Benzos Benzo's INDUCING Withdrawals? What the Heck?

[Cone]

First off,

This has never happened to me before. This has never really seemed to have happened to anyone ever, according to google...

So I've been tapering off benzos for a few weeks now.

Had a caracoid transfer on my right shoulder, got tossed 85 perc 5's.

My normal dose of Diazepam for maintenance is 20mg. Been steady on this for about 2 weeks now. No insomnia, no w/d's, no nothing.

But with my new oxycodone script, I've been getting away with 10mg Diaz per night as the opiods have been keeping me held over. Only took 10mg's for 4 nights.

Anyway, a VERY curious thing happened the other night (the 4th night on 10mg Diaz)

After consuming ~90mg of oxycodone in a day, I popped 10mg of Diaz. and within 30 minutes began to experience what I could only chalk up to "Benzodiazepine induced withdrawal". Something like the equivalent to taking bupe shortly after a full mu-agonist opiod. But exponentially more scary.

Shooting neuropathic pains up my legs, felt my eyes rolling into the back of my head followed by full body "shock" sensations. Pre-seizure sensations is the best way I can describe it. Twitches all over my body.

To add to it, I felt my skin all over my body burning hot/cold simultaneously. Textbook BZD withdrawal side effects, right?

Lasted about 6 hours.

This only happened AFTER taking my dose. 30 minutes after, to be exact. Before I felt perfectly fine. Its as if taking the valium sent me into benzo w/d's.

What the fuck happened that night?

I've since been fine, steady on my 20mg Diaz dose again with no issue. No oxy left so that's not an issue.

I thought (at the time) that since I was clearly experiencing BZD withdrawal syndrome, taking more would make it worse - so I didn't take more.

How the fuck does taking benzodiazepines paradoxically INDUCE withdrawal symptoms?

Any idea of the physiology behind this? Even with the opiods... it doesn't add up. 90mg's of oxy in 24 hours is a "normal" dose for me. This was purely for pain management. A "getting high" dose would be twice that. Taking a (small) dose of diazepam shouldn't induce pre-seizure withdrawal effects EVER, right?

I don't want to accidentally take 20mg's one night and find myself slipping into a full seizure.

No other drugs in my system. Not even antibiotics (which I know fluoroquinolones can goof with the GABA system).

 

[TooOldForThis]

I do not know any of the science related to your question. I can only add my experience. First, cutting from 20mg to 10mg sounds scary to me. My experience with tapering off of Klonopin is somewhat similar to your experience in cutting back on the valium, in that the bad withdrawal symptoms did not start for about 3 days. Then out of the blue, on day three i was vomiting uncontrollably. I could not get off the bathroom floor for a couple of hours. The same thing happened the next time i cut my dose back, at which point i realized i was tapering too fast. At that point in my life, i had no idea (nor did my doc) how hard it would be to get off the klonopin.

Given the long half life of Valium, maybe that was the start of withdrawals, and the dose you took did not have time to kick in before the bad withdrawal symptoms started.

 

[The Dr]

Cutting from 20mg to 10mg is nothing that bad, especially when you had only been on 20mg for two weeks. This is a very interesting story, I'd consult a doctor. Other than myself because I'm a unofficial doctor , just a dude that's done a lot of benzo's and been on valium/xanax for a minute.

 

[TooOldForThis]

Cone, maybe you could clarify your Valium history? I am not clear how long you have been on it and what your taper schedule has been.

 

[RobotRipping]

no idea really, even if you were a long time diazepam user, dropping 10mg while on opiates shouldn't have led to a sudden onset of withdrawal symptoms. If you dropped 10mg of another benzo then i'd say you threw yourself into withdrawals but with diazepam 10mg isn't a huge drop, and there's no reason the symptoms would hit when the diazepam kicked in. You'll probably never really know why but at least it's over. I've had strange drug reactions that have happened once and never again, who knows why.