Hello,
Firstly I'd like to say how grateful I am to have access to such an informative and supportive community. I can't imagine how people would have dealt with such problems 20 years ago without this breadth of knowledge and experience. It's a good time to be alive!
I'm 30, male and pretty healthy apart from a brain that sometimes seems to be working against me instead of for me. Around 7 years ago I started taking diazepam on an "as needed" basis. in the last couple of years I would say I get through a 50x10mg packet in around 40 days. Only recently did a nurse raise concern about the amount I was taking, and so instead of just getting the prescription signed I made an appointment with the doctor. He apologetically told me that he shouldn't have given me access to so much of this drug, that I wouldn't be able to get off it without a spell in a rehabilitation center and that, if I chose to stop (he said he wouldn't force me to) he would pay for the rehabilitation from his own pocket (an offer which still stands).
This was quite a shock for me, I knew that that there were risks with this drug, I didn't realise how serious it could be though. I also thought "well thanks for telling me all this now!!"
I don't take valium every day, and when I started, I was only taking 5mg and getting strong and total relief from my anxiety. Over the years my tolerance seems to have crept up, and the effects of 10mg are barely perceptible, and sometimes I take 20mg (although this doesn't often happen). I usually try to take 2 consecutive days off after using it for one day, but again this doesn't always happen.
I decided to keep a diary of my usage, each day is a separate number. The last 18 days look like this:
0
0
0
20
0
20
0
10
0
0
10
0
0
0
0
0
0
0 <----- Today, so far
The first 7 days are probably quite representative of a normal week, perhaps a little less than average, I was consciously trying to take less before I started making the diary. I decided to try not taking it until I started feeling bad, at which point I would take 5mg at a time until any withdrawal effects went away. The strange thing is that I don't feel that bad, even though it has now been a week since my last dose. I have noticed a few things which I could probably attribute to withdrawal, i.e. sweating at night, digestive grumblings (all of which I had before starting with diazepam) a snappy temper and a bit of mental fog perhaps, but not much worse than when I quit smoking. I thought I would have to take the week off, but again, that hasn't happened so far, I've worked just like I did when I was taking it. I am still less anxious than I was before I started taking the medicine (I was extremely agoraphobic).
I'd really like to hear from anyone who also took diazepam on a similar basis to me and stopped taking it. Were you hit with the symptoms a week later?
I know that it's dangerous to stop this way, but there have been other times during my 7 year usage when I have taken none or very little for several weeks, oblivious to the dangers of withdrawal syndrome. When did the withdrawal kick in for you? I've read that the elimination half-life can be up to 200 hours, which would be about 8 days.. Has anyone here stopped taking it suddenly and only had bad withdrawals a few weeks later? Has anyone stopped taking this drug without suffering horribly? I guess I'm just nervously anticipating the storm.
I know the rules of internet forums are usually no problem, no post, but since this isn't entirely a forum about withdrawal, I thought I'd ask.
Thanks for reading this far!
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