Tastyfruit
Greenlighter
- Joined
- Aug 28, 2015
- Messages
- 3
Hello,
**I thought I should upload this somewhere so it may help someone else down the road.
Hello,
**I thought I should upload this somewhere so it may help someone else down the road.
..
Backstory:
I have been using phenibut since the end of 2009 when
someone introduced me to it. Like so many others, I
got the great buzz the first few times, and after
that it was great for relaxation and sleep. I would
go to clubs and take a lot of phenibut or sometimes I
would go and just DXM trip. I had gotten my B.S.
degree and couldn’t find a job. I was either
overqualified or underqualified. My parents were
hounding me to find work and all I could get was jobs
that were back breaking. I ended up stocking
overnights and got a herniated disc in my back that
is to this day still not right. I had gotten a mixed
supplement in a purple bottle, I loved it. I was
giving it out to my friends. I didn’t know you’re NOT
supposed to use it every day at this point (probably
said it on the bottle but I’m sure I thought it was
being over cautious).
Later down the line I started using bulk powder
phenibut. I would often go months taking it nonstop.
I never got much higher than 2 g a day, mostly
because if I went much above 1 gram I felt totally
“drunk” and often felt nauseated and had to lay still
and I wouldn’t ever dose more than once a day. I
remember one time I did 5 grams and I was sick as a
dog in bed for the night and most of the next day. I
would stop taking it for months in between nonstop
monthly usage and I can't remember much withdrawal in
the beginning. I know I could cold turkey stop it and
it never affected me back then. If it did it was
probably I couldn’t really sleep well. Then again at
that time I was also big on DXM, which I had gotten
in bulk and was abusing daily. So if there were
withdrawals I’m sure they were masked. I was all
about the legal highs right after I graduated
college. I wanted to numb out and feel good until
something better in life happened. I had done so bad
on the LSAT(I wanted to go to law school) because I
literally couldn’t read when I sat down to take the
test, and studying for it was a nightmare, it was
going in one eyeball and out the other. It was like
staring at hieroglyphics.(Later down the road I found
I have ADD but I’ve always been high functioning
enough that it wouldn’t affect my grades too much) I
felt like a failure. At that time I got hired at a
neurology office and met a nice guy. I had stopped
DXM and sort of got my life together, moved away from
my parents to another state with my boyfriend.
I ended up getting on klonopin around 2010-2012 from
a psychiatrist (who ended up really over medicating
me over the years, I have since switched).Things
started going downhill with that guy and I lived very
far from my family. Klonopin was pretty good for
anxiety but I always noticed phenibut felt stronger
(I wasn’t taking phenibut while I was on the
prescription stuff). I was thinking maybe because of
the SSRI effects and the GABA b interactions on
receptors that phenibut felt more potent (as well as
other receptors I’m sure). Whatever my brain seemed
to be lacking with receptors phenibut seemed to
always fix and klonopin was a close match.
I respond well to SNRI’s and I was on Effexor XR
which really helped with depression. At the time my
anxiety was so bad. I couldn’t sleep with my
significant other and it messed with his head that I
would go try and sleep on the couch. Over time the
psychiatrist put me on a lot of medication, and I
only ended up on more stuff after him and I broke up,
and I had gotten a job at a hospital and realized I
could make it on my own so I moved out on my own
staying in this state far from my parents.
I had an x boyfriend who wanted to sleep well so I
gave him a Seroquel that the psychiatrist had given
me. He was the biggest jerk the next day, and then I
realized it was the Seroquel making me a raging bitch
to everyone at my new job. Seroquel was really nasty.
He said to me “wow, I think it’s this drug making me
like this, you should try to get off of it.”
I started to think about the trail of chemicals I had
gone through and I knew I had to get off everything
and find my baseline again. Figure out what was
really going on with me now and what needed to be
addressed. The first thing I needed to get off was
the klonopin. I knew I would take away sleep
medication last.
I had tried to do a quick 5 day taper from klonopin
like the psychiatrist said when I told her I wanted
to see how I was without it, and I remember that
March 2013 like it was yesterday. After the 5 days
was up it was pretty much a cold turkey jump. I was
up to 3 mg of klonopin daily. It still gives me the
chills when I think back on it. I would lie in bed
crying anytime I wasn’t working. It was absolutely
horrible. Every day it felt like you had just found
out you lost something very dear to you. Then one day
near the end of March I went to the medicine cabinet,
saw the klonopin in the back, and I took one tablet
under my tongue and it was like the lights turned on.
