20 replies to this topic

[Sonnie]

Hello Longecity community,

I'm reaching out for opinions/suggestions/experiences for a challenge that's soon approaching.

I've been using Nitrazepam everyday for almost 3 years now and in less than two weeks I've decided to quit cold-turkey. I no longer wish to be dependant on a medicine to function normally.

Nitrazepam (unlike other Benzodiazepines) has a unique effect on my brain chemistry; rather than sedating me it energises me and motivates me to get tasks completed. It's my organisational medication which improves my speaking skills making me more witty and generally pleasant to be around.

It's the closest thing to that serenity and clarity of thought one feels after silent meditation.

I understand that tapering off slowly with Diazepam is the norm - I've done this before 'successfully' but found that even after tapering off my energy and motivation levels were severely depleted.

I want to do it naturally! Self-discipline to rise early in the morning for meditation followed by supplementation which will compensate for the GABA absent.

Now is the time to end this weakness; I'm expecting withdrawal systems but suggestions regarding natural supplementation would be greatly appreciated. I have academic commitments which hold me back from doing the research myself.

My current dose is around 20mg/day and after 24 hours I can feel the effects of withdrawal.

Thank you in advance.

Sonnie.

[socialpiranha]

Why are you going off it now? Sounds like might have effects on the opioid system as well as being a full agonist and the benzo site. Withdrawal could be pretty horrible, i would suggest weaning down as slowly as possible. As far as natural aids, you could try smoking hops, or marijuana(if it agrees with you(not me) every other supp i've tried is just dwarfed by the benzo w/d symptoms...you can barely feel them sober on an empty stomach so theyre not much use in the throws of benzo hell.

[protoject]

If you like convulsing and twitching on the floor from having a seizure, by all means go cold turkey off your benzodiazepine drug. If you want to be smart, just taper like everyone else should.

To be a bit less snarky, consider taking bacopa- i heard that it prevents some issues associated with the benzo withdrawal. Personally I found this true for memory impairment, also smoothed things out. Don't expect a miracle though.

another thing to consider would be Ashwaghanda. Has some Gaba -agonist activity. Though honestly I doubt that its gaba agonist activity is very strong, maybe, just maybe it will help by being a milder alternative. (but again I strongly suggest NOT going cold turkey off benzodiazepines, unless you really want to get yourself into trouble)

[Sonnie]

Thanks socialpiranha and protoject,

Everywhere I look for advice on quitting CT I hear the same horror stories. I've made an appointment with my GP to send me to a specialist rehab clinic that will slowly taper me off.

Hopefully it only involves medication and not 'talking'; the whole idea of talking about a problem rather than the solution doesn't resonate well with me.

Thanks for your advice.

[Sunwind]

I quit benzos cold turkey twice and my tolerance to them was very high when I quit, I just smoked weed for 2 weeks and it was done, wasn't even that bad really. weed also raises the seizure threshold. I had no bad withdrawal effects aside from general 'feeling shitty' but that went away whenever I would get high.

[Sonnie]

Thanks for all of your advice,

I saw my physician yesterday and the procedure in Australia is self-managed withdrawal through the supervision of a GP. I have to manage the reduction myself and I'll do so very slowly over the course of 6 months. I'll use spreadsheeting to monitor the withdrawal doses and considering Nitrazepam only comes in 5mg tablets in Australia I'll be crushing them into a fine powder before weighing them and placing them in vegetable capsules to get 1mg doses (when my reduction schedule requires me to do so). I won't be switching to Diazepam as I don't respond to any other benzodiazepines.

It really is unusual how something like this can happen to someone who doesn't have an abusive nature...

Life is good for me right now and I need to thank the community for highlighting my egotistical self-inflated sense of will-power. I'll do it right!

I have extensive experience with nootropics and I'll contribute my experiences and experiments when time allows it.

Until then,

Thank you everybody,
Sonnie

I could see how smoking weed would help but my work isn't mechanical by nature so I wouldn't be able to perform my duties while stoned...

