Mistake of taking Zoplicone to help with sleep in Diazapam Withdrawal

Hi I thought id share my experiences as it may help some one deal with the withdrawal from either or both these drugs having been a user of both substituting one for the other usually zoplicone for diazapam as it was cheaper ... yeah i know not good . But Ive been tapering and finally jumped off diazapam on 2nd oct 2019.

Well.... be prepared withdrawal cab take a long time. Most likely if you've become physically dependent ( something that can happen even without addiction on prescription and very very quickly for some) for me 1 tablet is all it takes to be physically dependent again. I think this is called kindling or just the way it is for me I don't really know it is what it is and its best avoided.

I found a taper very hard due to withdrawal symptoms near the lower end as low as about 30 / 35 mg even. I got to twenty and jumped off ( not medically recommended but i told my gp anyway just in case as i had once collapsed from cold turkey but from a higher much higher dose.

It felt the same as the higher dose except i dint collapse and nearly die in A and E ! They thought i had sepsis ( as had a UTI ) ,what looked like a rash / severe bruising all over and low blood pressures# at that point and collapsed and was totally detached from reality. That collapse is one of the worse experiences of my life. Plus I'd been pumped with antibiotics as at that point ( on a possibly wrong sepsis diagnosis ) once found by police and ambulance ( my mum filed a missing persons to police )- the rash being possibly my crawling around on bare needs to bleeding point trying to get help in the apartments at home . Think scratchy hallway carpets !!,the drugs Zoplicone and Diazapam most likely didn't show up on tests at that point and this caused a cytokine storm, which they then tried to deal with. I'm not sure what the lasting damage is but cytokine storm is really bad it can and often kills as its some blood cells from your immune response attacking your own ( all of them ) internal organs. ( I can expand on that if need be if anyone asks ). I couldn't explain myself as i was in another world basically for several days at my admission ( i recall nothing except the nightmare I thought was real ) and woke with amnesia for months after. It wasn't good, like your worse ever nightmare that you cant wake up from! I was about the die in my head at the hands of an under cover manic who was making v films of people being experimented on often torture and death. You can imagine the rest . But don't if your withdrawing lol as you panic about every single thing in withdrawal you just have to try and accept this will happen and tell yourself it will be long but it will pass. You are not having true feelings or responses in withdrawal , your panic is in overdrive, your worry is in overdrive, your insomnia is in overdrive etc etc body pains , pains in stomach the list can be endless . You even can hallucinate when your conscious think patterns on walls carpets , your brain making the wrong conclusion about what your seeing especially of you havn't got your glasses or contacts in. These are all potential withdrawal symptoms I don't have any underlying psychotic illness at all, its just the severity of withdrawal. NOT everyone will get this ! I did jump off at like 100mg or higher and had been doing that dose a long time. It seriously isn't recommended. Even 20mg is probably too much but Id had enough by then. All Id say is get medical assistance and the rest is up to you what you do but its still a big big risk. I still went through just about everything from 20mg except i didn't lose consciousness. But I havn't slept for like 22 days now ... at last 3 hours last night thank god, but its not nearly enough! I'm irritable as hell , my mum doesn't know what to do with me sometimes at all, I can be abusive , I've mouthed off at my mum numerous times and I do really love her. I talk endlessly chattering on like I cant stop it if I start things like that. Its generally way too observant ... and smells and odours drive me insane ( not helped by living with her semi dementious doubly incontinent husband!!! She doesn't see the urine or poo still on the floor like I do and takes offence if I clean it with bleach ( somehow she feels the bleach is less preferable to the urine !! ) I speak the truth ( which can cause problems lol ), like telling my mum her breath smells and thinking its for the best she knows this ... not good ( avoid work if your like this lol, avoid any situation you have to be polite or professional ! I even succumbed to getting a few zoplicone a week ago as Id told myself I just cant carry on with this I probably actually NEED this drug. Big mistake took me basically back to my diazapam withdrawal and the symptoms were bad again just like they were at the beginning of the cold turkey or there about. I'm 6 days post the zopi now and my stomach pain is giving me a break this morning. Ive noticed it comes in waves too, I get windows like this when Im semi ok and then BAM it hits again. Ive read this is something again you have to be prepared for and not let it demoralize you. I've been to GP but I don't get on well with anti depressants, they cause bad night sweats in me that defeat the object as I just don't sleep. Otherwise they possibly were helping me at least with anxiety and depression. I recall Venlofaxine was good for my nerves but along with Citolapram and Escitoapram it caused horrific night sweats that prevented sleep. This may not be the case for everyone. Ive tried Metrazapine ( not as helpful and makes me hungry all the time ). Amitryptaline doesn't seem to help me, antihistamines do not sedate me and make my anxiety and irritability worse. Only possibly a bit of codeine makes the body ache a little more bearable ( but beware of constipation and your GP will possibly compare it to stronger opioids which personally I feel it isn't that strong and its annoying of GPs ( doctors ). I don't abuse codeine . Anyway that's a different issue I can see both sides of that argument but if your in pain your in pain! I've seen films about oxycontin and percocet and I'm more of the mind ( albeit incorrectly yet ) that the risk is more with them Oxycontin / stronger opoids morphine etc fentanyl by accident even, leading onto heroin and other opoids. I saw a film about this being speculated as the reason/ evidence for the crisis America. What did hit home was that even in one single seizure from 1 one batch of street oxycontin the pills were laced with fentanyl. Fentanyl is lethal in specks to a human but it went way above this. Its possibly as or even more addictive than heroin. ( I saw a great chart comparing all the opoids to morphine ). Fentanyl is not necessarily knocked off the receptors by the opoid antagonist nalaxone and many medics say it is Russian roulette if if works or not. ( Again this is a different issue but interesting I found and empowering ).

So in a nutshell I'm 23 days post diazepam withdrawal with a blip of zoplicone in the middle and today I feel a little better. I expect it will hit again later today, I guess I wont sleep much again and so on. This will for me take a long time. I did a similar withdrawal about 20 years ago, I was much younger and also took venlafaxine, christ I even worked through it but its been impossible this time.. I guess Im older, no venlafaxine and have way more health and money issues to keep me anxious than I did. I vowed never to take benzos again 20 years ago and never did, I guess I got complacent and someone offered them to me after a bad experience ... plus we dont know for sure if this person what spiking my food with benzos. It was a boyfriend con artist. I noticed th epills were always in his possession but I just said no way , but eventually I thought id get away with it... fast forward 2/3 years of addiction to benzos following taking a few for sleep while i was with him , loss of job house and suffering a great deal because of it. Id advise anyone never to take benzos or zoplicone ever. Initially I took zoplicone for sleep and couldn't get off them die to bad withdrawal so i just kept on with them, tolerance and high doses followed and then I went onto benzos in an attempt to taper (unsuccessfully at first even under drug counselling! ). I'm determined and have no choice really this time. Wishing all that go through this much love , don't beat yourself up.. It is what it is and I hope you all find the strength and support to get through it. I thought Id share my experience as it may help people out there. All the best. xxxx p.s. please excuse the spelling its a combination of losing cognitive skills and having to learn again to spell alot of things again and i find it a bit annoying and also to correct / relearn grammar at this point ! ( English grammar ).

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