I realized I was going through klonopin withdrawal. I
looked it up online (wow the horror stories!) I
decided I was going to taper myself off at my pace
waiting for physical cues that it was okay to jump
down doses. It was the worst feeling I had ever had
in my life the entire six months tapering but it was
at the same time rewarding. I realized I could
control my use of things. I spent my time reading,
meditating, taking up new hobbies, and in general
taking it very easy on myself.
Somewhere along the way of the klonopin taper I
remembered phenibut and a week or two before I
totally stopped klonopin, I took phenibut daily and
it pretty much helped me get off klonopin. Then after
couple weeks after stopping klonopin I was able to
cold turkey stop phenibut and I had no withdrawal at
that time. Using one GABA drug to get off another
wasn’t smart on my part but remember at that time I
never experienced cold turkey phenibut withdrawal
symptoms or if I did they were probably related to
just sleep which I was still taking other medication
for.
Then I took it upon myself to get off all the other
medication the psychiatrist had messed me up on,
which I told her I wanted to do. I wanted to be
sober again and see how I felt; now I was living on
my own away from my traumatic childhood, it was time
to heal to the fullest I could. I was making my life
on my own and I didn’t have to answer to anyone else.
The psychiatrist had me on a lot of antipsychotics
like seroquel(nasty long term effects with use btw).
It was prescribed to me for sleep at the same time as
klonopin to which the therapist said a year later,
"Oh, I must have given it to you because you're
bipolar", and I replied "you gave me the seroquel and
klonopin because I couldn't sleep and I was anxious".
I realized then this psychiatrist definitely didn’t
remember me well enough. I knew I was going to get
off everything and try to not end up in her office
again. She was all too ready to write scripts.
I'm sure everyone has read with phenibut the
withdrawal gets WORSE each time you spin the wheel.
And most of the time since I’ve come off phenibut
there were other substances in play which held me
floating.
***Which leads me to 2015, I had not used phenibut
since I got off the klonopin back at the mid/end of
2013. After that I was dead set for about a year and
6 months to never mess with my GABA receptors again.
I avoided drinking like the plague. I knew I needed
to stay off everything and stay as natural as
possible and for a very long time it seemed to work.
I had a really rough “relationship” thing happen with
two people in the beginning of 2015. I started
drinking a little more and more. Then I had gotten
very stressed out and I ended up getting an
infection(which I attribute to stress at the time)
and I was put on antibiotics. The antibiotics threw
my balance off BIG time. I was at peace before it. I
had finally come to terms with things. I had gotten a
promotion at work. Things were looking up and
suddenly I’m thinking about suicide NON STOP. I
really don’t know why, but I cannot think of another
reason that I would have mood shifted so bad like
that.
My friend got me some of the “green” stuff. The
“green” stuff, to be honest, made me feel WORSE. I
would lay there and think about how TERRIBLE life
felt. “Green” stuff always tends to amplify my
current feelings and it wasn’t worth it. Or maybe I
just got bad stuff…who knows. All I know is that
after the antibiotic use and drinking before that, I
felt like I was going through klonopin withdrawal all
over again, the same dysphoria, extreme depression…it
was out of control. I knew I needed to hop back on
phenibut until I could get a new doctor.
I went to the employee help mental service. They set
me up with a new psychiatrist. She had trouble
diagnosing me. She said I was either a mild bipolar 2
or severely depressed with ADD and OCD. I definitely
don’t have enough mood fluctuations to qualify for
bipolar 2 and most certainly not bipolar 1. The
first thing she put me on was Effexor XR at my
insistence. She was hesitant because she said SNRI
and SSRI’s can make people with bipolar worse. I told
her I knew that and I told her it had really helped
before and I wanted to try it again. So the Effexor
XR and phenibut started helping. I was so social at
work, the depression faded, and there were no more
suicidal thoughts. I applied for a better job and
even had the nerve to email the manager of the
department with my resume. I went back to the
psychiatrist and told her how much progress I was
making. I didn’t tell her I had taken the phenibut
too.
Most doctors seem to have no idea what it is or think
it’s a placebo. She asked what my major symptom is
now and I told her focus. This psychiatrist would
only prescribe one thing at a time. She explained if
there are side effects we won’t know what is causing
it. I explained how when people talk I’m always going
in and out of their conversation with me and how I
can’t read and how the words flow away from me and I
read the same paragraphs over and over but nothing
retains or really sets in because I’m busy thinking
about thirty other things that really aren’t relevant
at this time. So she put me on Adderall IR. I got
promoted again in less than 6 months and I have been
on adderall about 6 weeks now.
I decided to try and phase out phenibut but this time
I am having some mental and physical symptoms and I
am thinking, “wow I am finally feeling the withdrawal
from this”. Phenibut at this point in my life I
noticed within those 72 hrs of not taking it I felt
the symptoms which meant I was physically dependent.
