I’m excited to celebrate the Fourth of July with my family. It will be the classic backyard get-together: good food, laughter, and a swimming pool. The San Francisco Bay area has been clobbered with scorching temps in the triple digits. Floating in the pool sounds like heaven. I hope you all are keeping cool and able to enjoy the holiday.
Certification Couse for Healthcare Professionals
There is a lot to report month. The benzo withdrawal certification course for healthcare professionals is very close to being completed. It got delayed due to software problems that were never solved. I had to move the entire course to a new learning platform, Thinkific, lesson by lesson, which also meant the multiple-choice quizzes had to be recreated one by one and moved question by question. It was time-consuming. I added more lessons to the course, so it covers all that I can think is important for healthcare professionals to know. The course should be ready to launch in a week or two. Fingers crossed.
Benzo Withdrawal/BIND in the News
The New York Post published a story on the article, Long-term consequences of benzodiazepine-induced neurological dysfunction: A survey, I blogged about it Saturday, July 1. It’s good to see benzo withdrawal getting some recognition, hopefully educating both healthcare professionals and laypeople about the dangers of benzos.
Guest Speakers/Group Activities
Kathi Donald was our guest Friday, June 30, in my Heal With Dr. Jenn support group that meets on Discord. She shared about her six-figure settlement. It was an inspirational interview. All of our discussions are recorded (Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 9 AM Pacific), so you can watch the interview at your convenience if you decide to join the group. (Thank you, Kathi!)
Mike, an old client of mine, was the guest host Thursday, July 22. He filled in for me as I had cataract surgery on both eyes (I can see again!) that day. Mike is always a wonderful guest, and his story is very compelling. (Thank you, Mike!) I didn’t have any sedation for the procedure, just a local anesthetic. It was easy-peasy.
This Wednesday, we will be creating vision boards to help us with our goals and aspirations. We have a crafting gathering on Thursday, Coloring Our Feelings, and on Friday, I’ll host, along with an alumnus from the group, Putting Our Knowledge of the Gut Microbiome into Practice, so we can stack the cards in our favor to heal more quickly.
New Irons in the Fire
I’ve always been happiest juggling many projects at once. I have created a new Instagram profile, @jenniferleighauthor, to promote my novel Hen. I wrote it while recovering from my 6-year setback. The manuscript lived on my computer for a long time before I got around to editing it and publishing it on Amazon. It’s a story about the hurt that lives within the love between all mothers and daughters. It is set in the 1970s and 80s. Writing it helped me hold on during that dark time. I am going to offer a free virtual bookclub discussion later in the summer. If you are able to read and would like to join me, please do! I’ll announce the dates as we get closer to the time.
I’ve also created a new website, Heal With Dr. Jenn. (I’ll change the name of my benzo support group to Recover With Dr. Jenn so it’s not confusing.) The website is for people fifty and older. I’ll be offering health and wellness coaching, courses, and speaking engagements. I want others who are middle-aged and beyond to be as healthy and happy as possible, and I want them to avoid the dangers and damages of medications. (Too many seniors are on too many medications!) I’ll be promoting the site and my services on social media, so if you see it, don’t be alarmed. I am NOT leaving the benzo community. I will also be publishing a podcast for Heal With Dr. Jenn.
Mary Mary, Quite Contrary
How does your garden grow? This year’s demonstration healing garden is doing well. It’s a new garden plot, so it is a test-and-learn season. Two of the raised beds failed as they don’t get enough sunlight. I am pivoting and going to replace the veggies with shade-loving cutting flowers. A rodent has been nibbling the green tomatoes, so I had to net them. The shishito peppers are doing okay, but they are not as big as last year’s plants. I am hoping for the best, though. The birds and squirrels congregate at the numerous feeders. I love sitting inside looking out at them or in my swing on the deck. They have gotten used to me outside and will come to visit as long as I don’t walk near them. I’ve been answering gardening questions for my clients, which makes me happy! Gardening is a wonderful way to distract and promote our healing. If you want to share about your garden, please leave a comment. I’d love to hear about it. If my garden has inspired your healing, let me know!
YouTube
I’ve been so busy creating the course, blogging, and creating social media content that I haven’t gotten out my camera to video. It’s on my list of things to do. I promise I’ll post a video for the benzo community soon. What topics would you like me to cover?
That’s all the news I can think to share. Until next time, take good care of yourself.
“I am safe. I am healing. I will recover.”
From my heart to yours,
Dr. Jenn
Jen, in an upcoming youtube video it would be great if you could speak about people who are severely protracted, offering encouragement and validation of how hard it is to hold on for many years. Thank you
A video on setbacks (or flares) would be very helpful. Also a video on cross tolerance with steroids. I am sending a message about that to you hopefully today about involving a particular guest speaker
Thank you! I’ll get to work on it.
That’s a great idea. I’ll video one as soon as I can. It took me years to heal, so I know what it is like to go year after year. But we DO recover.
Does anyone else get triggered by giving withdrawal symptoms a name – BIND. I personally preferred to think the withdrawal symptoms were simply “symptoms”. I could at least tell my mind that these feelings are just symptoms. Now I feel like it’s absolutely a real medical condition. It feels like getting diagnosed with cancer. I actually think long term chronic benzo wd symptoms are limbic system dysfunction which I know can be regulated by doing neural retraining, somatics, vagus nerve exercises, mindfulness meditation, etc.
Thanks for letting me vent. I have extreme health anxiety and I don’t need another disease to obsess about.
