Benzo Tapering and Withdrawals
Getting off benzos has been the hardest thing I’ve done in my life. I was prescribed them over 20 years ago and always took them exactly as prescribed. I never abused them, and my refill history is perfect. I’ll be writing about how I tapered and what it has done to me. I must begin with this disclaimer; I am not a doctor or medical professional and me writing about my own experience tapering off benzos is in no way to be taken as medical advice. If you are trying to taper off benzodiazepines, please consult with your doctor, benzodiazepines are extremely dangerous drugs and one of only two substances that can kill you if you abruptly stop taking them. The other substance is alcohol. It is vital that you consult with a healthcare professional.
I suffer with PTSD which sometimes causes extreme anxiety. Over twenty years ago I was prescribed clonazepam to deal with the anxiety and help me sleep. I didn’t want to take them, I never have trusted pills. My doctor at the time tried to reassure me saying, “Don’t worry, these are what we give little old ladies in the nursing home”. I wasn’t warned that the drug is highly addictive and causes both physical and psychological dependency after only 14 days of use. I wasn’t warned that stopping them can cause severe withdrawals, insomnia, seizures, and in severe cases, death. Over the years I had tried to reduce my dose and even taper down to zero doses but always failed. I couldn’t deal with the withdrawals and Texas at the same time. (Look around the blog to see why I have such a problem with Texas)
When we moved to New Mexico I was able to do a lot of healing. I no longer had to worry about all the things I had to deal with in Texas. I began tapering to lower and lower doses of clonazepam. I decided to try to taper completely off the drug. The taper went pretty well until I got to very low doses. It was at the very low doses when things became increasingly difficult. They remain difficult at the time of this writing but I am not giving up. At the time of this writing I am at 0.125 mg once daily. Down from 3.5 mg spread out in three daily doses. Words simply cannot convey the difficulty of this. There is no way to adequately describe the physical and psychological symptoms of gastrointestinal issues, muscular pain, intense rebound anxiety, intermittent insomnia, depression, health anxiety, and a myriad of other symptoms of withdrawal.
If you are thinking about tapering off benzodiazepines or are going through benzodiazepine withdrawals please follow the blog as I will be writing a lot about this. Please feel free to leave feedback. If you are someone who has successfully tapered off benzodiazepines, I would love to hear from you and I know a lot of other people out there would love to hear from you as well.
Thanks for reading!