Benzodiazepines May Be Strong Serotonin Antagonists. Are They Really That Dangerous?

[SonOfEurope]

What dose of Valium? After almost 18 years of using Valium 5mg 2-3x/week for insomnia I have finally quit the drug. Since January 2020 I have used it 3 times when I became desperate to sleep. I’m now using cypro 0.5 mg twice a week to sleep. I do have to admit I felt much better on Valium. In the past few months I have gained 10 lbs and just don’t feel all that great. After struggling to get off the Valium I am seriously thinking of using it for my unrelenting insomnia and to feel ‘normal’ again.

Disclaimer: I'm not a Doctor, I do not give reliable medical advice and anything written below is not to he taken seriously or applied as actual medicine without the consultation of an M.D.

_________

Sorry... Had to do that to protect my bacon... I live in a beautiful paradise of freedom of expression against large institutions... The Great White North.. That's a good joke.

Holy cow! After that many -Years- of Valium (I tried it once.. It's more fast-acting than clonazepam ) you just quit cold turkey and are still alive... I and most others would have had seizures, the mist brutal state of Nervous system overactivity and such poor sleep we would be dead.

I've only been able to come off a 1,5 mg clono dependency over almost two years with the insanely slow reduction pointed above and progesterone to re-adapt my brain....

Two years and I'm still in the last .25 of clono milligram.

What you did was superhuman... If you cannot handle the torment, what I would do in your position is to go back but to the absolutely most minimal dose, and add progesterone, a Woman can take as much as she wants to... Because I know what a hell it is to try to come off these little monsters cold turkey.

 

[SonOfEurope]

And on the most minimal dose of Valium, with the help of progesterone (the naturally strongest gaba agonist - nature's benzo... But doesn't create a life threatening dependency ) - You would taper off those last fractions of a milligram rather smoothly.

 

[SonOfEurope]

It's crazy to see people here defending benzos... They should not be prescribed to anyone under 40 years of age and only as a last resort in severe psychiatric conditions or times of unbearable life hardship. They're destroying young people's lives.


But then why not just prescribe Progesterone to women.... Or progesterone plus an un-aromatizable androgen to men... Same or greater GABA agonism... Same or greater enhancenent to face life's difficulties but without the brutality of dependency on them and what happens then.

Hell... Lithium but not something that can KILL YOU once you are dependant...

Oh wait... Yeah right... Hmm.. Progesterone is just an evil carcinogen that women only need if they wanted get pregnant... Men don't need at all and Estrogen is the true hormone that will lead our evolution to Gods of the universe.

The fact that the medical establishment has lied about, and demonized one of the most crucial substances to life, the most precious hormone.. And glorified it's antithesis shows you in who's hands it has been since the beginning of the 20th century... Maybe earlier

 

[Davsey85]

Any sources of some good cheap progesterone?

Thanks

 

[SonOfEurope]

Any sources of some good cheap progesterone?

Thanks

Since you are a first timer.... You could benefit from the added benefit of the vitamin E. But Haidut 's Progesterone has faster topical absorption.

Progest-e:
Dr. Peat's Progest E Oil Complex, 34 ml

(can apply two to three drops under tongue or Gums and it gets into the bloodstream fast, with the added benefits of vitamin E. )

Progestene: Very efficient topical absorbition but oral I personally sometimes add 4 or 5 drops to my juice.

Haidut may not like me posting the link to his lab... So just google "idealabs cosmetics " and seek "Progestene" - there is also a link there that takes you to Haidut's thread on it.

 

[GreenEyedBlonde]

Disclaimer: I'm not a Doctor, I do not give reliable medical advice and anything written below is not to he taken seriously or applied as actual medicine without the consultation of an M.D.
_________

Sorry... Had to do that to protect my bacon... I live in a beautiful paradise of freedom of expression against large institutions... The Great White North.. That's a good joke.
Thanks for your input! I do have some progesterone here. I started using it topically for sciatica over a year ago and once the pain was mostly gone I stopped using it. I guess I will give it a try again. Glad you mentioned it.
Holy cow! After that many -Years- of Valium (I tried it once.. It's more fast-acting than clonazepam ) you just quit cold turkey and are still alive... I and most others would have had seizures, the mist brutal state of Nervous system overactivity and such poor sleep we would be dead.

I've only been able to come off a 1,5 mg clono dependency over almost two years with the insanely slow reduction pointed above and progesterone to re-adapt my brain....

Two years and I'm still in the last .25 of clono milligram.

What you did was superhuman... If you cannot handle the torment, what I would do in your position is to go back but to the absolutely most minimal dose, and add progesterone, a Woman can take as much as she wants to... Because I know what a hell it is to try to come off these little monsters cold turkey.

 

[GreenEyedBlonde]

Weird - don’t know what happened to my reply....will give the topical progesterone a try.

