Benzos The Benzodiazepine MEGA THREAD - Direct Benzo Questions Here

[THE_REAL_OBLIVION]

Had been 5 days without my diazepam. See how I used "my" ? I never do that with any other medication, not even opiates or now suboxone. It is the only thing that doesn't fail me. That makes able not to worry about my health constantly (methadone induced hypogonadism and low cortisol levels, started testosterone SC injection therapy in august and cortef only 2 weeks ago. Too bad I was too out of it from being out of benzos to give a shit about getting my blood levels of cortisol checked (my endo doctor I saw for the cortisol deficiency gave me that too, to verify in case suboxone I have been taking since august too now has changed the toxic effects of methadone). So now I don't even know if the cortisol is warranted, maybe that problem was corrected after stopping methadone (which is a known major offender, compared to partial agonists like buprenorphine, at least for testosterone, it is proven).

Testosterone indeed made me get bigger and wanting to do exercice, can't bring myself to do cardio though, except for very short bike rides (my brother in his pity of me bought me a kickass expensive Schwinn bike in august too...but eh this is canada...can't use it now). BUT it's horrible how much weight I gained since stopping methadone, going to suboxone and taking testosterone, went from 215 to 280 (I'm 6'0 tall, but it's finally showing, all in my stomach) I've reduced my weight a couple times before successfully but I never got to this much weight! I can't make sense of it other than maybe stopping to use Dexedrine daily, the comedowns were so awful it would make me take more of my valium / xanax script and get me in a vicious cycle I know everyone here knows of.

Basically, I am underdosed. The year where I was on valium 20mg during the day, .5mg of xanax in case of panic attacks (only 1 a day max) and 15mg mogadon for sleep is when I was at the top of it (also could use my very very much needed Dexedrine then). Methadone just made a joke out of my Dexedrine at first (I could take my 20mg xr in the morning then go to bed anyways, IR's worked better, but that's not how my script works, 20mg in the morning xr, 10mg ir at 3-4 pm in case I had more school work/work then I felt I could handle), and I had a long time major daily benzo usage without abuse before I ever abused opiates other than Codeine seldom.

I got lucky and the methadone/suboxone doctors at my clinic have now enough experience to know that letting someone only take diazepam with a taper in the future while one is getting accustomed to methadone is fine, they did indeed remove the mogadon (worst thing of all to me) and the xanax. My psychiatrist, who is pretty cool, yet severe, it's hard to explain, he gives me a hard time, but when I explain my shit correctly without lies with total honesty, normally understands how fucking crazy benzo withdrawal is, even if he tried to push a lot of bad shit to add on top of it that I didn't take, except Seroquel 25mg prn for sleep once the mogadon was gone; assured the methadone/suboxone clinic I was an exemplary benzo user (and that's not lying). Anyway I only added this parcel of text here because of the OMG BENZOS + Methadone people...I always have to explain that I was addicted to benzos WAY before I ever stuck a needle in my hand or even abused orally potent opiates other than codeine, so there ya go, I didn't die, I'm on suboxone now.

I imagine my post could be both in the suboxone thread and here because it all comes down to two things : Anybody here with actual reasons to worry a lot in life where it makes them become sick and NEED benzos to live, not to get fucked up, and also not to become sick from the withdrawal see absolutely no reason why they should quit benzos ? They are the only thing that ever helped me, yet the system makes it such a bitch to deal with the stigma/VERY strict refills (I refilled my clonidine script 2 weeks early, government insurance renewed it without a flinch, a day before the official day is the only way the gov insurance will let you go....) I mean for fuck's sake they aren't opiates, which are supposedly much more controlled...but when I sought opiates for relief for my damaged temporal area nerves/TMJ disorder from my maxillary dentist + the ER it would be a breeze to get theme, even multiple refills of Dilaudid 2mg's.

