Ozeph Detox from Benzodiazepine while having pfs

It doesn’t work for me. Tryptophan makes 5-HTP which turns into serotonin which turns into melatonin and make people sleep.

Well, it looks like it stays serotonin for me and I’m not making melatonin or something because if I take either Tryptophan or 5-HTP after 6pm, I have a hard time sleeping. I take melatonin pills.

I gave my tryptophan to my 15 yo son who was having issues with confidence and depression. He took the pills and is now much more confident, have more friends at school, is less depressed etc…

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nice experiments. i m verry curious because im also tring ways to improve sleep. benzos work well…but im afraid im on of the candidatest to develop tolerance quickly…as i dit to booze, cigaretts,and even coffeine. right now im on zopiclone 7,5mg and im either in for a switch to lorazepam or give gabapentin a try.
but any of these combinations would exclude AD medication? even mirtazapine?

It would be dangerous with mirtazapine. The detox cases I’ve read that involved benzos and AD detoxed from antidepressant immediately while tapering off benzos over 5-6 days while taking Gabapentin 300 mg (or 600mg) three times a day.

In those cases, Gabapentin did both the job of the benzo and the AD afterward at 300mg or 600 mg three times a day.
I must point out that the Gabapentin is hitting me quite hard. I have a slight headache, brain fog from it and have problem to focus. Not great so far, but I’m less than 24 hours in the experiment.

To be honest with you, I don’t advise you try it. Not until you see what results I have. I’m in the same squeeze. I need the benzo to sleep and function normally, without it I can’t work. But I’m building tolerance and reaching dangerous levels faster than I’m recovering from insomnia.

I decided to stop and detox from the benzo and find alternative to be able to sleep. There’s no guarantee I’ll be able to do that. In the end, detoxed or not, I may have to go back to benzos just to be able to get enough sleep to be able to function during the day. It remains to be seen.

Maybe I’ll be able to sleep without benzos. We’ll have to see.

I’m doing the experiment because I’m relatively healthy, I’m on a diet that got me free of all pfs except insomnia (typical pfs insomnia) and I don’t have lots of work at the moment. But I’m wondering if it’s not just a foolish and dangerous thing to do !

What is better ?

  • Increasing addiction to benzo but totally normal during the day and able to work ?
  • Taking Gabapentin, benzo free, not sleeping too good and feeling hammered during the day ?
  • Detox from benzo then stopping Gabapentin (over 2 weeks) and be drug free, whatever the results?

I don’t know. I just know benzos are bad and I’m trying to get free from it and find other ways.

So let’s see !

I’ve been editing Day 1 as I went through. For those interested, you may read again Day 1 as it changed at least 5 times during the day (making additions). I’ll be doing the same today as changes occurs within hours.

It looks like on Day 1 I made a mistake and took 450 mg Gabapentin at 3pm. This is why I was so hammered. I may have done the same in the morning. My memory is failing me and everything is blurred, kinda like in a dream or something.

Day 2 Yesterday at bedtime I took 1 mg of Clonazepam, 22.5 mg of Hydroxyzine and 450 mg of Clonazepam. I increase Hydroxyzine by 10 mg as I try to counteract the lack of benzo with something that would make me sleep.
Hydroxyzine is an antihistamine and does not have bad withdrawal symptoms as Benzos do. Also antihistamine acts on the histamine complex, which, along with the Orexin complex, constitute the wakefulness mechanism in the Body. Orexin is the main one, histamine is secondary and has other functions. Therefore an antihistamine can make you sleep and they just developed an anti-Orexin that definitely fights insomnia by knocking down the wakefulness mechanism (Suvorexant).

Morning I slept as good as bad as on Day 1. I would again rate it 5/10 as I don’t know if it’ll be enough to have a normal day. I woke up 1-2 hours before I got up, and I was quite awake, feeling well and everything. I took my morning pills right away, on an empty stomach, and then drank a coffee.
At first I started to feel more awake and my mind was becoming sharper then Gabapentin 300 mg slowly kicked in and brain fog slowly settled in my mind.