It really isn’t doing much for me anymore. I realized
I needed to taper down.
-----------------------------------------------------
**tl;dr (start here):***
Without further ado, my phenibut taper experience:
From continuous month usage at low doses(no washout
periods in 2015), always below 2 g a day…
I tried to cold turkey, didn’t work.
After reading enough on the subject, I realized I
needed to dose once a day(which I only ever did
anyways because it lasts so long), and towards night
so I could sleep(taken almost right after work takes
4 hrs for me to feel it), with the Adderall IR crash
it helped with falling asleep at least for part of
the night. (FYI: Sx = Symptoms)
I got a new digitial scale because I knew this needed
to be precise, my other one died. RIP.
I could have went slower and waited for more body
cues but to be honest the negative side effects are
outweighing the benefit and I knew if I was vigilant
and did enough research I could do this. I also
wanted to be clean of it and normal again by my 28th
birthday.
August 9-15th 2015: I am dosing just under 1 gram a
day (.9), only in the evening with no withdrawal
symptoms
Su 8/16/15:.85-No Sx
M 8/17/15:.80-No Sx
Tu 8/18/15: .75-No Sx
W 8/19/15: .70-No Sx
Th 8/20/15: .65 -This is where I started to feel it
big time in the evening, I think someone on another
forum said the threshold is around .75 and I really
believe it to be close to what it was for me too.
Anxiety, shakes, trouble falling asleep, the works. I
started cleaning out a drawer and I found a paper
from my new psychiatrist office about the effects of
Lavandula angustifolia (lavender) on anxiety. I read
the study(linked below) and thought why not give it a
whirl(I got the brand the psychiatrist office said
was tested and found had the right stuff on amazon),
I figured it couldn’t hurt. I knew it would come in
the mail on Tuesday the next week and I knew I had a
72 hr buff to try and get it in my system to blunt
the withdrawal symptoms. I also was having a lot of
muscle cramps, I think due to Adderall diuretic
effect so I had gotten some chelated magnesium(also
supposedly helps with anxiety, I figured why not try)
and was taking that with a multivitamin after work
with the phenibut.
f 8/21/15: .70 – chelated mag + vit – No Sx
Sa 8/22/15: .70– chelated mag + vit – No Sx
Su 8/23/15: .70– chelated mag + vit – No Sx
M 8/24/15: .60– chelated mag + vit – (from here I
knew if it didn’t come in the mail tues I would feel
it bad by Wednesday) – No Sx
Tu 8/25/15: .50– chelated mag + vit + 160 mg of the
Silexan Lavender (Lavandula angustifolia)- No Sx
W 8/26/15: .40– chelated mag + vit + 160 mg of the
Silexan Lavender (Lavandula angustifolia)- body
anxiety, my mind feels so calm about an hour I take
the supplements. Not like a high at all, just very at
ease, but I’m still jerking around with the internal
zaps especially at night when I try to lay down to
sleep(like a serotonin withdrawal). I am also still
on the Effexor XR at this point that I take in the
evening. I think it is also in conjunction with
everything else assisting with this process. Also,
like I said I don’t feel anxious or have anxious
thoughts but I get startled easily and kind of jump
from noises. Fight or flight mode must be activated.
Additional 50 mg Benadryl to induce sleep. If I do
NOT sleep, I can NOT function properly. I will spiral
quickly. So maintaining as much sleep as possible is
the goal towards the end here, even a couple hours is
more than enough. I am doing this while I am working
full time, so I must be vigilant to help myself with
everything I can.
Th 8/27/15: .30 – chelated mag + vit + 160 mg of the
Silexan Lavender (Lavandula angustifolia) + 50 mg
benadryl- my mind is still relatively calm but I’m
still having physical symptoms. I do feel a bit
weepy. It’s not anxiety though and I think it might
be related to other things in life. (ie. That evening
I found out that my bf has been lying about certain
things and I found his profile on a dating site. He
ignores me all day, says I’m busy I’ll call you
later, I call him after I can’t sleep anymore he
doesn’t answer, I break it off on text. (Shitty way
to handle it, I know, but you knew I was upset and
you didn’t call back? Or even text back?) There were
other red flags as well, we have only been dating a
short while, so it’s not the end of the world but
definitely not the best time for this to happen, but
I’m not going to let it deter me off course from what
I want to do with myself.) An interesting time for a
test in mental strength, but I will endure it. I
must.
