Bad withdrawal from klonopin

I've been off klonopin for about a week now. I've been on it for about 16 years. The anxiety is extreme and relentless. I can't sleep, I have no appetite and it seems like all the nerves in my muscles are on firing whenever they want. It's truly horrid. The last time I tried to get off of klonopin, I didn't wean off, I went cold turkey and landed myself in the hospital because of a seizure. It's horrible. I thought these panic and anxiety attacks would lessen. They aren't. I can barely sit in my chair to write even this. Thank god someone mentioned irritability, I am a walking time bomb. I don't even know why I'm so annoyed lately. I'll check back to let you all know how long a long time taker of this drug is suffering. Can't sit still for now.

I've been on Klonopin for about 6 yrs. I now take 6 mg a day (3 mg BID). 7 weeks ago I had a seizure. It had the characteristics of a Partial complex seizure. Twice in the past, partners had reported seizures during my sleep. The first time I was taken off Effexor, the second time-2 yrs ago - my Klonopin was increased. Since the seizure, my life has been destroyed. I can't drive, ride my bike, etc. I am exhausted from the Lamictal my neurologist is treating me with. At this point, it is not known if my seizures are Epilepsy or Psychogenic non-epileptic seizures (PNES). I have complex PTSD, so PNES are common and can not be treated chemically, only with therapy. There is no difference between a PNES seizure and an Epileptic seizure. Either can happen at any time, involve the whole body, and can not be voluntarily controlled.

My psychiatrist got lazy and didn't resolve a problem I was having with my insurance to get my Lexapro, so I went cold turkey off that about 6 weeks ago. He's no longer my psych, and I want to get off Klonopin. I'm tired of all the medication I am taking. The Lexapro withdrawl sucked, but I am over that I think. Lamictal will help me sleep, so I see no reason to take the Klonopin.

I need to find a new psychiatrist, but I know that a new one will be not be willing to jump right in and start the taper. I was told a while ago it would require hospitalization to do it safely.

I want to get off the stuff, from the stories I have read here, doing it myself is not going to work, yet I don't know where to turn for help to taper. Any suggestions?

I was prescribed Klonopin by psychiatrist along with 0.5 mg Zoloft. Klonopin was supposed to take the edge off while my body was adopting to Zoloft in the first 30-40 days. It was also supposed to help me sleep. I took half a tablet (0.25 mg) in the morning and the other half at night for 6 months then tapered off by taking only evening dose for a while eventually stopping that as well. I have not had any significant side effect or withdrawal symptoms that I can identify. I know the medication definitely helped with the initial elevated anxiety.

I did hear about addictive properties of this medication and was very apprehensive about starting treatment with it. Then I figured my doc should know better and I became more trusting once some questions related to withdrawal were answered.

Dear Everyone,

I am so glad to find, but certainly not happy to hear, that so many others are suffering from the effects of Klonopin usage and withdrawal. I used it for the last 40 days or so just to help me sleep at night after a bad breakup, just .5 mg per day max. I then stopped it suddenly last weekend and I have been having irregular heartbeat all week, some days worse than others. It is especially frustrating for me because I have exercised everyday for the past several years and today I couldn't even walk the treadmill due to running out of breath and feeling the irregular heart beats. I am debating taking a low dose again to help ease through these symptoms. My poor heart is not use to this and I wonder what it is about the drug that makes this happen. I wish the best luck to everyone else who uses and stops this medication. I have used it on and off for years and I actually remembering similar symptoms happening once before but I never researched it. Thanks to everyone for sharing and let me know if I can be of any help. Hang in there!

Sincerely,
Steve

This may sound strange, but my holistic chiripractor had me totally off sugar for over a year and that eliminated migraines. He also had me taking baking soda baths to remove toxins (sugar) from my body. Since these medications are acutally toxic for our body as well, this should help get them out of our bodies more quickly. It is very relaxing and usually makes you feel both fresh and sleepy afterwards. He said keep a warm trickle of water running and make the bath hot enough that you will sweat, as that makes the toxins come out. Pour a few cups of backing soda in the tub and stir it around. I buy the 10 pound bags from Costco for about $5. It may sound strange but it works for me. I take the baths at night before bed while relaxing jazz music is playing and in low light. I hope this helps someone else!

