2 weeks after quitting Zyn - Terrible Symptoms
So I (30M) finally decided to finally quit Zyn cold turkey after around 6 years of going through a 3mg tin a day. My blood pressure starting getting higher, and I was just feeling generally worse health wise.
I am currently 2 weeks (16 days exactly) into quitting, and I am having a really rough time. I cannot tell if what I'm going through is due to quitting Zyn or something else is happening coincidently. The first few days weren't actually as bad as I expected. I read online that physical symptoms peak between 1 and 3 days, so once I got through day 4 I thought I was in the clear. NOPE. Around day 8 the physical symptoms came in heavy. Day 8, in the evening I got the craziest dizziness and light headedness to the point I had to lay down to stop myself from freaking out and having a panic attack. I felt like my blood pressure was all out of whack. From then on it's been on and off crazy symptoms.
- Lot's of anxiety and some depression. The anxiety has been worse the last few days peaking last night for some reason.
- I've had on and off muscle twitching and muscle / joint pains
- Tension headaches that feel like someone is squeezing my head and is very alarming
- Hand tremors that haven't really stopped for the last 4 days; finger will randomly twitch when at rest, hand will tense up when holding phone sometimes
- Lots of dizzy and light headed spells
- Sometimes I just feel uncomfortable in my own skin with no rational reason why
- A couple nights where I just felt shaky and was shivering for no reason
- Heart Palpitations; these peaked around the 11 day mark where I actually had some that really freaked me out and I almost went to the ER, and lasted for a few days, but have gotten slightly better into the last few days
- Chest pain and discomfort
- Really bad GERD and acid reflux reactions; I previously had GERD, but for some reason after quitting it's 10x worse than normal
- Lots of random back aches and pains
- One random night where my whole body and neck felt stiff - probably strangest symptom
Mind you not all the symptoms all happen at the same time, just randomly spread out throughout the last few weeks. It's like my brain is spinning a wheel of fortune wheel with symptoms on it every morning.
I think that the anxiety has been the hardest to deal with. I had been diagnosed with minor GAD before this due to a caffeine induced panic attack back in 2022, but the last week has been brutal. I literally lay in bed at night thinking I'm going to die in my sleep, thinking that all these symptoms are due to me having cancer, or a brain aneurysm, or Parkinson's, or a slough of other google searched things. I usually feel pretty in control of my emotions telling myself I'm going through withdrawals but it's like my subconscious is freaking out and causing anxiety symptoms.
I went to the doctor yesterday, ended up being a PA on short notice, and she didn't really seem to take the fact I was withdrawling super seriously which made it all feel worse. She sort of just was like "Oh yeah they could be, it's not normal to be having these symptoms, but its possible" which was like wtf so am I dying? I recently had a full blood panel, EKG, CT scan of my head, xray of chest, the works. Everything came back normal and nothing other than a sinusoidal cyst was found which the doctors didn't seem at all concerned about.
I have a wife (31F) and two kids (4F & 2F), and work 10 hours a day, so it's also been just trying to hold myself together for my family for the most part. The hardest part aside from all the symptoms is not feeling like I can be a fun dad for my young kids. I've been putting on a brave face for them but inside just going through the ringer. I can tell I am not myself right now and it sucks because my girls are used to me being so fun and crazy with them. Since I quit it's been just survival mode. The worst part is most of these symptoms happen at night when I get home.
Is this all normal? Is anyone else going through this absolute hell like I am? Does it get any better? I just need some sliver of hope that I'll wake up one day and feel like a normal person again.
Posted Mar 5, 2026, 8:00 PM UTC