F 8/28/15: .20 – Fell back to sleep early this
morning before work getting an extra hour or so of
sleep. The mental stress of my now x-bf on my mind is
causing me to be more upset than I was yesterday
morning. He still hasn’t responded back. I am trying
hard to regain the Buddhist insight I had before
these string of events from early this year. It is
really freeing when you realize no external thing can
make you happy. We are at no disadvantage for
happiness. The only thing that makes us suffer is
our thoughts. Anyways I digress; I take an extra
160 mg of the Silexan Lavender (Lavandula
angustifolia) this morning before work. It will help
keep me semi-functional at work. The Adderall will
wake me up for sure it has helped every day since I
took it but I’m already irritated upon waking because
of this relationship issue. This evening I plan to do
again… 30 – chelated mag + vit + 160 mg of the
Silexan Lavender (Lavandula angustifolia) + 50 mg
Benadryl.
Sa 8/29/15: .10- I am planning on doing 160 mg of the
Silexan Lavender (Lavandula angustifolia) straight
away in the morning. I may be able to sleep more
during the day if I skip Adderall but it might be
more beneficial to me to get out and do stuff to keep
my mind of current life events. I also make take the
Adderall and exercise my head off to try and
stimulate some natural good feeling chemicals going.
Also I semi rely on the Adderall crash right now to
get half decent sleep. Then in the evening I will
take the last dosage of phenibut and – chelated mag +
vit + 160 mg of the Silexan Lavender (Lavandula
angustifolia) + 50 mg Benadryl.
-------
I will update again with follow up…I would really
like to get to a point that I’m on minimal
medication. I don’t like taking anything daily
anymore. I feel like I if I need to take medication
to help myself, it should be for a short time and
then I should focus on getting clean of everything
again. As someone with a traumatic story, like so
many others, I realize I am prone to drug abuse and
this frightens me and I want minimal medication in my
life, I know I can get back to the free feeling I had
as a young child.
I really feel like the reason I am getting withdrawal
this time is because after I came off klonopin my
GABA receptors are not the same. Even after almost 2
years. I wasn’t having PAWS or anything like that
though. I felt normal and at peace. I highly suggest
avoiding all GABAergic substances for a very long
time if you have an ugly history with GABAergic
substances. I don’t know why the antibiotic threw me
off so hard. I do plan to research more, but I do
know that in people with bipolar, and even people who
aren’t bipolar have issues with antibiotics and their
mood becoming erratic. I know it compounded the
issue that I was drinking right around the time that
I started the antibiotic.
---------
Tips to help with anxiety (YMMV- for the ADD/OCD/depressed brain):
- Silexan Lavender (Lavandula angustifolia) – I
really feel this has enough of an effect if I take 2
gels (160 mg) to help me through most the day, the
last few days I ended up taking 4 a day and it did
help I am buying more. It calms the mind. I’m highly
sensitive to chemicals so I think this is a great
option if you’re highly sensitive to medication. In
the study it was compared to paxil and a placebo and
was easily the best for anxiety.(linked below) I was
taking it right after work so I could wind down and
not stress out when the Adderall wore off. I always
feel anxious when the Adderall wears off, but I
relied on the Adderall crash to sleep.
- Low carb diet- if you’re insulin sensitive
like me there is a lot of benefits to doing low carb,
look up some of the studies they have done on kids
with disabilities and low carb diets, I have noticed
that I am so calm when I am in the low carb
lifestyle. It takes a lot to achieve this lifestyle
and I let it slip away too many times. It’s worth
it. If you’re not into the low carb thing, then just
be healthy and do NOT drink. This will only increase
the withdrawal symptoms.
- Exercise- for all the obvious reasons, this
might be most crucial to the physical symptoms. If
you’re a fat kid, seriously just walk and walk for a
while, like an hour, listen to music. It’s enough to
get the juices going.
- Distractions- Keep yourself busy. Please
focus on laughing. Learn a language, practice an
instrument, watch happy movies, read, explore music,
expand your mind…
- Avoid stimulants- while I was tapering
caffeine seemed to make me a bit more anxious but the
Adderall has always calmed me down. I feel like my
head thinks more clearly and I am able to focus on
task and stop worrying as much. I remember as a teen
my friend got Ritalin and they were going nuts
running all over the house, I took one, sat down and
started reading and I said I don’t feel anything, I
just felt focused. That was a sign a long time ago
that I do have ADD. I tend to have paradoxical
reactions to some chemicals.
"Lavender Oil Preparation Silexan Is Effective in
Generalized Anxiety Disorder – a Randomized, Double-
blind Comparison to Placebo and Paroxetine."
International Journal of Neuropsychopharmacology.
Siegfried Kasper, Markus Gastpar, Walter E Müller,
Hans-Peter Volz, Hans-Jürgen Möller, Sandra Schläfke,
Angelika Dienel, 1 June 2014. Web.
http://ijnp.oxfordjournals.org/content/17/6/859.
This has been my own personal experience, your mileage may vary.
