success ☼ Hudgens's story

[Lexy]

Im laughing today

[Hudgens]

Sleeping much better and unbroken sleep, too. Some short periods of moderate anxiety. Have to decide soon whether to end the taper or make another drop. I think it's a good indication that I didn't have the usual 5-6 day wave this time.

[alex]

Good news Benz!!

[Lexy]

Im happy to hear your sleeping better.  This will help with your last drop.

[Hudgens]

Still getting about 5 hours a night. Irritability this evening for an hour or so. Tinitus louder than usual.

One month into latest drop. I think I've decided to do one more after this one, I'm in no rush after all this time.

[Hudgens]

Doing fine.

[Lexy]

great 

[Hudgens]

Some anxiety and dizziness in the afternoons and early evenings last 2 days. Sleep still better.

[Hudgens]

Didn't sleep as well last night and had a odd kind of low mood most of the day, can't explain it-not really anxious, not really depression. Just a good case of the blahs, I guess. Lifting now just before bed time.

[Hudgens]

Slept a-or close to a, full night's sleep. low mood first part of morning, lifted for rest of the day. For the last 3 days I haven't felt like doing anything much. 

Read, watched movies and a little exercise, that's about it. Also been eating bad food and gaining weight. Not much in the way of withdrawal symptoms, though. Bad waves seem a thing of the past.

 

Only 7 days until I will probably make one last drop. Might be difficult since it's already hard to measure the tiny amounts (getting too small to see).

I've waited this long, I can wait another month or two-and finally be free of dosage worrys.

[Hudgens]

There are a few hours of mild to moderate anxiety in every day for the last 4-5 days. Don't know if I could call it a wave since I could live like this if I had to. I guess it's a very mild wave.

[Hudgens]

Still sleeping better, though not a full night's sleep yet: 4-5 hrs and continuous. Still doing some exercising every day-walking mostly. But not much of anything else lately. I'm suddenly very lazy-watching movies all day. Not getting out and doing things with others either. That's not good. This is unlike me and must have something to do with withdrawal. No anxiety today.

[Hudgens]

No anxiety today. Got some work done today. One brief episode of mild confusion this afternoon. A similar kind of thing yesterday-a couple last week, too. I'm convinced this is a withdrawal symptom or as a result of the year and a half of insomnia. I guess they could be classified as primary and secondary withdrawal

symptoms. As I feel OK otherwise, I may make my last drop on Thursday (17th).

[Hudgens]

A good day. Making drop tomorrow.

[Hudgens]

Made about a 25% drop. Sleeping better lately: consistently about 4-5 hours per night. Not much in the way of anxiety or depression of late. 

Tend to make silly mistakes last few weeks. A few minutes of confusion last night after almost falling to sleep. I know this is derectly due to

withdrawal or less derectly due to a year and 7 months of insomnia. It clears up within 2-3 minutes at most.

 

So there's a good possibility I'll be done with my taper May 31st.

[Northcoastboy]

Hi

I'm male and 56 too presuming you've had birthday:-)

20 days into withdrawal and have so many similar symptoms. Anxiety dropping off to sleep no matter how tired I am:-(

Awful tinnitus. I play rainfall with light thunder on headphones at night to dampen tinnitus. You can download it or get it on you tube.

Walking helps me too. I tried jogging today and it brought back flu like symptoms with real dizzy spells.

Good luck with your taper.

[Hudgens]

Yeah I'm 56 now and 57 in 3 months.

Not sure how long you've had the Tinnitus, but I've long since gotten use to it. As a matter of fact, I go for days without noticing at all. It's really only sometimes lately, because of the withdrawal that it seems to get much louder for several hours or more, especially at night. Did yours start with the withdrawal symptoms? 

 

Too much exercise can bring on withdrawal symptoms or just make the ones you've already got worse. Withdrawal brings on many sensitivities, for example to medications and foods and supplements. Sensitivities you never had before tapering. My sensitivity to exercise went away about 9 months ago.

 

There's a good possibility you tapered too fast.

[Northcoastboy]

I had one shot of chemo last year and that's when I first had bit of tinnitus. It's got a lot worse in withdrawal. Yep manageable during the day.

I tapered way too quick, I'll put my hands up to that. I'm day 21 and I plough on now and it's nearly summer:-)

Jogged yesterday and felt really flu like by end of day. Just woke with screaming headache so won't repeat that soon. I'll stick to walking for now.

Have a good Easter.

