Benedryl Withdrawal

[Griffin (OP)]

Does anyone know how long the withdrawal from diphenhydramine lasts? I can't seem to make it past 36 hours, its weird I really wish I would of known that I would go through this shit from taking it, so much for otc being safe and non-habit forming. I have taken between 100-250mg a day since I got out of jail last April to help me sleep, and I just started noticing a few months ago that if I forget to take it I will get really sick and have been wanting to get off of it.

I have been taking 150 mgs a day since I found out that it made me sick not to take it, and have been considering tapering because I want to stop taking it because I think it is adding to my depression, lethargy, and inability to get out of bed. Will tapering help, has anyone been through this and no how long it will last or how bad it can get? The worst of it so far, is the nausea, mirgraine, and feeling like my body hurts and I need to throw up, it comes on after about 24 hours if I haven't taken it.

It's nothing like opiate withdrawal at least the beginning isn't I hope it doesn't last long because I want off of it, I am pissed that I can't stop taking it. It's the weirdest w/d i get really hot feverish, and nauseous with a head ache that eventually turns into a migraine, and my stomach feels like I just threw up nothing but stomach acid if you know that feeling. It is not in my head, I noticed the sickness before realizing it was the benedryl, and it happens every time I forget to take it and go more than 24 hours.


 I am thinking about trying to quit next week when I get my benzo script to give myself a 2 day of relief, maybe longer if i can convince my doc to give me ativan instead of xanax. Last month my doc said he was taking away one of my scripts because I told him I wasn't going to quit methadone to get on testosterone(I am getting that from a different doc who specializes in it now). So he asked me which one I wanted to keep and I stupidly blurted out xanax without thinking about it.



**** WARNING *** Typical verbose griffin post below that is mostly rambling about my doc that is completely pointless with a few questions on how to not get cut off by my doc. Reading not required*****

I was getting 30 .25 xanax and 30 1mg ativan. and he gave me 60 of the .25 xanax but wants me to try to only take one a day and is going to eventually cut me down to that. So I am going to go in next week and tell him that I wasn't able to take just one a day because it is so short acting and I was having panic attacks and anxiety, and would like to try and take the ativan instead since it is longer lasting, and hopefully he will give me 60 and tell me to try to cut down to one a day.

I'm not 100% sure how to word it so that he doesn't cut me down to 30 or take them both away so any help on what I should say or how to go about it is appreciated. Or do you guys think I should just shut up and enjoy the benzos while they last? I started out on 90 1mg xanax in oct. 2014 and he has been trying to cut me off since I started. He took away my oxymorphone, and oxycodone within 4 months of going to him.

He cut me down to 30 .25 xanax within a year and a few months after that he forgot that he was writing for .25 and wrote for 30 .5. The month after that he started giving me 30 .25 xanax, and 30 10mg valium. He did the 30 valiums and xanax instead of just 30 .5's because I asked for something that lasted longer trying to get switched over to just klonopin but got that instead. 6 months ago he switched from the 10mg valium to 1mg ativan as a cut. That is what I was on since last month when he switched to just xanax so that I can "wean down to 1 a day."

How much xanax equals 1mg ativan, I used to think it was 1 mg of ativan was equal to 1mg of xanax because I was taking 5 mg's of each but I think I felt more from the xanax but don't really remember it wouldn't surprise me if .5 xanax equaled 1mg of ativan or less. So if he does switch me to 30 ativan it will prob be more than 60 .25 xanax right?

I don't know how much longer I am going to be getting benzos or when he is going to cut me down to 30 so I have been trying to be careful in what I say so any advice on what I should say to get switched to ativan I am all ears or if I should just shut up. My "taper" has been random and I think more based on how he feels that day and who his previous patients were because he writes a TON for adderal, benzos, and opiates to anyone who asked.

The few people I know who go there still get a bunch of roxies and shit idk why he cut me off so quick but he gave them to me without any former prescriptions or medical history and beggars cant be choosers. It's probably cause i come at the end of the day, and he is tired of all of it so he just writes me the minimum to keep me coming back.

