My experience of zopiclone (down the rabbit hole)

I could have written this exact article thank you so so much .. for confirming what I experienced .. I was on zopiclone for ten years... and like you I was running out and showing up to the doctors office a couple of days before .. only to be treated like a loset. . I worked hard to get off them.. practicing sleep hipnososis and the like. After a year off of it I was having dilifficulty sleeping again so I asked a new doctor for them because yes they work and it sure is nice to get a good night sleep. Well I am ten days in... yes I sleep but the I am having problems with muscles pain's and stiffness.. and I haven't felt that for a long long time!so I thought I would Google it.. and here I am... thank you again. .. for this message. I am throwing that crap in the garbage .. and refocusing on self hypnosis. .. I almost ended down that rabbit hole

--------------------  My Cuckoo's Nest -------------------- 

I know your post is old, but I just had to respond when I saw that you mentioned the Valium epidemic. I was one of the victims of that whole fiasco.

It all started when I was 15 years old, with a Dr. giving me valium for anxiety that was brought on by other supposed treatment for having had a so-called bad acid trip. The strange thing was, I went to a hospital looking for something to calm me down, as I was a bit overanxious on the acid, but it was not what they perceived it to be. If they had simply given me something to take the edge off I would have been fine, but in those days (1969 by the way) they used everyone who was a little nervous from acid as guinea pigs.

So, then the dingbat of a Dr. kept me in the hospital for 3 weeks for observation. They even abused my by giving me insulin shock treatments. They were simply abusive actions taken against me for their own personal research. I no more needed shock treatments than I need a series of kicks in the head with army boots, but I was so young and my parents so ignorant of all of that, that the Dr. had his way with me, and with many others in that small city I lived in.

Anyway, after I was released, as time went on, the so-called "meds" the Dr. released me with were causing a seriously horrible set of side effects. I was told by the Dr. that it was actually lingering effects from the acid. At first I believed him, but in time I realized that the culprit was the "medication" he prescribed me.

After being on that garbage for more than a year or so, I had a panic attack, one of a series of many during that period. I went to hospital and the ER staff recognized it as being hyperventilation. Someone had me breathe into a paper bag and within a couple of minutes I was fine. Anyway, so much for the wisdom of the earlier Dr. who abused me for over a year.

The ER Dr. gave me valium which made me feel great. It was the answer to the anxieties caused by the stupid prescriptions by the first DR. who saw me on the "acid trip" lol and treated me for it. Anyway, I had no idea that the valium was addictive and I took as many as I wanted, and I believed they were a godsend, and I never felt so good in well over a year. So, of course, I just kept going with the valium. Unfortunately, a year and a half later, after consuming valium at well past prescription levels, I was cut off, but not before the damage was done.

I was on welfare at the time and every time I needed a script filled, it was paid for. I would get a month's supply and return a week later asking for a refill. The pharmacy would simply call my GP and he would always say okay to a refill. So I had an endless supply of what was now, my favorite drug.

Then it happened. Horror of all horrors, I was suddenly denied my refills (a long side story I won't get into). So, by the end of that first day I was in severe withdrawals. These lasted for the first 2 weeks at a very consistent and unbelievable level of psychological torture. At the end of the first week, I was hallucinating like crazy (I mean like bat sh*t "CRAZY" ). People around me spoke to authorities and I was taken to a psychiatric hospital, where I told them I was addicted to valium and that was all the problem was. Their response was that valium is not addictive, but I persisted with that assertion, and finally, after about a week of putting me on other horrible drugs, a nurse said she would look into it. She came back and said she had checked the pharmaceutical compendium, and that valium was listed as a safe drug that was neither physiologically nor psychologically addictive. I vehemently disagreed, which came somewhat close to having me thrown into a rubber room, but luckily not.

It was so very disconcerting to hear that valium was being sold as a non-addictive solution for many anxiety-related conditions. Hoffmann-La Roche, the developer of the drug pulled a fast one and made billions before it was recognized what they had done. Finally the drug was correctly characterized as one that was highly addictive, both physiologically and psychologically, and any subsequent publications of pharmaceutical compendiums all listed valium for what it was, a highly dangerous, addictive drug, that was very prone to abuse.

In today's world many Drs. won't even prescribe valium. I don't think the Hoffmann-La Roche Company ever paid any significant penalties and were able to fool the authorities into accepting that it was all an honest mistake. B.S. I know better.

Without going in to any detail, I truly lived my parallel version of the movie, "One flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest". I would love to tell my story, but Ken Kesey beat me to it now, by 53 years, if I were to publish today. His experience also beat mine by about 9-10 years – lol.

Anyway, the moral of my shortened account here, is that we all must stay ever vigilant when it comes to any medication. Do your research. Never trust your Drs. judgment. He is not very likely doing anything intentionally to harm you, but he just doesn’t know everything. If you happen to have any ability at researching anything (which is far easier today with the advent of the Internet age), research any prescriptions you are on.

