• The Dark Side 💕 Welcome Guest 💕
    Posting Rules Bluelight Rules
    Notable Threads Urgent Hotlines
    Bereavement Mindfulness
    Suicide Support Anger Management
  • TDS Moderators: AlphaMethylPhenyl | paranoid android

After quitting benzos, how long does it take you to get back to normal?

M

Mycotheologist

Bluelighter
Joined
Apr 8, 2012
Messages
141
I'm real lucky, I quit xanax 2 weeks ago after using it for around 2 months in total and for some reason I feel good every day, the only problematic w/d symptom I have now is this agitation + headache which comes on every now and again. My issue though is I have a problem (had it well before taking benzos) with drowsiness/lethargy and I usually remedy it with stimulants, opioids or other substances but after quitting benzos, stimulants, opioids and other drugs give me anxiety and amplify the aggitation. On average, how long does it take all of you to get back to baseline after taking moderate doses (i.e. 1-2mg of xanax or 20-40mg of valium daily) of benzos for a few months?
 
Okay, my experience -
Acute withdrawal symptoms lasted about a couple weeks (panic attacks, insomnia, intense restlessness, seizures, etc.)
It's been four months and I still get the restlessness and brain zaps, which are hellish so I hope you don't have those. I also think it's amplified my depression and I'm definitely globally on edge.
Headaches I still have as well but I get those from an unrelated medical issue so someone else would have to answer. I've heard the effects of benzo withdrawal can still be present years later though..mostly when it comes to depression I think.
But I was also on much higher doses so I think you should probably be all right soon enough :)
 
Thanks. I don't think I've experienced brain zaps but this agitation comes with restlessness (akitisia) so I can somewhat relate to that, akitisia can be pretty horrific. Are you taking other substances to manage your symptoms? Have you tried taking gabapentin to enhance your mood and remedy the anxiety and insomnia? Gabapentin (and pregabalin) has a completely different mechanism of action to benzos so you don't need to worry about prolonging w/d symptoms there. Same goes for baclofen since its a selective GABA_b agonist (whereas benzos are selective GABA_a agonists). I took kambo (venom from the phyllomedusa bicolor frog) recently and my mood has been really good ever since. I recommend trying it, many people say it works wonders for depression.
 
Oh you're getting RLS? I never got that but I heard it's pretty awful, I don't really know if there's any way to help but you might wanna check out a heroin WD thread since lots of them have gotten it and so might know of solutions and stuff.
No, I haven't taken anything, though I've thought about it and perhaps I should (I just sorta wanted a clean break for any sorts of medication). I'm glad to hear you've found something that works for you though :)
 
For me, never. And it's been years. However, I was on them for many years and was abusing and mixing them with other drugs at the end rather than medicating. Can't recommend vitamin b complex and a magnesium supplement enough for restlessness.

Cycling with L-theanine and kava kava root is good for the first few months.

In all honesty, nitrous oxide reversed a lot of the long-term problems for me. Something to do with the permanent alterations in GABA receptors, and the GABA in nitrous.

Edit*
After benzo-withdrawal drugs will permanently affect you differently than other people. This is because of down-regulation of GABA, which is an inhibitory chemical to serotonin, dopamine, etc.
 
Pagey said:
Oh you're getting RLS? I never got that but I heard it's pretty awful, I don't really know if there's any way to help but you might wanna check out a heroin WD thread since lots of them have gotten it and so might know of solutions and stuff.
No, I haven't taken anything, though I've thought about it and perhaps I should (I just sorta wanted a clean break for any sorts of medication). I'm glad to hear you've found something that works for you though :)
Click to expand...

Well, its kind of all round restlessness. I've had severe akitisia before from an adverse drug interaction and it was horrible but what I'm getting now is very mild. Amphetamines do the polar opposite to me, they make me so relaxed I can sit in one spot for hours without moving a muscle. Seroquel causes akitisia so I suspect its regulated by dopamine. Gabapentin is relatively non addictive and very safe so if I were you, I'd try it to see how it remedies your symptoms. For some reason it makes my symptoms much worse but I'm an abnormal case, most people say it works wonders for benzo w/d symptoms.

