My experience of zopiclone (down the rabbit hole)

The symptoms you described that started the second day after you stopped zimovane sounded much like the symptoms i got when i went off Valium for sleep in 1993--almost no sleep but wired, not tired, but then increasingly edgy, paranoid--i couldn't find my medication, not that planned to take anymore, but i was certain my apartment manager must've come in when i wasn't home and stolen my left over Valium, i reported it to the management office and asked for a new lock. But then i also wondered if my friend/neighbor might have used his key to come in and take it because he was always trying to persuade me to stop taking it.  A few days later, i found it in a drawer in my apartment where i had forgotten that i put it, Valium causes memory problems--but i was so surprised to realize how paranoid i had been about it, amazing.

But in my case, the worst of the withdrawals only lasted less than a week, my body settled down and i wasn't anxious or agitated or having nerves twitching anymore. My sleep improved a little but i can't say i had normal sleep, it was still inconsistent, but it was better than it had been on the Valium at the end because i had a tolerance for it and it wasn't doing anything, and like you, i just quit, cold turkey. But unlike you, the worst of this did not continue indefinitely although i hear that it does for some people. 

I was taking zolpidem for many years, and then i added in zimovane/zopiclone, 7.5mg, for a year and a half, and then finally i tapered off it 1/4 tablet at a time over a couple months' time, finishing in late February, but the symptoms from doing that were pretty unnoticeable which i'm sure is because i'm still taking a pretty high dose of zolpidem, 27mg a night, in two doses (17mg at bedtime, 10mg five hours later)(if i took it more often than that, it would quickly lose effect, experience has shown).  

Zolpidem is the same as zimovane in that it will progressively lose effectiveness. In my case it was gradual over many many years, and i have only really increased a lot in the past year or two, but i would never recommend it as a solution to zimovane tolerance. However, if your particular health needs involve needing more sleep and easing withdrawal symptoms, it might be a temporary solution.

Zolpidem has the shortest half life of any of the sleeping medications so it is the shortest acting. There is a longer acting zolpidem, an extended release tablet that somehow lasts a llittle longer, but for me, they don't last long at all now, about an hour usually. I will sleep for an hour, then wake and wait until it's 5 hours after the first dose and then take the second dose and sleep for anothe hour or hour and a half.

This problem just developin the past couple of months, coinciding with when i took the last of the zimovane, so it may be related to that.  At any rate, because it's not working anymore, i want to stop taking it but i am hesitant to go cold turkey.

I have a doctor i have consulted with who uses Valium to help people get off of the shorter acting sleep medications, and then tapers the person off of the Valium, so i think i'm going to do that, or try it. Actually, i already got the Valium prescription filled and will start this tomorrow night.  He instructed me to simply stop the 27mg of zolpidem and start taking 10mg of Valium, and then call him and tell him how it's going and if adjustments need to be made, he will make changes.

am scared, to stop the zolpidem abruptly like that, but Valium is supposed to meet the same need that zolpidem met along with a few others, and there is actually a lot of experience with this treatment for zolpidem and zimovane addictioin. If you are interested, if you want to look into it and then discuss it with your team, use google to search for Heather Ashton MD, she is the MD who developed this treatment for this purpose, has used it quite a bit in her practice and has published stuff about it. There are some you tube videos where she talks about it, but she treats benzodiazapine addiction so most of her work is about that, zimovane and zolpidem are not benzodiazapines, though they are similar, they are milder than benzos but they are designed more for insomnia and not for anxiety as benzos are.  

But Dr Ashton found that for a lot of people, gradually tapering off of the "Z" drugs as they are called, is harder than tapering off of longer acting drugs, and that's what led her to switch people over to Valium (long half life, 100 hours) and then taper them off of that. Unlike the doctor i'm working with, she uses a more gradual process of switching people over from Z drugs to Valium, but it's only about two weeks i think.  I am going to try this and hope for the best. I don't expect sleep, but i'm not sleeping anyway so i'd rather be not sleeping and NOT on sleeping meds than being on sleeping meds and not sleeping.  In time, i know my body will adapt, even if it will be a really long time. Over time, my sleep will gradually improve.

