Symptoms: Protracted withdrawal, Insomnia, Tinnitus, Air hunger, Night terrors, Myoclonic jerks, 100+ symptoms
If I make it until April 23rd soon I will be sixty eight years young. I worked as a Union Offset Journeyman Lithographer, specializing in the field of Graphic Arts for twenty seven years with the same Iowa Printer. The whole time I dipped my hands in solvents and breathed them daily. On Friday June 5th 1998, I was overexposed to a bad aromatic solvent, and medically retired at age forty two until present.
My diagnosis was Toxic Encephalopathy (or drain bramage from chemicals), MCS (Multiple Chemical Sensitivity), also called TILT or Toxic Induced Loss Of Tolerance. Kinda like the boy in the bubble thing, in that I developed extreme chemical sensitivity. I was also diagnosed with chronic fatigue, and Fibro, as well as peripheral and optic neuropathy. The brain scans showed up to 30% of my left front temporal lobe went bye bye. Also Glutamate increases to both frontal lobes, a decreased blood flow to the right side of my brain, and a broadening of the NAA Peak (whatever that is).
I state the above to let you know that I know what brain damage feels like, and Benzo withdrawal feels way different. Both are no fun, but the brain injury was more of a permanent thing, whereas the Benzos was not for most all others.
After my solvent exposure and losing my great paying job in 1998, I had terrible insomnia. Prior to the solvent exposure, I had no problems with anxiety, insomnia, depression, or anything else. Between the years of 1998 to 2,000, I averaged two and a half hours of sleep a night. Finally, my Neurologist tried putting me on .5 MG of generic Klonopin once a night at 10:00 pm for sleep. For a few weeks I was getting like seven hours a night and was sooooooooooo happy. After a month or two my sleep tanked again, so of course he raised me to 1 MG, then in another month 1.5 mg, then 2 mg. I think you see where this is going. I stayed at the 2 mg a night for almost the next fifteen years. My sleep settled in at around five hours a night, which is not near enough for me.
So one day in 2014 or so I decided why not just get off the Benzos, as they didn't seem to be doing me any good. I printed out Dr. Ashton's taper schedule and gave it to my family Doc, who was a lot closer than the Neurologist that prescribed it. I tapered pretty fast with a dry taper. I had my Doc switch me from 2 mg of Klonopin to its equivalent in Valium of 40 mg. About every four days I would break a 5 mg in half and make a cut. I did this because every time I cut I had two main symptoms, severe anxiety and raging insomnia, and on that fourth day I felt a little calmer. I had my mind made up at that point, that I was getting off that drug ASAP.
When I got down to about 4 mg I traded my 5 mg Valium in for the scored 2 mg, the smallest tablet. At 3 mg things began to get rough, so I held my cuts like two weeks at a time. Finally I was breaking the 2 mg in half, and then quarters. When I was at 1/4 tab I would take it every day, and then every other day, and then every third day, and finally I thought I was free from Benzos. I guess I expected to not sleep well for a couple of weeks, then I would be Ok (yeah, right).
Imagine my surprise when I only got 2 1/2 hours of sleep again for the next 2 1/2 years. I had a very bad protracted withdrawal. I probably had well over one hundred symptoms. I emailed Benzo Buddies because I could not get joined up, it was too hard. Somebody wrote me, but I still could not ever figure out how to join, so I winged it all by myself. I started watching a few vids of others suffering the same fate. I kept hearing of "windows and waves". All I ever got was waves and worse waves, no windows ever.
At about two years and three months things ramped up overnight to OMG. I had surged and gotten much, much worse, like 1,000%. This surge lasted a full month and a half, like most. I felt so very damaged. I won't belabor you with the symptoms I had, but they were somewhere between absolute insanity and some kind of freak, sadistic clown show. I was sure I was going to end up in a rubber room wearing a straight jacket, drooling my life away.
About a couple weeks before I healed, my symptoms got even worse. I had raging tinnitus, air hunger, night terrors, and myoclonic jerks. About a week and a half before I healed I had the mother of all myoclonic jerks. It stiffened me out like a board after jumping me like a foot off the bed. I thought I broke all my teeth and my spine, and it scared the bejeezers out of me. I stayed that bad for another week and a half.
When I went to bed the last day of August 2017 I was worse than I had ever been. I kept dreaming of healing, but never really thought I would. I went to sleep that night like 10:00 pm as usual. But I did not wake up at 1:00 in the morning as usual. Instead I woke up around 8:00 am the first day of Sept. 2017, a day that will live in infamy.
When I first woke up, I remember my first thought was "something is way different". That something was total and absolute internal peace and calmness. As I reached for the bedroom doorknob and slowly twisted it. I walked out to the kitchen to see my wife doing dishes. I told her "IT'S OVER". She said what's over, and I told her I was 100% well, and I swear it seemed like all of that horror never happened to me, like it was a bad dream or something, or me recollecting falling off my bike when I was five. I could remember absolutely everything I had suffered. But I was amazed that I was literally unscathed emotionally about the whole ordeal. I thought for sure I was going to have PTSD from it (which I had for three years after my solvent brain injury).
When I emerged from that bedroom, I remember how mentally locked on I was. I could see a fly out of my peripheral vision on the wall 20 ft away. I could hear birds singing, see the trees blowing. I felt so very normal and alive I could not hardly believe it was real. Somebody asked me later, was I worried it was just a window? I was like, no, as I never had one, so I just figured I was 100% healed. As the days went to weeks and months, it proved that I was healed.
Before I started tapering off Benzos I made a YouTube channel about my very first extended water fast in around 2014 that lasted 21 days with no food and just distilled water. Then I went on to become an avid water faster. One of my vids about parasites in a water fast hit like 317,000 views. But I made vids on my lifelong passion of all things health. It was not until a couple of months after healing I thought to just put one vid up about my Benzo journey. It was only then I realized I was not alone in my journey. Many people from all over the world started reaching out to me sharing their stories, and I have made many Benzo buddies in the past almost seven years. I have seen many people heal in all stages of withdrawal, short timers to long haulers.
My story I believe is quite unique, as I have never to this day heard of anyone healing 100% overnight, but that is exactly my story. So, no matter how long you have been going, or how bad you have become, I am here to tell you that it can all literally change in the blink of an eye. Keep your eye on the light at the end of that very dark tunnel.
I have not made any YouTube videos in over four years, as we moved to our forever dream home right off the bank of a 5,000 acre reservoir in NE Central Misery in Feb of 2020. Now I spend my Winters bird watching, and summers fishing on the many lakes that surround us, and spending time with the family.
About two years after I healed from Benzos I suffered a bad black mold exposure, and have some RAD and fibrotic lung trouble. But everything else is fantastic. Physically and mentally I feel better than I did when I was twenty three. My mind is way better than it ever was on the Benzos. I now can take supplements again (something I could not tolerate at all in withdrawal). I have heard many others that healed say they went on to live their best life, and that will be you if you just never lose hope and keep on wading through Benzo withdrawal.
I sincerely wish you all the gift of healing very soon, and seeing you go forward to live your best life. I hope in some way my story has inspired you, as much as it has inspired me. Love and light, Neighbor Bob.