1:30pm Gabapentin has it’s peak 3 hours after taking it, (and eliminated in 6-7 hours). So I’m about at peak time now. I’m dizzy, have brain fog although my mind is still coherent and I can focus. When walking, it’s hard to keep my balance and I’m feeling some muscle weakness although I can push through it and do things. I’ll try 10 pull ups, lifting my knees to my head as I do it, and see if I have normal muscle strength (I can do 13 at my peak)… I did 12 and now I’m quite dizzy. But it means the muscle weakness is not real, it’s just a feeling.
Considering 36 hours for Clonazepam average half life (I have little body fat and I’m ketogenic, which means I cycle though my fat at least 3 times faster than someone eating carbs) , I now have the equivalent of 5.75 mg maximum in my blood whereas I had about 10 mg every morning when taking 4.5 mg a day. I’ll be half way (5 mg) through around 3am tonight. I’ll have 0.5 mg in the blood in a week and 5 days later (2 weeks in the detox) it will be 0.05 mg at which point I can consider myself cleaned up of benzo.
When stopping Clonazepam cold turkey, the first symptoms appear around 2 days later and peak 2 weeks after. According to my half life calculations, this is when the body only has about 0.05 mg left of Clonazepam which makes sense if it’s when withdrawal symptoms peak. It looks like I’l have to be on Gabapentin for at least a month if not two.
It’s been 36 hours since I started cutting the Clonazepam. So far no symptoms but it’s still too early. If in 2 weeks I still have no symptoms, it will show Gabapentin does prevent Benzodiazepine withdrawal symptoms for a guy with pfs on a restricted diet, taking lots of supplements and doing exercise. If my pfs symptoms were more severe, it would not be advisable to try this.

7pm I took another 300 mg of Gabapentin at 3pm, along with 5-HTP 100 m, L-Dopa 350 mg and Tyrosine 750 mg. This time Gabapentin did not make me so dizzy, I barely felt any difference. It also turns out I did a 23 hours fast without noticing. Being ketogenic, I can stay a long time without eating, I never have low blood sugar (ha ha. by definition) so Im always full of energy no matter how long its been since my last meal. Im sure our ancestors were like that. I cant imagine a cave men having hypoglycemia and feeling weak…
When I did eat, however, I had 1 pound of beef with some spinach and lots of animal saturated fat. Im good for at least 16 hours. It makes me feel like a jaguar, eating all I can when the hunt is good and fasting between catches. Aside from that everything is smooth. Ill have to say, much smoother than a week ago. Gabapentin has a way of taking worries away !
I feel like a stone hippie saying ‘‘everything is coool, man.’’

lookin good if your tapering clonazepam and still score 5/10 sleep quality.
funnily i had the same hornyness/sexual desinhibition on my 3 day trail with alprazolam. on clonazepam libido was also zero but daytime dizziness was acceptable (1mg clon)
confusion and dizziness on after 10mg of diazepam was beyond. i also did bloods once on 10mg diazepam and it showed high e2,lowish t.
did you have bloodworks done?

Thanks

Yes, I`ve read some doctors prescribe Alprazolam to make their patient horny again, have erections and avoid structural damage to the penis from lack of erections over time.
Also, and I agree, to prevent insomnia as the lack of sleep can be a burden very hard to carry, especially with all other pfs symptoms.

Im only testing cholesterol levels, which, by the way, reveal I have a very good fat ratio. Lol. Im a bit confused, I dont remember what its called.

For the rest, I look how I feel and do a lot of research. I find what`s appropriate in diet or supplement change if needed.

Benzodiazepine are dangerous. And so are SSRI and other anti depressant. Doctors are prescribing benzos for sleep because of a convenient side effect they have: they make people sleepy. It`s not even their main purpose: most of them are for fighting anxiety, spasm and convulsions.

Anyway. It takes what it takes. When Im clean of benzos, I still dont know how I`m going to sleep !

yeah, one has to consider whats worth: the debilitating effects of chronic insomnia or the sides of sleeping aids.
big plus of benzos is they have few very few sides in the shortterm. whats your opnioin on SAGE217, being in clinical trail for insomnia&depression ?

If a single pill taken a single time can destroy someone, a single pill taken one time could fix it.

Although SAGE217 is probably not that one, if it does what it promises to do, IMO it would be a central element to being 100% symptom free.

With it regulating our hormone regulator which is off now (the hypothalamus), it would be easy from there to recover hormonal balance.

Quote from Wikipedia: ‘‘One of the most important functions of the hypothalamus is to link the nervous system to the endocrine system via the pituitary gland. The hypothalamus controls body temperature, hunger, important aspects of parenting and attachment behaviors, thirst, fatigue, sleep, and circadian rhythms.’’