 

[SonOfEurope]

Weird - don’t know what happened to my reply....will give the topical progesterone a try.

No matter, it's happened to me... I'm glad to hear, a Woman can only benefit from it.

Progesterone will remove estrogen from tissues and put it in circulation to be eliminated by the liver.

In small doses it will actually sensitize the estrogen receptor and only partly give you the benefits. So as peat said, in your first dose you can go high...

I'd advice 150mg topical on your first dose (Yes-90 drops of Progestene or 50 of Progest-E if oral ) - to push estrogen out of tissues and end the excitation... Later you can tune the dose down to more frequent smaller applications.

That first dose of 150mg topical or 200mg oral, please before bed as it will make you very, very sleepy.

Good luck.

 

[SonOfEurope]

Weird - don’t know what happened to my reply....will give the topical progesterone a try.

Ah and one last detail I forgot...

Other than making you feel sleepy at feminine doses of 50mg or higher a few other things change.

Progesterone will enhance your thyroid function, improve the flow of HO2 (water) though your organism as it antagonizes the excitational "water de-organization" nature of Estrogen and radiation, in other words it's a diuretic and you will need more potassium, magnesium, zinc, Sodium and to a lesser extent all the minerals and to make things simple more calories.. It should increase your appetite but not cause weight gain with the improved thyroid and energy utilization within the organism.

 

[GreenEyedBlonde]

Ah and one last detail I forgot...

Other than making you feel sleepy at feminine doses of 50mg or higher a few other things change.

Progesterone will enhance your thyroid function, improve the flow of HO2 (water) though your organism as it antagonizes the excitational "water de-organization" nature of Estrogen and radiation, in other words it's a diuretic and you will need more potassium, magnesium, zinc, Sodium and to a lesser extent all the minerals and to make things simple more calories.. It should increase your appetite but not cause weight gain with the improved thyroid and energy utilization within the organism.

That’s very helpful. Would you recommend the same dosage whether premenopausal or postmenopausal?

 

[SonOfEurope]

That’s very helpful. Would you recommend the same dosage whether premenopausal or postmenopausal?

Well in a "pre-menopausal " woman it would have to be timed with the beginning of the luteal phase wouldn't it? And yes - sane dose... At that time it would enhance the possibly lacking progesterone production of many young women nowadays both by direct action and by healing the Ovaries.

Then tapered down for the other 2 weeks of the menstrual cycle to just 5-10mg daily.

A post-menopausal woman can use it daily in 50+mg doses as long as its not too sedating. ... It might even restart ovulation in a female who - due to excess estrogen or stress exposure lost her fertility prematurely before 47/48...

Progesterone is, out of all hormones, the most stabilizing, therefore you can trust it 100+ % so long as it be true USP - grade and not no fake progestin like doctors prescribe... You will feel what your body tells you and adjust the dose and timings on your own depending on your needs.

 

[GreenEyedBlonde]

Well in a "pre-menopausal " woman it would have to be timed with the beginning of the luteal phase wouldn't it? And yes - sane dose... At that time it would enhance the possibly lacking progesterone production of many young women nowadays both by direct action and by healing the Ovaries.

Then tapered down for the other 2 weeks of the menstrual cycle to just 5-10mg daily.

A post-menopausal woman can use it daily in 50+mg doses as long as its not too sedating. ... It might even restart ovulation in a female who - due to excess estrogen or stress exposure lost her fertility prematurely before 47/48...

Progesterone is, out of all hormones, the most stabilizing, therefore you can trust it 100+ % so long as it be true USP - grade and not no fake progestin like doctors prescribe... You will feel what your body tells you and adjust the dose and timings on your own depending on your needs.

Thanks for your help. I used oral micronized progesterone years ago - 100 mg at bedtime and I was truly miserable. Edema, bloating, irritability, etc. I really did feel my estrogen receptors were on fire so I quit after a week at that dose. I will give it a try again. Hopefully, it will help with my insomnia and my estrogen excess symptoms. I do have Hashimoto’s and perhaps it will help with the conversion of the T4 I take to T3. I have never felt like the meds helped much - Endo doesn’t believe in T3 administration.

 

[Jessie]

Mirtazapine is probably a safer not to mention far superior drug for lowering serotonin and depression.

Benzos are highly addictive and come with serious side effects. Benzo withdrawals are exceedingly dangerous, and have a much higher death rate then opiate withdrawal.

 

[GutFeeling]

Mirtazapine is probably a safer not to mention far superior drug for lowering serotonin and depression.

Benzos are highly addictive and come with serious side effects. Benzo withdrawals are exceedingly dangerous, and have a much higher death rate then opiate withdrawal.

