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Heavy Drinker. Diagnosed With COPD. Treated With Diazepam. How To Flush It Out Of System?

Posted on Tue, 12 Mar 2013

Question: I have been off work for 7 weeks with a lung infection and because of the boredom and inability to sleep I began to drink very heavily. On my last visit to my doctor I was put on an ambulance and taken directly to hospital and put on oxygen all the time.They have now decided that I have COPD and I'm off work for about another three weeks.My problem is that when in hospital I was given diazepam to help any alcohol withdrawal symptoms. My sister had recently been ill and had a heap of diazepam left over which she gave me.I have stopped now but as I might get a back to work medical is there any way to cleanse my system of the diazepam because I know it can linger in your system for a long time.
Regards XXXXXXX

Answered by Dr. Ganesh Sanap (15 minutes later)

Hi, welcome and thanks for writing in.
I would like to know few things before further discussion.
1. How much dose you had taken on daily basis?
2. What was duration of treatment?
3. Since how many days you have stopped the drug?
Depending on these answers we can decide whether you need antidote or no need need to worry.

Looking forward for your response.

Regards.

Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar

Follow up: Dr. Ganesh Sanap (2 hours later)

I was taking a quite high dosage but I can't tell you exactly.Whenever I felt I had the craving for a drink I TOOK UPTO 5 10MG Tablets at a time but usually only 1 or two.I got out of hospital last Thursday where I was getting them on a regular basis.So I suppose the duration was 12 days as I stopped them today

Rgards
XXXXXXX

Answered by Dr. Ganesh Sanap (18 hours later)

Hi, sorry for inconvenience. Unfortunately there was technical problem.
Dizepam dose was within clinically indicated dose. There is no routine test done for detection of dizepam in blood. it done in acute poisoning or overdose for management therapy.
Blood or plasma diazepam concentrations are usually in a range of 0.1-1.0 mg/L in persons receiving the drug therapeutically, 1–5 mg/L in those arrested for impaired driving and 2–20 mg/L in victims of acute overdosage.
So at your dose , blood level will be very less. Half life of it is about 3 days so a last dose will need at least 7 to 8 days for complete elimination. There is no modality to increase its clearance in therapeutic level.

Hope I have answered your query.
Once again sorry for the inconvenience.

Regards.

Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar

Follow up: Dr. Ganesh Sanap (29 minutes later)

Heloo Doctor .
but I should have mentioned that it will be a urine test I will be receiving
Regards XXXXXXX

Answered by Dr. Ganesh Sanap (12 minutes later)

Hello,
Unless you are under influence of drug there is less chance of urine test to detect dizepam. It happens if you take last dose at least 12 hours before dose. Only 1% of ingested drug excreted in urine without metabolism .
Considering your dose and duration of intake there is no risk to get detected. Similarly there is no therapy to hasten urinary clearance at therapeutic level.

Regards.

Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar