Hi, I'm Mistichritchell

Hi Mistichritchell, I was addicted to valium too 13 years ago, and it was a miserable 8-month slog stopping, using a linear taper like you seem to be on. Don't despair, there is hope here. By using a hyperbolic taper, most people can get off their psychiatric drugs fairly comfortably and safely. The details are in one of the Resources section's articles on this site. You will get w/d's but each time you make a reduction it should be moderate and short-lived. Going up and down in your dose and quickly will only make things worse. But first, can you say why you were started on valium in the first place? These drugs are only intended for short-term use as they are highly addictive (as I was later to find out!), same for antidepressants, antipsychotics etc. They don't cure anything just mask symptoms, but are useful if a person is suffering an immediate crisis. I have to go out soon, but if you go to the "messages" section there are people you can email to ask for more advice, and they will probably be able to get back to you quickly. When I come back I'll contact you asap, because I think you need to act quickly now before the advice of your clinicians gets you in an even worse situation. Take care, R.

Hi again, back from my group "walkies" Your clinicians' advice (I may have been a bit harsh on them) is correct in principle: you need to get back to a dose where you are stable and feel good. Then reduce at a set percentage of your present (not original) dose, you have to choose but the generally accepted is between 5 and 10%. The time between reductions should be 2-4 weeks, no shorter, and only when any w/d's have stabilised or can barely be noticed. If you are at that point you may go a bit quicker, but I would prefer, myself, to make the cut a slightly higher %age, say from 5% to 6 or 7% and see how you go. If your w/d's are still there and quite noticeable, do the opposite, go back up to where you were good, stabilise again until they subside, and when you are ready to taper again reduce the percentage of your cut and/or increase the period between them, and stabilise before you get going again. This is hyperbolic tapering, but many doctors these days, especially the older ones, still don't know anything about it although the biggest medical school here teaches it as best practice. There is plenty of good advice on this site however and the numbers I quoted aren't set in stone, everyone is different and you work it out by trial and error, no rush. The issue for you, is which dose were you stable on? And beware of the "as needed" advice. That's how I started at 5mg/day and after a fortnight it had spiralled to 25mg/day, with horrible w/d symptoms. Totally addicted, dear oh dear! But I got through it and you can too. ps. on this method you may need to be slightly flexible if your new dose size is hard to get with just splitting pills, I use the liquid form of quetiapine sometimes, you can get just about any drug like this from a compounding pharmacy, or more simply just keep decreasing about the same rate using the pills or bits of them. Can tend to be not all that precise though. You might need to do a bit of research there, but there's plenty of info on this site. All the best, R. pps. you probably already know this, but valium and diazapam are the same drug, valium is just the trade name.

Hello yet again, hope I'm not being a pain but just briefly, I just unearthed my diazapam/valium journal from 13 years ago, and this is what I did on the linear taper, while tortuous it still got me there. When at 10mg, as an example, I was on 2 doses a day: my am dose was about 3.5 and the pm dose 6.5. One week I reduced the morning dose by 0.25 mg and the following week the afternoon dose by the same ie. by 0.25 mg. This dose was the smallest I could make reasonably accurately, and I never changed it. The w/d's were not great but I managed to stick it out and luckily didn't end up with protracted withdrawal syndrome, and it took 8 months.. A hyperbolic taper will take a hell of a lot longer, but in comparison relatively painless and safe, but it's what suits you that matters, ok? Hope that's a help👍☺️

Hi @Mistichritchell, welcome to Taper Community! Not sure if you've seen this yet, but here is a copy of the Ashton Manual for benzo tapering guidance. I hope it helps! https://www.benzoinfo.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Ashton-Manual.pdf

I 've answered you on another thread but it wasn't about this. These threads seem to intertwine so much it's a bit confusing to keep track, maybe you find this too? Yes, I was reading something about how the drug needs to build back up in your system ("Crossing Zero" by Dr Anders Sorenson, available from Amazon at reasonable price, recommended), and that is happening to me now. I'm waiting in hope for the insomnia to subside, it's not so bad right now, then holding for a while after, maybe a month or two (hopefully not longer but whatever it takes). I did the second cut of my taper before the w/d's totally went away as I wasn't sure of the difference between "minimal" or "moderate" symptoms, so took a chance and landed where I am now. It's such a matter of trial-and-error I realise now. I hope it's helpful to mention here so sorry if it's not, actually looking back I think I have, but these benzos were only ever intended for short-term use because they are so addictive, and rather than just prescribing drugs that don't cure, just mask the underlying cause for your anxiety/panic attacks, the doctor should start off by addressing the cause by, for example, finding non-drug talking therapies, such as the ones done for free by the health coaches at my GP's practice. A 15-minute appointment with the doc is not nearly adequate to do this, right? There's barely time for them for them to write you out a prescription! There also may well be lifestyle factors, job stress, whatever causing things to go wrong., things you can fix without a pill, just a little counselling maybe. But I do think your doctor is one to go with, he wants you to call him back so he has your well-being at heart I can see. Hang in there, best, R.

Just seen Catina's post, a little late sorry. Yes, the Ashton Manual is the one I relied on years ago for the valium taper, it's the standard text for benzo tapering, and I thoroughly recommend it. R.

