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Phenazepam Addiction: Seeking advice for rapid tapering/withdrawal

Saucy

Saucy

Bluelighter
Joined
Aug 20, 2009
Messages
324
So here's my situatiuon:

I have been taking phenazepam in 1-2mg doses fairly regularly for two years (I would estimate five 1-2mg doses per week on average). Because of phenazepam's extremely long half-life (~60 hours), my accumulated blood levels of the drug during this period have obviously been much higher at any given time than 2mg.

I do not have much of the drug remaining, so recently I initiated a rapid taper (only 2-3mg total taken over 12 days) to determine how severe my physical dependence was / how severe my withdrawals would be. By day 10 of the taper I was in a horrific state of psychological and physiological misery. Severe dysphoria/depression was accompanied by apparent issues with temperature regulation (poring sweat while shivering and feeling too hot and wayyyy too cold at the same time). My actual temperature fluxuated from 96.7 - 98.8 degrees, with the average being just under 98. Additionally I experienced minor myoclonic seisures, especially when laying down, and severe insomnia. I passed out a couple times during this period, but did not experience seisures / convulsions while unconcious according to a third party.

At the end of the 12 days, 7mg of phenazepam was required to attenuate the worst of the withdrawal symptoms.

Any advice on how to get through this would be greatly appreciated. I currently have the following drugs at my disposal if any of these can be used to help:

~40mg Phenazepam
Abundant hydroxyzine
Abundant methoxetamine
100mg liquid promethazine dm
1.5g o-desmethyltramadol
10x 25mg meperidine

I assume the meperidine and odt are useless because of seisure risk. Additionally, I am tolerant to NMDA-antagonists, so methoxetamine's ratio of dissociation to cns-stimulation is skewed towards the latter compared with non-tolerant users, so I suspect it will not be particularly helpful in attenuating withdrawal symptoms.

Thanks in advance for the help!

-Saucy
 
really not a whole lot you can do except get more benzos. I've been through phenazepam withdrawal and it is very long and drawn out. I had a psychotic break during a cold turkey withdrawal from like 10mg/day for 6 months. At your doses it may well be manageable but you should still take precautions, either do a 3 month long taper using phenazepam or find a dr and work with them using diazepam, at this point i don't' think there's an easy way out without a long taper. For me, it was the worst benzo to quit that i've experienced.
 
switch to a benzo with a short half life, then try to cold turkey (if you're at 1mg/day of phenazepam or less on average), or get a benzo that you can take in smaller doses, like oxazepam 10mg, and taper down to 5mg/day (1mg phenazepam=20mg oxazepam approx i think) then cold turkey from 5mg (oazepam is one of the easier benzos to cold turkey i believe).
good luck
 
DO NOT COLD TURKEY, especially not with a shorter-acting benzo. That is begging for a seizure! Taper slowly with a long-acting benzo, either phenazepam or diazepam!
 
Don't use the desmethyltramadol, it decreases seizure threshold even at smaller doses. Normally this isn't a problem but combined with the lowered seizure threshold of benzo withdrawal it becomes an issue. I wouldn't use any of it until you have had all benzos out of your system for 30+ days so you know you are out of seizure territory.
 
Thanks for the advice everyone. I am going to taper as steeply as I can manage while still remaining functional and semi-comfortable for now (1-2mg every 3 days, to start. I'll take more if serious symptoms set in). I should have enough for an 8-10 week taper. If I need more when I start to run out, I will buy another gram. I'll update you guys to let you know how it goes.
 
if you've chosen to taper you will need to make a schedual with a calendar (advent maybe) or diary, and stick to it... anything benzo wise that might be left over flush it....

is there really a seizure risk at 1mg phenazepam (or other benzo at an "equivalent" dose)? I thought it became an issue at far higher doses... surely it would just be a few days of serious anxiety (with a short acting benzo) as opposed to a stretched out withdrawl which might lead to a greater possibility of relapse if you're taking benzos for legit anxiety
 
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after 2 years, even at 1mg or 2mg/day so much accumulates and builds up in your body as OP mentioned that some days you are at a much higher dose than that. I think seizures are a possibility though i've had doctors tell me that it isn't as big of a risk as i think it to be. There are just too many stories of people having seizures on here that i wouldn't take the risk just based on that. A fatal seizure may be unlikely but either way seizures aren't the only concern.

I think switching to a medium acting benzo may possibly be easier. valium tapers drag on forever and eventually you just want to move on. The real risk of relapse comes from not tapering properly rather than how long the taper lasts. If you taper properly it is bearable but when you are constantly dropping your dose you will get symptoms in waves which is better than cold turkey but will certainly make your regular life unstable.
 
Update:

I started tapering the phenazepam as planned (with the addition of 50-100mg hydroxyzine nightly to assist with insomnia), and managed it decently well for the first week.
After that point, the hydroxyzine was no longer sufficient to allow me to sleep, so I added 0.5mg etizolam to my nightly regimen. That worked OK, but three days ago my life took a stressful turn and I decided to give up on the taper for now. It took 4mg of phenazepam (and 1mg of Etiz) taken over ~36 hours to attenuate the symptoms, so I guess I'm better off then last time I tried to taper, but this whole experience has certainly served to reinforce the notion that benzo withdrawal is a bitch.
 
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