His walls are thin and it's bad listening to his other patients like stereotypical drug seeking, they always ask for more, and I don't think I have been in without hearing him writing someone for oxy. I can't judge, and try not to but I see how he could get fed up, it would probably piss me off if every 25 year old that see's me has horrible documentless pain, panic attacks, adhd, and whatever ailments he will write for that continues to get worse.

 Well shit this turned out way longer than I wanted it to... sorry I tend to do that with all my posts.

[Chip]

I am sure that it is absolutely NOT in your head because ANY drug that evokes a certain physical feeling WILL cause addiction over time !

Try to reduce your dose by a third for a few days ... if that hurts, then drop by 20% for a few days. it's half life is no more than 8 hours so a few days (3-4) should suffice.

The good news is that it's cheap and plentiful so you don't have all the other crap that comes with the illicit drugs.

Keep us posted please ... i found this for you to consider:

After abusing diphenhydramine or other sedative antihistamines if you suddenly stop taking them, withdrawal symptoms that indicate that you have physical dependence include:

. Insomnia.
. Irritability.
. Restlessness.
. Sweating.
. Abdominal cramps.
. Diarrhea.
. Runny nose.

see also: https://www.drugs.com/answers/anyone-dependance-issue-diphenhydramine-806337.html

[Griffin (OP)]

Oh yippee, can't wait the running nose and diarrhea sound just wonderful, the rest I have dealt with I just hope it doesn't keep getting worse like opiate w/d cause the beginning def sucks. I am trying 75mgs today to see how I feel so far I feel alright a bit off but I am okay. i waited 30 hours to take it to see if I could weather it didn't happen. Maybe there is a bright side and the diarrhea will off set the slight constipation I get from methadone and put me back to the normal range.

When I first got on methadone it cured my opiate constipation 100% and even tho I was on 280mg I had medically top notch shits, then after getting back on after the 4 month post jail detox, I get slightly constipated but nowhere like it was before methadone I go every day instead of once every week or 2 like when I was strung out, god that was horrible, I dreaded the day I had to take a shit and I felt like I had 20 lbs of shit in me at all times.

Hopefully the irritability and insomnia will be off set with benzos and I am planning on tapering as much as possible until I get them next week and then try to knock myself out for 2-3 days and hopefully that will be the worst of it. I will update if I go through the whole withdrawal process and let you all know how intense it gets and how long it lasts, hopefully it's not horrible. Your right about it being cheap and plentiful its $5 for 200 25mg tablets, and sometimes its 400 tablets for $7, so at least its not scheduled like it was back in the day.

[Zoops]

I think many if not most opiates users also take diphenhydramine on a pretty much daily basis. I take 100-125mg each night around 2 hours before retiring. But if I forget it I don't get any w/d sx. Sometimes I sleep fine without it.

(BenAdryl)

It was an Rx-only drug until 1985 in the USA (the same year MDMA was placed in schedule I). I remember getting prescribed diphenhydramine as a child in the late 70's, for poison ivy. I remember the tiny pink capsules it came in. I don't know why but I always remember that picture of those hot pink small capsules in that prescription bottle. I was like 7 or 8 years old.

[Dopeless Hopefiend]

Fuck. I can't even imagine taking 150+ mgs of benadryl. I take one benadryl and I'm totally groggy with brain fog & I wake up feeling totally hungover. 2 of them I'm passed out. I don't know why I have such a low tolerance to them. Flexaril is even worse, I'm practically drooling on one of those fuckers lol. I've always found it strange that no matter how high my opiate tolerance has been over the years things like benadryl, etc knock me flat on my ass.

[Griffin (OP)]

Tolerance builds super fast, when I was younger it'd knock me out, but after like a week of taking them they didnt have the same effect, and now I don't feel any different from taking them, although I am hoping it is one of the reasons I am feeling like shit all the time and that stops when i quit. Zoops have you gone 3 days recently without taking it and not had w/d symptoms? That is awesome if so I'd say be careful though because I am def. going through w/d, I will let you know how long it lasts and how bad just so you know and don't have to go through it.

