#tapering

Been suffering from benzo withdrawal for almost 2 months now. I think. I stopped counting.

Starting tapering by 1/8 of a mg on March 1st. I decrease the amount every 2 weeks. I'm not at the point where I'm almost completely off of it. Only a few days left.

So far, I've experienced:

agitation

irritability

increased anxiety

flu-like symptoms for a few days after about 3 weeks of tapering

muscle tension

mild nausea

muscle jerking

restless leg syndrome

probably other things that I'm forgetting

those last 2 symptoms (#9 not included) are the most prevalent right now. The only real reason I'm writing this is because my phone is updating and I don't have anyone to talk to about this. But I NEED to talk about this, even if it's just to myself in journal form. and I'm currently being driven up the wall by the nerves in my right leg. It feels like electricity is shooting around my kneecap and down to my ankle. This is the most uncomfortable I've been since the early withdrawal symptoms.

Early on I found someone via Twitter who has gone through the same thing as me, and I've since adopted her as my "sponsor", for lack of a better term. She's been very helpful. I feel very lucky to have her help me along this journey.

This is the second time I've attempted to taper off klonopin. The first time I failed after 2 weeks. About a year and a half before that, I had experienced pretty bad withdrawal symptoms after running out of meds for 36 or so hours.

I'm tired of these symptoms. They're not nearly as bad as I was expecting, probably due to tapering so slowly. But it's still hell.

As I sit here, super uncomfortable, moving my leg every 30 seconds to feel the least bit more comfortable, I remind myself how easy it would be to just take my previous full dose and have all of this over with. Just go back to normal. Sure, I'd become a slave to this drug again, but I'd have my sanity and my comfort back.

I've been on klonopin for 7-8 years. I didn't want to get off of it. My psychiatrist insisted. I thought about getting a new one. The long-term effects scared me, but so did the withdrawals. Now I'm in limbo. I have been since March 1, 2023. I'm frustrated.

Here I am going into the final week of the taper, with the previous week tapering like a pro. Or an amateur, depending on your take of what makes a good taper. Or a sick #runnernotrunning incapable of any activity.

I only managed a grand total of 1 day of running last week. I've had the last 5 days in a row off from any exercise due to this cold that seems to be hitting a new low with every passing day.

Normally I breeze through colds, back to running within 1-2 days. This is my first cold for the year though so it's probably hit me harder than normal. Ugh.

If this was a normal part of the training cycling I probably would've tried to run through it as much as I could. But there's always a delay with doing it that way, the worst could be over within 1-2 days but that remaining 10% could linger on for 2-3 weeks. By opting to rest instead, I'm aiming to have this gone as soon as I can.

I'm a little annoyed I didn't get in a final workout before the magical 10th day before race day, but whatever. This training cycle certainly hasn't gone perfect. I have managed to put in some decent miles and have had some good workouts though.

Fall colors are finally coming out, #seenonmywalk yesterday.

All I can do now is aim for fresh legs, and a cleansed chest, and hope that my mileage and workout paces will pull through on marathon day!

Sinusitis

Today I went to the Dr’s and was diagnozed with sinusitis. He gave me a prescription of antibiotics for 10 days. Amoxicillin, particularly. I’ve already taken 2 today. But this may not be good: 😬 

When antibiotics are taken for an illness rather than a skin infection, athletes may blame the decrease in pace (or increase in effort at the same pace) on the illness rather than the antibiotic.

However, even athletes taking antibiotics for an infection of the skin have reported slower racing and training paces.

What is your own experience with racing when on antibiotics?

Personally after reading some information on the interscares, I feel like taking them is a risk. Not to let opinions of others affect me, but basically here’s where my head’s at: 

If I take antibiotics, then from what I’ve read, the marathon is 100% out. 

saturday

new york city in 2 weeks and 1 day

What a fun morning, went to this quarter marathon race in a small town just outside of Buffalo, a fun quaint local race put on a by a small running club full of great dedicated people, just the kind of race and community I love about running - took first overall in 38:26, hard to put the time in context as it’s an irregular distance - using it as a prep race, was alone in front most of the way in this near perfect running weather, had to really push myself to keep the pace up, the new racing shoes felt good, I think it was good tune up for New York.  And received a nice trophy and gift certificate to a local running store.

Took yesterday off, and I think the rest day helped to get some of the kinks out of legs and arms - felt better this morning.

That combined with the excitement for my meet, a good night’s sleep, and a quiet day at work is leaving me full of energy with nothing to do.

So... pop in my inbox to say hello? Ask me questions? Tell me about yourself? Shoot me a boop if you need a little love in your own inbox? 

Lineart experiment! With a dave sketch I had lying around because what are you gonna do.

1 DEFAULT: My sketchy, normal way of doing lines. This was supposed to be the end result but then I realized I wanted to make it into an exercise. Minimal tapering and the only real line weight variation is between the outline and the inner details.

2 SMOOTH: More variation in line weight and more tapering + a rounded overall feel.

3 POINTY: Same as ^ but with harder angles and more extreme tapering in some places. I think I like this one best? Has a lot more visual interest compared to nr 1.

4 IMPLIED: Only some detail lines but otherwise lineless. Would have changed the bg into a darker color for more contrast but alas, i did everything on one layer...