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insomnia and benzo withdrawal.. cant lay down without panic attack

duneplanet

duneplanet

Bluelighter
Joined
Jun 29, 2010
Messages
328
im freaking out running on an hour of sleep.. sweats and chills. I cant sleep it is getting terrible. What can I do?
 
smoke a joint? That help you? Doesn't help me, but it helps a lot of people. Benadryl sometimes helps me. Maybe get some clonadine.
 
none of those things help me unfortunately. weed have me panic attacks before I was withdrawing, bennadryl gives me psychedelic flashbacks, and clonidine is what got me on benzos again in the first place. thank you though.
 
duneplanet said:
im freaking out running on an hour of sleep.. sweats and chills. I cant sleep it is getting terrible. What can I do?
Click to expand...

How did clonidine get you hooked on benozos? Clonidine will hlpe your WD's majorly!!! I know as I am using them for a morphine taper. Get the patches if you can as they work better and for a week. Are you confusing that with Klonapin?
 
cause i was originally on a beta blocker and i was tooken off too rapidly and switched to clonidine and the anxiety of hte beta blocker withdrawal was so bad id just pop libriumk all day.. and now im the mess i am today.
 
How long were you addicted to them? I don't want to freak you out, but be very careful and wary of dropping large and/or long term benzo addictions. Tapering is often the way to go to avoid the distressing withdrawal symptoms and the possibility of serious side effects, such as seizures.

I'd venture a guess that alcohol might help, but in the long run you can't replace one with the other. The alcohol would only serve as partial and relatively short term relief anyway.
 
Please, stay away from alcohol. The half-life of ethanol is far too short to be anything but harmful. It will give relief, followed by a rebound that throws your gaba-a receptors onto the down-regulated side of things, which makes the withdrawal much worse than it originally was. I have heard of people getting multiple grand-mal seizures who were in benzo withdrawal and fell asleep after drinking just 1-2 units of alcohol. Alcohol and stimulants are things you want to avoid like the plague.

However, if you can get your hands on some long-half life benzodiazepines (librium, valium, klonopin), this would be ideal, as you could find a dose equivalent to the dose of librium you last took. From there, if you are lucky and have a large supply, you can withdrawal slowly, and relatively painlessly. Generally, you'll want to use a 10% reduction per week rate until you are at a low enough dose (generally 0.5mg valium/diazepam equivalent) to drop off. You can do the same thing with barbiturates, but it is slightly trickier, as they are a gaba-b agonist drug.

However, if you feel you are in no eminent physical danger (if this is the most acute phase of withdrawal, then it doesn't sound that bad, as you have yet to complain of hallucinations, psychosis, convulsions, etc) I would say that you should use this experiment to forge a very strong side of yourself. If you can handle this, you can pretty much handle anything. But, I would still avoid alcohol (and other gabaergics) and stimulants, as they can make the condition worse as previously stated.

Take care.
 
Can you get Neurontin or Lyrica? I hear they both work wonders for benzo wd by stimulating GABA receptors. Maybe even phenibut would do something, doesn't it cross the BB and stimulate GABA receptors?
If thats the site you're wd from all you really need is something weaker to hit those receptors. And then you could taper off that weaker substance.

I'm pretty sure 1 of the first 2 I mentioned would help a ton, just not sure about the phenibut. I wouldn't plan on sleeping at all unless you can stimulate those receptors somehow. Seroquel or something else would work, but coming off a benzo habit is no joke. I would prob consider going to a dr/detox if its severe. Remember severe benzo wd can leave you in a seizure and if noones around a situation like that can turn ugly if you swallow your tounge.
What size dose are you coming off of?
 
Was gunna say tylonal PM...id take 4 at a time and would be out like a night light :)

Cant really suggest anything else, find some very indica strand weed and it might help, it helps me.
 
thanks guys.. im on 2 mg of valium on a taper and im taking lyrica.. but still no sleep. going on night 2. I hope it gets better im not psychotic but im pretty strange right now
 
If you've been taking lyrica as long as the benzos chances are you're getting a very nasty share of wds from the lyrica alone. Some of the stories I've read about lyrica wd actually seems worse than benzo wd. Or did your doctor put you on lyrica to deal with the wds? Either way I'd taper off the valium first, than use the lyrica to run past the valium and taper off that last. But w/e you do don't stop both on the same day.
 
The doc put me on lyrica to help with the benzo withdrawal. Ive only been on it like 6 weeks. I was hoping to stay on the lyrica for a while until the benzo withdrawal subsides. My doc told me that withdrawing from the lyrica would be easier because the withdrawal doesn't last as long as benzos and he could do it slow enough that I would not feel much.. we will see,, maybe ive gotten myself into another mess. maybe the people that had a really hard time were abusing it and going over theraputic dosages or maybe they went off too fast? got 3 hours of broken sleep last night/ yay/ Im on 275 mg of lyrica.. should I ask to go up?
 