I had been on Klonopin for about 5 years taking anywhere from 1mg to 4 mg a day. I stopped cold turkey (WHICH I WOULD NOT RECOMMEND) due to a pregnancy scare. It was horrible. I had difficulty breathing, shakiness(jitters), difficulty tasting. I was having problems thinking clearly, couldn't drive, and my brain, let's just say I felt CRAZY. It has been about 2 months since I have had any medication and that feeling is definately liberating, but I have yet to feel normal. And I often wonder if I ever will. I am very happy that I am no longer on it, but I feel like "what did that medication take from me". The worst parts do appear to be over, but is there anyone out there who can answer this question. Do you ever feel like yourself ever again?

Solution: the WATER TITRATION METHOD. YOu grind the Klonpin up using a pill grinder, then mix the powder with a pre-determined amount of water, and each day extract a slightly smaller amount of water.

Please do a search on "Klonopin" and "water titration." This is the BEST way to get off Klonopin, slowly, without withdrawal or with mild withdrawal at best.

And yes, .125 every 2 weeks, is best if u are trying to cut pills and cannot or do not want to do the water titration method. Slow and easy is best with K withdrawal. I went off it in 2002/03 and made a big mistake in taking it again on an "as needed" basis in 2004-2005.... then taking more frequently in 2005 (few days a week).... body got hooked tho I didnt. But body went into withdrawal when I tried to quit. 2008 now, nearing the end, and I still must take this wretched med or else experience all the hells of withdrawal.

There is a way to get off safely tho! Someone else already posted the ASHTON MANUAL link. Please read it!!!!!

I am praying for GOd to help and deliver each of you from this med.... it sure IS hell, trying to get off if done incorrectly.

Peace,

One who knows!!

I recently was hospitalized in a Psychiatric Hospital where they cold turkeyed me off nearly 10 years of Klonopin. I was only on 1mg two times a day. I went through a horrible ordeal. The doctos said I wasn't withdrawing yet I sweat profusely, couldn't stop moving, had involuntary twitches and jerks, couldn't talk right, had heart irregular heart beats, my chest felt like I would have a heart attack, had insomnia, shook sometimes violently, had tremors, ears felt like they would burst, I felt detached and not here, my muscles spasmed and I couldn't relax, I had no motivation and literally thought I was dying. I was deeply depressed. The doctors wouldn't listen to me. They simply would not give me Klonopin and gave me a beta blocker and Visterol which did nothing but make me worse. They started me on Seroquel which basically did nothing. I finally after presenting my case over and over believed I wasn't withdrawing. Yet, when I got home still a mess. I called my psychiatrist and he said they blatantly lied that it can take 6 months or more to go off Klonopin. He told me to take 1 mg and within the hour I was totally ok. This is the worse thing I went through for 3 + weeks in a psychiatric ward. They treated me like an animal...didn't believe me...kept telling me I could control the symtems when my heart felt like it would beat out my chest. My blood pressure was all over the place and my temperature as well. My psychiatrist said since I have no additciton tendancies that I am dependent but can stay on for years if needed because I don't require more medicine. I lost so much weight in that 3 weeks. About the 4th day off the Klonopin it felt like I snapped. My doctor said that is about the right time. The agitation, anxiety and breathing problems were enough to make you not want to live. It was AWFUL!

About 2 years ago, i started my company with a partner of mine who was very helpful, we got the business going, things were going great. ended up with a bad apple (client) who really burned us, and throughout the process i ended up on the phone with my partner talking about it, and halfway through the converstion, i felt like someone kicked me in the chest, thought i was having a heart attack and laid on the floor from 9pm til 6am the next morning when i regain barely enough strength to get to the phone to call my mother for a ride to the hospitol. On top of all that my fiance just had a baby a couple of months earlier who was about to go through heart surgery. The doctors said the two arent related (mine and his symptoms) . The hospitol gave me a shot of Adivan, and a prescription for lorazepam ( the generic for i assume for Adivan). my doctor i was refered to put me on the lorazepam for a month, and afterwards told me that he wanted to change me to something less addictive and without the side effects. He put me on Clonazepam (Klonopin) 1.0 mg twice a day. that helped great, symtoms all went away from the heart palpultations, and anxiety attacks and mood swings, everything was great... Then i ran out one day and didnt get a chance to fil my prescription due to not having the copay for my doctor and having to reschedule for a week. The next day i ended up in the hospitol for the same symptoms as before. but ALOt worse. my doctor came to see me and gave me a temporary prescription ( enought o last me a week until my new appointment), the hospitol shot me with Ativan again, worked liek a charm. once i filled my script and made it to the doctors a week later, rather than see him i saw his nurse practitioner who told me that the Klonopin WAS addictive and she wanted to change me, and gave me a prescription for Buspirone, ( the doctor had originally tried me on Zoloft between the Lorazepam and Klonopin) that zoloft was BAD, worse than the syptoms themselves. So i left the doctor with a weeks worth of kolonpin and a months supply of this Buspar. She( nurse) told me to try to stick to the Buspar instead of the klonopin, and if it got too intense to take a K-pin. After the 2nd day, and only taking 5mg instead of the prescribed 7.5 Buspar they gave me, i was feeling so bad , needing the K-pin i called the doc and the nurse told me to ahead and take a k-pin, i would be fine... that night i ended up in the hospitol, and 3 shots of nitro, and a nuclear stress test later, and a double shot of ativan, they stablalized me.