I first started taking more than 1-2 at a time last april, after I got out of jail. I would get some bad side effects. You know when your in w/d and have rls and feel like you need to stretch all of your muscles because they have that uncomfortable and slightly painful spasm feeling? I would feel like that and would have to stretch my neck and arms constantly and it was really bad, that was the worse part. Do you guys get that in w/d? Feeling like you have to stretch your muscles constantly its hard to explain.

The jail forced me off methadone and gave me a methadone dui and I couldn't get back on it until I was sentenced. Sleeping was very difficult no matter how much I took, and it was the only thing I could take. Melatonin gives me the most vivid, horrible nightmares imaginable, I still remember the one from the last time I took it. When I tried to talk I wouldn't say what I was trying to and i was saying crazy shit instead and got locked up in a mental facility and couldn't get out or say what I was trying to it felt so real it was terrifying.

The county I was arrested in was 3.5 hours where I lived so I couldn't get back on MMT because I feared that when I went to court they'd give me another dui for having it in my system while driving to court so I had to take benedryl every night to try and sleep. Plus it looked better that I continued drug counseling without done since the judge, DA, and my pub. defender thought MMT is just as bad as shooting heroin.

At my first bail hearing the DA said that if they give me bail I would get back in a car and kill someone high on my methadone and that forcing me to get clean by not allowing me to have bond was the best and safest option for the public because if I get out I will go back on it and start breaking the law again and risking everyones life on the road while driving. It was the most ridiculous thing I'd heard it was very hard for me not to tear that guy a new asshole but I thought I'd be able to pay my bail since I had $3500 saved up.

They ended up setting my bail at $7,500 and I was on probation so got a warrant for $2500 too for violating it and no bondsmen would take 35% because I didn't have any family in state so I was a risk for jumping bail. After I found out that I couldn't get bailed out I felt even worse that I didn't school that asshole DA, but a month later they gave me a $7500 PR bond so I might not of got that if I got a contempt charge for teaching that da a lesson.

I mean theres probably 500,000 people on methadone in the US and more than like 3/4 of them drive so if he were right that would mean 375,000 people are illegally driving under the influence and are putting the public at risk from killing them with their cars because they are so fucked up. If that were true it'd be in the news how many people are dying everyday and we wouldn't be allowed to drive or allowed to be on it, that da is such a fuckwad.

Heres a kind of funny irrelevant story, one of the guys I was in jail with was a 19 year old black kid from Georgia he got arrested about 2 months before I did so he was in for about 3 months total. He had been working with the other inmates for 3 weeks to try and figure out what to say to the judge to be able to get a pr bond, and came up with the most ridiculous story and he got a PR bond with it, he went in front of me the day I got my PR bond.

He said that his wife was about to have his baby in denver and he couldn't get bail without a pr bond, and didn't want to miss his childs birth and that if he wasn't back by the end of the week he was going to lose his apartment that his family and his pregnant wifes mom lived at as well as his job doing maintenance for a childrens hospital in denver. There was a few more ridiculous things he threw in that I forgot but it was hard for us not to bust out laughing cause most of us had court with him.

He used legit addresses for everything and phone numbers for people he knew on the outside to corroborate his story and the judge bought it even though it sounded completely made up it was hilarious at the time though, he didn't have a job, or wife or live in CO, he didn't even have a license to drive back, and he jumped bail, cause he lives in another state.

 I don't remember exactly how much time he was looking at he had just finished his probation from his last conviction in georgia and he originally had a $100,000 bond and was charged with grand theft, and giving false ID to the cops along with 2 more felonies and another misdemeanor that they just tacked on that were all basically charges for the same thing. So he got dropped from a $50,000 bond to a $10,000 PR bond that day, so I felt good that I was going to get PR'd as well that day.

He was in jail because his gang had a scheme going on they called fishing, where they'd goto all the apt complexes where they lived and all the states around them at the end of the month, and had a thing that they would stick in those little mail drop box things that some apartments have to drop your rent off in, and would fish out as many rent envelopes as they could every month, and then use that money to come to colorado and buy a lot of cheap weed to sell.

