valium works!!! and Iike they way it makes me feel. But I don’t want to take it anymore because 1) eventually my prescription will run out and 2) I want to get better and I won’t as long as this is masking my symptoms and I can’t compensate.
I had a very bad 4 hour long vertigo attack in December, first one in a year and I have felt terrible ever since. Taking the nortriptyline is only making it worse, I think, or maybe I would feel worse if I stopped taking it, I’m really not sure.
I felt so carsick, and off balance and on the edge of an attack this morning. Finally took half a meclizine. That helped. And usually when I take one I will be good for 24 hours or longer, but tonight as soon as I got home from work I took half a valium as I felt so much like I was gong to get vertigo again.
Tomorrow morning I have a dentist appt and I always have to take meclizine before that because the mere up and down of the chair makes me sick, plus I take it a preventive cause I don’t want an attack there plus I have always had dental phobia real bad. So I was planning on taking something tomorrow anyway. If I wasn’t I probably wouldn’t have taken anything tonight, but I figured what the heck as long as I have to tomorrow I might as well start tonight and feel better and hopefully sleep good for a change.
I’m usually okay as far as taking nothing when I am home but when I get out in public I get so fearful of having an attack I tend to take something whereas at home if I were feeling the same way I wouldn’t.
I always vowed I would never use valium or anything like it and up until the past couple of years I only used it three times 1) before some major dental work 2) before some outpatient surgery for which I was going to be awake and 3) when I was diagnosed with breast cancer and not handling it to well (and even then I only took it 3 or 4 times). Oh yeah, and the colonoscopy. :oops:
Now I’m only taking one or the other 2-3 days a week so that’s not a real lot. I feel so depressed about this. I want to get well so bad, but I can’t take the daily feeling (which is so much worse than a month or two ago) of feeling so carsick and on the edge of vertigo.
Just venting cause I don’t think there is an easy answer to this.
I find Ativan (lorazepam) or Xanax (alprazolam) good alternatives to Valium – you might try one of those. They have a half-life of about 10-15 hours, not 20-100, which is Valium’s (it also metabolizes into nordazepam, with a half-life of up to eight days). Some on the forum find Ativan / Xanax unhelpful, but I find them fairly good, and they’re gone much quicker.
Surprising that Antivert (meclizine) helps you, as it’s mainly useful as a vestibular suppressant. It only made me sleep a lot (though that sounds pretty good these days).
Hey George - thing is I want to stay away from benzos altogether, including xanax, ativan or anything related. I want to feel good and not need this stuff. But it helps and makes me feel better and I am so afraid I will get addicted.
Meclizine also helps with the constant feeling of motion sickness I have. I’ve been taking it for years but not with any great regularity, maybe a couple times a month, often less. It wasn’t until the vertigo started that I began to take it more often. While it doesn’t have the same whole body effect on me that valium does, just because it takes the sick feeling away, the way I feel emotionally is greatly improved.
I find Ativan (lorazepam) or Xanax (alprazolam) good alternatives to Valium – you might try one of those. They have a half-life of about 10-15 hours, not 20-100, which is Valium’s (it also metabolizes into nordazepam, with a half-life of up to eight days). Some on the forum find Ativan / Xanax unhelpful, but I find them fairly good, and they’re gone much quicker.
Surprising that Antivert (meclizine) helps you, as it’s mainly useful as a vestibular suppressant. It only made me sleep a lot (though that sounds pretty good these days).
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But… That’s a negative trait. Xanax in massively more addictive than Valium, mostly due to its short half-life. It’s (in)famous for creating withdrawal symptoms from a missed dose the same day, creating a serious possibility for addiction.
Of course, all benzos are addictive, but IMHO (if one can have an “opinion” about what really is fact), Xanax is the worst by far.
The fact-vs.-opinion matter, I should probably leave alone. Anyway, maybe I’ve an odd metabolism – I’ve never had withdrawal effects from any benzo, short- OR long-acting. I said what I did because Valium (and other long-half-life pills) can easily and quickly “build up” in the body since the elimination’s so slow. That seems another big problem to me. So for those who don’t experience withdrawal problems, at least, I think a short-lived drug is preferable.
I have used valium periodically. When I was 25 and gave birth to my daughter I ended up with panic attacks at night after going back to work. The dr said it was hormonal, a post partum thing and gave me valium. I took it for a short time. Then at the beginning of all this mav stuff in 2008 before I had a diagnosis, I took it for awhile. Now…I am taking it again. I only take a 2mg pill…very low dose. I suspect I will need to do this for awhile. Maybe somedays i won’t need it. But I wouldn’t worry about it since you only use it if you go out. did things visually spin for 4 hours or did you have the sensation of spinning. I had the sensation of movement for a few hours a few weeks ago and it left me motion sensitive and in a flareup with anxiety. I hope you didn’t see things visually spinning. I hate that.
I never had a problem stopping it. I hate using it too, but it helps. I may try meclyzine for the motion sensitivity. I always forget about that med. Thanks for mentioning it.
I totally understand how you feel about this benzo thing and I am not prepared to take it daily unless symptoms require it. But I think to balance the view on this, it is not a drug to be feared if used wisely IMO. I’ve been using it off and on for 6 years now, sometimes hitting it quite hard for days on end to ride out bad patches and then I stop. Never any problems. The only thing I worry about is running out of the stuff! Doctors hate writing scripts for this stuff here and constantly remind me about avoiding dependence. It’s the only med I’ve taken that brings relief from the acute junk and causes no side effects whatsoever.
