to feed your sickness" or something..

Also I have a theory that withdrawals might get better with extra growth hormone - wich protects cells and repairs them. So I have used ghrp-6 and I really think that it speeds up the healing process and makes feel better. As young people tend to recover faster than older and growth hormone supposedly has big role in this process. Any kind of recovery process goes faster with growth hormone. Also ghrp-6 has been showed to be neuroprotective itself.

I think it should be worth of studying growth hormone and ketodiet effect on recovery process from addiction.

Sorry about long message and language errors. My native language isn't english. I'm from Europe.

 

[MyExcuse]

I recently went through a similar ordeal while dependent on phenibut. I had purchased some gabapentin (not nearly as addicting as lyrica, yet still abuseable) and etizolam to help with getting off the phenibut only to find myself using them all together which was not smart. I slowly decided to reduce my phenibut intake and then stop taking the phenibut all together. Surprisingly this wasn't so bad, I was used to taking 3-5g a day but had reduced that dose to about 1.7g over the course of a week.

Then I went cold turkey on phenibut and started using etizolam a bit to compensate and prevent some of the initial withdrawal symptoms. I ended on about 3mg/day of etizolam (not so bad!) before deciding to go cold turkey. This was a bad idea but after about a week or so I was out of the major withdrawal symptom stage.

I would definitely say to simply tapper everything down, starting first with the phenibut. If you can simply tapper off the phenibut then getting off benzo's is easy. Also look into memantine, if you're in Europe you should be able to source it and it will definitely help reduce your tolerance to the benzo's or at the least act as a neuroprotectant as you go through any withdrawal stages.

 

[Ninae]

Sounds like Lyrica withdrawal to me. The best way to detox from that is Gabapentin, and should be quite painless if you taper for 1-2 months. Other than that, UEI helped me the most and reduced about 50% of my symptomps, but I got too nauseaus to hold it down. A combination of Hops, L-Theanine and Magnesium also helped and made me feel much better. The main thing is getting something to help you sleep so you can get some peace. Good luck.

 

[ErgicMergic]

^ Do not use UEI or any other opioids to taper off of GABAergics. Although they can help with the psychological aspect of withdrawal, opioids lower the seizure threshold, increasing the risk of a seizure in a state where the risk of seizure is already high enough as it is.

 

[jambabomba]

"I would definitely say to simply tapper everything down, starting first with the phenibut. If you can simply tapper off the phenibut then getting off benzo's is easy."

Do you really mean that phenibut is harder to get off than moderate/high dose benzos as I was using 4mg xanax and 40mg temazepam in the evening and thought withdrawing from them was so hard. Do you think withdrawal from phenibut is harder than from those doses of xanax and temazepam I was using?

"Also look into memantine, if you're in Europe you should be able to source it and it will definitely help reduce your tolerance to the benzo's or at the least act as a neuroprotectant as you go through any withdrawal stages."

Yea I have been thinking memantine but my financial situation isn't good at the moment because I haven't been able to work much now as I have been strugling with these problems. But if you read my latest post in this thread I wrote that I had used DXM for that purpose. And also L-theanine, high dose magnesium, several vitamin/antioxidant supplements, taurine, glycine, picamilon, ghrp-6, fasting and ketodiet wich all should help protect brains according to some studies. I also tried to use aniracetam during acute withdrawal but it kind of made me feel I could have seizure (tingling in head and strange feeling in muscles) and with DXM it gave me huge panic attack so I haven't used it any more. I should learn more about brain protection because I'm allmost 100% sure this isn't last time I'm withdrawing from these substances. It isn't first either - except phenibut. But tramadol, several benzos and codeine I have withdrew many times.

 

[ErgicMergic]

DXM is a dirty drug, meaning it affects different receptors and is rather unselective. If you are using it as an NMDA antagonist, you are simply using it as a prodrug to the powerful NMDA antagonist, DXO. DXM itself has very little affinity for the NMDAR, and is primarily an SRI and a stimulant.

Ketamine, MXE, PCP analogues, and Memantine are more reasonable NMDA antagonists, but most people don't have a problem with low dose (30-60mg daily) DXM used for tolerance prevention.

 

[jambabomba]

^ Do not use UEI or any other opioids to taper off of GABAergics. Although they can help with the psychological aspect of withdrawal, opioids lower the seizure threshold, increasing the risk of a seizure in a state where the risk of seizure is already high enough as it is.

Good to know that opioids also lowers the seizure treshold. I only thought tramadol does that.

But anyway, I haven't been using any opioids during withdrawals as I stopped codeine and tramadol same day I stopped xanax.

Btw, I don't know what UEI is...?

At the moment I use hydroxyzine 75mg, 150-300ug clonidine, 3-9mg melatonin, some valeriana, 2000mg niacinamide and 10-20mg amitriptyline at evening to get sleep. Yes I know amitriptyline lowers seizure treshold but I have got so depressed now as I stopped xanax, codeine and tramal alltogether and my benzo level is all the time going lower and depression correlates with it.

I don't know if it is smart but I kind of think that having seizure I should have some warning signals before it. Ex. Muscle cramps, really odd feeling, confusion or something like that - and in that case I could put valium/xanax in my mouth (I keep them in my pocket everywhere I go). Or does seizure REALLY come to a non epileptic person without any warning signals and easily just out of the blue? I don't think so. But yes, I could be wrong.

 

[ErgicMergic]

You don't need to know. It's a very poor representation of the source plant it supposedly represents, and gives that plant a bad name. It is more along the strength of real opiates than the weak, medicinal plant that it comes from.

 

[jambabomba]

Allright I messed things up again. I'm mentally so addicted to substances.. I don't know how can I live without them because without them I'm allways depressed even after withdrawals have gone long away.

Like last time when I tried drug free life at 2008-2010 I was about two years without any benzos and opioids etc. Used only some shitty ssri wich didn't do nothing but maybe worsen the situation and I felt all the time miserable, wasn't able to work and hadn't motivation to do anything and didn't want to be with people (I also have bad social anxiety without benzos).

Today I took tramadol 150mg, 1mg xanax, 10mg diapam, 300mg lyrica and 8000mg phenibut. I'm feeling good and positive again. I would say I feel normal again and definately not intoxicated. Now I feel I'm able to go to work again and meet people and du my duties.

So my withdrawal process took a step back but... I don't know what should I do!? Is this whole withdrawal thing just suffering for nothing because if I will be again so disabled I can't work and meet friends.. So whats the point?

I'm so glad about this bluelight forum. This has give me so much more than a local drug clinic where I have been visiting every now and then.