World Benzodiazepine Awareness Day – Power Over Pill – Benzo Withdrawal

Hi everyone, my name is Jami and welcome back and Today, it’s a very exciting day. It is July 11, which is World Benzodiazepine Awareness Day and It’s a very exciting day. I think it’s their fourth year going So it’s their fourth annual and it also is from what I read. Dr. Ashton Heather Ashton’s birthday 90 years old. So that’s also pretty awesome. Happy birthday She’s helped so many people and including me and my journey tapering and withdrawing off of a benzodiazepine And so I’m incredibly grateful for her and her work pioneering through this Problem that we have and helping many people as they withdraw But she has an Ashton manual which has changed for the most part how people practice tapering and withdrawing off of Benzodiazepines or at least it’s trying to change and that’s the hope For this day that we can spread awareness and support those who are going through it and who’ve been through it I want to just recap a little bit about my story and You may have heard it if you followed my videos, if you haven’t then this is new to you. That’s cool My name is Jamie. I am 38 years old. I am married and have two children I’m a nurse and I was prescribed out of him after an injury that happened to me at work and it was actually a neck injury which First started out to be neck stiffness and migraines which turned into more of a chronic Everyday problem first acute than chronic Basically, it came down to him prescribing me ativan two milligrams at night I took that consistently for eight plus years. I started feeling and noticing a lot more anxiety especially social anxiety which Just was very difficult because I am a social person and so I’m like what’s happening? Like I have a hard time being around my people So like any person who doesn’t know something you go to Google and you start to figure out why I have all these issues And that’s what I did. I started to research. I started to figure out why all these things were happening to me I decided that I was gonna start tapering myself. I was cutting 1/4 of my Medication every month which is really fast. It would have completely tapered me off in four months I found out that was really fast pretty quickly and so I failed that taper and I decided that I would go back to my doctor and I was going to come into the Appointment with my taper in hand, and that’s what I did. I had calculated a taper Jim Hawk he has a taper Calculator and I put my information in there and I had it all set so that I could taper I think it was roughly for about a year and I went to my doctor and I said hey This is kind of what I want to do. I I don’t want to be on this medication anymore He was I think pretty confused by me wanting to go off In such a lengthy taper, but nonetheless he agreed that it would be fine. And so March 6th of 2019 this year. I started my ativan taper I’ve been doing a micro taper with water so a liquid micro taper for some of you who have been reading about that and So far in the beginning, I would say the first 55 days of my taper Were excellent great. I had so much energy. I felt great And then it got to be difficult after about day 55 Hi, I went through a period where I was starting to Have a lot of balance issues though. Like I was at this very This specific time where I remember things kind of going wrong I was out and about I was walking back to my car the bill wait like the roads Started to kind of move like they were waves and I lost my balance a little bit it kind of held on to Something that was next to me like what’s going on? I Recovered. I got myself all situated got back in the car drove home and that was scary driving home because I didn’t know what was coming next since this last Problem came out of nowhere. I didn’t know what was gonna happen next and so I started noticing a bunch of different symptoms Like I was having a lot of like sweat so like some like randomly You know like I would it would be fine and not it’s not excessively hot and I would just be like sweaty and I’m like okay, this is not normal and So I also started having a lot of nausea Anxiety depression all your basics yes, so that was about day 55 and from then I have Had a mix of symptoms and so I decided to stay on a divan for my taper some of you have or you’ve heard of the Ashton protocol which recommends that you transition to valium a longer acting benzodiazepine I had decided that I Was going to stick with ativan and that I was used to it. I knew the sip I knew what it was like I was familiar with handling it that I was just going to stick with it even though it’s not recommended I didn’t feel comfortable transitioning to valium and So that’s kind of where I’m at. I am sticking with that I haven’t had a problem so far tapering with the short acting I did notice that I had to move my doses and so I moved it from one time at night to five separate times throughout the day and as I Have been tapering. I’ve been going from five doses to four doses I’ll probably go down to three but then I’ll try to extend it somehow to four again because I really like the Short like four or five doses a day instead of one which can lead to inner dose withdraw and so I have Had a good experience so far. I’m still able to do things like drive and Human I guess you could say I can do a lot of normal things I still have my crystal sleep. So I haven’t had any problems with insomnia in the beginning I had a lot of nausea. I had I’ve had some head tension like something is wrapped around my head squeezing I’ve had more migraines probably than I’ve had in the past a lot of balance issues disassociation the realization and There’s been a host of symptoms. I’ll list a bunch more as they come. Another thing is brain fog. So obviously I can’t remember 90% of the things I’ve experienced But thankfully I keep a log in a journal to kind of know where I’m at What I what kind of things I’ve been experiencing because I do want to remember I just can’t off the top of my head today. I believe is day 127 I have to be clear 128 of My taper so I feel like I’ve come a long way. I’m down to about point 8 milligrams So that’s a big win down from 2 milligrams, and I feel pretty good I’m still right currently having some issues with heat and tolerance exercise intolerance Which means like I don’t recover very fast my muscles They get tense really quickly after a workout. So I’ve had to keep it pretty light. I have noticed that I’m very very fatigued and my appetite is pretty poor or It’ll jump to the complete opposite side where I’ll be so hungry Like I haven’t eaten for days and I’ll find anything that I can find and it’ll be gone So I can’t really say that Like I’ve had a steady normal appetite but it’s either been one way or the next so We kind of go through these waves and windows where the waves are pretty difficult The windows are kind of a an open, you know light into the future of health and healing and you feel better So right now I’m not really sure where I’m at. I’m not really in a way that I’m not really in a complete window I’m just kind of here the middle state But overall I feel good. Like I said before I can function and do a lot of normal things Oh one big thing I would like to say is that social anxiety has been a big issue for me and anxiety and general heart palpitations as well And that’s something that I’ve had to kind of protect myself with because I know it’s like a really difficult thing for me I don’t want to be stuck in the middle of like a social situation and Not be able to like calm down That’s been really difficult because I’ve had to I feel like isolate myself a little bit and also Put some boundaries where I don’t really want them, but I feel like it’s the safest thing for me at this point So I’m much better one-on-one than I am in groups Which is difficult for someone who loves to be around people. So that’s where we’re at. And today is a very special day and yes, if you know anyone going through withdrawal or tapering or Anyone that’s been affected by it. Please reach out share tell these people that you care and that you’re there for them and it’s important just to Acknowledge the difficulty that it is, although it’s not easy to explain while you’re in it so Yes, let’s just reach out to those that are going through this Send some love and thank you for watching and I’ll update you really soon