My experience of zopiclone (down the rabbit hole)

Christine.Thank you so much for all the information,which I must say ,is not so detailed from my GP.

I do have Mirtazapine which has been prescribed for me.,but my biggest problem is the fear that I may have

bad side effects,and will be alone and that no one will know.

I realize that these thoughts are illogical.

My mother was on anti depressants/sleeping pills for as long as I can remember,and the end result was that

took an overdose at the age of 77,therefore I am acutely scared of taking the medications that have been

prescribed,but I know that somehow I must have the courage to get off the Zopiclone,and I take on board

that it might be better to just stop,rather than decrease the dose over a prolonged period.

Thank you so much for your support.

Wendl--my heart goes out to you.

Like you, i am scared of antidepressants, and most drugs, including the two Z drugs i'm on. But i'm not really depressed anyway, so the only reason i would even consider them is, some say they help with sleep.

Once, years ago, my doctor prescribed Lexapro (anti-depressant) and i wasn't even depressed but was going through losing my home (due to pesticide contamination) and she anticipated that i would be depressed, i guess. I looked them up on the web and what some users reported was really scary to me, partly because apparently they can be hard to wean off of, once you get on them, just what i need right? and also, some neuro side effects, like head jerking and other awful things i don't remember.

For me, the courage i need to find is to face going without sleep, maybe indefinitely, not necessarily all night, i expect (given my experience 20 years go going off a 20 year long valium habit) that most withdrawal symptoms will be time-limited and i can get through them, but when i went off valium, i didn't sleep normally for a couple of years!! But i never thought of going back on the valium, i was so happy to be off it. But back in those days was when my doctor prescribed Zolpidem, it was before Zolpiclone was even on the market, and he said it wasn't addictive. I started taking it not very often, but gradually over years worked up to where i'm at now which is over 2X the prescribed dose, plus 7.5 Zolpiclone every night for the past year added to the Zolpidem.

I need to get into a different headspace where i just accept that there will be long nights and nights without sleep, and it will just be worth it to go off the meds, it's a trade off, being medication free traded for sleep. My experience has been, with the Valium withdrawal, that if i got two or three nights with minimal sleep, then i'm able to sleep better for at least one or two nights, and over time, it improves, more nights where it's better and fewer nights when it's worse.

it's more like i'm addicted to "enough" sleep than i'm addicted to the medication. I have things to do at night if i'm not sleeping, interesting things that can keep me busy. If i'm tense or having a lot of thoughts, i can't just lay there in the dark. Sometimes i'm calm with no thoughts even though i'm not sleeping, and i find that restful and positive..

i've just been placing a high value on not having that feeling that comes the next day from not sleeping. I don't know what withdrawal symptoms i'll have and it may be harder to get through than i have thought, but i had lots of those symptoms when i went off Valium and fortunately, it was only 4 days of the worst of it, because by the 4th day, i was like, "i can't stand this anymore, when is it going to stop??" but that evening, it passed and after that, it was mainly just not sleeping that much for a while. I can do that again, but it may be completely different this time.

I was glad to go cold turkey off the Valium, just like Christine says, as long as i'm still taking the medication, i'm prolonging the addiction and the withdrawals. But a lot of people prefer to taper off, i learned this from the forums on the site called BenzoBuddies, there is a whole forum just dedicated to discussions of tapering. before that, i never even thought about tapering and it didn't sound good to me. But now i'm on a much higher dose and i'm on the two meds instead of just one, so i'm inclined to think first i'll just cut the Zolpiclone in quarters and taper off of that, it may involve increasing the Zolpidem even more, but i would be so happy just to be down to one medication. Then, once i'm there, i'll decide whether to try cold turkey on the Zolpidem. Maybe when i start tapering of the Zolpiclone, it won't be too severe and i can stop it faster. But i won't know til i try.

What a mess, huh?.