Is there no end to this? its been a year since i went through all of that, i still have my Buspar ( which is still good according to poison control ) and i am down to 0.5 mg K-pin twice a day i have 3 pills left and trying to ween off. I have since moved and the state i live in now refuses to deal with K-pin and im starting to notice as the supply gets lower im getting more and more anxious. I want to be off of this stuff, but when i go more than a day without it, i cant breathe, i cant focus, i have a very very short temper, exploding on people for no reason, cant conduct business in a professional matter, so today i took .25 instead of the .5 and it did calm me down, (for now i guess).

I'm so glad to have found this forum, so i know im not the only one going through this. is there anyone out there that maybe has , or wants to try to help each other, by calling each other when feeling bad, I really want to beat the benzo, and im trying to figure out if its even safe to take the buspar once im out of the k-pin, or if there is something i can take that will kill the side effects.

You hear every day about doctors being busted for doing certain things, like taking ecstacy (illegally) for physical reasons.. it does get rid of the symptoms of parkinsons from what ive heard, not saying i would every take X , just an example. would valium or something help with this? any ideas??

I'm kinda desperate here for some help getting off this stuff, and my doctor never told me it was going to kick my ### when i tried to get of this stuff, the withdrawels are sometimes worse than the symptoms, but when the symptoms and the withdrawels hit at the same time i feel like im going to lose control and go postal.

Any ideas? i get some bad withdrawels, sweating, nausea, rapid heartbeat, very strong hard beat ( you can see it beating through my shirt sometimes ), very very bad rage, insomnia, and if i do fall asleep ill sleep for 18-24 hours straight through like im coming off crystal meth or something. its rally bad. tremors, irregular heart beat. i hate this stuff and i want off, i want some comfort. Anyone with any ideas?

I had been taking Klonipin for anxiety for almost 12 years and just last week when I needed a refill, the doc, for whatever reason, prescribed Buspirone (Buspar) as a substitute.

I, at this very moment, am watching the clock so I can call him to tell him the Buspar makes me feel like I'm drunk and I cannot work while taking it therefore I am home "sick"! I want back my 1mg/2x per day Klonipin. Right now I am shaking, sick to my stomach, have a headache and cannot focus.

My "condition" is hereditary and Klonipin WAS working fine. Damned doctors get you hooked then take away or switch. WTF??? Does anyone know the long term effects on other organs? I'm 53 F and healthy!!

hi thank u all for all the info i two have the same problem i been taking klonopin for about five years and i feel like c**p it hwlps but its side effects are terrible i dont kno whats worst the medication or the panic attacks well now i take xanax and take 3 pills a day im tryng real hard to quit but is been a really hard time in my life so i stay home and dont really go out plz dont drink alcohol with mediacation bad idea dont smoke do exercise relax maybe take some yoga i might try it out will see i though i was the only one but theres a lot of people out there with the same problem as me well i hope this helps people out and lets people that dont have this an idea of what we go through is real and it hurst phisicly and emotionally so if u kno someone with this problem just help them and if u have a partner with this problem and they want space sometimes dont get mad somethimes we need that space to think or to take our anger out by our selves well ty all for ur advice god bless u all and sorry for the grammer lol i suck at it much love to all of u dont give up were all in these together Eddy.