ParappaTheRapper said:
After benzo-withdrawal drugs will permanently affect you differently than other people. This is because of down-regulation of GABA, which is an inhibitory chemical to serotonin, dopamine, etc.
Click to expand...
Down-regulation isn't necessarily what causes benzo PAWS. Benzos are allosteric modulators of the GABA_a receptor, they bind to the benzodiazepine site on the receptor and another possibility is that they cause long lasting structural changes to the benzodiazepine site. Flumazenil is an inverse agonist of the BZ site and theres plenty of evidence to suggest that it reverses the changes caused by benzos. I recommend looking into flumazenil. Do you experience long lasting relief from your symptoms after taking nitrous? According to wikipedia, N2O sensitizes GABA_a receptors, that means it causes a structural change to the receptor.
 
What is paws?

Also nitrous was more of a continuous help. A combination of hyperventilation/ rebound anxiety/derealization/brain zaps/etc. exposure. In the short term, yea nitrous helps though. I'm not sure of the specifics other than a temporary shot of GABA.
 
Last edited:
PAWS = post acute withdrawal symptoms, the milder longer lasting symptoms your left with after the acute withdrawal is over. Nitrous isn't a GABA agonist so its not a temporary shot of GABA. It sensitises your GABA receptors so that GABA can bind to the receptor more effectively. How long were you on the benzos for? If I were you, I'd find a psychiatrist who will oversee some flumazenil therapy. Flumazenil has been cinically demonstrated to reverse the long term changes caused by benzos. The study was done on people who had symptoms which lasted months and years after quitting benzos.
 
Between 5 and 6 years clonzepam daily. However, the last 3 years or so were combined with unprescribed xanax, ativan, alcohol, and different cross-tolerant drugs. Hhhmm, i will look into flumazenil, do you have the study link?
 
Heres the study I was tlaking about:
http://www.bcnc.org.uk/flumazenil.html
You will fully recover but you'd been on the benzos for a fairly long time so you need to find a way to speed up your recovery. Ibogaine is supposed to work wonders when it comes to resetting ones neurochemistry. How many years have you been off the benzos now?
 
^A little under three years. It no longer interferes with my life, but is still a transient issue though. At the time, I tapered down to completely off in only a month...from 6 years. So I think that's why. Thanks for the link. :)
 
I was rx'ed Xanax 8mgs qd for 4 years. Tapered on Valium for 8 months. It has been 5 months since end of taper and still have ringing ears and racing heartbeat. I feel much better than 3 months ago but I wonder sometimes if I'll ever be normal again. Lot of mental stuff going on with me also.Panic attacks,cloudy thoughts etc.
 
When do you feel normal again? I think it takes as long as you used drugs... if you used xanex for 2 years except 2 years to feel back to normal...

I find this to be true... I mean after 5months you might feel ok again, but you won't feel predrugs untill its been along long time.
 
HCandKROD said:
I was rx'ed Xanax 8mgs qd for 4 years. Tapered on Valium for 8 months. It has been 5 months since end of taper and still have ringing ears and racing heartbeat. I feel much better than 3 months ago but I wonder sometimes if I'll ever be normal again. Lot of mental stuff going on with me also.Panic attacks,cloudy thoughts etc.
Click to expand...

You will, theres no doubt about it. There are some things worth looking into to accelerate your recovery though. Kambo, iboga and flumazenil to list a few. I think flumazenil would be the way to go in your case. See if you can find a psychiatrist or doctor that will put you on a course of flumazenil. I recommend reading that link I posted above.
 
xxsicknessxx said:
When do you feel normal again? I think it takes as long as you used drugs... if you used xanex for 2 years except 2 years to feel back to normal...

I find this to be true... I mean after 5months you might feel ok again, but you won't feel predrugs untill its been along long time.
Click to expand...

If thats the case, then I should only have 2 months to wait. Been 3 weeks so far and I feel fine but I'm definitely not back to baseline because before I started experimeting with GABA drugs, I usually slept 12 hours each night when sober if undisturbed. Now I'm only sleeping 8 hours a night. This wouldn't ordinarily be a problem but I think I have a bit of a sleep cycle disorder (hence the reason I needed 12 hours per night) which prevents me from getting enough deep sleep. I have big black rings under my eyes all the time now which I'm assuming I wouldn't have if I was getting enough sleep.
 
8+ years of daily benzo use, its been 2.5 years off and i am pretty much better. i still get anxiety/shaky sometimes but a massive change from just a year ago. for me nothing helped with the w/ds, in fact most meds that i took made things worse. imo it is best to stay off all meds and just let your brain reset itself.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top