This gland is regulated by GABA, which is regulated by Allopregnanolone, which we are missing.

SAGE217 mimics or transform into Allopregnanolone, which regulate GABA, which regulate the hypothalamus, which regulates all our other hormone and neurotransmitter bringing them back to normal.

It would fix my last symptom: insomnia.

I don`t know if it would restart our natural production of Allopregnanolone or just replace it for as long as we take the pill. So it may or may not be a cure, but it should greatly help with the symptoms.

Day 3 I will also edit as the day goes by. Yesterday I took only 1 mg of Clonazepam which bring my total blood level to the equivalent of 4.5 mg considering Clonazepam’s half life as compared to 10 mg usually. I can’t be sure of my own personal elimination rate, so those figues can be wrong but the ratio between now and what it was before is the same: less than half.
Sleep was not good. 3/10. It took a long time to kinda fall asleep and I’m not sure I had any deep sleep at all, it seems like I was in a zombie state all night drifting between being awake and slightly sleeping with surface dreams. Lots of being awake.

9:30am I took Gabapentin at 7am so it’s almost peaking. I feel a strong rush and have brain fog. This combined with the lack of sleep results in my faculties being impaired. I was hoping Gabapentin would help with insomnia, but it doesn’t seem to do so. I don’t have anxiety which is the first sign of benzo withdrawal symptoms but Gabapentin does not replace Benzos for making me sleep.
While taking Clonazepam, I was reacting bad to Taurine and any other GABAergic natural alternative like Valerian, Passion flowers and Ashwagandha. I figured it’s because they were competing with Clonazepam for the GABA receptors. If Gabapentin (despite it’s name) does not create GABA and the receptors are half free from benzo, I may be able to get benefits from Taurine and GABAergic plants. I’ll try in small dose tonight, it certainly feels like I’m low on GABA.

I had carbs for breakfast, although not a huge amount, maybe 30 gr, with lots of Ghee and some proteins. I’ve been craving carbs which is a bit unusual. So I though maybe I need it so I took some but not a large amount.

Holy crap ! I just found out Gabapentin and Lyrica destroys brain cell and connections to the hypothalamus.

Apparently it doesn`t take long either. ‘‘cell degeneration after just 21 days of exposure to the drug.’’ https://integrativewellnessgroup.com/death-sentence-brain/

I cant go through with this. Its worst than Clonazepam, not mentioning I cant sleep. Its been only 3 days though and I didn`t take the high end dose.

I think I prefer Clonazepam`s verdict : it doubles my chances of getting dementia (from 1% to 2%).

I dont know what to do. General brain cells degeneration after 21 days seems pretty bad. I cant take that !
And Im not cleaned off benzos yet. I see only one alternative: to go back to Clonazepam, hoping I didnt do too much damage already.

F#?% me !

I gotta say I don’t know what provoked you to go madman to jump off klonopin especially since it helped you. You told me yourself a few months back you had no issues with being on it since it gave so much function to you. Gabapentin and Lyrica are well known to block formation of new brain synapses as well and have a litany of side effects. I tried Gabapentin briefly and it was a horrible experience.

What’s carbs did you end up eating? I’m trying Keto now as well (3 days in) and appreciate all the detail you provide.

I had a motorbike accident and took collagen peptide. After that, sleep became bad even at 4.5 mg Klonopin so I started to worry about dosage increase.

Also Klonopin is using my GABA receptors and I react bad to GABAergic herbs because of it (although I`m not sure of that) I wanted to give Taurine and herbs a try.

I did research on Gabapentin and Lyrica and didnt find anything negative about them. I think I actually saw somewhere it was helping create new brain cells. I wanted to check that back so I Googled Gabapentin and new brain cells and all I got was it was killing them all ! Ouch ! But now I know and youre right, Klonopin was working so why stop ?

I had 50 gr. of oatmeal, with 2 tsp of sugar, 3/4 cup of milk, some water, an egg and 2tbsp of ghee.
Altogether, it had about equal amounts of carbs, protein and saturated fat. It`s enough to break ketosis though.

3 days in is too soon to try something like this. Your body will be well adapted to ketosis and able to use dual fuel (carbs and ketoses) around 3 months. Past that point, you can have limited amounts of carbs (like a small slice of birthday cake) and quickly go back to ketosis as long as you dont do it too often or too much. I do believe the body would remember to quickly go into ketosis even after a week of eating carbs, but I try to avoid it. Psychologically, its all too easy to revert back to eating chocolate and ice cream.