I know how u felt but worse. I had a dr that got me up to 10-12 mg's a day. This and other stuff he gave me PAXIL is the worst. For some trouble the drugs caused I had to go cold turkey on all the meds. pure HELL Deluddions bad stomach cramps and all the worst u could think off. Only thing on the list of w/d I dident have was death. For some un-godly reason Im on 3 mg a day now. Got rid of the PAXIL.. PAXIL w/d takes 2months to a year to get off. me 3 months of hell. Dont ever take PAXIL there is a website www.quitpaxil.com that is a great site. Now I wish I could get off all the stuff. worste one is klonapin and am taking dezeral ambion and he just started me on Depakote. I have been reading about it and im soo scared what to do. He said I was bi-poler I dont know and most DR's dont. I hope I made sense of this. Worst is im alone, have wife that may as well not be there. Hope you do well. I dont think I wil.. :(

I am so glad I found your post. I have been taking 1 mg. of klonopin (for anxiety) for about a year. My doctor decided I didn't need it anymore. I asked her about withdrawl from the drug and she said there were NO WITHDRAWL symptoms. What a liar! Obviously I am not the only one who has suffered from getting off this drug. My main problem is not being able to sleep for days. I am also sweating a lot. I have always been able to sleep really well (even before the klonopin), and this is HELL for me. Needless to say, I am looking for a new doctor. What kind of physician would lie to their patient when they know damn good and well that this is a drug you need to wean off of? I trusted my doctor, but not anymore.

I know everyone keeps saying thank goodness they found this blog, but honestly it is heaven sent. I was on klonopin for almost 3 years. I started at .5 mgand went to 1 mg a day. My mother had a stroke in my vehicle while I was driving thus caused meto have a panic attack while driving my vehicle a different time by myself and my doctor prescribing this awful medication.
At that time it was wonderful. It did what I wanted it to do..Calm me down. I have had migraine ever since I was about 20 years old and I have hypothyroidism.
I met my husband at the hospital where my mother was after her stroke in the ICU department. He was an ICU nurse. We are now married and he had told me how terrible this drug really is. I did research and saw all the horrible things, and we decided together to get off of it because we want to be able to have children.
I moved to the state of Maine from Michigan and had a melt down upon arriving. I ended up in a psyc ward admitted myself, felt completely out of control and depressed. I manage banks, have a masters degree, am normally a bubbly energetic person. It was completely out of my character, I felt suicidal..Again completely out of my character. I never would have done anything but I could not explain the feeling. They said in the hospital that my thyroid was off and I checked myself out. I got home and was not taking the Klonopin anymore and had all of the following..Nausea, vomiting, diarea,constipation, rapid heart beat, HUGE anxiety, ringing in my ears, profuse sweating..my clothes were drenched at night, severe migraine, tension headaches, tingling in my arms, pains in my chest both left and right side, severe back pain..neck pain, severe dizziness mostly at night when I tried to go to bed, unable to sleep, needle like feeling in the top of my head, trouble swallowing, severe stomach pain, horrible aches and pain in my chest, bad circulation, blurred vision, spots in my vision like an aura in a migraine, loss of weight, unable to gain weight back, twitching, muscle spasms, feeling of throbbing in my head, feeling like your floating, horrible dreams, depression, feeling like your muscles hurt so bad that they are bruised and you can't lay on your sides because it feels like your bones are rubbing against each other, headaches every morning when I wake up, NO ENERGY, these are just some of the withdrawal symptoms I am expierencing right now. I have been off of the medication for three whole days, but it feels like forever. I will NEVER touch this medicine ever again.
I am 32 years old, and I want to have children. I am so concerned about losing my job because I always feel sick and need to miss work. When does it get better??????
Please anyone if you have things you are trying, please share. I am doing homeopathic things....Meditation, Vitamin D, Tea, Breathing, Calming mints, Calming drinks, I am so frightened and hurt so bad....

~K from Maine

I am unable to get of of Klonopin. I only take 1 mg per day but when I try to stop it I have terrible convulsive body movements and psychotic thoughts. I used it only intermittently until Jan 08 when I upped the dose due to terminal illness in family and fear of flying. I then was on valium 5mgs as needed for 3 months for shoulder injury. Then had breast surgery in June. About 2 weeks after the surgery I suddenly felt not like myself and developed internal tremors, muscle jerking, insomnia, fatigue, retching, inability to eat. I'm losing 2-5 lbs per week. I have had every medical test and nothing is wrong. The only thing going on is I have been taking this medicine which I didn't know was addictive. I think I am in tachyphylaxis as I don't feel good on the drug nor can I stop it. My Dr. seems perplexed and doesn't seem to understand that this can happen. It seems the US is the only country that doesn't admit that this is a problem for people to get off of and doesn't have protocols to help people wean like the Ashton method. I don't know what to do and hope someone can tell me how to get off of this medication. I was perfectly healthy and didn't have any trouble sleeping or anxiety attacks just the occasional anxious situation like travel or illness in the family that I took the Klonopin for intermittently. Do not take this drug. You will be on your own and in purgatory.