Thanks for reading. I hope it helps someone else.
**I thought I should upload this somewhere so it may help someone else down the road.
Hello,
**I thought I should upload this somewhere so it may help someone else down the road.
..
Backstory:
I have been using phenibut since the end of 2009 when
someone introduced me to it. Like so many others, I
got the great buzz the first few times, and after
that it was great for relaxation and sleep. I would
go to clubs and take a lot of phenibut or sometimes I
would go and just DXM trip. I had gotten my B.S.
degree and couldn’t find a job. I was either
overqualified or underqualified. My parents were
hounding me to find work and all I could get was jobs
that were back breaking. I ended up stocking
overnights and got a herniated disc in my back that
is to this day still not right. I had gotten a mixed
supplement in a purple bottle, I loved it. I was
giving it out to my friends. I didn’t know you’re NOT
supposed to use it every day at this point (probably
said it on the bottle but I’m sure I thought it was
being over cautious).
Later down the line I started using bulk powder
phenibut. I would often go months taking it nonstop.
I never got much higher than 2 g a day, mostly
because if I went much above 1 gram I felt totally
“drunk” and often felt nauseated and had to lay still
and I wouldn’t ever dose more than once a day. I
remember one time I did 5 grams and I was sick as a
dog in bed for the night and most of the next day. I
would stop taking it for months in between nonstop
monthly usage and I can't remember much withdrawal in
the beginning. I know I could cold turkey stop it and
it never affected me back then. If it did it was
probably I couldn’t really sleep well. Then again at
that time I was also big on DXM, which I had gotten
in bulk and was abusing daily. So if there were
withdrawals I’m sure they were masked. I was all
about the legal highs right after I graduated
college. I wanted to numb out and feel good until
something better in life happened. I had done so bad
on the LSAT(I wanted to go to law school) because I
literally couldn’t read when I sat down to take the
test, and studying for it was a nightmare, it was
going in one eyeball and out the other. It was like
staring at hieroglyphics.(Later down the road I found
I have ADD but I’ve always been high functioning
enough that it wouldn’t affect my grades too much) I
felt like a failure. At that time I got hired at a
neurology office and met a nice guy. I had stopped
DXM and sort of got my life together, moved away from
my parents to another state with my boyfriend.
I ended up getting on klonopin around 2010-2012 from
a psychiatrist (who ended up really over medicating
me over the years, I have since switched).Things
started going downhill with that guy and I lived very
far from my family. Klonopin was pretty good for
anxiety but I always noticed phenibut felt stronger
(I wasn’t taking phenibut while I was on the
prescription stuff). I was thinking maybe because of
the SSRI effects and the GABA b interactions on
receptors that phenibut felt more potent (as well as
other receptors I’m sure). Whatever my brain seemed
to be lacking with receptors phenibut seemed to
always fix and klonopin was a close match.
I respond well to SNRI’s and I was on Effexor XR
which really helped with depression. At the time my
anxiety was so bad. I couldn’t sleep with my
significant other and it messed with his head that I
would go try and sleep on the couch. Over time the
psychiatrist put me on a lot of medication, and I
only ended up on more stuff after him and I broke up,
and I had gotten a job at a hospital and realized I
could make it on my own so I moved out on my own
staying in this state far from my parents.
I had an x boyfriend who wanted to sleep well so I
gave him a Seroquel that the psychiatrist had given
me. He was the biggest jerk the next day, and then I
realized it was the Seroquel making me a raging bitch
to everyone at my new job. Seroquel was really nasty.
He said to me “wow, I think it’s this drug making me
like this, you should try to get off of it.”
I started to think about the trail of chemicals I had
gone through and I knew I had to get off everything
and find my baseline again. Figure out what was
really going on with me now and what needed to be
addressed. The first thing I needed to get off was
the klonopin. I knew I would take away sleep
medication last.
I had tried to do a quick 5 day taper from klonopin
like the psychiatrist said when I told her I wanted
to see how I was without it, and I remember that
March 2013 like it was yesterday. After the 5 days
was up it was pretty much a cold turkey jump. I was
up to 3 mg of klonopin daily. It still gives me the
chills when I think back on it. I would lie in bed
crying anytime I wasn’t working. It was absolutely
horrible. Every day it felt like you had just found
out you lost something very dear to you. Then one day
near the end of March I went to the medicine cabinet,
saw the klonopin in the back, and I took one tablet
under my tongue and it was like the lights turned on.
I realized I was going through klonopin withdrawal. I
looked it up online (wow the horror stories!) I
decided I was going to taper myself off at my pace
waiting for physical cues that it was okay to jump
down doses. It was the worst feeling I had ever had
in my life the entire six months tapering but it was
at the same time rewarding. I realized I could
control my use of things. I spent my time reading,
meditating, taking up new hobbies, and in general
taking it very easy on myself.