Do you feel some benefits already?

Thanks a lot for the info will PM you.

Day 4 Sleep was better last night. 5.5/10. Better than last 3 nights. I took 3 mg Clonazepam, which is my new target daily dose, along with 22.5mg Hydroxyzine and lavender oil (silexan 80mg). I know the consequences of taking lavender oil but I think the benefits outweight the risks.

I will have to use some aids to help me sleep while dealing with potential withdrawal symptoms.

The saga is not over you see, I took the last Gabapentin (meant to prevent withdrawal symptoms) yesterday morning, early day 3 of detox. Detox symptoms appear around 2 days and peak at 2 weeks.

I calculated my blood level of Clonazepam was slightly lower than half was it was before yesterday at noon, while at near peak effect of Gabapentin. It is now slightly higher than half what it was before and I have no Gabapentin. I starting to feel anxiety. I took 0.5 mg Clonazepam in an efforts to accelerate it’s rise to 2/3 of what it was before and I’ll try to maintain it there. At 3 mg before bed everyday, it will take a week to get there.

Before the detox, I calculated blood level equivalent to taking 12.5 to 10 mg. It looks like a lot, but bear in mind I was taking it daily and it’s half life is 36 hours. So when started, it accumulates over a period of 10 days until it eventually stabilizes. In a week, my new levels will vary between 8.33 mg and 6.66 mg which is exactly 1/3 less. It remains to be seen if I’ll have withdrawal symptom during the next 10 days and if my body will accept this new lower dose without ill effects.

If it does not, the solution is easy: take more clonazepam. But considering I went through all this trouble, I’d like at least to reset the dose lower if I’m to build up tolerance again. I’m willing to bargain some of my sleep quality in exchange for a lower dose.

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Day 5 Sleep was better at 6/10, still no symptoms of benzo withdrawal… I go to sleep at 10-pm, wake up at 6:30. I t would have been a better night if my wife didn’t wake me up at 11pm, thinking my kid had swallowed something (which he didn’t). We had a fight, it took me until 1 am to fall asleep again.

Those who are alone or have comprehensive wives are really lucky. Mine is a bunch of stress. I started having fin symptom, while still on in, the first year I started frequenting her. Many of my friends are saying I would heal if I left her. And we have a 2 year old son.

Day 6 Sleep was 8/10. Still no signs of detox symptoms and I’m at 3.0 mg Clonazepam instead of 4.5 mg.
I going out of my way to avoid Glutamate, Glutamine and Glycine. I’m even taking the powder out of the capsules just to avoid the collagen capsules.

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This is amazing news @Ozeph .

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Thanks Shellnyce.

Sleep was 9/10 yesterday. Now all I have to do is tapper down Benzo and anti-histamine and replace with Taurine, Passion flower, Lavender Oil, Valerian and such. I’ll start taking Ashwagandha. It’s very good for balancing neurotransmitters and hormones.

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Wow! I’m so happy for you. Your close to being done with all this.

Yes, thank you. I’m quite happy to have succeeded in lowering Clonazepam by 33% in 3 days without withdrawal symptoms. I consider this a success, although partial. It enables me to do what I was aiming for: free some of my GABA receptors so I can try natural herbs.

The pfs symptoms that remains are the first symptoms that appeared pre-crash while still on fin: Insomnia, occasional dry eyes and dry lips. (Pre-crash, those last two were pretty bad).

Considering Gabapentin did damage to my brain and may have stopped brain cell creation, I’m now aiming my diet, supplementation and exercise at creating new brain cell in the Hyppocampus region.

Good news: I can take other sleep aids on top of 3 mg Clonazepam and 20 mg Hydroxyzine, like Silexan 60 mg (Lavender oil) which works the best because it’s an oil and stays longer in the body. I tried Passion flower extract and Taurine yesterday , both at 1000 mg, and I had deep sleep for 6 hours then woke up and barely slept for the two hours I remained in bed. Passion flower extract is water soluble and gets eliminated faster.

Bad news: I need to take something on top of 3 mg Clonazepam and 20 mg Hydroxyzine, it’s not enough to make me sleep.

(I’ll copy that to my main thread on aminos)

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