[Sunwind]

Switching to diazepam isn't about how you respond to it, yes it is a weaker benzo, but simply having *A* benzo in your system will relieve withdrawal effects, and diazepam is used for withdrawal because it stays in the body for a long time (100 hours half-life I think), which means you need to re-dose in much shorter intervals than you would if it was another benzo. You might not get the anti-anxiety relief you normally would from your usual benzo, but since you are quitting them that isn't important anyway. You should taper with diazepam in my opinion.

[Sonnie]

Hi Sunwind,

I understand your logic but the reason I won't switch to Diazepam (or any other benzodiazepine) is because it sedates me and messes with my cognitive abilities. If my affliction was with Alprazolam or something with a very short half-life then it would be a good idea. Also, I don't take benzodiazepines for anxiety relief in the conventional sense - my dependance came about because I was so fond of the clarity of thought and 'desire to organise' it gave me. Prior to taking minor-tranqualizers I didn't suffer from any symptoms of social or generalised anxiety.

Once I tried switching to Clonazepam for the same reason, the longer half-life, and the results were disastrous!

The intervals between dosing isn't an issue for me because for 3 years I've been in the habit of taking them everyday.

Thanks for your feedback Sunwind.

[jakord]

Mulungu and Honokiol (the 98% extract) are the strongest herbal benzo-like substances I know.
Ashwagandha and Gotu Kola are not quite as strong, but they would definitely help.

[macropsia]

Taper the nitro or do the diaz taper. The cognitive impairment (in the form of abject misery) felt when trying to substitute any 'natural supplement' for a benzo will likely dwarf the cognitive impairment caused by replacing the nitro with another benzo.
BTW, liquid measurement is probably easier/better/more accurate than the crushing and gel-capping method, and will thus allow for a more gradual taper.

Benzos are just annoyingly unique enough that nothing natural or man-made really substitutes....

[Cazorp]

It seems as though these bezodiazepines are able to induce a neurological disorder all their own...I was on Xanax 1 mg/day for six years, much for the same reasons you were on your benzo. When my doctor retired I thought this would be a good time to quit cold turkey. I felt fine, actually good for six months...then one morning it hit me...I woke up and felt like I was in a bottomless pit...had severe mood swings, would throw dishes across the room, strange sensations in my head like flowing liquid swirling around in it, depressed, the whole gamut. It took about two years to finally gain some sense of normality.
You could try some niacinamide as it binds to the same receptors...also the antidepressant doxepin is good to block a lot of withdrawal symptoms from things like alcohol and sedatives.

[ColoradoPAWS]

Hi Sonnie - the advice to taper may be worthwhile. I made the mistake of going cold turkey for 3 days. I reinstated and then tapered but I think that 3 days did such damage to my nervous system it could be why I ended up with protracted withdrawal. No one knows for sure but it seems that many people who cold turkey from klonopin have trouble that can really mess you up for up to 2 years. Good luck to you.

[xeon]

I may be a little late on this, but the only thing I know of that could potentially ease your withdrawal would be Bacopa. I've read somewhere that Bacopa upregulates GABA receptors (not too sure if it was true or not, though). It also helps reduce symptoms of epilepsy apparently. I would give Bacopa a go.

[nowayout]

It seems as though these bezodiazepines are able to induce a neurological disorder all their own...I was on Xanax 1 mg/day for six years, much for the same reasons you were on your benzo. When my doctor retired I thought this would be a good time to quit cold turkey. I felt fine, actually good for six months...then one morning it hit me...I woke up and felt like I was in a bottomless pit

Hmm, if you felt fine for 6 months after cessation I don't see how it could possibly be Xanax withdrawal.

Depression and other mental illnesses do hit people out of the blue. Maybe Xanax predisposed you to mental illness, but I have never heard of withdrawal starting 6 months after stopping a short-acting substance.

Edited by nowayout, 01 October 2013 - 01:41 PM.