The fact-vs.-opinion matter, I should probably leave alone. Anyway, maybe I’ve an odd metabolism – I’ve never had withdrawal effects from any benzo, short- OR long-acting. I said what I did because Valium (and other long-half-life pills) can easily and quickly “build up” in the body since the elimination’s so slow. That seems another big problem to me. So for those who don’t experience withdrawal problems, at least, I think a short-lived drug is preferable.
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George, I think the good or bad of this depends on the person and their system. I like the feeling of valium so a long half life is okay, and even though I don’t feel the calming effects of it all that long it is somewhat comforting to know that there is still some in me, hopefully working to calm my vestibular system. Now if it were a drug that I had a problem with (such as zoloft, I had a terrible reaction to that) then I want it out of my system as fast as possible.
I have used valium periodically. When I was 25 and gave birth to my daughter I ended up with panic attacks at night after going back to work. The dr said it was hormonal, a post partum thing and gave me valium. I took it for a short time. Then at the beginning of all this mav stuff in 2008 before I had a diagnosis, I took it for awhile. Now…I am taking it again. I only take a 2mg pill…very low dose. I suspect I will need to do this for awhile. Maybe somedays i won’t need it. But I wouldn’t worry about it since you only use it if you go out. did things visually spin for 4 hours or did you have the sensation of spinning. I had the sensation of movement for a few hours a few weeks ago and it left me motion sensitive and in a flareup with anxiety. I hope you didn’t see things visually spinning. I hate that.
I never had a problem stopping it. I hate using it too, but it helps. I may try meclyzine for the motion sensitivity. I always forget about that med. Thanks for mentioning it.
Do you have periods of time when you are 100%?
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I usually take a small dose also, 2.5 mgs unless I’m feeling especially bad. My attack in December was the bad kind, everything was spinning out of control and I felt like I was spinning. I sat on my bathroom floor unable to move for 3-4 hours. Just a milimeter of head movement made things so much worse. I don’t have a problem taking 10 mgs when this happens. Fortunately for me, these kinds of attacks are rare. It’s the day to day kind of stuff I wish I didn’t need it for.
I rarely ever feel 100%, but today I did, only because I took 3/4 of a valium for my dental appt and I’m sure still had some left over inside me from what I took last night. It felt good to feel good today, especially after feeling so terrible yesterday. D*** I wish I could always feel like this.
I totally understand how you feel about this benzo thing and I am not prepared to take it daily unless symptoms require it. But I think to balance the view on this, it is not a drug to be feared if used wisely IMO. I’ve been using it off and on for 6 years now, sometimes hitting it quite hard for days on end to ride out bad patches and then I stop. Never any problems. The only thing I worry about is running out of the stuff! Doctors hate writing scripts for this stuff here and constantly remind me about avoiding dependence. It’s the only med I’ve taken that brings relief from the acute junk and causes no side effects whatsoever.
Don’t feel guilty about using it. It works!
Scott
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Scott, I know what you mean . . . . there are some days I just have to have it. Seems since my last attack though, and going on nortriptyline, I need it so much more. I want to go the other directtion and need it less.
I worry about running out of the stuff too. My new doctor gave me a prescription for 36 pills with three refills, WOW!! I thought. But because it is a controlled substance the pharmacy will not honor the refill part of it and my bottle says NO REFILLS,
I thought it was kind of funny for my doctor to tell me he wants me to stop all my meds and only take nortriptyline, yet five minutes later when I asked him for a prescption for both meclizine and valium he handed them over without a question.
I think the key with valium or any benzo whatsoever is to set a roof for how much you are willing to take. Let’s say 5mg valium would be the maximum daily amount one is willing to take; one then starts out with 2mg, and they work just fine… But then someone dies, or something happens, and suddenly you find that 2mg aint doing much anymore. Well so then you raise the amount taken, and now you’re on 5mg; if it bails then, the key is not to increase further.
Some people get extremely physically dependent even on low doses, but those are (I THINK!) very few.
I think how much Valium you need depends on, well, how much you need at the time. When I’ve taken it for bad anxiety (eg flying) I can take 20mg washed down with a couple of glasses of wine and still be so alert I could just about fly the plane myself. Other times, with MAV stuff I can take 2.5mg and bingo, all is good.
I’m very conscious of dependence (Scott is right, doctors in Australia are really strict with it) so don’t take it very often, but don’t stress out when I do. I’ve never felt any dependence developing, nor withdrawal. As Halmagyi says, it is a wonder drug. And just FYI Scott, he thinks it should be in the water so you’d have no trouble getting a prescription from him :lol: .
I just found out through my pharmacist that because of the drug addiction problems to Valium in the 70’s it is considered a controlled substance, and the docs around here also don’t like to perscribe it. I have talked to my doc extensively about it, and he says that it actually takes a much higher and constant dosage level than I take to become addicted. He considers 5mg 3 times daily as safe from addiction, unless taken at that level for years. The most I have ever taken in one day is 10mg. Usually Valium makes me so drowsy that 5 mg is enough to stablize things out long enough for me to get home before the drowsiness kicks in and puts me to sleep. Because of the sleep factor, personally, I don’t think I have to worry about getting addicted, that is unless I start taking it daily as a sleep aid.