Somewhere along the way of the klonopin taper I
remembered phenibut and a week or two before I
totally stopped klonopin, I took phenibut daily and
it pretty much helped me get off klonopin. Then after
couple weeks after stopping klonopin I was able to
cold turkey stop phenibut and I had no withdrawal at
that time. Using one GABA drug to get off another
wasn’t smart on my part but remember at that time I
never experienced cold turkey phenibut withdrawal
symptoms or if I did they were probably related to
just sleep which I was still taking other medication
for.
Then I took it upon myself to get off all the other
medication the psychiatrist had messed me up on,
which I told her I wanted to do. I wanted to be
sober again and see how I felt; now I was living on
my own away from my traumatic childhood, it was time
to heal to the fullest I could. I was making my life
on my own and I didn’t have to answer to anyone else.
The psychiatrist had me on a lot of antipsychotics
like seroquel(nasty long term effects with use btw).
It was prescribed to me for sleep at the same time as
klonopin to which the therapist said a year later,
"Oh, I must have given it to you because you're
bipolar", and I replied "you gave me the seroquel and
klonopin because I couldn't sleep and I was anxious".
I realized then this psychiatrist definitely didn’t
remember me well enough. I knew I was going to get
off everything and try to not end up in her office
again. She was all too ready to write scripts.
I'm sure everyone has read with phenibut the
withdrawal gets WORSE each time you spin the wheel.
And most of the time since I’ve come off phenibut
there were other substances in play which held me
floating.
***Which leads me to 2015, I had not used phenibut
since I got off the klonopin back at the mid/end of
2013. After that I was dead set for about a year and
6 months to never mess with my GABA receptors again.
I avoided drinking like the plague. I knew I needed
to stay off everything and stay as natural as
possible and for a very long time it seemed to work.
I had a really rough “relationship” thing happen with
two people in the beginning of 2015. I started
drinking a little more and more. Then I had gotten
very stressed out and I ended up getting an
infection(which I attribute to stress at the time)
and I was put on antibiotics. The antibiotics threw
my balance off BIG time. I was at peace before it. I
had finally come to terms with things. I had gotten a
promotion at work. Things were looking up and
suddenly I’m thinking about suicide NON STOP. I
really don’t know why, but I cannot think of another
reason that I would have mood shifted so bad like
that.
My friend got me some of the “green” stuff. The
“green” stuff, to be honest, made me feel WORSE. I
would lay there and think about how TERRIBLE life
felt. “Green” stuff always tends to amplify my
current feelings and it wasn’t worth it. Or maybe I
just got bad stuff…who knows. All I know is that
after the antibiotic use and drinking before that, I
felt like I was going through klonopin withdrawal all
over again, the same dysphoria, extreme depression…it
was out of control. I knew I needed to hop back on
phenibut until I could get a new doctor.
I went to the employee help mental service. They set
me up with a new psychiatrist. She had trouble
diagnosing me. She said I was either a mild bipolar 2
or severely depressed with ADD and OCD. I definitely
don’t have enough mood fluctuations to qualify for
bipolar 2 and most certainly not bipolar 1. The
first thing she put me on was Effexor XR at my
insistence. She was hesitant because she said SNRI
and SSRI’s can make people with bipolar worse. I told
her I knew that and I told her it had really helped
before and I wanted to try it again. So the Effexor
XR and phenibut started helping. I was so social at
work, the depression faded, and there were no more
suicidal thoughts. I applied for a better job and
even had the nerve to email the manager of the
department with my resume. I went back to the
psychiatrist and told her how much progress I was
making. I didn’t tell her I had taken the phenibut
too.
Most doctors seem to have no idea what it is or think
it’s a placebo. She asked what my major symptom is
now and I told her focus. This psychiatrist would
only prescribe one thing at a time. She explained if
there are side effects we won’t know what is causing
it. I explained how when people talk I’m always going
in and out of their conversation with me and how I
can’t read and how the words flow away from me and I
read the same paragraphs over and over but nothing
retains or really sets in because I’m busy thinking
about thirty other things that really aren’t relevant
at this time. So she put me on Adderall IR. I got
promoted again in less than 6 months and I have been
on adderall about 6 weeks now.
I decided to try and phase out phenibut but this time
I am having some mental and physical symptoms and I
am thinking, “wow I am finally feeling the withdrawal
from this”. Phenibut at this point in my life I
noticed within those 72 hrs of not taking it I felt
the symptoms which meant I was physically dependent.
It really isn’t doing much for me anymore. I realized
I needed to taper down.