Gabapentin is used to treat a wide variety of addictions, including benzos. Do your own research before you come to any conclusions, but it's worked miracles at getting me off mephedrone.
 
OP that's a horrible place to be. i've been there. yeah antihistamines fuck with the visual changes that psychedelics caused, clonidine can cause a bad rebound stimulation if you keep taking it, pot makes your body/mind anxious if you take it with a bad set&setting (e.g. withdrawal)

i wouldn't reccomend any stimulating drugs to OP

let us know how the lyrica goes

1) take warm baths/showers. more than one a day. this really eases how stressful the body feels
2) even though it sucks like a dick in your nose, walk 10-30m 2x a day
3) do stretches to get out that body energy that the stimulation of w/d will have you feeling
4) allow yourself to go into crying spells if benzo w/d gets your emotions all messed up for no reason. if you need the release you need the release
5) i know it's hard not even being able to trust your own thoughts and feeling semi-psychotic. keep it in your head that it will get better

p.s. 6) do not over exert yourself. your body isn't capable of handling a lot of stress right now, and you have more than a lot of stress. lay in bed or laze around on the computer. the best thing for me during withdrawal was movies and TV shows. go through the seasons of breaking bad if you haven't seen it, it's fucking awesome

if possible, do a VERY slow taper. US dr's and rehabs do very quick tapers. IMO it needs to be so slow that you barely notice a change (drop a quarter or eighth of a pill every several weeks) so that your life is not disrupted. withdrawal itself does a lot more damage mentally and physically than daily drug use. it's too disruptive and the way the body works is cycles-over-time, adaptation, homeostasis. insane short term chemical changes aren't good
 
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that helps a lot qwe ty. I went another night without sleep idk what the hell im gonna do.. i cant even lay down everything feels so strange.. i cant believe ive done this to myself. and hell yea molly i walked 5 miles this morning just to buy a pack. i had quit for a few months but fuck it...
 
duneplanet said:
cause i was originally on a beta blocker and i was tooken off too rapidly and switched to clonidine and the anxiety of hte beta blocker withdrawal was so bad id just pop libriumk all day.. and now im the mess i am today.
Click to expand...

I'm sorry about the way you feel. Gp back to the doctor and demand that he/she find relief for you. No one should have to live with the horrific anxiety. I just went through some detoxing and know what you are saying. The clondine patch was what saved me. I also have normal anxiety so I think my WD type was compounded. Good luck to you! And of your doctor can't help go to the nearest ER.
 
glad i can help. the lack of sleep is really going to catch up to you, and it's going to take quite a while once you feel normal to A) establish a regular sleeping pattern then B) have things feel normal again because you've finally been getting normal sleep

imo getting sleep is one of the most urgent things in this situation. you probably feel how i felt, not psychotic but close enough to the edge to see the cliff that you will fall off if you do get psychotic (if your body keeps running on full speed with zero fuel etc). if you don't want to end up inpatient or worse, finding a way to sleep is vital

if you use something like ambien/lunesta/etc (Z drugs) these will prolong withdrawal. they work on GABA A like benzodiazepines and were developed from benzo's

a few times when i felt panicky and it was too much i had a drink or a couple drinks. however there's already dehydration and messed up body stuff with withdrawal... if you get relief that way, you'll feel like real shit afterwards. but if there is a peak of panic, having a beer may be your best option. sometimes you just need the relief. (of course, be careful about not "switching addictions". personally i hate alcohol, especially during withdrawal because it's just too weird, so it wasn't an issue for me)

however, i found sometimes alcohol or Z drugs seemed to actually make me feel *worse* paradoxically. fyi

some strong sleep aides that don't work on GABA (these are not OTC) :
- trazodone
- seroquel

talk to your doctor about the sleep issue because it's important. i'm sorry to say that you're not going to get a "good night's sleep" for a LONG time... it'll be that bullshit drifting in and out of sleep, waking up feeling like a bus just hit you, fatigue but no ability to sleep, etc

try to keep eating, sleeping, and walking. look at this as a time where you can just sit back and watch movies without anything expected of you... if anything IS expected of you, expect people to notice odd behavior from you. the lack of sleep, the cognitive changes, etc

i think during the heavy w/d i actually learned some things about my anxiety, and learned some things about how to relax and deal with it (since i basically had no choice). it is possible to come out stronger
 
ok I agree with you. unfortunately school starts in a week :/ I really do need sleep, id feel a hundred times better if i had gotten some. I miss it so much. I was sleeping great on 3 mg but now 2 mg is like i went cold turkey or something. It gets so old not being able to ever turn it off. And yes im in the almost psychotic phase. also im 20 and have no access to alcohol. Would taking phenibut twice a week be good?
 
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