Anxiety and sleep disorders are among the most common mental health problems in the United States. These disorders are the reasons scientists have worked diligently to create remedies with psychoactive medications for decades. Restoril, generic name temazepam, is a relatively new addition to the long line of anti-anxiety medications used in the United States. Restoril is used primarily for its hypnotic effects, but it contains anxiolytic (anti-anxiety), anticonvulsant, and muscle relaxant effects.
Unfortunately, as beneficial as the drug has been in the market to treat these ailments, it contains its fair share of side effects. These effects include a serious risk of developing a physical dependence that can turn into a full-blown addiction. Because of the risk of potential addiction, the medication is seldom prescribed for longer than three weeks at a time. Benzodiazepines can become addictive in as little as three weeks, so they are meant for short-term therapeutic treatment.
Restoril addiction is a serious disease that can lead to long-lasting consequences if left untreated. Addiction comes with many warning signs that let you know that you need help. The faster you seek treatment when you become conscious of a potential substance use disorder, the more likely you are to avoid some of the more severe problems like risks to your long-term health.
Restoril withdrawal can be extremely dangerous if left untreated, and withdrawal symptoms begin when the person using the drug quits. The symptoms can be harsh and potentially deadly. Benzo drugs often yield the worst withdrawal symptoms among the drugs used. You must seek treatment if you decide to quit Restoril. Let’s take a look at the withdrawal timeline.
What Are The Restoril Withdrawal Symptoms?
As a benzodiazepine, Restoril can cause withdrawal symptoms similar to overstimulation. Benzodiazepines are central nervous system depressants that slow down activity in your brain and body. As you become dependent on it over time, your body produces more excitatory chemicals to balance your brain chemistry. However, When you stop taking a depressant suddenly, the nervous system-slowing chemical will be gone, leaving your brain chemistry out of balance. The sudden increase in stimulating neurochemical effects can cause uncomfortable overstimulation.
Benzodiazepine withdrawal is intense and is the most dangerous of any detox. As a central nervous system (CNS) depressant like alcohol, benzodiazepine withdrawal can be fatal if not treated properly.
Symptoms can range from mild during early withdrawal symptoms such as:
- Fever
- Fatigue
- Nausea
- Vomiting
- Restlessness
- Irritability and mood swings
- Confusion
- Muscle pain
- Headaches
- Elevated heart rate
- Abdominal cramps
During the peak of withdrawal, the potentially deadly symptoms can include:
- Hallucinations
- Uncontrollable muscle spasms
- Depression
- Rebound insomnia
- Rebound anxiety
- Vivid nightmares and other sleep disturbances
- Constant, uncontrollable crying
One of the more difficult aspects of abstaining from benzo use is that old symptoms of anxiety and insomnia can return much worse than they were before the use of benzos in rebound form. Rebound insomnia can result in complete sleeplessness for several days, and rebound anxiety can create extreme feelings of paranoia and panic attacks.
During Restoril withdrawal, someone can experience an even more severe set of symptoms in the event of benzodiazepine withdrawal syndrome. The phenomenon is likely to occur after extreme and heavy usage of benzos within a relatively short period. Symptoms attributed to benzodiazepine withdrawal syndrome include:
- Hypertension
- Memory loss
- Psychosis
- Suicidal behavior
- Delirium
- Seizures
During this set of symptoms, it is common for someone in benzo withdrawal to experience tonic-clonic seizures as well as delirium tremens (DTs).
Restoril withdrawal’s most common side effects involve rebounding. Rebounding refers to the return of symptoms that the drug was taken to manage or treat. In Restoril’s case, this could mean the return of insomnia and sleep problems. Benzodiazepines can also cause rebound anxiety. In some cases, rebound symptoms are more intense than the symptoms you had before you started taking the medication right after you quit.
Restoril Withdrawal Timeline
Someone going through Restoril withdrawal may want to know how long the process lasts. Several factors determine the length and severity of this process, so the answer will depend on the person and their unique situation.
There is a generally established timeline for drugs that fall in the benzodiazepine class, but the exact length is going to differ based on each individual. There are unique factors that must be taken into consideration that include:
- How long an individual has been abusing benzodiazepines
- How they were taking the benzos (in tablet form, crushed and snorted, injected, etc.)
- How high a dosage they were taking and how often
- If they have been abusing benzodiazepines at the same time as other drugs or alcohol
- If they also have a mental disorder or other co-occurring disorders
- The condition of their general physical health
- History of substance use, addiction
- If they experience benzodiazepine withdrawal syndrome during detox
- If they are put on a tapering schedule to slowly lower their benzo use
The typical Restoril withdrawal timeline may look like the following:
10 to 48 hours:
Withdrawal symptoms can occur in as little as six hours, but it’s typically 10 to 12 hours after last use. Symptoms will reach their peak at around one to four days.