I'm very happy to support a fellow victim of zopiclone. I'm very sorry to hear about your mother. That's very sad. I can understand why you are wary of medication. When I was severely depressed, I was put on Zoloft for awhile, to augment the Mirtazapine. I was prescribed 50mg, but that made me feel very ill & worse anxiety, so I halved the the dose to 25mg & this seemed to work. I no longer need Zoloft since stopping Zopiclone. It does take courage to get off it, but I think it takes more courage to stay on it & continue to put up with the anxiety, fear & other horrible side effects. Enduring all that proves you're made of strong stuff! Stopping it was really not much worse, if at all, than continuing to take it, only getting relief for maybe about 2 hours. Just not worth it! I decided to put up with having no relief, for about a week, then it was all over. I was free! I was amazed at how good I began to feel. It was such a relief not to wake up in fear, with my tummy twisted in knots, with the 'fright' feelings constantly causing adrenalin to pump. That alone lifted my depression & I was able to think more clearly. So many bonuses! You can do it & if need be, valium is supposed to ease the withdrawal feelings, but it depends if you have an addictive nature or not, as otherwise you could end up with yet another addiction. The natural approach works better & is more lasting, I found, after being very skeptical about it. I was quite nicely surprised that calming herbal teas actually worked quite well, especially vervain,, as well as deep breathing while thinking the word 'calm' & positive affirmations, plenty of supps, especially calcium & magnesium, eating foods rich in these 2 minerals, like cucumbers for one. As the saying goes, "Cool as a cucumber". That's because cucumbers are rich in magnesium, the calming mineral. Keep strong, but use that strength in getting off zopiclone instead of using it to continue to endure suffering, if you know what I mean. Best wishes.

Actually, come to think of it, valium is probably not the best option for, since you were addicted to it all those years ago. You were very glad to be off it, so it'd be just terrible if you went on it again and became addicted to it all over again. Probably not a goo idea.

christine--it's encouraging to read your experiences. that's how i felt when i went off my long Valium habit, i felt better and better, sooner rather than later. it was so rewarding. As for using Valium to get off the Z drugs, i've read a lot about that and it makes sense because of the much longer half life. I once thought would never touch Valium again, but now i keep it in my list of options. i won't be my first resort, i feel confident i can get through a week or whatever of the most intense withdrawal stuff. But some people have reported worse experiences, unending withdrawal. This is why it's really encouraging to hear your experiences.

Everyone is different and you just have to try things and see how it goes. But once you get a tolerance to the medication, on the Z drugs with their short half life, you are having withdrawals every day anyway, like you said, it' s not that much worse to go off it. At least that's the plan.

your last post came after i wrote the my last post. yes, i would surely avoid valium. but on the other hand, i've gotten off it before and i know what it was like, and i know i can get through it. I would not be at the dose i was at when i quit it before, i was at 2 1/2 - 3 times the recommended dose, just in the last month, that' why i quit, i couldn't get more, i had no choice. These days it's different. it's easier to get more meds, though expensive. But i don't even ever want to go there. I'm hoping to start going off in January. i was going to go off last February after i retired, and then i found those discussion forums where people reported lots of horrible experiences with unending withdrawals, and that slowed me down, i wish i'd never gone to those forums, i would've confidently gone off the Z drugs cold turkey and probably been off them by now. my experience going off the Valium was positive, like yours with Zolpiclone. i felt really good about it and triumphant and empowered and it didn't seem all that bad, less than a week. Sigh. For me, it's just a matter of accepting that no sleep is better than daily poison, so i'm just going to get past the family visits of the holidays and then do it. Hopefully…..

I just want to apologise to Wendl. I feel like a real dill! I scrolled back to read your post again, Wendl, not realizing that Jaws had posted after I'd first read yours, while I was typing my first reply. I mistakenly read that post thinking it was yours & that I'd missed the part about valium the 1st time I'd read it. Hence my next comment, about the valium and about you being addicted when you probably never were. I realized too late that it was Jaws who said they were addicted to valium, not you, & I posted my second comment about you being addicted to it & it not being the best option for you . You probably wondered what on earth I was talking about, so once again, I'm very sorry for that booboo. And Jaws, yes, you know what to expect with withdrawals, so hopefully you will do this & get off zopiclone in the New Year.

