Nadav says she has been through protracted withdrawal syndrome: Six weeks after starting to taper off Xanax and Ambien in 2021, "my hands and my head were shaking, I was hallucinating," she says.

The combination of gabapentin and benzodiazepine can be safe in the treatment of benzodiazepine withdrawal, according to data presented at American Psychiatric Association annual meeting, which ...

After people who were prescribed benzodiazepines discontinued taking them, they can cause withdrawal symptoms for several months on end or even for longer than a year.

Symptoms of benzo withdrawal include anxiety, panic, insomnia, muscle spasms, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, blurred vision, seizures, hallucinations, memory loss, trouble concentrating, clouded ...

Equally concerning from the perspective of withdrawal from benzodiazepines, 15 of 16 common adverse life consequences intensified when tapering and full discontinuation were compared with the ...

Further studies from 2000 and 2011 determined that “Up to 44% of long-term benzodiazepine users have persistent moderate to severe withdrawal symptoms when they attempt to discontinue the drug ...

Pittenger and Desan [17] described two cases of patients suffering from gabapentin withdrawal treated with benzodiazepines without any improvement in symptoms. Both patients had a history of ...

Source Reference: Brunner E, et al "Joint clinical practice guideline on benzodiazepine tapering: considerations when risks outweigh benefits" J Gen Intern Med 2025; DOI: 10.1007/s11606-025-09499-2.

In a registry study, patients who discontinued benzodiazepines after long-term therapy had an increased risk for death in the following 12 months. Whether there is a causal relationship between ...