I understand. But to date, neural retraining hasn’t been a cure for benzo withdrawal. It can be helpful, no doubt, but it doesn’t upregulate the GABA receptors that have been downregulated by the drug. BIND isn’t a disease. It is benzodiazepine-induced neurological dysfunction. The brain knows how to reverse the changes (neuroadaptation) caused by the drug. It just takes time. Many experience extreme health anxiety during withdrawal/BIND due to the lack of functioning GABA receptors. Thankfully, as the brain recovers, those fears usually recede.
Thank you so much for replying! I feel much better after your explanation of BIND.
You are most welcome! Remember, in BWD/BIND, we don’t have enough working GABA receptors. That means we are in a protect state of fight, flight, or freeze quite often. In that state, our thoughts and feelings will be negative. So it’s normal to have fearful thoughts, anxiety, etc., about almost everything. I understand your trigger with health anxiety. It’s very common in BWD/BIND. I’m glad the explanation helped a bit. Keep healing!
Hello
Please can you talked about lithium using for tapering
It has not helped any of my clients. I haven’t had many use it, but it has not been very helpful.
Robin Elliot. Using the acronym “BIND” unintentionally got blown out of proportion in the benzo community. Also, another benzo coach, unnecessarily & irresponsibly blew using the term “BIND” out of proportion in one of his videos, and that didn’t help things. This didn’t help people like you who have health anxiety.
You DO NOT have another health disorder/issue. All BIND is, is another way of describing benzo withdrawal with the only purpose of getting this injury recognized in the medical world. Those (benzo groups and organizations who are trying to educate and spread awareness of benzo harm) felt that just calling it “withdrawal” is not the way to convey the message of what is really going on, & I agree with that. When we go to uneducated doctors they say stupid things like “there is no way you are still in withdrawal because the drug is out of your system.” This is frustrating because we know that. The real issue is that the injury that the drug causes needs a lot of time to heal. A lot of time for our nervous system to find homeostasis.
You do not need to be triggered. You do not have a new medical issue. It is simply a matter of using different terminology for the same thing for the sake of spreading awareness… period.
Keep taking good care of yourself, & be gentle with yourself. You will heal more & more as time passes. Good self care and more time heals our nervous systems. Keep moving forward.
Excellent explanation. And wonderful compassion shown to Robin. Thank you!
Hi, Dr. Leigh. I’ve been having daily panic attacks for the past week and a half because my husband had to go to India for two weeks, and he’s been my safe person the entire time I’ve been tapering which has been a total of seven years due to a 3 year hold off the 2nd of the two benzos I was prescribed. Anyway, it’s been extremely challenging these past 10 days of daily panic attacks to the point that I’m more or less housebound, although I have started to learn how to write out a panic attack without adding more fear to it but they leave me exhausted. Im now to the point where I’m anticipating that I’m gonna have a panic attack in the morning. I have two therapists, one who is a trauma therapist and the other is a CBT therapist. I also have a weekly group So my sister who with people who are tapering off benzos, and the coach is a therapist who herself has gone through BIND. In addition, my two therapists are now on Crisis therapy with me, meaning I check in with them every day and they see me at least twice a week. It’s definitely helping I do think I would probably have gone to the psychiatric ward if I didn’t have all this extra help and it’s mostly because of fear and I have health anxiety really bad. Anyway, my two
sisters who have anxiety and take an anti-depressant claim that my symptoms are not from benzo withdrawal, but I have a chemical imbalance like they do and I should get on the appropriate medication which would be an anti-depressant. My question is would getting on an antidepressant be a good thing to do because these past two weeks have really put me into a tailspin with these daily panic attacks, sometimes three a day and I’m worried that two weeks of daily panic attacks is rewiring my brain in a bad way and from what I understand about some of the SSRIs they actually help with neuroplasticity. I read a research paper on it. I’ve been on anti-depressants before in the past for ruminating and I’ve never had any trouble getting on or off of them and I took a GeNe Test and according to that, there’s no problem, with me with any of the SSRIs. I don’t know what to do so many people say absolutely not to get on any kind of anti-depressant that it will only cause more trouble down the road. Also I am 71 years old so my sister mentioned that and said, do you want to live like this until you die because you know you’re 71 or do you wanna at least have a decent life for the last 10 plus years? I would really like to hear some opinions from people and from Dr. Leigh for sure. Thank you so much.
I am sorry to hear you are suffering so much. If you are still tapering, it may be impossible to determine if your panic is your underlying issue or from the neuroadaptation caused by the benzodiazepines. Even people who have never had anxiety/panic will experience it due to the damage the benzo caused until they are healed. If you are still tapering you are not yet healed if there was damage done, meaning, your GABA receptors down-regulated (and they know how to up-regulate and will do so on their own in time.) I am not fond of any psych meds as they all cause changes in the brain and can be difficult to discontinue. Your genetic profile may show that you can tolerate the medication but that doesn’t mean that the medications won’t have negative impacts on your brain and body. People test ok for taking a benzo, but they still damage the brain, for example. Only you can decide if you want to try another psych med. If you do, you may want to consider starting with a tiny dose and titrate to a therapeutic dose if your prescriber agrees. I’ve not had many clients who have had success with antidepressants “curing” their benzo anxiety/panic, but some say it can smooth out the rough edges while others (like myself) who have tried one had a terrible wave of symptoms. I wish that tapering off a benzo was easier than it is for everyone. Keep working with your therapists and benzo coach. I hope you get benzo free, heal, and find that your anxiety has greatly diminished.