Have been reading the latest posts,and one thing seems so obvious.We are writing all this in the early hours of the morning while we are still awake,even after taking Zopiclone!!

Wendl--actually i was writing at around 6pm, but i'm in the US, Calfironia, way different time zone.

I have imposed a strict sleep hygiene discipline on myself when i take the medication (which is every night) after learning the hard way that i waste it if i do stimulating things after taking it, i have tolerance for it as it is and so, i will just read after i take it, that seems to be the safest thing for me to do, in order to fall asleep. But if your point was that the meds are not really putting people to sleep, i can vouch for that in my case. That's why i've gone up in my dosage gradually in the past year. The higher amount i'm taking now has been working consistently to knock me out for months now, but recently it seems to not be working as good. I just need to make it through the next three or four weeks and then i will hopefully figure out a way to stop. I am cautious when i say that because of all the times this year i've been sure would stop by such and such a time and it didn't happen. Courage, right?

Yes Wendl, I am in a different time zone too. I'm in Australia and when I posted my reply, it was around 2pm. . When I was on the zopiclone, I too, found that the dose I was prescribed - 7.5mg, was no longer effective & I was awake in the early hours, unable to get back to sleep because of the 'fright' feelings, unless I took another dose. I put it down to the fact that I'd been cutting down my dose of valium because my prescribing doc hadn't sent me a new script for it, so rather than run completely out of valium, I cut my dose. I posted about all this back in May, June. What a wreck I was back then! I had started taking zopiclone during the day even, because of horrific anxiety, but soon realized that it was making me worse than ever. 3 days of that, I knew it couldn't go on, so I researched it & came across this site & others, & read the many horror stories. That's when I decided to just stop taking it cold turkey, still hoping I would receive my script for valium in the mail as promised by my psych at the time. It never came so I was forced to stop that med cold turkey too. Best things I ever did, was stopping these 2 meds just like that. It's fortunate that I've studied nutrition over the years, as I applied what I knew to take & eat, to ease withdrawals. It helped me some, but I still went through the horrors. But I've never looked back & would hate to ever feel like I did back then. I knew I'd feel better once I stopped taking them, but I didn't realize HOW good I'd feel! That zopiclone had taken away any quality of life. I've been researching all I can to find out how I can restore my brain's neurotransmitters and am following the advice given. One book I've learned a lot from is called 'The Edge Effect' by Dr. Eric Braverman. He believes we must fix our brain, & that will fix our body. It's so interesting & makes sense. That's how I found out about the CES machine for sleep, & other ones he recommends. He believes addictions are caused by Neurotransmitter imbalances, mainly Serotonin , GABA deficiency or both, & much more, too involved to detail it all here. This book is a great motivator too, with a combination of methods to use to re-balance our 4 main neurotransmitters. Good luck in the new year, with your determination to stop taking zopiclone, Jaws. And wishing Wendl the best in using his strength to get off it too.

Christine, a couple of months ago i bought a CES device called Alpha-Stim, it's expensive but you can "rent to buy" and i'm paying installments. But i haven't unwrapped it from its sealed wrapping. I'm a little scared of it because some people get side effects. I'm into a fearful mode right now. But i mainly got it so that when i do stop taking the medications, i can use the Alpha-Stim to help my brain waves. When i went off Valium, i was reading a book called You the Healer, it was by Jose Silva who's kind of famous for the Silva method, i was just attracted by the title of the book and bought it. It teaches exercises in the beginning of the book for going to the alpha level, and other levels, and i practiced those and it was helpful. But i was off the medication by the time i found that book and therefore, more calm. I'm interested in the Braverman book, thanks for the reference. I'm also very interested in neurofeedback which is biofeedback training for the brain, to learn an ability to go to the alpha level, i think. That is another thing i plan to use after i go off the meds when i'm trying to learn to sleep again on my own.