The big pharmacies are out to make money and that's all there is to it. And to make matters worse, they are the ones who educate the Drs. on their newest, latest and greatest, chemical solution. The problem is, all drugs have side effects, and most have serious side effects. We will never hear of Drs. being properly educated about all of the side effects of the drugs produced by the alchemy and the greed of the big pharmaceutical manufacturers.

We are their bread and butter of big pharmacy, and believe me; they could make a lot of sandwiches. Also, don't ever believe that they want to cure you. A cured customer is a lost customer. Your Dr. may wish to cure you, but the pharmacies blow enough smoke up your GP's a$$, that he really doesn't know fully what he is doing to you. Have a good day. I hope and pray for your wellness. Stay alert.

 

I totally understand what everyone here is going through. When I was 16 I was having major sleeping issues due to stress so I finally went down to the walk in clinic and a doctor perscribed my 30 zopiclone. At first I was using it as perscribed until my friend told me I could get high from it. It all went down hill from there and by the end of it I was taking 20-40 pills a night. I found a doctor who would perscribe me 60 pills a month with 8 refills and I could go back whenever I wanted to get more or "switch" to a different sleeping pill because I told him I built up a tolerace to zopiclone so I could get even more pills. So please don't think that your addiction was your fault in anyway, addiction is a disease and doctors get paid money for perscribing medications so they'll just keep feeding your addiction. I understand the embarrassment though, I won't even go into a pharmacy anymore because of it.

Hello Margaret

I am living in Zoplicone Hell as I see many refer to it. I was one of those who tried every natural remedy for sleep after my brother was murdered and I went through a terrible divorce. I was also having severe diabetic neuropathy in my feet and finally gave in and got a prescription. My doctor assured me it was fine and that I could get off of it at anytime. I remember the first time my prescription ran out on a Friday and I thought "oh I can wait till Monday". I literally thought I was dying and had no idea the relation to the Zoplicone. I mean how could it be? My doctor said it was fine. This was 3 years ago and just this week on Tuesday I cut my 7.5 in half. It has been horrible with stomach cramps, diarrhea (sorry all) the sweats, tremors etc. I was once a vibrant CEO at the height of my career and now can barely handle one night out in a social setting. Every bit of energy and brain power I have goes to my kids and I have nothing left. I am determined to get off this drug and hope I don't die in the process. I feel for you all and all of your stories but please know you are not alone and together we can support one another and get through this. The doctors say not to cut down so quickly but these are the same people that got paid a fortune to have us almost ruin our lives with this killer drug. I have cut in half and in two weeks I will take 1/4 for 2 more weeks and the. Hope to be done. Then in to the other drug I take which is oxycodone. I take up to 160mg a day but will cut that in half once my stomach heals from this mess. I wish you all the very best and you CAN and WILL DO IT

Hi Margaret,

I just wanted to thank you for starting this thread. I'm four days into kicking a habit that has become 5 a day after 6 months of use. I won't go into the details of why i started taking it but in the country i live in you can walk into a pharmacy and buy a pack of 30 for 2.50€. Technically you can't, but I've rarely been refused. I first used them in England without incident, after being prescribed them in small batches, 7 or 14 on one prescription.

I'm going to list the symptoms by hours after stopping taking it.

24 hours- social paranoia, muscle spasms and cramps. No sleepiness . Hyper acusis ( being painfully aware of any sound, i was in a hotel and the buzzing from the circuit breaker felt like it was in my head )

36 hours- extreme tiredness, derealisation, extreme jumpiness.

48 hours- full blown psychosis. External sounds would repeat over and over in my head. The sound of cars passing outside over a grate would make me see flashes. Severe sweats, hot and cold. When approaching sleep i would come to with what felt like an explosion in my chest, followed bee extreme nausea.

60 hours- severely distorted sense of smell, everything good or bad smelt disgusting, like burnt Olive oil. I managed to eat a banana ( first thing since Friday night) and was almost sick with the taste. Severe muscle spasms. Extreme diorreah and dehydration as a result.

72 hours in ( three days after stopping taking it) i finally slept for 6 hours. Today I feel much better and am about to go to work. I'm getting slight twitches and jolts but nothing too extreme and have eaten. It's hard but it can be done and even though I'm not a Christian or religious i tried praying and it helped. Yesterday i tried to get tablets in two pharmacies and neither had them in stock. I am very lucky that they didn't because today i know i am over the worst. I have had drug withdrawals before about ten years ago (crack and heroin) and this was as bad if not worse. But after four days i feel better than i have in six months. IT CAN BE DONE! THANK YOU!