If you are going to google this, use the search terms:  heather ashton zopiclone

Anyway, clearly one of your biggest problems is not being able to get in touch with your team or your prescribing doctor and not being able to work closely with them.  The doctor i found (in the US) is not covered by my insurance so i have to pay out of pocket and that is difficult, but i simply need to get off the medications, they are so bad for my health and my life, and so, if it means going into debt somewhat, i am going to do that.  i have the credit to do it. So i consider myself lucky to have the option.  

I don't know how things are in other countries.  You might want to search for or request a doctor who specializes in 'addiction medicine.'  that's the specialty my new doctor has.  Other doctors simply don't know about this kind of treatment, it is a specialty. But one of our members on this forum who is part of these conversations, Dave, has a GP doctor in the UK who has been working with him to let him switch from zopiclone to Valium and then taper off of that, and the last i heard, he had good success, being off the zopiclone without much withdrawal symptoms (lasting a couple of days at most) and then tapering the Valium down to a very low dose. i think he said usually he sleeps ok with the occasional poor sleep night. 

If you are only on 10mg of zolpidem, that is a relatively low dose.  The approximate equivalent diazapam/Valium dose is 5mg, which is a low dose.  So if you have trouble getting off the zolpidem and were to switch to diazapam, 10mg zolpidem would switch to 5mg Valium. But you may be able to go off the zolpidem directly.

There are other medications that can help some people with sleep, some people on this forum have used them. One is mirtazapine. Another is trazadone.  Personally, i'm afraid of them (potential adverse effects) and i don't have confidence that they would help me sleep when i'm used to regular sleeping meds. But they do work for some people. 

my heart goes out to you and i hope you can get the medical support you need, i think withdrawals and addiction are nothing to mess around with casually.  The body gets used to the medications and going off them can throw things into chaos.  There are several people who's stories i've read on this forum who managed to stop taking the medication on their own and have been successful. I'm not sure what dose they were up to.  

Stay in touch 

Kin d regards 

So this continued while i was looking into how to get off these medications. I had retired in January of 2013 and no longer felt the need to have control over sleep and i felt ready to give up the meds--but i was ambivalent and i drug out the process of deciding to d it for a year. I continued to have the weird episodes, they got more frequent. And one day i found out that i had one of those black outs that you hear about with zolpidem where people do things they have no memory of like driving or cooking and eating. In my case, a plumber came to my house for an appointment i had made. I have no memory of him coming and talking to him and telling him i didn't need a plumber. the only reason i know that he came is because his boss called me to check the address and told me he had been here. I didn't believe it, it seemed impossible, i had been here all morning and no one had come.  But gradually, knowing they had no reason to lie, i realized this had happened and i just had no memory of it.  i was sure it was related to those other weird episodes.

In January of this year, i started tapering off the zopiclone, 1/4 of a 7.5mg cut, and out of fear, i stayed at that level for a month. I was still taking a high dose of zolpidem, 27mg, so i didn't have any noticiable withdrawal symptoms from zopiclone, at least i didnt' lose any sleep.  

In February, i cut another quarter pill so that i was down to 1/2 tablet, and then in mid February i cut another, and then on February 26, i took my last dose of zopiclone. 

Since then, i have stopped having the "derealization" episodes.  I had a couple of mild ones causing me to think "maybe it's the zolpidem," but i never had this before i startedthe zopiclone, and now i'm thinking maybe the withdrawal from the zopiclone can come and go, with symptoms flaring up as the weeks go by, like what you seem to be expereincing. I have heard about this, not just with zopiclone but benzodiazapine withdrawals, there is a huge forum called BenzoBuddies, and lots of people report this, there's a name for it it but i don't remember what it is. "Waves" i think.  and it can last over a long period of time, coming and going.  

I am happy that i clearly am not having those derealization things anymore, i think this shows they were related to the zopiclone or the combining it with zolpidem, and it's a good feeling to see something improve, even though i'm still taking a lot of zopiclone. 