-----------------------------------------------------
**tl;dr (start here):***
Without further ado, my phenibut taper experience:
From continuous month usage at low doses(no washout
periods in 2015), always below 2 g a day…
I tried to cold turkey, didn’t work.
After reading enough on the subject, I realized I
needed to dose once a day(which I only ever did
anyways because it lasts so long), and towards night
so I could sleep(taken almost right after work takes
4 hrs for me to feel it), with the Adderall IR crash
it helped with falling asleep at least for part of
the night. (FYI: Sx = Symptoms)
I got a new digitial scale because I knew this needed
to be precise, my other one died. RIP.
I could have went slower and waited for more body
cues but to be honest the negative side effects are
outweighing the benefit and I knew if I was vigilant
and did enough research I could do this. I also
wanted to be clean of it and normal again by my 28th
birthday.
August 9-15th 2015: I am dosing just under 1 gram a
day (.9), only in the evening with no withdrawal
symptoms
Su 8/16/15:.85-No Sx
M 8/17/15:.80-No Sx
Tu 8/18/15: .75-No Sx
W 8/19/15: .70-No Sx
Th 8/20/15: .65 -This is where I started to feel it
big time in the evening, I think someone on another
forum said the threshold is around .75 and I really
believe it to be close to what it was for me too.
Anxiety, shakes, trouble falling asleep, the works. I
started cleaning out a drawer and I found a paper
from my new psychiatrist office about the effects of
Lavandula angustifolia (lavender) on anxiety. I read
the study(linked below) and thought why not give it a
whirl(I got the brand the psychiatrist office said
was tested and found had the right stuff on amazon),
I figured it couldn’t hurt. I knew it would come in
the mail on Tuesday the next week and I knew I had a
72 hr buff to try and get it in my system to blunt
the withdrawal symptoms. I also was having a lot of
muscle cramps, I think due to Adderall diuretic
effect so I had gotten some chelated magnesium(also
supposedly helps with anxiety, I figured why not try)
and was taking that with a multivitamin after work
with the phenibut.
f 8/21/15: .70 – chelated mag + vit – No Sx
Sa 8/22/15: .70– chelated mag + vit – No Sx
Su 8/23/15: .70– chelated mag + vit – No Sx
M 8/24/15: .60– chelated mag + vit – (from here I
knew if it didn’t come in the mail tues I would feel
it bad by Wednesday) – No Sx
Tu 8/25/15: .50– chelated mag + vit + 160 mg of the
Silexan Lavender (Lavandula angustifolia)- No Sx
W 8/26/15: .40– chelated mag + vit + 160 mg of the
Silexan Lavender (Lavandula angustifolia)- body
anxiety, my mind feels so calm about an hour I take
the supplements. Not like a high at all, just very at
ease, but I’m still jerking around with the internal
zaps especially at night when I try to lay down to
sleep(like a serotonin withdrawal). I am also still
on the Effexor XR at this point that I take in the
evening. I think it is also in conjunction with
everything else assisting with this process. Also,
like I said I don’t feel anxious or have anxious
thoughts but I get startled easily and kind of jump
from noises. Fight or flight mode must be activated.
Additional 50 mg Benadryl to induce sleep. If I do
NOT sleep, I can NOT function properly. I will spiral
quickly. So maintaining as much sleep as possible is
the goal towards the end here, even a couple hours is
more than enough. I am doing this while I am working
full time, so I must be vigilant to help myself with
everything I can.
Th 8/27/15: .30 – chelated mag + vit + 160 mg of the
Silexan Lavender (Lavandula angustifolia) + 50 mg
benadryl- my mind is still relatively calm but I’m
still having physical symptoms. I do feel a bit
weepy. It’s not anxiety though and I think it might
be related to other things in life. (ie. That evening
I found out that my bf has been lying about certain
things and I found his profile on a dating site. He
ignores me all day, says I’m busy I’ll call you
later, I call him after I can’t sleep anymore he
doesn’t answer, I break it off on text. (Shitty way
to handle it, I know, but you knew I was upset and
you didn’t call back? Or even text back?) There were
other red flags as well, we have only been dating a
short while, so it’s not the end of the world but
definitely not the best time for this to happen, but
I’m not going to let it deter me off course from what
I want to do with myself.) An interesting time for a
test in mental strength, but I will endure it. I
must.