Yeah, for me mirtazapine is a life saver.
Stronger HT2C antagonism than cypro plus dopaminergic, gabaergic (via increasing neurosteroids), HT1A autorreceptor agonism thus lowering serum serotonin in certain parts of the brain. And it also increases BDNF which is one of the main reasons antidepressants like SSRI works.

The anxiolytic properties aren't far less than benzos (according to studies). However I still have crippling anxiety.
Mirt also may be addictive and it's withdrawals only lose to benzos in regards to seizures.

But what percentage of benzo users get seizures during withdrawals?

 

[Davsey85]

Well in a "pre-menopausal " woman it would have to be timed with the beginning of the luteal phase wouldn't it? And yes - sane dose... At that time it would enhance the possibly lacking progesterone production of many young women nowadays both by direct action and by healing the Ovaries.

Then tapered down for the other 2 weeks of the menstrual cycle to just 5-10mg daily.

A post-menopausal woman can use it daily in 50+mg doses as long as its not too sedating. ... It might even restart ovulation in a female who - due to excess estrogen or stress exposure lost her fertility prematurely before 47/48...

Progesterone is, out of all hormones, the most stabilizing, therefore you can trust it 100+ % so long as it be true USP - grade and not no fake progestin like doctors prescribe... You will feel what your body tells you and adjust the dose and timings on your own depending on your needs.

Would you say Progest e could replace benzos like klonopin?

 

[Davsey85]

Yeah, for me mirtazapine is a life saver.
Stronger HT2C antagonism than cypro plus dopaminergic, gabaergic (via increasing neurosteroids), HT1A autorreceptor agonism thus lowering serum serotonin in certain parts of the brain. And it also increases BDNF which is one of the main reasons antidepressants like SSRI works.

The anxiolytic properties aren't far less than benzos (according to studies). However I still have crippling anxiety.
Mirt also may be addictive and it's withdrawals only lose to benzos in regards to seizures.

But what percentage of benzo users get seizures during withdrawals?

Interesting what's your dose on the mirtizipine?

 

[GutFeeling]

Interesting what's your dose on the mirtizipine?

30mg
Apparently after 30mg there is no additional benefit regarding to depression.
15 mg caused excessive sedation and 45 did make me a bit short fused
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-0366(19)30217-2/fulltext

 

[SonOfEurope]

Would you say Progest e could replace benzos like klonopin?

I will only say that, having reduced a dependency of 1,75mg klonopin to less than 1/5 of a mg/day and will soon switch to lorazepam to continue the reduction to the most minimal dose possible before stoping and I did it in only 20 months and with less than 40mg p4 per day....

It might be possible for MASSIVE DOSE (400mg a day ) progesterone to enable someone to quit cold turkey without a single seizure or even a single night awake.... But I would find it too daring.. As in pushing an already miraculous substance to almost the impossible... These monstrous Benzos make every type of gaba receptor dependant on a worse way than booze... As long as you cut back slowly and help the gaba system re-adapt with p4 your brain and nervous system should be OK.

Progesterone's main task here is not to replace the benzos as the new gaba fix (it cannot make you dependant on a life threatening way as haidut explained through some mechanism) but to help you brain and nervous system re-learn to be themselves and regenerate during the taper... Progesterone is the substance of regeneration.

Although I am sure someone braver than me could have done the withdrawal I did in maybe 3 months... With more progesterone of course.... Peat spoke of a man with extreme alcoholism doing it.... I don't push it that far...

 

[SonOfEurope]

Thanks for your help. I used oral micronized progesterone years ago - 100 mg at bedtime and I was truly miserable. Edema, bloating, irritability, etc. I really did feel my estrogen receptors were on fire so I quit after a week at that dose. I will give it a try again. Hopefully, it will help with my insomnia and my estrogen excess symptoms. I do have Hashimoto’s and perhaps it will help with the conversion of the T4 I take to T3. I have never felt like the meds helped much - Endo doesn’t believe in T3 administration.

Progesterone is the most sedating and anesthetic hormonal substance that exist in nature... (Androsterone might be very close, but it's not for a woman in significant quantities) Even after two years of taking 35mg a day, if I were to take 300mg it would knock me out for 5 hours even after a coffee...

It's both the precursor and in a way antithesis of cortisol,... When a precursor is abundant there is less need for a more harmful downstream mineralocorticoid to be produced. I quote Peat:

"And when there is abundant Progesterone, the body doesn't need to produce the potentially harmful cortisol"

Progesterone Pregnenolone & DHEA - Three Youth-Associated Hormones

Read the above article's progesterone section. Peat just couldn't fit it all in one article so there are others too.

Have you tried tyromax, tyronnene or cynoplus?

The former is available on Idealabs' cosmetics.

How many carbs do you eat each day and from which sources?

 

[SonOfEurope]

But remember,

Zinc, Magnesium, Calcium, and sodium and potassium all must be increased as they're going to get utilized more properly, metabolized faster and mobilized more.