[xeon]

Maybe Xanax predisposed you to mental illness, but I have never heard of withdrawal starting 6 months after stopping a short-acting substance.

I've never heard of this either. However, with the brain, almost anything is possible. Maybe nowayout is correct and you've become predisposed to depression. There is always the possibility that you didn't fully experience the horror of your GABA receptors being damaged until you ran into a stressful situation and your brain couldn't handle it without the drug you were taking (6 months after cessation). Just an idea.

[nowayout]

Maybe Xanax predisposed you to mental illness, but I have never heard of withdrawal starting 6 months after stopping a short-acting substance.

I've never heard of this either. However, with the brain, almost anything is possible. Maybe nowayout is correct and you've become predisposed to depression. There is always the possibility that you didn't fully experience the horror of your GABA receptors being damaged until you ran into a stressful situation and your brain couldn't handle it without the drug you were taking (6 months after cessation). Just an idea.

It is worth noting that some substances can indeed make occult long term changes to the brain. One example would be that of ex-opioid addicts who seem recovered, and for some reason start using opioids again years later, and instead of the normal honeymoon period they had the first time they get tolerant right away. So on some level their brains were changed.

[lourdaud]

Getting your body into ketosis would probably make the withdrawal easier.. Or maybe you'll just postpone it, as you'd probably not want to stay in ketosis forever lol..

[protoject]

I disagree about ketosis- why would he want to do that? Is there something I'm missing?

Also, not sure if the OP is still around but, I just wanted to mention I think pregabalin is a great option for Benzo withdrawal. If you're worried about dependence, I just wanted to say that I'm very easily physically dependent on Benzos (for example, even if I take a benzo for just one day, I get a withdrawal the next night), but when it comes to pregabalin, tolerance is hard to achieve if you are taking a low-ish dose, also I experience no withdrawal from pregabalin whatsoever.

However it did prevent benzo withdrawals.

[hullcrush]

I disagree about ketosis- why would he want to do that? Is there something I'm missing?

If a priori benzo withdrawal symptoms and pre-ictal activity are similar subjectively (which I think they are, but that's me personally)

then a ketogenic diet should increase the threshold for seizures (perhaps smoothing of blood glucose [epileptogenic] and GABA upregulation)

at the expense of ketogenic diets being highly inclusive of glutamate. That intuitively should make benzo withdrawal discomforting, however; reports about its neurotoxicity acutely are slim to none.

[Fletch]

I've tapered off clonazepam successfully in the past using the water titration method. This way you drop by a small percentage everyday, taking a tenth to a hundreth of a milligram less per day. In my case I went from 2mg a day to 0 over maybe y 4 months. This is the safest and smoothest way to do it. Even so, I still had perioids where I had to hold at my current dose to let myself adjust. You'll need a graduated cylinder, some different size syringes for measuring the fluid, a mortar and pestel to crush your pill, and you can find a premade excell spreadsheet at benzobuddies.org. You can select your benzodiazepine from the premade list. Then you can edit it depeding on how much you want to reduce your dose biweekly.

I second everyone else who highly suggested not going cold-turkey! Why would you put yourself through that if you didn't have to? There's a certain sense of accomplishment when you wake up each day and cross that day off of your sreadsheet. You know that you are taking less each day, never to return (hopefully) to that days dose again. Like What About Bob... "baby steps".

I took a bunch of supplements during my taper. Most I was already taking daily. Ashwagandha was one. Lots of magnesium citrate. Lithium orotate. True Calm by Now Foods, etc.



BTW- If anyone can tell me why my usual red line under mispelled words is missing and/or how to get it back on this site using firefox, or if there is a spell check function I'm not seeing, I'd really appreciate it!

Edited by Fletch, 09 December 2013 - 12:05 PM.

[protoject]

^This. Tapering that way will really really make things a lot smoother. There will be a little bit of turbulence for short periods of time and then you will go back to normal. You take it one step at a time. Good advice.