Really interested to hear about Tom's expereince, I had been prescribed zopiclone for a long period, which I then found myself taking during the day - I'd estimate over a year period x3 7.5mg every 24 hrs. Talking to my UK Dr and a tranquiliser support group, I've been transferred to diazepaim/valium - 15 mgs a day, with a taper of dropping one mg every three weeks. I'm now on 10 mg & finding this hard enough - part of me wonders if I should have toughed it out on the zopiclone rather than having an ongoing valium taper - no matter how long the half life is!  

& Tom, hang in there buddy and if it gets worse you MUST go to your local emergency unit at hospital, they are trained in benzo withdrawl and will definitely help. 

Hi everyone! I talked about my issues with Zopiclone in this thread a couple of years ago and now it has been about 3 years since I stopped this poison. I feel like normal now and dont have any kind of symptoms like I had when taking Zopiclone or Zolpidem. I have thought of making a new post in this thread for about a year now but never got around to it. So here it is and I just like to to tell you that if you are on Zopiclone and are having a lot of side effects from it like I had, which completely ruined my life at that time, THERE IS a light in the end of the tunnel. Now it's been 3 years since I stopped taking Zopiclone and I dont have any of the symptoms I described earlier. This thread and the people that supported me here, gave me the strength to stop taking it. Now I am back to my job, working like I used to and I am sleeping well without any sleeping pills. However, I have learned a lot from this and im not gonna go in to that now but just wanted to tell you that if you are on Zopiclone and feel like you are never gonna be able to stop taking them - then you are wrong! You can! I did it and my highest dosage was 30mg of Zopiclone. I reduced and upped the dosage for about 3 years. I started at 5mg and then increased it to 10mg and so on until I was on about 30mg and reduced to 10 and up to 20 and then to 25 etc etc. I had extreme anxiety and felt like a nerve wreck almost every day when I was on them. I finally deicded to stop taking it and gradually reduced my dosage as you can see if you read through this thread and it worked! It wasn't easy but it worked. I reduced my dosage slowly, and sure some nights it was difficult to fall a sleep and it might have taken an hour or two to fall a sleep but I was determined to do it. Getting support from others that are going through the same thing gives you strength to carry on and that was vital for me. I like to thank everyone that helped me though it and supported me during this time. When I was on Zopiclone for about 3 years I couldnt imagine that I would get back to normal again since I had constant anxiety during daytime and felt so bad that I just wanted the time to pass so I could take my pills and turn off the pain. Now 3 years later I feel so much better and don't feel anxious at all. I am calm and relaxed just like I used to feel before my collapse, which u can read about in the thread. So now I just feel like I want to give something back, or pass it forward to people who experience the same thing as I did. It can get back to normal! Best Regards - Christian

Hi, this is a reply to all of you. Thank you all for your posts, we as patients do need to be aware of our health and medications we may take. I am both a professional and a patient, but am posting as a patient who has used zopiclone for insomnia (which is from my anxiety/depression) I take half a pikll almost every night, I do make efforts to go without (and use herbal suppliments as passion flower) this may be to simply feel better about the "guilt" or anxiety created by a possibe addiction....its a multilayer discssion. I can tell you this, for me, and maybe for most, runs in a qualitiative arena where there are alot of variables and interpretations of what we call "healthy' and how we stay that way. For me, insomnia significantly impacyed my life to the point of no energy, no excercise (a big part of my anxiety coping skill) focus and reacyivity levels and productivity in all areas of my life. Anxiety medicine didnt feel great, and would ahve bee fine except it did not help my insomnia at all. So, I worked on my anxiety from a yoga, meditation, diet and herbal perseptive.....and I use 3.75mg of zopliclone most nights to sleep and I feel so mucg better than I did. Next step is to tackle insomnia, but one thing at a time. its going ok and I'm glad I don;t need anti- anxiety/depressants as they gave me minimal releif for alot of side effects. Its not an easy black and white area, if you are a diabetic you take insulin, if you suffer from insomnia due to underslying issues as anxiety it may feel like a loose loose. What is better...I can tell you sleep depreivtion is NOT HEALTHY either. Finding balance is a tough things. Last, the workd addiction is interpretative. I work with addiction sevices a little and there is a wide spectrum and some very serious addictions.....for me, this zopicoone has helped more than harmed. I believe that as long as you are aware of the drug, why you take, how to take it and know when to seek support or help (the appropriate kind- physicians do the best they can with the variables they work within) and what alternatives there are for you...from a health care perspective, if a tugh decision sometimes. Our journeys are sometimes toughh and there is not akways an easy answer keep sharing info, its a great forum to learn things and get support, but each of us are different

I have found this blog by chance, I have been on zopiclone 1 week now, I'm having the best sleeps but I won't take the prescribed amount of 7.5mg, I'm only taking half, I'm really scared now so I won't be taking my dose tonight, thank you for your story