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Tapering (Diazepam) No matter how slow I go, it’s just not enough...

MagickalKat777 said:
I never said that I felt it was a ridiculous idea. I have wondered about what good I am doing myself with prolonging the taper as well. I ordered some amanitas last night after doing a lot of reading and it certainly looks promising. There has never been a report of dependence with them either so I am going to try that and see if I can’t jump off sooner.

I am in the US and the only thing that ever worked for preventing tachycardia spikes for me besides benzos was clonidine but taking a super potent BP med for panic attacks is not exactly a great idea either and they can be just as dangerous when discontinued.

Last night was one of the worst panic attacks I have had in recent memory. I even ended up with my head pounding and I never get headaches. I managed to not take a rescue dose but just barely. Slept like crap and still feel on edge so that’s great.

I just don’t feel confident that jumping off now would work for me. Hopefully the amanitas give me that little boost to be able to do it.
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If you feel that's the right route then go for it, sounds like you've done your research. Certainly there's evidence to suggest it really helps for some people, different thing but I take psilocybin mushrooms for their healing powers.
 
FuneralFather said:
You’re doing well! Don’t be so hard on yourself.
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Thanks. I still have a lot of work to do when it comes to being able to pat myself on the back. Shitty self esteem since I was a kid.

I have certainly come a very long way. One of the things that’s hard though is that I started on benzos when I was 20 and I was already drinking at 17. Add in all of the drugs inbetween and I’ve never experienced being an adult sober.
 
THECATINTHEHAT said:
If you feel that's the right route then go for it, sounds like you've done your research. Certainly there's evidence to suggest it really helps for some people, different thing but I take psilocybin mushrooms for their healing powers.
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I like psilocybin mushrooms a lot (especially penis envy) but I’m not sure I could handle even a threshold experience right now.

It kinda sucks living in the only state that has decriminalized every drug to where possession of up to 3g doesn’t even involve jail time in first time cases and I can’t even smoke weed.
 
jose ribas da silva said:
Man have you ever tried speak to you doctor about quetiapine? When benzos were no longer working I found quetiapine at low doses a good alternative
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My psychiatrist gave me a prescription for 25 or 50mg, can’t remember which, but I have never had a good reaction to an atypical antipsychotic before. I have had side effects ranging from tachycardia >140bpm (olanzapine) to hypomania (ziprasidone) to visual distortions (ziprasidone, olanzapine, risperidone). With a track record like that and the reports of people getting diabetes even from such minor doses, I would rather not mess with it.
 
jose ribas da silva said:
don't take it, considering your mindset now, you will be risking a bad trip
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Yeah mushrooms would have been something I would have had to do at the start of the taper to get myself ready for the process.

Honestly I rushed myself into the taper. I knew the only way I would quit drinking for good is if I got off the Valium as well. I wasn’t ready to taper and my psychiatrist wasn’t pushing me to taper. I was drinking myself into oblivion though so I made the decision after my New Years bender put me in bed so long that it was time to get off both and started my taper 2/14/2018.
 
MagickalKat777 said:
There are people who swear by it as a reset of sorts but it sounds like one hell of a bad idea to me.
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I absolutely believe that is a real thing for at least some people but for me I feel like I would want to wait until I was through acute withdrawal and then use it to try and wipe away any lingering effects and start anew. I would be concerned about the effects of taking psilocybin when I was in a distressed mental and physical state like benzo withdrawal.
 
to be clear - we are absolutely NOT discussing the use of psilocybin, or another tryptamine - we were discussing A. Muscaria, which is a GABA-A agonist(muscimole), not a psych. As for the WD possibilities -- I ran it a short while and a long while, the short whiles worked absolutely stunning, got me from 7 -> .5 mg in a couple weeks. It was so nice having relief I ran it longer, now, I am not sure if I a) underdosed b) ran it too long or c) hit a shroom with a much higher ibotenic acid content but i did have a weird experience one day out of >30. Since it's clear I can no longer drink, or do bzds, I will continue using a. muscaria for the 1 off gaba balancing/quite pleasant gaba agonist effect, as it does NOT bother me when it wears off, as long as I don't take it for days and days and days -- and even then it is quite unclear what the culprit was. Howver, the two hours of weirdness can't hold a candle to the fact that I am now off bzds -- 8 days and counting, and I'm sleeping/not having seizures. so something changed in a big way in me.

A.muscaria contains ibotenic acid and muscimol, which are respectively a acts as a non-selective glutamate receptor agonist. , and potent, selective agonist for the GABA-A. My working hypothesis is that it is the balance, and muscimols ability to cover with gava activity while co-administering a glutamate agonist that cause the re-balancing of gaba systems. One could think of it like administering naltrexone alongside mu agonists. I think it is better than a gaba agent with antagonist, because truly it is the interplay of GABA and Glutamate which have got us all kinds of twisted :(
 
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This may be completely idiosyncratic to me -- but let me ask you if you ever experienced this -- during this taper, when I would be edging into the space where I was ALMOST spinning into catastrophe (heart going... colors bright... shakes started, BP starting to go haywire) I would get music in my head. Like a goddamn jukebox. Different songs different times, some I liked, some i don't care for. But yeah, shit would be getting weird and all of a sudden it would be like "Live and LET DIEE. BAm BAM" or some other song from my memory banks. very singular experience.
 
cdin said:
This may be completely idiosyncratic to me -- but let me ask you if you ever experienced this -- during this taper, when I would be edging into the space where I was ALMOST spinning into catastrophe (heart going... colors bright... shakes started, BP starting to go haywire) I would get music in my head. Like a goddamn jukebox. Different songs different times, some I liked, some i don't care for. But yeah, shit would be getting weird and all of a sudden it would be like "Live and LET DIEE. BAm BAM" or some other song from my memory banks. very singular experience.
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Yeah I get the mental music a lot when I’m anxious. I can get a song I haven’t heard in years playing in my head... it wears on me quick because I can’t shut it off even if I listen to the actual song.