After i had made the first cut of the zopiclone in January, 3 weeks later, i had a different kind of disturbing symptom in the morning---the day before, i had a headache all day which didnt' respond to the medication i take for headaches, which is unusual. The next morning i woke up with difficulty walking that i've never had before, where i fell, and i got up and immediately fell again. i now thing this is called ataxia. i had to be very careful in walking. I had impaired coordiantion. I wanted to cook some instant oatmeal, heating some water, but it was very hard to hold themeasuring cup under the faucet, the coordination, i didn't have it.  But eventually i made the oatmeal and while i was eating it, my coordination came back.  So this was odd.  i didn't necessarily think it had anything to do with the sleep medications, but by now, i wouldn't be surprised at anything.  Then, i cut the zopiclone throughout February, and on March 1, i had the same thing again, a headache that lasted all day and didnt respond to medication, and the next morning, ataxia but much much worse. I couldn't get up at all, i would careen into the wall or furniture. i had to stay on the floor. i couldn't form words. i had no coordination, but this time, i knew i should eat something ASAP. i drug myself on the floor to the kitchen, got a piece of brea and very quickly, like during the first bite, my coordination came back, quickly, and i was normal.  Weird.  

So, i have wondered if this had anything to do with cutting down the zopiclone and my body dealing with the changes caused by that, with the neuro-receptors.  I don't know, just wondering. 

I haven't had that again, but i also had a blood test with really low blood sugar, so i've started eating 5 times a day instead of 3 times. It wouldn't surprise me if the medications could mess with my glucose processing, those things are all related.  Anyway, these symptoms have been scary.

i went to an addiction medicine doctor. He recommended to get off zolpidem, which is very short acting with a 3 hour half life, i should switch over to diazapam and then taper off that, diazapam is long acting, 100 hour half life. I know this approach is often used to help people get off the shorter acting medications because it makes the withdrawal process smoother.  So, i'm just starting to do this.  But i am so apprehensive of adding another medication. The good thing is that i will be coming right off the zolpidem after 20 years of taking it, and before the zolpidem, i used to take diazapam for sleep, and then went cold turkey off it, and so it's not completely unknown to me, and it wasn't so bad.  

Anyway, those are my experiences which i relate to some of the things that are happening to you.  It sounds like you're making good progress reducing the zopiclone, and now you are having some symptoms that might be caused by reducing it, and i would not be surprised, it's not unknown that this can happen, in ways that aren't that systematic or linear or predictable.  Some doctors do believe that diazapam is easier to come off of by tapering, smoother, easier for the body to adapt, so if you and your doctor think your symptoms might be related to zopiclone withdrawal, it might be someething to look into. There is an equivalency chart, if you google Heather Ashton MD, i think she's the doctor that has pioneered substituting diazapam for different benzos and Z drugs--10mg diazapam is approximately equivalent to 15mg zopiclone, so if you're on 7.5mg, you would substitute 5mg diazapam, and so on.  i just looked on the equivalence table chart to check the amounts.  

good luck, i am sure that life beyond sleep medications is better in many ways, even if sleep can be harder sometimes. My doctor and my psychologist both advise me to go on something like mirtazapine or trazodone for sleep as i go off the sleep meds, but i won't do it, i am scared of those medications, they all have their own side effects and they all have withdrawal syndromes, so i am going to be patient, i know from when i went off diazapam 20 years ago that even after a year, sleep was not ideal, it was sometimes, but not all the time, so i can just be patient.  And glad i'm not on those medications!!!  good luck to you, stay in touch.

Good luck.

Dave - SIXTY NINE DAYS ZOPICLONE FREE!

I will stay in touch for sure and tell you how it goes. Btw, I got down to 5mg yesterday just after writing my first post and I slept the entire night without waking up but it was a little more difficult falling a sleep. Got 7h of sleep. However, I still feel that the diazepam is in my body. It usually works for 3-4 days when I do take it, since I am only taking it once every other or third week.

If you read my discussion and want to know more, please let me know. 

what is the actual dose in mg's of phenergan that you take.?