I enjoy normal life more than being fucked up these days, especially since the testo and cortisol came into my life and have made me feel a state of mind and body I had forgotten about. This is not about being fucked up. I did indeed taper if I'm only on 20mg of valium right now after having the 15mg nitrazepam and .5mg xanax taken away last year when I got on methadone. I try to take less valium but then I just feel the out of this world bad feels + the sweating + self hatred + suicidal thoughts (rarely) that come to me when I try only 5mg a day. I imagine I'll have to convince my psychiatrist the same way I convinced him in 2010 when I got rid of my 3.5/4mg clonaz a day habit then with valium (he never was aware of the mogadon and xanax, but most of the time, those scripts from my neurologist and GP I used mainly prn, especially when I was on Dexedrine daily, believe it or not Dexedrine allowed me to manage my stress MUCH easier.

tl;dr : Do you believe there is nothing wrong with needing a very steady and non abusive usage of benzos long term in cases of problems like PTSD, GAD, SAD, Resistant Depression etc. ? Because all the warnings I read everywhere seem to be N/A to me and a sample of people I know + anecdotal experience from people around here and other forums, newsgroups etc. I imagine the glaucoma warnings are very real though, it would be one hell of a downer (heh) if I ever developed glaucoma and had to stop benzos cold turkey or through the barbaric Phenobarbital detox. My life is 150% better since I had some of my then unknown health issues taken care of, I imagine I will be able to take a taper one of these days, but I'm not ready for that yet, I think getting rid of benzos is the very last thing to do in cases similar to mine. The ashton method worked wonderfully with my psychiatrist, even if it was made a bit faster than it should have, that's why I got stuck at 20mg anyway. Thank heavens diazepam comes in 10, 5 and 2mg pills, so I will be able to reduce my dosage by 1mg a week when the time comes.

 

[Gratuitous Grace]

hey there's no need to get that offensive for such a silly reason (if there is actually any)

Totally agree. I'm just frustrated with how you ask a question, don't get exactly what you're looking for, and then respond with the equivalent of "never mind, you guys don't understand."

also, do I really have to explain the difference between dose and effects??

Yes, please. I'm pretty experienced with Benzos ... just counted, and I think I've taken them roughly 15,000 times over the course of the last 15 years. I or someone else could probably get you the information you're looking for if you could be clearer. But, your rhetorical question sounds like another brush-off. I'm not sure?

 

[Gratuitous Grace]

I feel bad for any of you with benzo addiction. I was addicted to opiates n am now on 8 mg of suboxone but I don't think there is something like that for benzo addiction, is there? I really hope that one day there is one because, from what I have read here, and what I have heard, it sounds terrible n I feel for you all.
I myself, have never touched benzos n I hope that you don't mind that I've subscribed to this thread n interacting as I find it interesting n like to research new information re different drugs, addiction etc - if that's ok?
And you're more than welcome to PM me if anyone needs a chat. I may not understand benzos but as I said I've had an addiction so can relate in that way.
All the best,
Evey xxx

Thanks for the kind words. To answer your question, there are some tricky things you can do with DXM and maybe some other stuff ... but in the end, Benzo withdrawal just is what it is. Probably better to get really fancy with the timing and amount of your taper than to look for yet more substances to add to an already pretty insane situation.

Do you believe there is nothing wrong with needing a very steady and non abusive usage of benzos long term in cases of problems like PTSD, GAD, SAD, Resistant Depression etc. ?

That's the big question, right? Are you still treating those conditions after weeks, months, years of steady Benzo use? Or are you treating Benzo withdrawal symptoms -- which, maybe ironically, feel a hell of a lot like those conditions. I don't know if we'll ever know. In my case, I started taking Xanax my first year of law school for some anxiety-producing situation or another. Maybe a class presentation or something? I forget. That was in the fall of 2000. And here I am going into my 14th year of use. My legal career ended two years ago ... and yet my Benzo career is still going strong. Anyone see the sad irony here?

I imagine I will be able to take a taper one of these days, but I'm not ready for that yet, I think getting rid of benzos is the very last thing to do in cases similar to mine. The ashton method worked wonderfully with my psychiatrist, even if it was made a bit faster than it should have, that's why I got stuck at 20mg anyway. Thank heavens diazepam comes in 10, 5 and 2mg pills, so I will be able to reduce my dosage by 1mg a week when the time comes.

When it's your time, it's your time. Whenever you're ready. And there will be tons of people around for support. This is getting more and more play as the suffering just keeps on mounting. The time for my own Klonopin taper is fast approaching. I'm down to 1.0 mg per day -- after a long ass taper from somewhere around 10 or 12 mg per day in the beginning of 2008. I've become convinced that a "liquid titration" will be best for me -- even though I don't have personal experience with it. This is where you crush up your daily dose (in pill form) into a powder and mix it with milk. You reduce by 1% per day for 100 days. So, I'll take 1.00 mg on day 1, 0.99 mg on day 2, 0.98 mg on day 3 ... like that. Until I'm done. It's a smooth but steady taper, and apparently it can get rough toward the end. Nothing's rougher than a rocky reduction that you hold until you're comfortable, though. I stupidly tried to cut from 1.0 mg per day to 0.75 mg per day a couple weekends ago -- and spent the entire following week in bed eating toast and drinking tea and ginger ale. Party!

