Big congratulations, V.

I've been thinking about posting some nutritional supplements that help to heal the brain while coming off benzo.

The ones I use: Fish body oils, B-complex, alpha lipoic acid (a great anti-inflammatory), whey protein, maitake.

I'm anxious to see your alcohol progress after a couple of weeks when the benzo is mostly cleared.

I was nearly "there" with the cure but had another alcohol spike as I approach the last of my taper. I'm fairly certain that's the cause. I'm still doing the daily micro cuts.

Again, congrats. All the best!!

I thought I'd interject what I am doing regarding Benzos.

Even though, I had not yet completely titrated off of Valium, "the cure" hit me about several weeks ago. Not wanting to "upset the apple cart", I stopped my titrating down and remained at the very low level until I was sure my AL addiction was completely under control. After I was sure that it was, I began increasing my dosage back up and found that I am stable and completely functional at just 5mg Valium per day now, 25% of what it used to be 6 months ago. So now, not only am I free of alcohol addiction, my hypomania is now in check at a significantly lower Benzo dosage than before. I wasn't expecting that at all. I thought I would have to go back up to the 20mg again, but that is not the case.

Bob

Hi h4b,

Yes, very interesting indeed. If you read some of the threads and posts on this forum, it is unclear (to me) what impact benzos have on TSM.

I hope you don't mind my asking a question; could it be that your increase in alcohol consumption was caused by the panic attacks themselves rather than the Xanax? I ask this because I have chronic anxiety and occasionally experience panic attacks. Both the anxiety and panic attacks cause me to drink more in an attempt to deaden the feelings.

All the best.

V.

Hi Folks,

Having made the following statement in my last post, I decided to trawl the internet in search of some answers:

"...it is unclear (to me) what impact benzos have on TSM".

And I was rewarded! Please see:

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articl ... id=2014407

In fact, this paper addresses a range of chemicals that may inhibit the formation of 6-beta-naltrexol, the major metabolite of naltrexone. This study looked at just five different benzos and, unfortunately for me, they omitted clonazepam, which is what I used to take. Nevertheless, the results are very interesting.

V.

That is interesting. Maybe the implications of this for you go like this:

from wiki: The plasma halflife of naltrexone is about 4 hours, for 6-β-naltrexol 13 h

If you're stepping up your dose, maybe you need to take 50mg 1 hour before and 50mg 4 hours after the first pill.

Hi Lo0p,

Many thanks for your feedback.

Perhaps you could explain the rationale behind your proposed dosage protocol.

All the best.

V.

I'll get back to you on that with some graphs.

Tell me, what is your drinking style/pattern Virgil? Also what is your weight again? I know you posted it somewhere. -E

Hi Lo0p,

I am a daily drinker and have been for many years. During weekdays, I only drink in the evening. At weekends, I may start drinking as early as 3:00 pm during the summer months. My weight is 93 kg.

I look forward to hearing from you.

V.

I don't really understand all this, but just want to say that: I'm sure that Drs Eskapa and Sinclair are aware of many of these reports and papers, but perhaps we need a section of the forum or a system to definitely bring them to their attention, just in case?

<edit> We have so many intelligent people here, and our experiences must be almost invaluable to them as a real, English-speaking, public presence on the internet of the ongoing journey that is TSM; and now some of us are also acting like research students extraordinaire!

How's everyone in the bunch doing? I'm plodding along with my taper. Losing .005 mg clonazepam (aka klonipin)/day (2 ml from a solution of 40 ml whole milk/1mg clonazepam) and almost done. Some days I've cut more, some days I hold, depending on how I feel. My goal is to be absolutely sure I am symptom-free so I don't have post-benzo syndrome (long-term symptoms such as anxiety, brain fog, etc). I'm down to .26, which is the valium equivalent of about 1.25 mg. I'm going to hold that dose for a few days but I'm definitely expecting to be benzo-free by the end of the year. But it's how I feel and not the calendar driving my taper.

Anyone else making progress?