Well the guy who rented him the car for him to come to colorado from georgia to get the weed only rented for 5 days and stopped paying and changed his phone number, so it was classified as a stolen car even though he wasn't the one who rented it he was the one driving it. He also didn't have a drivers license and lied about who he was. So he got charged with grand theft and a bunch of other shit.

Another guy in jail was moving to california from florida and his car died on the highway, and his dumbass broke into a car dealership and stole a car from them, and not just any car he took the one that had the huge vinyl wrapped hamster advertisement logo for the dealership around the whole entire car because it was the only one that had keys there he could find.

 He ended up totaling it, and getting grand theft charges and a few others. He took a plea deal for 5 years probation and pled guilty since it was his first time getting arrested, but the judge didn't think that probation was enough and gave him 18 months in prison. He was so pissed that the judge didn't honor his plea deal and disregarded the DA's recommendation and put him in prison because the only reason he signed and pled guilty was because he thought he was going to get probation.

A lot of people don't realize that a plea deal is only a recommendation and that the judge can sentence you to whatever he wants despite having a plea deal. so a judge can give you the maximum sentence after accepting a plea deal and pleading guilty even though the DA recommend probation for you pleading guilty.

So the guy had to stay in CO for the next 6 years and didn't get to california even though he knows no one here. He got arrested again after getting out because he was homeless and stayed in a old abandoned building that had been burnt down, and they gave him 6 more months in prison for trespassing.

The car he stole seriously looked like this

[DirtyJerzy]

"Naw officer this is a DIFFERENT hamster clad Kia, not that stolen one" lofuckinL
Some dudes belong in jail based on stupidity alone. Shame to say, but it's true.

[DeadCat]

From the posted possible symptoms of Benadryl w/d it doesn't sound like it gets any worse than the beginning of opiate w/d. The only resason I mention this is because any long-term opiate-dependant person recognizes these same symptoms as the beginning of opiate w/d and when we get any of them we expect things to get are going to get much worse. So, it is natural to overly anxious that the Benadryl w/d will be as bad but it will not.

I don't know what your current benzo situation is but if you think you need more than you are getting, especially f it is for the short to medium term, I find etizolam fill the gaps pretty well althugh experience has taught me not to try to get HIGH on it. It is too easy to take too many thinking "a little more and I'll feel really good" and that leads to some very embarassingly stupid behavior, at least it has for me. But used properly it will satisfy a jones for benzos and is not a controlled susbstance (except in 3 SE States). It won't show up in a blood test but it will show "unspecified benzo" in a simple dip UA.

Not pushing the stuff on you but hate to see you suffer.

[Griffin (OP)]

So of course my doctor sliced my script down to 30 1mg ativan from 60 .25 xanax, because I told him that I was having trouble taking only one of the xanax a day and was usually taking two, and that the ativan lasts longer so that should help me to be able to get me down to where I can take just one a day if I can switch. He said yes to the switch and then asked what my methadone dose was and I lied but I should of lied harder. I am on 90mg of done but told him I was on 60 when he asked but I should of said 20 mgs, and he probably would of let me keep 60 ativan. Instead of giving me only 3, he said try to take one or a half each day.

I am going to going to the Doctor next month and ask for more. I'd like advice on how to do this. Do I tell him that I need something during the day and at night which is why i was on both to begin with. How can he take half my script away and expect me to try to taper more from the half I got now.

He should of given me 60 and said to try and take it to one pill a day, not cut one med off completely so I am already at 50% of what I was taking and then tell me to try take one or less pills a day because you cut it 50% already, the extra cutting where he wants me to only take half of one when I can is bs. Thats like a 75% decrease. This appointment he takes half my meds away and then tell me to get by on the other half but still try to only take half or none on the days I can to speed up my taper as much as possble. its rubbish. I dont know what to say next appointment to get him to up me back up to 60 ativan instead of 30.

