What is Protracted Withdrawal?
Protracted withdrawal treatments at Alternative to Meds Center are designed to allow safe cessation while significantly reducing or eliminating painful and lingering withdrawal symptoms.
Common signs and symptoms of protracted withdrawal can include:
- Withdrawal symptoms lasting longer than the expected timeline for withdrawal
- The rebound of original symptoms after cessation
- Emergence of new symptoms
- Tendency to self-medicate even after cessation
- Relapse
- Cravings or other physical or psychological reactions when exposed to drug-related stimuli
- Lingering anxiety, depression, dysphoria
- Sleep disturbances, insomnia, over-sleeping
- Hyper-reactivity to stress
Physical symptoms may rebound or newly emerge and intensify, including muscle aches, cramps, brain zaps, chills, fever, pain, nausea, crying spells, other emotional distress, sleepless nights, nightmares, appetite changes, weight loss or gain, energy deficit, depression, anxiety, and many others. There can be so many variations that it is not easy to directly link them to one specific drug withdrawal syndrome, but some patterns are commonly observed.
For instance, when withdrawing from a CNS depressant such as a benzodiazepine, an antidepressant, or an opiate, the calming and pleasant feelings that it initially provided are now reversed, so the euphoria is now depression. The pain relief is now pain. The calm feeling may now reverse into anxiety, a panic attack, or the dread of one about to occur. It can be life-threatening, in fact, to try and withdraw too quickly from a number of drugs. Except in certain medical emergencies where immediate cessation is needed to save the person’s life, once dependence or addiction has developed, it is not a good idea to cease any substance suddenly, including chronic heavy alcohol use.
Alcohol cessation in particular needs clinical oversight and medication to avoid cardiac arrest, coma, or other life-threatening emergencies. In most cases, sudden cessation can overwhelm the various systems in the body and can be life-threatening. Abrupt withdrawal is a common precursor to protracted withdrawal symptoms that may linger and even worsen for months and even years without going away.