My Benzo Withdrawal Timeline (which symptoms and when) 

Have you tried any supplements or doing a kind of elimination diet?

@@windowsNwaves not really other than the vitamins. As far as elimination, being on a soft food diet right now makes it tough. My mom has celiac’s disease but I was tested for that with a biopsy because 3 of her sisters had it too, so they wanted to make sure. I don’t have it, thankfully. I wouldn’t be surprised if I had food intolerances though. I have regular allergies both indoor and outdoor. Pollen, dust, etc…

It was mainly a question of supply and access with where I was in West Africa. Thanks for the encouraging words and good luck on your journey. How is it going so far? Tapering super slow is definitely the way to do it.

I am so glad to hear the akathisia is a bit better..what an awful thing it is. I will definitely make a video about my dp/Dr experience. I never would have described it that way, but after reading it (the shield around your brain), YES.

Cheers, Brenda. Thanks for your comments. I have made a lot of progress in two years and the worst symptoms are behind me (touching wood!!). That said, I am still dealing with cognitive issues, memory loss, MCAS along with anxiety, occasional panic and things like air hunger. But my baseline anxiety is now better than it was even before I started taking benzos and I continue to see improvement. I am really focused on doing what I can now to continue the healing. It's something I am going to talk about in the next video.

@@windowsNwaves Thanks for replying back! Sounds like you’re making great progress, I think I’am lagging behind but it is getting better. I’am trying to find your video on air hunger. I sure appreciate your support. Enjoy those birds and the walks you take. ❤️‍🩹

@@brendamalone3880 I think I might have deleted the air hunger video. I was embarrassed with the quality. It was pretty bad. If I was recoverable, I would probably post it again. There is no such thing as lagging behind. Stay on the path -- your pace is unique to you and there is no use comparing progress and timelines. We are all different. You will get there.

Ohhh thank you so much ❤️

what is the really? in response to -- sorry I may be missing something. That is certainly an anniversary worth celebrating.

I have never considered microdosing. I did plenty of psilocybin at higher doses in my younger years. Haven't tried for some time and know that I would not be able to tolerate those doses that I used to have. But microdosing may be a different story. Thanks for sharing.

I have felt a few less intense waves of it since I’ve been tapering but was able to distract my mind with word puzzles and it helped fairly quickly. I’m really worried about going to less than .5 mg and then none. I didn’t know anything about protracted withdrawal when I started tapering 3 years ago, but luckily I had a psychiatrist that warned me to go slowly. I decreased by .5 mg at a time and then would wait for my body to adjust and decrease again when I felt like I could.

You are doing it right. Most of the horror stories are from inadequate or nonexistent tapers. Obviously you have to be exceptionally careful as you had DPDR and other issues before you ever started taking benzos. In my case, I only experienced it during withdrawal, not before. I did have anxiety and panic attacks before. And I will say that post-benzos and post-withdrawal my anxiety is LESS than it was before I started the benzos. Stay on your path. There is no silver bullet and nothing is easy with this stuff, but letting your body adjust before decreasing again is exactly how it should be done.

@@windowsNwaves i really think that eventually mine will be less than before too. I finally found a really good psychologist in my 30’s and went for about 10 years. That helped a lot. I’m also tapering off the Lexapro that I was on for decades but I’m on half as much and I’m not going to decrease that more until I’m off the klonopin. I was also given all kinds of “mood stabilizers” over the years and had horrible effects from most of them. All of this started because I had a reaction to Effexor in my early 20’s and was misdiagnosed with bipolar. It turned out to be ptsd and adhd, but i didn’t get diagnosed with the adhd until I was 40. It’s just crazy to me how much I was gaslighted by so many doctors that didn’t believe I had reactions to these meds. It’s been almost 30 years of all of this. Thanks for responding. I only recently started finding a few channels like these. It was much harder to find information on meds before google existed 😂

I’m 2 years off feels like I haven’t healed at all should I start over

@@user-fn3tw7wp1z two years without taking any? Do you mean healed from just withdrawal or from original symptoms too? How long did you take it and how old are you, if you don’t mind answering?

I (stupidly) did a more abrupt taper off Ativan and yes I can say this is perfectly normal

💯

How are you?

This is an incredibly good resource on GABAergic substances: www.benzoinfo.com/medications-and-supplements/ As far how much healing will be prolonged, I would say that it's different for everyone. It really depends on how much downregulation has occurred with your GABA receptors. Basically benzodiazepines make your GABA receptors incredibly efficient at binding with GABA, so much so that your brain starts to decommission (downregulate) GABA receptors because it doesn't need as many to do the same job. When you stop taking the benzodiazepines, your brain cannot just snap back into action all the decommissioned GABA receptors. It takes time. If you take something that acts on your GABA receptors (or introduces more GABA to your brain), it could cause your brain to pause its GABA receptor rehab efforts. You just want to give those GABA receptors a wide berth to rehabilitate and hopefully come back as close to 100% as possible. Any curve balls you throw your brain in the meantime will just slow down the process.

@@windowsNwaves Ok thanks a lot that helps. I am recovering from Phenibut, which is a cousin to the benzos but withdrawals are the same and it acts on the GABA receptors. The only prolonged symptoms I’m still having are poor memory (short term and long term) and apathy. I quit about 10 months ago but I was using supplements for sleep that acted on the GABA receptors so it probably delayed healing. I am a little worried about memory , does it ever return to normal ??

I still have memory issues nearly 2 years off. But I have seen improvement in that area. I hope it will keep getting better. Good luck on your journey.

Magnesium helps a lot with the heart palpitations plus going on benzo buddies on line is very reassuring that other people are having the same symptoms as you. Took me 3 yrs. to heal all the way

For me personally, it happened after 6 months . But everyone is different. How long have you had it?

I am so sorry. I honestly can't imagine. What were you on before? So it was like.a. Delayed fuse with the akathisia?

I had the same experience with my symptoms. They didn’t start until around 4 months off. Then just kept getting worse, sorry to say. Good luck to you Keep going!

@@brendamalone3880 Did you have akathisia too?

I had it for 2 years non stop before it gave up with insane terror. I am so sorry youre still suffering from it.

@@brendamalone3880same. 4 month mark for me too

I'm so sorry you're dealing with this. Have you had any improvement in those ten months?

@@windowsNwaves I have but it comes and goes in a very bad wave

@@windowsNwaves I have ptsd and they did the same to me as they did to u I have tbi as well half blind

@@user-bz4bn8dz9u there is probably not much I can say to give you a lift. I hope the waves get shorter and the windows get longer.