 
So I am at hour 36ish with no benedryl I feel queasy, have a bit of a headache so i just took my first benzo dose so hopefully my benzos last me  to the 96 hour mark. So i think 4 days of no benedryl should be good to get the withdrawals out of my system, I just gotta figure out something else to sleep with.

What are good sleep aids? I want to try melatonin, or valerian root but i heard valerian root can cause a false positive for benzos on drug tests so thats something to keep in mind. Also Melatonin gave me horrible nightmares as a kid like really vivid bad ones so hopefully that doesn't continue.  Are there any other things like that I can take or do to help me to sleep with out benedryl? I heard like lavender or vanilla scents in the air or on your pillow can help you sleep anyone tried it?

The ac in my room will def. help I need it super cold to sleep good and its cooling down at night too and it drowns out my filthy loser roommate who is up all night screaming at his video games. So anyone who has input on anything to help me sleep I am down for whatever besides benedryl. I will let anyone know how the benedryl w/d goes, right now i am just queasy, nauseous, stomach ache, head ache, and don't feel right but it's not horrible i dry heaved once thinking i was going to throw up but didn't.

[Chip]

My choice for a sleeper is Seroquel as it seldom abused, very easy to obtain, hard to develop an addiction to and works very well to induce sleep.

Just use a high dose of between 100-400 mg and only when needed

Worth a try, IMHO.

[Griffin (OP)]

I may if someone i knows has a script for it. last time i took it I was on wellbutrin at the same time and it made me feel like a zombie, and it made my eyes hurt constantly, like the feeling of waking up and having the light turned on all the time or having a cop flashlight in your eyes 24/7 I think its because it dilated my pupils too much idk what else could make it feel like that it was a weird pain I was miserable even though I was on wellbutrin which made me incapable of feeling emotions I never felt happy, sad, angry, excited, or anything ever it was really bad I didn't like it.

Serequel and wellbutrin is what they put me on after a suicide attempt, which I think was caused by having bad side effects from my previous anti-depressants ampytriptoline and lexapro, so after a few weeks of trying to get through that, I decided to never take them anti-depressants again. It was awful growing up the depression and anxiety was horrible 34/7 panic attacks, and never wanting to leave bed or do anything, I was always sad and worried which sucks cause when you are kid you shouldn't deal wtih that stuff. After I got off all meds I slowly  started to became normal then I got on opiates and that was a game changer, fixitall pill for me... for a while at least.

4 more doses left of ativan hopefully it helps like it should and gets be past wanting to take any benedryl and maybe i can find something else that works like melatonin or putting myself to lavender, or when i get off probabation in 5 months drinking everyday Thanks for the input chipper, any help with what to say to get 60 ativan would be appreciated i think cutting me to 30 was dickish but he had a fight with his nurse right before he walked in to talk to me because the nurse (who was in the right) sent a patient to the hospital and the doc bitched her out.

[Jega]

Are you trying to get through benxo w/d's or are you looking for someone to help you score somehow I suppose? (I know you aren't soliciting)

...Either way my answer will be the same. Gabapentin. GabaGabbaGba.

[Thoms]

Remeron. Done and done. Asleep like a motherfucker. Or risperdol.

[Chip]

Griffin, being a zombie whilst asleep sounds OK to me.

[Griffin (OP)]

Jega I am using my benzos to get through the benedryl withdrawal, I haben't beel able to quit it the past 9 months because the w/d gets to bad and I don't make it past 36 hours. Ill start getting a head ache, and my stomach will hurt and feel queazy like I need to throw or cant, like the feeling you get after throwing up a bunch of bile and stomach acid it sucks.I am hoping that with the benzos I get through the hard stuff and don't have tot take them again because I have been taking 100-200mgs every day since last arpril for sleep and since quitting I amg getting some of my energy back and not feeling so lethargic allt he time.

I must wish my doc wouldn't of halved my script and told me to try to halv it on my own when at home. Like he gave me 30 but he wants me to try to only take 15, instead I should have 60 and trying to taper down to just using 30 a month.