4 to 10 days:
Withdrawal symptoms could peak as early as four days and begin to dissipate after a week. For others, however, it may take a week or longer for symptoms to reach their peak severity.
2 to 4 weeks:
Over these few weeks, Restoril withdrawal symptoms will begin to disappear or become vastly diminished and manageable. Psychological symptoms may linger during this stage depending on how heavy the use.
One month and beyond:
Once this level has been achieved, the withdrawal period, for the most part, will end. Anxiety, depression, and insomnia are likely to persist for some users.
The process can be extended by benzodiazepine withdrawal syndrome or being placed on a tapering schedule, which can stretch the period to as long as two months. When dealing with a severe addiction, it’s better to play it safe and avoid seizures and other life-threatening symptoms.
Someone dealing with a Restoril detox can also experience post-acute withdrawal syndrome (PAWS). PAWS is a secondary withdrawal phase that can persist for months after someone finishes their Restoril detox. It can also include random bouts of symptoms such as suicidal thoughts, unstable moods, and drug cravings.
How Long Does Restoril Stay in Your System?
Treatment for the withdrawal phase of a depressant is often called detox. However, medical detox isn’t just about removing toxins—or the drug—from your system. Withdrawal is a product of your body’s chemical imbalance that’s caused by chemical dependence. Even after your body processes most of the drug and eliminates it, your brain chemistry may still need time to adjust to normal brain chemistry. Therefore, the length of time you experience withdrawal symptoms isn’t dependent on the amount of time it takes your body to remove the drug from your system. However, drugs that take a long time to leave your system often come with longer withdrawal periods.
Temazepam’s effects last for about eight hours before they start to dissipate. The drug’s half-life lasts for about 12 hours. Half-life is the amount of time it takes your body to naturally reduce the concentration of a drug to half of what it was when you first took it. Half-life is often an indication of how long it will take for you to stop feeling the effects of the drug.
However, temazepam may be detectable in your system for much longer, depending on the method that is used to screen for it. A blood test can reveal Restoril for up to around 24 hours. A urine test can detect temazepam for five days to a week. A follicle test, which looks at chemicals secreted from your hair follicles, can detect benzodiazepines for months, long after the drug has stopped actively affecting your body.
Should I Detox
The short answer is yes. You should absolutely seek detox when stopping Restoril. Benzos are the most dangerous drugs to detox from, and forgoing this process without the intervention of addiction specialists can result in a fatality. Quitting benzo drugs cold turkey is strongly discouraged. If you are ready to transition into sobriety and change your life, you do not want to injure yourself in the process toward a better life.
Medical detoxification provides a structured environment that can help you if anything unexpected occurs during the withdrawal process. Addiction specialists will attend to your needs and help wean you off Restoril comfortably in a way that alleviates the more dangerous symptoms of detox. Attempting this process on your own will not give you access to medications or professional medical care you’d receive in detox.
What Is The Next Treatment Step?
Once detox is complete, you are not cured of your addiction. Detox is designed to transition your body into sobriety and deliver you safely to the other side. Once the toxins have been officially removed, you must begin treatment to understand why you began abusing the drugs in the first place.
Treatment can consist of living on-site in a residential center or going through the process on an outpatient basis. No matter which direction your clinicians decide for you, it will consist of therapies geared toward giving you a better life. Cognitive behavioral therapy is a common therapy that will help you understand why you began using, and help curb your behaviors in the future.
Worse Restoril Withdrawal With Kindling
Kindling is a neurological problem often seen in people who have gone through depressant withdrawal in the past. Withdrawal from prescriptions, depressants, or alcohol can cause long-term or permanent neurological changes in the brain that may make subsequent withdrawal periods more dangerous. These changes make your nervous system more sensitive to the effects of a depressant and depressant withdrawal.
In other words, if you’ve gone through Restoril withdrawal in the past, going through it again may increase your risk of dangerous withdrawal symptoms like seizures.
Kindling can increase the intensity of your next depressant withdrawal syndrome even if you are going through withdrawal from two different substances. For instance, if you’ve gone through withdrawal from alcohol in the past, you may experience more dangerous symptoms if you withdraw from a prescription depressant like Restoril.
The dangerous effects of kindling also seem to be cumulative, which means they may increase with each successive withdrawal period, even if you spend time in sobriety between withdrawals.