F 8/28/15: .20 – Fell back to sleep early this
morning before work getting an extra hour or so of
sleep. The mental stress of my now x-bf on my mind is
causing me to be more upset than I was yesterday
morning. He still hasn’t responded back. I am trying
hard to regain the Buddhist insight I had before
these string of events from early this year. It is
really freeing when you realize no external thing can
make you happy. We are at no disadvantage for
happiness. The only thing that makes us suffer is
our thoughts. Anyways I digress; I take an extra
160 mg of the Silexan Lavender (Lavandula
angustifolia) this morning before work. It will help
keep me semi-functional at work. The Adderall will
wake me up for sure it has helped every day since I
took it but I’m already irritated upon waking because
of this relationship issue. This evening I plan to do
again… 30 – chelated mag + vit + 160 mg of the
Silexan Lavender (Lavandula angustifolia) + 50 mg
Benadryl.
Sa 8/29/15: .10- I am planning on doing 160 mg of the
Silexan Lavender (Lavandula angustifolia) straight
away in the morning. I may be able to sleep more
during the day if I skip Adderall but it might be
more beneficial to me to get out and do stuff to keep
my mind of current life events. I also make take the
Adderall and exercise my head off to try and
stimulate some natural good feeling chemicals going.
Also I semi rely on the Adderall crash right now to
get half decent sleep. Then in the evening I will
take the last dosage of phenibut and – chelated mag +
vit + 160 mg of the Silexan Lavender (Lavandula
angustifolia) + 50 mg Benadryl.
-------
I will update again with follow up…I would really
like to get to a point that I’m on minimal
medication. I don’t like taking anything daily
anymore. I feel like I if I need to take medication
to help myself, it should be for a short time and
then I should focus on getting clean of everything
again. As someone with a traumatic story, like so
many others, I realize I am prone to drug abuse and
this frightens me and I want minimal medication in my
life, I know I can get back to the free feeling I had
as a young child.
I really feel like the reason I am getting withdrawal
this time is because after I came off klonopin my
GABA receptors are not the same. Even after almost 2
years. I wasn’t having PAWS or anything like that
though. I felt normal and at peace. I highly suggest
avoiding all GABAergic substances for a very long
time if you have an ugly history with GABAergic
substances. I don’t know why the antibiotic threw me
off so hard. I do plan to research more, but I do
know that in people with bipolar, and even people who
aren’t bipolar have issues with antibiotics and their
mood becoming erratic. I know it compounded the
issue that I was drinking right around the time that
I started the antibiotic.
---------
Tips to help with anxiety (YMMV- for the ADD/OCD/depressed brain):
- Silexan Lavender (Lavandula angustifolia) – I
really feel this has enough of an effect if I take 2
gels (160 mg) to help me through most the day, the
last few days I ended up taking 4 a day and it did
help I am buying more. It calms the mind. I’m highly
sensitive to chemicals so I think this is a great
option if you’re highly sensitive to medication. In
the study it was compared to paxil and a placebo and
was easily the best for anxiety.(linked below) I was
taking it right after work so I could wind down and
not stress out when the Adderall wore off. I always
feel anxious when the Adderall wears off, but I
relied on the Adderall crash to sleep.
- Low carb diet- if you’re insulin sensitive
like me there is a lot of benefits to doing low carb,
look up some of the studies they have done on kids
with disabilities and low carb diets, I have noticed
that I am so calm when I am in the low carb
lifestyle. It takes a lot to achieve this lifestyle
and I let it slip away too many times. It’s worth
it. If you’re not into the low carb thing, then just
be healthy and do NOT drink. This will only increase
the withdrawal symptoms.
- Exercise- for all the obvious reasons, this
might be most crucial to the physical symptoms. If
you’re a fat kid, seriously just walk and walk for a
while, like an hour, listen to music. It’s enough to
get the juices going.
- Distractions- Keep yourself busy. Please
focus on laughing. Learn a language, practice an
instrument, watch happy movies, read, explore music,
expand your mind…
- Avoid stimulants- while I was tapering
caffeine seemed to make me a bit more anxious but the
Adderall has always calmed me down. I feel like my
head thinks more clearly and I am able to focus on
task and stop worrying as much. I remember as a teen
my friend got Ritalin and they were going nuts
running all over the house, I took one, sat down and
started reading and I said I don’t feel anything, I
just felt focused. That was a sign a long time ago
that I do have ADD. I tend to have paradoxical
reactions to some chemicals.
"Lavender Oil Preparation Silexan Is Effective in
Generalized Anxiety Disorder – a Randomized, Double-
blind Comparison to Placebo and Paroxetine."
International Journal of Neuropsychopharmacology.
Siegfried Kasper, Markus Gastpar, Walter E Müller,
Hans-Peter Volz, Hans-Jürgen Möller, Sandra Schläfke,
Angelika Dienel, 1 June 2014. Web.
http://ijnp.oxfordjournals.org/content/17/6/859.
This has been my own personal experience, your mileage may vary.
Thanks for reading. I hope it helps someone else.
Last edited:
