Benzos Seizure after about three weeks of w/d??

[Pagey]

Yo,
So I quit tetrazepam after being at doses of 300-400mg daily for three months or so and lower but still pretty high doses for another ~6 months. My doc didn't tell me I needed to taper so I didn't which turned out to be a crappy idea and I had a seizure about 2 days later. Then everything was 'fine' (well, relatively...nothing else life-threatening at least) up until last night when I had another seizure. Was sitting down and fell onto the carpet so not too much harm done at least, but I dunno I thought those only happened in the very initial stages of w/d? Is it weird/unusual/something to worry about that I had one about three weeks later?

 

[RorerQuaalude714]

Good God, get to your local Emergency Department ASAP!!! Seizures CAN BE FATAL and given that you've now had two, you don't want to risk status epilepticus, which is a Code Blue medical emergency. Get to the hospital, explain your situation, and then get on a proper benzo taper regimen. I don't want to repeat myself endlessly here, but when you're having seizures due to benzo withdrawal, YOU CAN DIE FROM THEM. This is extremely serious and you need to get medical attention NOW!

Benzo withdrawal can last up to years, and that includes the risk of seizures. It's called 'protracted withdrawal' and it's serious fucking business. You can't ride this one out yourself. You need medical attention.

 

[faceplant]

Thats a pretty serious cold turkey situations there. As said above definitely get your self to a and e. Most people are only at risk of seizures for 2 weeks or so. However seizures can be a threat years after discontinuing benzo use. Im not sure if theyd want to taper you on a another benzo after 2 weeks, but these seizures need looking at. A seizure after 2 weeks of no problems is really not a good sign.

 

[xxxyyy]

my psychiatrist once explained to me that it roughly takes the brain something in the vicinity of two years to get to its normal state after protracted benzo usage. i don't know if this is true or not, but jesus fucking christ, two seizures really are a pretty big warning sign.
a controlled taper + anticonvulsants seems the way to go.

 

[Pagey]

Okay well I went to the ER today and I'm being put on clonazepam for a few months with a veeeeery slow taper. Apparently clonazepam is an anticonvulsant as well. They were a bit confused as to why I had two seizures though because my doses weren't THAT high... I have to come in for regular check-ups too.
But thanks for your messages this just goes to show to anyone wanting to stop benzos out there, that quitting cold turkey is not a good idea

 

[TheLostBoys]

Good to hear you got the help needed to see you through these hard times. No one should ever go through benzo withdrawal w/o a taper. Opiate quitting cold turkey, yes, can be done but quitting benzo cold turkey, no!

 

[Dread calm]

Well no 2 peoples seizure threshold is the same, but regardless its the gamble you take when stopping Benzos cold turkey. The danger is real as you have now found out, im glad you went to the ER and got pro help with this one, that's what they're there for after all. Best of luck with your tapering, be safe.

 

[verso]

I'm glad that you went to the hospital and now you're on a regimen, but I'm worried that you may have either incredibly low self-esteem, no feeling of self worth, or you're just very uninformed; I don't get the impression that you were too concerned by what had happened to you and there's no real sense of urgency in your first post. I mean you suffered two seizures and went on to say, "...not too much harm done" as though you had tripped, fallen, and merely got a bit of dirt on you.

I suffered a seizure, one seizure, and man that was enough to scare the ever-living piss out of me. I "woke up" to my girlfriend sitting on the edge of the bed crying... not a pleasant experience.

 

[Pagey]

It's true there wasn't much urgency in my first post, but that's because 1. I don't think there's much point to that - after all, people will answer when they can no matter how many times I say help and 2. I am indeed not very concerned about all this (and not by lack of info). Not in the sense that I think it's not serious or anything, more in the sense that to be quite honest I don't really care what happens to me by now, my life's falling apart, I tried to commit suicide, failed, and here I am again, and finding it a bit hard to 'live' if you see what I mean - if all that explains your queery. I dunno. Just feeling a bit empty and unconcerned by everything. But anyway thanks for your concern if you're really worried and stuff I'd be glad to talk about this via PM but I dunno if you want to. as you wish.

 

[spini4]

A week ago after my xanax script ran out my wife seen me on our bed, twitching my eyebrows, eyes shut tight, I had a feeling as I was unable to move my body felt 1000 pounds, but I was still aware of my surroundings. I was able to hear her when she asked me if she should call 911 and with all my strength I as able to partially mutter "no," to her. A minute or 2 later I was back to normal although with a pretty wicked headache. I was not sure weather this was a seizure or what it was. Describe how you felt during your seizure?

 

[Pagey]

Hmm that's not at all what my experience was like but then again I think types of seizures vary a lot, yours sounds like one though. My experience is that I started trembling extremely violently, I could barely breathe and I started sweating all over, then I felt this sort of shock run through my body, I was somewhat aware of what was happening but I couldn't move anything and I was hurting/burning all over...then nothing and I woke up on the floor a bit later. The second time it was basically the same but a little less intense.

 

[Trigeminal]

Okay well I went to the ER today and I'm being put on clonazepam for a few months with a veeeeery slow taper. Apparently clonazepam is an anticonvulsant as well. They were a bit confused as to why I had two seizures though because my doses weren't THAT high... I have to come in for regular check-ups too.
But thanks for your messages this just goes to show to anyone wanting to stop benzos out there, that quitting cold turkey is not a good idea

Just goes to show you how little they know about benzos, seeing as how your dose did give you a seizure. The same dose of one class of benzos for the same amount of time can affect different people very differently.

 

[Pagey]

Yeah definitely, they really didn't seem to know much about it, to be honest they didn't seem interested in much else than judging me....8(

 

[Trigeminal]

Yeah definitely, they really didn't seem to know much about it, to be honest they didn't seem interested in much else than judging me....8(

Yea that will always happen, but that's just how it is. I judged other drug users all the time for it even though at that time I was using drugs myself.

Good news is people's attitudes will usually drastically change if you get sober.

 

[verso]

So you guys were aware of your surroundings, or, at least somewhat? That's terrifying!

I was not aware of anything at all; I remember taking a sip of my coffee, putting it back down onto the desk, and then I woke up in my bed with my girlfriend on the end of it, crying. I wasn't too alarmed, and I felt alright apart from having a headache, and then my girlfriend asked me, "What were you doing before you got onto the bed?"

But I wasn't sure what she meant, and so she asked the question again, "Do you remember what you were doing before you got into bed?" And then I knew that something was wrong, and that's when I got really nervous. I noticed that my shoes were on, and my computer was on, and my books were all out, and I realized that I had been getting ready for class... but that I had somehow ended up back in bed.

I wasn't sure how that happened... and that's when she told me, "You had a seizure." And I got really scared, and I started crying.

I remembered trying to finish my paper in time for class, and I remembered getting really, really anxious when it looked like I wouldn't finish. According to my girlfriend, after taking a sip of my coffee and putting it back down, I got "stiff," sort of turned around in my computer chair as though I might say something to her, my eyes sort of rolled, and I fell onto the floor and convulsed for like four minutes.

But that was my experience.

To the OP: I understand your feeling of worthlessness, and I can understand having no real confidence, self-esteem, or feeling of self-worth. Believe me, I understand. And I wish that I could have some better advice for you than this: If you aren't seeing someone now, and if you're opposed to talking to a therapist or whatever, then at the very least go get some things off your chest in our Dark Side forum. I wish that I could have better advice for you than that, but I'm battling all those same feelings of worthlessness that you are. It sucks, man, but I wish you all the best. Really, I do. Because I think that we have the potential to be more and do more, but we're just our own worst enemies sometimes.

 

[Pagey]

Yea that will always happen, but that's just how it is. I judged other drug users all the time for it even though at that time I was using drugs myself.

Good news is people's attitudes will usually drastically change if you get sober.

Yeah I was expecting it. It's still annoying though, especially since I went there because of the fact that I am getting clean and haven't taken any in almost a month...*sigh*

Verso - well I was aware of what was happening only at the very beginning, for like a minute or so. I lost consciousness after the first convulsion, at least I assume that's what it was since as I said, I felt a huge shock and everything was burning and stuff. But then yeah it's nothing until I came to on the floor about 5 mn later.
That must've been really scary for your girlfriend though! One of my cousins is epileptic and has seizures very regularly (like 5 or 6 times a day) and I remember the first time I saw it, which was a few months ago, it freaked the hell out of me. For some reason I got more scared when I saw that then when I had one myself...bit weird.

And thanks for the support, it means a lot I did expect to find a lot of people in similar situations on this forum - after all if we got into drugs, most of the time it's because we weren't satisfied with 'natural' things. I've been seeing a psychologist for like a year but she hasn't been helping much. And yeah might open up on the Dark Side one of these days

 

[Druidus]

One of my seizures had me involved in three hit and runs in one day, and is why I no longer drive. I kind of remember an experience of hopping into a car and driving away shouting about getting help. Nothing else of them, just waking up with the police. Thankfully there were no injuries, I was just not there to handle my own conscious experience. I never knew this one was a seizure until later, at first we thought medication interaction.

My second seizure, I was in a taxi to my girlfriend's. We were both fine, and sober save perhaps some cannabis. I don't recall any real withdrawal. But I started pulling my hair by the ends repeatedly and babbling, getting out "I have to get out/go somewhere!", and then jumping from the taxi, running 20 or so feet, turning into an alley, and going to its end to collapse into mud. My girlfriend retrieved me, recognizing it as a seizure from what I'D taught here, and got me inside. I came back to myself maybe 15 minutes after it started this time. I didn't even believe I'd had one, at first, I had to be convinced I wasn't being cruelly fucked with, because I honestly had no recollection of before sitting in that living room, the seizure proper, just as if I'd jumped from the taxi to the couch through teleportation. I must have naturally ignored the way I had a disconnected series of mental events, because I vociferously protested in the name of my good health that I'd not seizured. Well, I had.

They suck, man.

 

[Ashley]

Every seizure I have had when I've been unable to obtain benzos, and I've had a lot of them (12 or 13), have always been grand mal seizures or "tonic clonic x2"? seizures, occurring usually on day 3 of withdrawal. Happy to say my fiance and I are no longer addicted to benzos, after 5 weeks in a detox facility and then a rehabilitation center. Now, if I take alprazolam I get a nice result from 2-3mg instead of 50-60mg.

 

[Pagey]

12-13 seizures? Shit! Oo

 

[Donewthislife]

Every seizure I have had when I've been unable to obtain benzos, and I've had a lot of them (12 or 13), have always been grand mal seizures or "tonic clonic x2"? seizures, occurring usually on day 3 of withdrawal. Happy to say my fiance and I are no longer addicted to benzos, after 5 weeks in a detox facility and then a rehabilitation center. Now, if I take alprazolam I get a nice result from 2-3mg instead of 50-60mg.

You need to be careful continuing to use benzos again. You will soon find 2-3mg no longer working and you'll be back to doing 50-60mg again and back at a rehab. Benzos are supposed to be only used for short-term relief from anxiety. Problem is that once they wear off, you have more anxiety then what you started with. Try some breathing techniques or meditation if its anxiety you suffer from.