Thanks for the understanding.As if managing the pain WITH narcotics WITHOUT a diagnosis isn't hard enough, ( no diagnosis immediately leads to skepticism by doctors and ultimately refusal to manage "pain". Being unable to find suitable work, a life partner ( 4 year relationship failed because of this), all I have is family and of course online support.
This requires incredible strength and perseverance

It really does, and it sucks

Something that continues to come up as I search for answers is my 8 year long relationship with the benzodiazepine Clonazepam. It seems that there have been documented cases of people who develop a TON of health problems after withdrawing from benzos. One of them is burning, numbness, and tingling. Interesting isn't it. Perhaps it is that simple.
Could be at least a contributing factor in my case. If my neurologist cannot find a cause, I will have to settle on this theory of my past medications clonazepam and Macrobid.
Every day another piece of the puzzle appears.

Yes, it is possible. Benzos blunt nerve transmissions, and that is why they are sometimes a supplemental treatment for some seizure disorders.

What we have seen here on this board, is that current users of them can have miniwithdrawals and symptom exacerbations as a result, until the next dose.

Benzos work on inhibitory neurons, to prevent over-firing. So they will temporarily suppress peripheral sensory data.

I am not sure how this translates for you however. It would depend alot on how long you have been off them, and how much you took as dosage daily for how long. The nervous system tends to accomodate to drugs that affect receptors, and so people on long term treatments that affect neurotransmitters, can develop MORE receptors, that need to be covered. Our bodies can only cover so much and these extra then result in symptoms. Opiates have been studied quite a bit in this regard. And now SSRIs are shown to affect these systems too..so it is logical that Benzos have their own accommodation.

Never underestimate a drug treatment. They are often fraught with problems...even simple blood pressure drugs!

Thanks for the great info Mrs D
I was on .5 mg once a day every day for about 7-8 years. Then I cut down to every other day, every 3rd day, and then only once ina while. So as you can see, a very low dose. But looking back, my nerve pain did start around the time that I weaned off them.
The info you shared makes a lot of sense. It worries me, as I am on/ have been on all 3 classes of these drugs. May be too far gone too and need to be on them for life to keep the symptoms under control.
Do you have a link to this info so that I can bookmark it ?
Many thanks.
Btw I am getting great results with oxyneo, the ER form of oxycodone here in Canada.
Day 3 of Cymbalta, and tolerating it well.
Its too bad that I am being tapered off the oxyneo, when it is working better than the IR form ever did.
Enjoy your day everyone, hopefully minimal pain!

It is difficult to find exact wording that you may want regarding
benzos... this entry near the end summarizes:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benzodiazepine_dependence

However, the opiates you are using will create new receptors, and this has been documented, as arising from the glial cells near the neurons. This is why doctors hesitate now to give opiates to young people, because they will create new receptors that then will want to be covered. Pain will be worse then when discontinued.
This usually happens with long term treatments.

You can Google "glial cells pain" and find lots of new research.
The research into benzos is not as complete yet however.

That's true. And what they are finding is not very positive... My own experiences may be anecdotal, but the things I learned in rehab about them - and they have seen thousands of people being dependent and/or withdrawing from them - is enough to never ever come near them again.

I can't put in links, but in the same wiki, have a look at Benzodiazepine_withdrawal_syndrome.

GP's over here have been warned to be utterly careful with them (the same goes for the so called non-benzos like Ambien BTW), and really never let their patients use it regularly for more than 3 weeks.

FWIW I've taken them 10 years as well. Not a big dose either. Never again...