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Mental Health Valium

G

ghostworld1990

Greenlighter
Joined
Jun 24, 2015
Messages
12
Hi,

I'm new to this, so I'm sorry if I'm posting in the wrong thread or something! My friend has been taking Valium for around 18 months, some weeks 10mg, some weeks 100mg. This is for anxiety but also because it numbs every day mental health issues.

He wants to know if there's going to be any long-term health problems from this varying dosage for this period of time (18 months), and if stopping now will cause any bad withdrawal effects - and what would be the best way of coming off the Valium to avoid any such effects?

Thank you.
 
10mg per week or 100mg/week doesn't explain much.

Is he taking a dose everyday? If so, tell him to get on the lowest dose he feels stable on then work from there. (seemingly 10mg or less)

18 months is certainly more than enough time to experience withdrawal effects. It's difficult to predict how bad they will be.
 
Valium itself does have a VERY long half-life as well. So if he does experience withdrawals they can last months! There are reports of them lasting up to six months. Not to say it's going to happen to him. But it's a possibility. IME back when I was benzo-naive I went through a few hundred valiums in a couple weeks or month. AVG daily dose to feel 'normal' was about 120mg. And my wd's only lasted about a week (coldsweats, tremors, everything...). At the time I was very uneducated about the bad side of drugs and didn't even know what tolerance was let alone withdrawals. I just thought I was sick and laid in bed for a week. BUT very severe cases of benzo and also alcohol withdrawals are the only two you can actually die from (maybe barb's too I'm not 100% on that off the top of my head). So it's probably best to do it under the supervision of a doctor. He may seem fine but you never know. While in a detox center myself, this guy was in there for alcohol, and it was something like his 5th day. He seemed fine, was going to group, active, social, but mid-day while showering and getting ready he just BAM! fell to the ground and started seizing. They had to take him away to the ER of course. And that's the last I saw of him. Hope he's ok... But yeah anyway, supervision... doctor's supervision is vital.
 
If he was taking 100mg's a week (not alot but enough to cause problems) every week then it would be the time to get abit worried about withdrawal but if his use was sporadic he will most likely get off easy. In the past i took heavy doses of benzos for weeks on and weeks off with no noticeable wd syndrome. Although i don't seem to be particularly susceptible to benzo wd's because even at 6mg's of Clonazepam for almost a decade i didn't get unbearable symptoms when i had to basically cold turkey it for a few weeks. But i'm a very rare case and i was on 2 different anti-convulsants as well so no doubt that helped.

Id just recommend dropping the dose down to what he's comfortable with then going from there. Remember Valium has a very long half life of up to 200 hours so you can very well think your out of the woods then bam withdrawal set's in days later. So just because you can go 2 days without it really doesn't mean shit. With Clonazepam which has a half life of 48 hours i can go nearly 2 days before i really notice anything. This is part of what makes benzo wd so dangerous because you can think your fine one minute then you wake up the next morning in fucking hell. So he should definitely have some on hand to taper with if he needs too. Luckily Valium is a easy one to taper from compared to shorter acting benzo such as Alprazolam or Lorazepam and the dose is much easier to adjust.
 
Thanks guys, his dosage varies, it's not always daily, usually at least a day break. So maybe 30mg 3 x a week, etc. Recently it's been 485mg over 36 days - do you think medical help is required? GP is unaware of this, he's worried they'll give him trouble.
 
I'm not qualified to say yes or no that medical help is "required". But I do know they won't give him trouble if he goes to a detox place. That's exactly what they're there for. It's usually the step before rehab. and is in a way a type of rehab.
 
Not money to afford a detox clinic that isn't government funded :( could someone please provide the best 'taper' plan for this kind of dosage? that would be extremely helpful to us. how much to cut down each week, etc? he's really panicking something bad is going to happen to him due to the continuous useage and I don't know what to suggest.
 
Basically he's scared he's been on a dangerous dose to ease the severe anxiety caused by his PTSD and he's terrified that withdrawal might make his PTSD worse :(
 
given the info you provided.. (approx 90mg/week)

I would try to take 10mg daily then taper from there.

He could try to go as long as possible without any dose and see what happens, although, to be cautious I wouldn't recommend that.

If you post in the subforum other drugs you should get more responses.
 
The reason you're taking it, to numb out everyday problems, is probably the worst reason to take it. There are non-recreational but more effective medications for that. Along with talk therapy, you could start to get at the core of your problems and fix them to the extent that you don't need recreational substances anymore.
 
He's in therapy, sorting through things, it's the psychical symptoms of anxiety that the drugs can help him control, something than can become overwhelming and 'too much' - but he doesn't want to stay on them. Tapering down from 10mg a day, how long would you say to do this for, what dose afterwards? Etc?

Thank you guys.
 
Why doesn't he ask his therapist? I know they aren't medical doctors or allowed to prescribe meds but they work with psychiatrists, or at the very least have contacts who can give him 'professional' advise.

Realistically, from personal experience, (been on kpins for almost ten years, and have abused multiple benzos simultaneously - including the whole phenazepam craze... and have gone cold-turkey plenty of times w/ no serious/deadly​ issues) I think he'll be ok and it won't be as serious of a situation as he is thinking it to be. But since this is all about Harm Reduction my 2 cents is what I would do in a perfect Harm Reduction world.
 
Wait a second...

Where is he getting these Valium's from?? Why doesn't he talk to THAT doctor??
 
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