I haven’t been really tolerant of music since I started tapering which is hell for someone who used to love music. I can listen to 80s and 90s rock and alternative but just about everything else is out. My roommate is a metal head and he has given me panic attacks a few times pulling into the garage blasting his music.

Also I accidentally skipped my dose last night. Was playing a video game when the alarm went off and totally spaced it. Had a massive panic attack first thing this morning and then I realized what I did. So yeah, its a tiny dose that wouldn’t do anything to someone without a benzo dependency but the 1.6mg I’m on clearly is still active for me.
 
mine was active all the way down to the .5, and I still had trouble with that. I now have a terrible muscle spasm in my leg, thinking of a one off amanita dose. I hope it helps :(

glad to know someone else gets the music. Ever since my PTSD diagnosis music has been very rough for me, and im a musician by trade :( im down to mainly jazz and classical to not set me off.
 
cdin said:
mine was active all the way down to the .5, and I still had trouble with that. I now have a terrible muscle spasm in my leg, thinking of a one off amanita dose. I hope it helps :(

glad to know someone else gets the music. Ever since my PTSD diagnosis music has been very rough for me, and im a musician by trade :( im down to mainly jazz and classical to not set me off.
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I hope my amanitas get here soon. I was having a tough time sleeping last night and spent some time reading up on them some more. I am definitely going to go really slow with them so I don’t end up going on a trip. Not really looking for that kind of thing these days. No clue how long it’s going to take for them to get here. Probably will be another 10-14 days. Hopefully the amanita helps you. Keep me posted. Even if the amanita helps a lot with my taper speed, I’m still going to go at a decent pace. Faster than I am now but not exponentially so. I would like to be off by December instead of next July/August. If I have to spend $30 a month on amanita, that’s what I’ll have to do.

Yeah I was a bit of a DJ hobbyist so the intolerance of music is really hard to handle. I actually got Serato Play for free the other day and it wasn’t even 15 minutes of fussing with the demo tracks before I was too anxious to continue with it. :(

I started being able to cut again. Dose is at 1.56mg right now. Doing a fixed 3.5% every 14 days schedule. It’s a long and drawn out process but at least I am making progress again.

Thought about getting some phenibut for those times I absolutely have to leave the house but I’m not sure it’s a good idea. I really do need to get in to a dentist soon though and I don’t know how I will be able to pull that off when they can’t put me under IV sedation like the oral surgeon can. :/
 
I have been off for over 2 weeks now. the liberation is fantastic. I would advise you seriously to thing loooooong and hard about the phenibut. I am on a 0 GABA substance kick for the next month, and then will ease back in to occasional amanitas for muscle spasm problems. I am fairly certain I should/can never drink again. certainly bzds are off the table.
 
cdin said:
I have been off for over 2 weeks now. the liberation is fantastic. I would advise you seriously to thing loooooong and hard about the phenibut. I am on a 0 GABA substance kick for the next month, and then will ease back in to occasional amanitas for muscle spasm problems. I am fairly certain I should/can never drink again. certainly bzds are off the table.
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Phenibut is really just so I can have something for occasions I absolutely have to have something. There is no way in hell I can get into a dentists chair with nothing to keep me calm, for example. I would honestly go and have them pull all my teeth and just get dentures but they won’t let me because my teeth that are left can still be saved (with a lot of work I might be able to keep them another 5 years) so Medicaid won’t pay for it. No, I get to suffer through groups of extractions (because Medicaid also won’t pay for IV sedation unless I am getting three or more pulled at once).

Since benzos are clearly out, I’ll need something for those occasions and phenibut seems to be alright unless you abuse it. I used to have an herbal sleeping pill called MRM Relax-All that had 500mg phenibut in it before they reformulated it and I took it maybe once a month and it worked wonderfully, even with my benzo and alcohol consumption driving my cross tolerance up. I would obviously need to be able to manage my usage but considering I’ve got alprazolam powder and etizolam powder lying around and I don’t and didn’t abuse those, I think I’ll be fine. Obviously the end goal is to not need anything but if I need something once in a blue moon and it doesn’t cause me rebound benzo withdrawal (phenibut has been said to be safe for people in PAWS), it’s worth exploring.

Lyrica is the other option on the table and my Medicare and Medicaid both cover it but I don’t think pregabalin works well as a PRN, at least I can’t find anything that says it can.

Also, big congrats on crossing the 2 week mark without benzos! That’s awesome, gives me hope!
 
Kudzu root is a herb used for alcohol cravings and addiction. I am taking it now and it seems to do something and help.
 
anonymouse77 said:
Kudzu root is a herb used for alcohol cravings and addiction. I am taking it now and it seems to do something and help.
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Be very careful with that stuff if you are dependent on GABAergics. It's a GABA antagonist which can precipitate withdrawal if you aren't careful. I certainly would not be touching it with my dependence on benzos. Sounds like a trip to hell to me. 😞
 
Having a bit of a rough day. It was 90 degrees today which didn't help (the best our AC could do was keep it at 80 when it was set at 77 so this is going to be a long summer) and my benzo withdrawal makes me a lot more susceptible to heat. Supposed to be 88 again tomorrow and then some dips to the 70s before 80s again. I feel really amped up and the ringing in my ears is more pronounced than usual. If I didn't have my taper log and memory of me actually taking the dose last night, I would swear I hadn't taken anything. Took my pulse earlier because I felt tachycardic and it was only 78. Still couldn't convince myself that I was fine. Sometimes I don't know how I keep my sanity with this nonsense.
 
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