I am really glad I logged on this morning now, irony is.......couldn't sleep any longer...

I was prescribed Ziplocone a few months ago, initially the taste (metallic, zinc almost like your mouth is bleeding all the time taste) was off putting, however I wasn't sleeping at all, and took the Doctor's advice/prescription.

I was going through a major separation, and still recovering from a car crash and at the time of being prescribed and as if I didn't have enough to deal with, was just out of hospital having had a urinary and kidney infection....without the Ziplocone I get the odd ten minutes sleep here and there, with them I get 6 hours roughly, however living alone, I notice more that I whilst I wait for the tablet to take it's toll, eat stuff that I wouldn't normally that late in the evening, I text stuff and can't remember (in the morning) having done so....but the worst side effect (for me) is the teeth thing.........

My teeth feel like they are covered in metal all day and all night long, they feel like they are pushing in on each other, and I often check to see if they are starting to pretrude...my bottom jaw hurts constantly , as I feel I am jutting them out over my top layer, pushing them back in towards my tongue...It's constant torture all day long...I AM going to wean myself off these tablets as of now, and will post my findings soon....

If you have just been diagnosed these tablets, please stop and ask the doctor for an alternative.....for the little, dry and almost drugged like sleep you do get is not worth the awful side effects....will keep you posted, as I stop taking the drug from today....wish me luck John

Night 1...I didn't take sleeping tablet last night, went to bed around 10:30, eventually must have dozed off...did see 11:30 on clock before I did though...I woke up before my alarm (as usual) at 4:42...5 hours sleep then...pretty good. Teeth still feel like they want to come out....they also still feel like they are surrounded in tin foil, not nice at all....not groggy, and I feel as if I have slept....so far, so good....again keep you posted...John

Report

john92161

4 December 2013 at 06:10AM

Night 2...Went to bed again at 10:30, was at least midnight before I fell asleep, woke at 2:07, persisted though and fell asleep again, woke at 3:38...been awake since then. Will fight through the lack of sleep, just to get off the drug....worst is though, yesterday, all day, my teeth were worse, everything I ate or drank tasted like tin foil, I had to take pain killers when I returned from work, and will take more now to last throughout the day. The pain in my teeth is torture, I need off this drug and I need sleep, proper sleep!!...John

Report

john92161

5 December 2013 at 06:00AM

Night 3...Went to bed same time, can't recall lying awake for too long to be honest, took painkillers before going to bed though, and my mouth doesn't feel as bad this morning. Woke up first time at 3:45, then again at 5:01 then alarm woke me at 5:45...first decent sleep for months...even if it was interrupted on a couple of occasions. 3 days and I'm off that horrible drug....feels good

Report

john92161

6 December 2013 at 06:21AM

Night 4...Bed normal time, fell asleep straight away...no painkillers prior either...and barring for waking due to the weather a couple of times...slept all the way through...at last! Metallic taste still in/on my teeth, and they are still sore, but not as sore as they have been...hopefully this pattern continues...feel tired this morning, lol

Nights 5, 6 & 7...Bed at 10:30 ish most nights, sleep straight away and slept all the way through to the alarm going off (no alarm on Sunday and slept til 5:30) my teeth are still sore, but I now have a bigger pain, I now have anal fissures, and it's utter agony. Anal fissures are small tears in the skin, in and around the anal passage, I noticed the blood at first, bright red droplets on the toilet tissue, and these have progressively got worse. Doing the toilet makes me weep, showering is agony...I literally curled into a ball on the shower floor and cried with the pain. I will phone the doctor today, to arrange an appointment...on the positive side though...that metallic taste is disappearing

John--it's inspiring to hear your story of emancipation from zopliclone. i hope your teeth are back to normal soon. I have heard of the metallic taste before, although i don't have it, but i hadn't heard of teeth sensations, but it doesn't surprise me. What dose were you taking? Thanks for sharing the story. I hope your other medical conditions can be treated and cured, good luck with that.