[Hudgens]

Feeling good after 2nd day at new dosage. Got out to a community fish dinner tonight. Some studying this morning, but no work today, or much lately.

Mood good. Better sleep pattern of 4 continuous hours a night still holding.

[Hudgens]

Had a bad day 3 since drop. Intense body pain for at least 40 minutes at 530 am to start with. Along the lines of flu-like symptoms. Then had slightly less flu-like the rest of the day right up until now. May have made more than the 25%

drop. The last time I felt this bad this fast was Aug-Oct 10th 2012, when I made two 50% drops in a row. I felt better

(after 6 very tough weeks of "hanging in there") almost right away by a very small reinstatement. If this lasts for more than a week, I'll do the same again. For me, maybe things do get tougher at the smallest possible amounts. Or, maybe just a simple wave.

 

Well, we'll figure it out.

[Hudgens]

Even less sleep than the night before (2 hrs), but no body pain today until about 830 PM, and then only mild. Also didn't feel tired despite the small amount of sleep. So, not a bad 4th day since drop.

[Hudgens]

Slept much better last night. Low mood for much of the day, walked and went to nephew's highscool lacrosse game. The low mood disappeared sometime during the game. Some mild anxiety while watching TV later on in the evening, gone by bed time. Not really too bad of a day.

[Hudgens]

22nd: Little sleep and then a good day until about 7PM, then lots of body pain-gone by bedtime and peaceful 5 hour's sleep.

 

23rd: Not a bad day-no withdrawal symptoms accept some lowered mood up until about noon.

[Hudgens]

Looks like another good day, although I've noticed last few days it's difficult to get motivated to do anything or get any work done. My mood is good so that's not it. For example, I watched 3 movies today and that's just about all I did.

Probably withdrawal, but I'd take this symptom over just about all others.

[Hudgens]

Another day without withdrawal symtoms, a peaceful night's sleep last night, too.

[alex]

That is so very good to hear!!

[Lexy]

Yay please stay with us when you are done. You are helping so many of us by telling your story.

[Hudgens]

Today wasn't bad despite little sleep last night.

[Hudgens]

Another good day-several hours of moderate anxiety in the evening, gone by bed time.

For the last few weeks I gotten this uncontrolable urge to eat alot of bad foods at almost exactly the same time (6PM) every day. This lasts 2-3 hours.

Seems pretty odd, and I hope it stops soon. I eat very healthy food for the first part of the day, then 5-6PM rolls around and it really is as though I have no choice but to eat a bunch of junk food, chips, cookies, candy, cake, and all in a couple of hours-until I'm feeling a little sick. It ends as quickly as it begins. It's too unlike me and too compulsive to be anyhthing but withdrawal. So I guess I'll just do the best I can with it (which isn't much) until it passess as does every withdrawal symptom eventually. Unfortunately I've already gained 12 lbs.

[Hudgens]

A good day. Exercised and mood was good. Still not eating right, though, but seemed a little bit more under control.

[Hudgens]

Woke up in middle of night with moderate anxiety. Had mild anxiety off and on throughout day. Tinitus bad late evening.

Got out to local stores and pizza afternoon-early evening.

[Hudgens]

Good 5 continuous hours of sleep last night. OK most of day, then 2 hrs of moderate anxiety beginning about 730PM.

Some resistance training middle of day. Still not eating right.

[Hudgens]

Still doing pretty good. Nothing bad to report since last checking in.

[Hudgens]

Still doing fine. No real problems.

[Hudgens]

I've cut my current dosage by almost 50% in preparation for ending my tapper in about a month. Almost immediately felt more anxiety than usual for several hours twice today. I also got an unusually bad headache for a few hours.

 

I don't know why I'm making such a big drop, it just feels right at this point. I should be somewhere close to .015 mgs.

[Hudgens]

3 and a half days after cutting my dosage to really almost nothing I'm doing pretty well.

One bad night, night before last-general body pains and some low mood.

Slight increase of insomnia. An entire day of low level anxiety on the second day out.

Yesterday was symptom free and last night's sleep was not too bad (4 hrs straight),

although it took a very long time to get to sleep (5 AM after going to bed at 10 PM).

It's important to note that even with this last, and final, reduction I still get a definite

withdrawal reaction, although not anything awful so far-it's cetainly there.

 

I don't think I made a 50% reduction this time after all-more like my more usual 30%.

Yesterday I went to my nephew's lacrosse game and felt perfectly normal and up beat.

At the moment-a hour after my AM dose- I'm just beginning to feel some mild anxiety.