Thanks for the replies. And yes I find this site a bit confusing to navigate. Last night was day 3 of the increased dose and honestly no better but. Hoping as the day goes on I will start to feel some relief. Based on a few things I have read days 3-6 or so are the roughest and then things will start leveling out around days 8-10 so guess we will see. If no better by Monday the Doc wants me to let him know but in the back of my kind I’m thinking well what’s there to do any different at this point? I couldn’t handle the withdrawal and now may not do well with going back up either?? So what’s the answer … I don’t know. I’m frustrated more than anything that I didn’t do my own research on this drug before taking it. And yes I went ahead and did the Ashton Manual online calculator and printed it off to go over with my doctor. Unfortunately going to be a long process but I’d rather do that then feel the way I have been. I just feel so defeated and scared and just want “me” back 😢

I love your mindset. If you don’t mind me asking can you tell me how you got to the point of not being so hyper focused on the now and all of the symptoms? I can’t seem to ever get past it and it’s on my mind 24/7 when I’m awake. Just constantly feel fear and worry

My focus came back slowly, not as a revelation.. I had to get past the worst of the symptoms which were so debilitating, but slowly my cognition came back enough to understand that this whole "reality" was my poor brain trying to find homeostasis through my central nervous system. THEN, I began to understand that my effort to control my life, was causing more pain.. So I started working on ways to "sit" with myself and relax. Spiraling thoughts stopped and were replaced with ways to relax more of my body do that my CNS can stop trying to protect me and start helping my brain to heal.

Thank you so much for this amazing advice. This is definitely going in my journal today when I write - dump” 🙂

You also need to be aware that the timelines for when symptoms appear and disappear aren't set in stone as with being individuals so are our nervous systems. The last time I cut it was because "it's been a month now so it must be time to reduce", it turned out it wasn't. I convinced myself that the w/d symptoms I had were mimimal, but they weren't actually, more like "mild to moderate" And nothing really changed until the 14th day of the new higher dose, when the w/d's got going. The general idea is the 3rd or 4th day but not in my case. Now it's about day 18 and the insomnia wasn't there last night, finally things have started moving hopefully. So don't panic and keep going optimistically for now, as best you can.

Thanks so your saying I could still have withdraw clear up until day 14 after upping my dose? So weird to me being that I was only on the taper dose for 5 days ughhh

No, not necessarily, that's just my experience which I think isn't typical. Every chance you'll be completely different, you'll find out as you go along. I'm just saying, don't get worried if you don't follow the general pattern, what it says in the literature is a generalisation, nothing more. And your taper dose was only going for a VERY short time. It is difficult but patience is very important, we have to wait these things out, and then adjust things if we meet a bump in the road. The bump is not a failure but an opportunity for a learning experience.

Thank you for the reassurance's. I just keep telling myself that I’m going to be okay and that these are just the symptoms of the medication and that they will eventually pass. I did kind of spiral this afternoon but am feeling a little bit better tonight. .

Hi there, I think I may have something practical to help you stay a bit calmer (no, NOT another benzo). I used this very successfully at a time when my self-confidence and self-esteem were very low, and it worked amazingly well and very unexpectedly quickly. They are called affirmations, and can be done any time of the day, probably best before bedtime so it has a better chance of getting into your brain. You have to do it everyday though, and at least for 10 to 15 minutes at a time. Of course if you want to you can do it more often, please yourself. Find yourself a place where you won't be disturbed, make yourself comfy and start saying (not too loudly of course, don't want to disturb the neighbours) something like this to yourself: "I am calm, I am strong, I am patient. I have a good doctor who cares about me, and a community of other taperers to help. So I am safe. I will succeed. So all is well." Keep repeating this to yourself till the 15 minutes is up. You've got nothing to lose doing it and everything to gain. It took me about a week or 2, but it worked wonders. Give it a go and see if it gets you more settled. And do let me know how it goes for you. Best, R.👍☺️

I also meant to add, the affirmation method sounds like a lot of whoo-whoo New Age nonsense to a lot of people, but while you will probably think to start with "OMG what a lot of crap I'm saying which I don't believe anyway, what use is this!" it seems to me it's like self-hypnosis but not exactly. It seeps into your sub-conscious gradually and starts to change any habitual thought patterns that may not be helping, such as "nothing is working, it never will do, I've probably wrecked everything, noone can help" etc. We often pick up these things from parents, who got it from theirs, noone's fault, it's up to us to correct. As for the diazepam taper, 13 years ago when noone knew about hyperbolic tapering, I used a linear taper if you can call it that, more like a linear sledgehammer. I reduced my dose by 0.5 mg once a fortnight, and it took 8 miserable months. I seemed to develop what I could describe as a "moderate" PTSD afterwards as a result and so my ex-psychiatrist, ever ready to write a scrip, put me on quetiapine (an atypical antipsychotic) which was totally ineffective but left me with a dependency I'm now struggling to taper off. So that method isn't recommended, I'm sure you'll agree. Please give the affirmations a go though, it worked for me so I'm the living proof of it.

Hi there, it's important now to find a place to stabilise and stay there for a while before you start tapering again, the brain doesn't like lots of changes which can sometimes include frequently upping the doses as well, from what I've read. You have to be very patient and go very very slowly. Things WILL improve but it can take a while, sorry to say, that's just how it is I'm afraid. Let me know how you get on, won't you. Hang in there...R.

I've more or less just stabilised on my new higher dose and it's been 9 days, probably several more, so just to give you an inkling of what can be about, sigh...