My best to all...

 

[Captain.Heroin]

I use benzos long term for PTSD. I just use them as needed and not daily.

 

[Blind Melon]

I'm sure this has been asked, but I truly did look, and I cannot find it in my stoned state. I'm sure there's many of you educated posters out there that know if it's good to eat before swallowing benzos, maybe an hour? or would an empty stomach be better? I would imagine they'd possibly hit harder, but not last as long. And what about eating food an hour after using benzos?

 

[Oxy8_8]

I'm sure this has been asked, but I truly did look, and I cannot find it in my stoned state. I'm sure there's many of you educated posters out there that know if it's good to eat before swallowing benzos, maybe an hour? or would an empty stomach be better? I would imagine they'd possibly hit harder, but not last as long. And what about eating food an hour after using benzos?

I never noticed a difference but I rarely eat plus I always chew my benzo's. I try not to eat after them, but they usually make me hungry (or at least cause sugar cravings).

 

[happyneedles]

Hi. I couldn't find the answer I was looking for anywhere, so here we go!

I've been taking about 30mgs of hydrocodone a day for about 4 days now. I just want to know if it would be safe to take Klonopin (or even Xanax) 24 hours after my last hydrocodone dose. I do have a pretty high tolerance to both since I take them often. I just don't want to run the risk of taking them too close together.

Thanks duuuudes.

 

[Snake_Eyes]

Similar question to above.

I took 20mg of oxycodone at 11:00am this morning would it be safe to take a benzo at 9:00pm tonight?

 

[TheLostBoys]

10mg Temazies + 10mg Vicodin= Laid back & smooth relaxing a bit euphoric & what else would you want................throw in a 10mg of valium & now we're talking

 

[RTrain]

I'd like to know if anyone can tell me if I am probably not going to be having much w/d from this situation:

- Over past 3 & 1/2 months I have taken around 100 mg of xanax
- First 2 months was taking appx 1 mg/day
- For the next month cut down to around .5 mg/day
- Last 2 weeks (10-14? days) cut down to .25 mg/day
- Last ate .25 mg @ 2:00 pm on Thurs and snorted .25 @ 10:30 pm

Its is now 7:00 am on Saturday. I don't feel too bad, by no means nothing I can't deal with. Also started taking Suboxone only on Tuesday so still not completely adjusted there, its hard to tell what is causing any problems, but I do feel pretty good.

At this point is it unlikely I am going to feel any worse?

 

[benzoman12345]

I think you will be fine, you tapered sensibly, might be a bit shakey and numb at first, give it a week

What u could do is just have 0.25mg on hand at all times, and put it off as much as your body will allow if you get any bad W/D's

 

[garchi]

Sooooooo

Last weekend I had a bit of a blackout weekend with alc where I took approx. 40 mg diclazepam (supposedly 1 mg diclzepam equals 10 mg diazepam, although I doubt that fact or my pellets were not dosed as high). In the week since then I've ended every day with approx. 2 mg diclazepam + 2-4 mg pyrazolam plugged and had a really good/productive week. But obvisiously this can't continue and I'm definitely feeling myseelf slipping into addiction.

My question: Based on my usage, are there any withdrawal symptoms likely? Apart from this intense week I used benzos only very sporadically (mostly etizolam) to comedown after a 5-MAPB session which doesn't happen too often.

Thank you

 

[RTrain]

Haha, That was actually my plan, save a dose for any potential absolute need. Then I legit threw a half 1 mg in my mouth in the middle of the night, because i thought it was a Suboxone piece. Pulled it out but it was already broken down halfway. It left me with that piece and another 1/4.

 

[Specterchild]

Swim has a self made PG\Etizolam\H2o solution, he is considering IV to be his primary ROA. Does anyone have experience with this? Swim is aware of the dangers and is simply asking if anyone has first hand knowledge with this ROA. (pg is food grade)

Ratio : (1mg)etiz, (1ML)pg, (3-4ml) H2o -- it works --

I hope om not the only one experimenting.

