zopiclone to diazipan

Hi I used diazepam to taper off zopiclone they help take the withdrawals of zopiclone away, which can be quite severe then used mirtazipine to taper of diazepam no I don't take any tabs. Good luck

I've been on this programme for four weeks now, switching over from 11mg Zopiclone to 9 mg Diazepam. I did it straight off and only had one difficult first night, then I've slept ok most nights since then. A bit more groggy in the day time and lots more dreams but not like the daily hangover I had with Zop. I'm tapering one mg of Diazepam a week now, so will see how that goes. Also taking two pills of 5 HTP a night at bed time, a supplement which is supposed to help. Thinking of it as a long term process, but am managing without Zop and not tempted to take any so far. 

I tapered off zopiclone using zolpidem which i was already using in combination with zopiclone for a year and a half.  When i decided to taper off zopiclone, i was scared,  but i told myself if i had difficulty sleeping, i could just increase my zolpidem to an amount that would get me to sleep, and once i adjusted to the lower amount of zopiclone, i would lower the zolpidem back down to where it was before. This worked quite well. After the first two tapers, i lost my fear and the last two tapers (of 4 quater tablets) went fast and easy, without increasing zolpidem. My problem then was how to get off zolpidem which i'd been on for 20 years and i was up to almost 3X the prescribed dose.  So i went to an addiction medicine doctor and he recommended switching from zolpidem to diazapam, the equivalent dose was 10mg diapam to the almost 30mg zolpidem i was taking. He said to just stop the zolpidem and start the diazapam, no tapering, just switch them. That was kind of breath taking but it totally worked. The diazapam 10mg was stronger than the almost 30mg zopiclone. It kept me asleep all night instead of waking up in 3 or 4 hours like on the zolpidem.  The problem was, i was terribly hung over all day, it ruined my days, i was so tired and lethargic, i really wanted to quickly taper off the diazapam. My doctor said 1mg per week.  I got down to 8mg, less hung over but still a little. But better. Then, because of a health problem i have that came up at that time involving extreme hypoglycemia with neurologic symptoms like waking up on the floor and not knowing how i got there and unable to get up for a while, my doctor agreed that i would just stay on the 8mg until the hypoglycemia is cured by removing a tumor that is causing it. Which i am working on.  However, i have continued to feel hung over. I thought it was the hypoglycemia causing it, but after thinking it through, i know that before i started taking the diazapam, i did not feel that way, i had energy, i felt good, i could think, i could get things done, and i came to realize it was the diazapam causing me to feel so tired and crappy all day every day. So,, Saturday night, when i was going to take the diazapam at bedtime, i felt ike i was just going to ruin my next day, i hated taking it. Also, i had developed a tolerance for it so that it wasn't getting me to sleep anymore, so i was getting the worst of both worlds, side effects from diazapam and no therapeutic effect. I was taking the zolpidem to get to sleep again. But i wasn't stopping the diazapam because my doctor was so against "cold turkey."  But Saturday night, i cut another mg, to 7mg. i could not sleep, even with the zolpidem. i took a lot of zolpidem, about three times and still no sleep. Finally around 4am i took 10mg zolpidem and fell asleep and got about 3 hours of sleep. i woke up happy i had finally slept.  But what i wasn't expecting was how good i was going to feel. I felt so good on Sunday, i coudln't believe it. For the first time in a long time, i had energy and motivation to do things, things that had piled up because of procrastination, i just did one after another, i had plenty of energy, even though i could feel a feeling in my eyes that i get when i don't get much sleep.  it was the best day i had had in a long time. So, in the next few days, i will cut another 1mg from the diazapam and i will take an ample dose of zolpidem, and i will wait, i won't keep taking more if i don't fall asleep. but i will take another 10mg at 4am like before, and hopefully will get some sleep. i will just be happy to know i am reducing the diazapam because at this point, i really hate that stuff.  The whole point of taking sleeping pills for me is to not feel tired in the day time but diazapam has always made me feel tired in the day time, so i just want to get completely off it, ASAP. 

However there are many many people who can successfullly use it to get off of the Z drugs like zopiclone and zolpidem and again. i stopped a 20 year habit of zolpidem, 27mg a night without tapering at all, just switching it for 10mg diazapam. It didn't sound right to me to do that, but i trusted the doctor because that's his speciality and he works with a lot of people so if he believed that was the way to do it, i went with it and he was right. The diazapam more than took the place of the zolpidem. 

In my case i got a tolerance to the diazapam, that was part of the problem.  i do'nt know that most people get that, probably it continues to work for them but for me, it lost its effect pretty soon, and that might be because i took diazapam for 20 years between the mid 1970s and the mid 1990s, and toward the end got addicted with tolerance so it wasn't working anymore, and went cold turkey quite successfully. So maybe that's why i got tolerance for it so fast this time.  Tolerance means it's not working, so i just want to get off it, i can't wait. I will have to figure out another way to get off the zolpidem...