So, yeah, the Valium is kicking my ass. I thought I was sick before…shit. Well, really this is just a different kind of sick. Another episode in the iatrogenic illness department.
I’ve been switching out .25 mg of Klonopin for 5 mg of Valium every two days. I think I have to stop for a bit. And I’m only at 10 mg of Valium. Got 30 mg more to go. Even though the equivalent to avoid withdrawal for Klonopin is 20 mg of Valium for every 1 mg of Klonopin, Valium has a much huger drowsy factor. And drowsy for me is a major understatement. I already was hardly functioning and exhausted beyond comprehension, now, today, for several hours I was completely inert. Could. Not. Move. Felt like my whole body was made of brick. Weird and awful. No appetite. Pain up and down my spine.
Talked to a girlfriend who did this with 3 mg of K—-I’m only doing 2 mg and she said it took about a month and she got used to the extra drowsiness. A month. What’s a month in this long damn journey at this point? I suppose not much, but it still sounds friggin awful.
And oh, above girlfriend is happy and healthy now and came off numerous drugs as well.
Anyway. I have some posts stored up. So things will continue to appear, but writing continues to be difficult.
I have a story to tell but it will have to wait until I have a wee bit more energy.
And, oh, I cheated big time today and had some green tea and still feel like shit, so if you’ve been following my blog at all you know that any caffeine at all usually has me go through the roof with weirdo energy and then I crash…not so today, but I’m able to eek out this little post. Let’s hope there is also no crash involved since it certainly didn’t make me feel energetic.
It’s likely by midnight I will have energy again. Late evening I sometimes come alive again. I take all my meds at night so it’s nice when it’s mostly out of my system. Then I have to start the ugly cycle all over again.
Peace out.
For much more info on benzos in general including Valium and Klonopin go the the benzo info page.
lol with Froshca I’ve been saying to people for years that I’m meant to be nocturnal and in ancient days I would have been used for night watch lol. Everyone just rolled their eyes at me.
I’m currently abusing Valium as a stop smoking aide. I sleep through the worst of the withdrawals and because I have no life, I can get away with sleeping 20 hours a day.
well Zhaylin,
I can assure you and addiction to Valium is much nastier than and addiction to cigs.
Hope you can clear it out of your system before it becomes an issue.
Snort! how ’bout my Cornishman who doesn’t touch a teacup w/the proverbial 10-ft pole?
[He’s a black coffee man, as well as hopelessly addicted to his Diet Cokes!]
I scold him all the time for his poor upbringing – he won’t touch most fruits or ANY nuts, talk about atypical! Quite a lot of “veg” is off limits too (no squash, sweet potato, mushrooms) – even my excellent skillet cornbread? he tried a slice years ago, just to be polite – but no thanks!
he’s not much of a yorkshire man really…his parents weren’t from there and he went to a pubic school (for Americans that means private).
so he apparently is not typical of the yorkshire man…
but he might find your tea story interesting…I’ll pass it on to him!!
oh the youtube vid is cute!
PG Tips is meant for monkeys!
You know there is a tea especially made for ex-pat Yorkshiremen?!
They make special blends of Yorkshire tea, adjusted to suit the hardness of the water in your area!
Sloopy,
ASDA is not as disgusting as WalMart…I’ve been there with the in-laws…
I drink PJ Tips decaf…imported from Brittain…it’s the best decaf we’ve come across and with a Brit for a husband he likes his tea…and I’ve found I don’t tolerate most decafs but liked the PJ Tips…
He drinks Sainsbury regular tea which he buys in bags of 500 tea bags when visiting his parents in Yorkshire.
Hehe! Another night owl here.. 4.10am in Britain! I pretty much quit school because of insomnia. Long ago I figured my pituitary gland must have burst in the night but no one would believe me!
Though it is lovely and quiet at this time of night. Just the familiar sound of burglar alarms wailing in the neighbourhood. Very soothing!
Keep at it Gianna! I’m sure you know best, but just maybe you’ve already found the optimum cross-over level for Valium?
Do you like decaffeinated tea? There are few reasons to praise ASDA, the name for Walmart in Britain, but they do sell a very nice decaff tea! Even the dog is allowed a cup!
Well,
I’ve certainly always been that way too (nocturnal–when left to my own devices—which of course I have not been for many years)…and that may be making matters all the worse…
but I’m drugged out of my mind during the day now and I’m going to bed between 2 am and 3 am and sleeping until between 10 and 11 am and then after I wake up I can’t get up for another few hours…
and now it’s 11pm and I’m still slurring my words!! and have been all day.
but I think I will heed my natural nocturnal rythms when I get my health back…
I always did best when I worked late in restaurants and bars and slept until noon…
loved that work schedule…but I don’t want to be a waitress ever again either!!
Hi Polly. Totally with you on that. I think a great deal of my problems can be traced back to my failed efforts to realign my natural nocturnal settings to the rest of the world’s timeline. In the most direct way, it was an antidepressant prescribed to help me sleep that triggered an episode of mania (in convergence with other stressors) that led to me being convinced I had to take neuroleptics for life, which have thrown my sleeping patterns way off.
Scientists actually identified the gene (in 2007?) that determines our circadian rhythms, and a minority of us just naturally wake and fall asleep later than others. They speculated that it was a genetic adaptation so that there would be people on watch at night in the prehistorics. We work better later! Not that that’s very convincing to most employers.
I usually don’t really come alive until evening, whether I’m on meds or not. I was clearly born to be nocturnal, but unfortunately the rest of the world isn’t.