 

[opiateman23]

too much drugs... speed and many mg's of ativan to come down. yellow jackets and benzos

 

[Specterchild]

Iv etiz

Swim has a self made PG\Etizolam\H2o solution, he is considering IV to be his primary ROA. Does anyone have experience with this? Swim is aware of the dangers and is simply asking if anyone has first hand knowledge with this ROA. (pg is food grade)

Ratio : (1mg)etiz, (1ML)pg, (3-4ml) H2o -- it works --

I hope om not the only one experimenting.

this is serious feedback is necessery

 

[20s50s100s]

.5 of xanax? 1 MG barely has mg feeling anything and 5 mg Valium? My friend took a 10 mg Valium in class and he didn't feel 1 but of anything? Is this for certain weights?

 

[Surfer12]

I hope that is not going against rules ????????

 

[cwake18]

I hope that is not going against rules ????????

Maybe you should read them first. No advertising or sourcing, period.

Additionally, even though this thread is like 9 months old, I was on Xanax IR and Xanax XR through a doc 2 years ago. He had me on them in this order:

Xanax IR 0.25mg BiD - Xanax XR 0.5mg 2 tabs BID
Xanax IR 0.5mg BiD - Xanax XR 2mg qam
Xanax IR 0.5mg QiD - Xanax XR 2mg qam
Xanax IR 1.0mg TiD - Xanax XR 1.0mg qam

So needless to say I had experience with 3/4 of each of the IR and XR formulations (he even offered at once to switch to XR 3mg, I declined) and it's so hard to defeat the time mechanism. I still could sell a 2mg XR for the same as a 2mg IR for whatever reason, because alprazolam is alprazolam, but if taken "by the book" it will last twice as long and won't hit you as hard. I like to compare Xanax XR very closely to Klonopin except it still doesn't even have as long a half-life, but they behaved with me almost the same.

The original OCs you could lick coating off and crush a powdery pill up. Same with original Opana. But the Alprazolam ER/Xanax XR is made with an extremely frustrating composition that turns to gel/gum as soon as moisture hits it no matter how finely you shave it down. My 0.5mg XR pentagons were the worst cuz they are huge pills, yield the least alp for an XR pill, and have 5 sharp points due to how rock hard the pills are.

Basically they pills feel like SUPER hard WAX. And the OP I believe was the one who said it got stuck in his/her teeth and molars, my experience exactly. My friend however crushed like 3 (they are as difficult to crush as new OCs) and parachuted and claimed he felt it, but then again, he wasn't taking them daily and at that point I had a 2.5-4mg/day alp tolerance and taking 3-4mg IR was required to buzz me.

Anyway, Pfizer apparently shared this special formula with the generic manufacturers (I know it doesn't work like that, just phrasing it this way) because I had maybe 3 brands of the XRs over time, although mostly Greenstone (made by Pfizer, identical) and they're all just as hard to mess with, so I just took them as given and focused on my IR supply lol. To make my post not worthless and answer the 5 year old question the thread was posing, you'll never get full effects from crushed XR, otherwise they'd be much more popular and docs wouldn't rx them out in the high(er) doses that they do, like how my doc refused to go higher than 1mg on IR tabs but offered to go to 3mg XR. End of thread, lol.

 

[RTrain]

So does anyone else get ridiculously cold on benzos, especially higher doses? I I have a good amount of experience with them, but usually keep the dose down. I haven't taken a benzo in weeks now and was over-stressed yesterday so I popped 2 mg of clonazepam. It defnitely helped the stress and getting what I needed done, but I woke up this morning and I am freezing. I tried drinking some milk and it seemed so much colder than usual, to the point that I could barely drink it. I don't get why benzos drop my core temp so much, but if anything opiates raise it. Even though they are both CNS depressants.

.5 of xanax? 1 MG barely has mg feeling anything and 5 mg Valium? My friend took a 10 mg Valium in class and he didn't feel 1 but of anything? Is this for certain weights?

Well those are not huge doses but I would expect to feel something from 1 mg of xanax and 10 mg of valium. Not anything crazy, but definitely noticeable. Even .5 mg xanax is enough to feel smoething, I think .5 xanax is = to 10 mg of valium, as a rough idea of how strong they are. So 5 mg of valium is pretty low dose, at that dose you won't notice much of anything.

Honestly you sound like a lot of the people I went to school with who would eat massive amounts of benzos because they didn't get enough off smaller doses. But for me they have always just been icing on the cake, I don't find them, by themselves, very enjoyable. They are great for sleep and preventing anxiety. But its not a crazy euphoric high like opiates. You might just be expecting more than a benzo offers. Its why they have dirt cheap street prices. Don't think you just need to take a ton to get the real high you want, because you just end up blacked out and making an ass of yourself.