Sad to say we are similar, I was precribed the same dose of 6mg a day for anxiety. I have nerve damage and instead of looking further the drs are quick to label anyone and feed them drugs with HORRIBLE side effects I wish I can take this pain away, I was on 6mg a day I tapered down to 2mg a day, I feel like I'm dying... The withdrawls are affecting my life, and everyone around me. I wish I knew then what I know now I have been prescribed this medicine for almost 4yrs I am now 34 and have no motivation to do ANYTHING my life will NEVER be the same because of this poisonous drug. Best of luck to you,
My Doctor put me on Neurontin 300 MG 3 x a day and Remeron to help me sleep. These are non controlled meds that are not addictive. These will ease the withdrawl side effects. If you drink alcohol a lot, stop drinking, and start to get off the meds after you are at least 2 months sober. Looking online about the withdrawls can increase your anxiety. You will see that some people say the withdrawls can be from 6 months to 2 years and I have not seen that. If anyone would like more help please reply to this. I know it can be hard to get off, but I would like to put your mind at ease. Take this from someone who has experienced it.
I ran out of Clonazepam this month and had to wait 2 weeks to get my refill from my Dr. I can relate to your withdrawl It does seem to get worse and worse everyday. I don't have a solution for these symptoms. I've also heard you can die from withdrawl from benzos. What made me feel better? Going back on the Klonopin. It's a bad bad drug.
I can relate to your symptoms. I take 4mg a day and I ran out of my prescription this month for 2 weeks. My symptoms were similar to yours. The numbness, it starts with my feet and hands and goes from there. Everyday felt worse that the next. Skin tightening muscle spasms. I freaked out so bad one night I thought I was going to die. I was afraid to fall asleep. The one thing that made me feel better ... take more Klonopin. I hate this drug and wish I could stop taking it. Ive been taking it for 6 years and am scared out of my mind to stop. But this is a bad bad drug.
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I have spent the last few hours reading through each post here. Hundreds of posts, most of them saying the same thing. Withdrawal from benzodiazepine tranquilizers is no joke, klonopin among the worst of them. I am currently going through withdrawal from about 4 years of klonopin use starting at 2mg/day and gradually increased to 4mg/day. On top of the benzo withdrawal, I have been losing family and friends at a rate of better than one per year. I have a severely disabled 13 year old son, a marriage that has been crumbling for the past several years (largely due to my struggles with benzo addiction). I sustained two neck injuries at work over the last 4 years and lost my job after (as a result of) the last one. I subsequently lost my home, got hooked on painkillers and eventually heroin in a desperate attempt to deal with all the extra stress. Methamphetamine has become a routine as well. I kicked the heroin/pain killer habit, withdrawal was torture, but compared to benzodiazepine withdrawal, it is like a relaxing week at the beach. You have no idea what you talk about. Even a relativity light case of benzo withdrawal would have your smart a## hiding under the bed crying for your mommy, you have no idea, but I know too well. All of these people have come here over the years to share their experiences and offer words of advice and encouragement. You have no idea how many lives have been saved through forums like this and countless others, by these decent people who both seek and offer support to each other. It is insensitive, ignorant people like yourself who drive many of these tortured souls to suicide with your doubt and cold criticism. What these people need is support, understanding and positive encouragement. That would require people to educate themselves on the subject, something that I can see is probably too much trouble for the likes of you. I have cold turkey'd several times, always thinking that I was merely suffering from the stress condition that I began taking the benzo's for in the beginning. It wasn't untill I began to read up on heroin withdrawal a few months ago, that I realized that my problem was much worse than a stress disorder. As bad as I felt when I started taking these devil pills, I would gladly trade that feeling for what I am dealing with today. Stress had depleted my natural gaba/glutamine balance and what I felt was certainly a precursor to the state I am in today, but taking benzodiazepines to combat a gaba deficiency is like treating alcoholism with years of binge drinking. It only serves to potentiate the problem. I managed to go from 3 or 4 mg/day to 1mg twice a day pretty easily when supplies got scarce after my insurance ran out and I was forced to cut down rapidly and then cold tukey quit several times when I wasn't able to locate any benzo's. I used anything I could get my hands on to cope, but I would run out of money buying percocet or heroin just so I could get a few decent nights of sleep here and there. When the $ ran out I was back to nothing, after about a week I would hit the ER, where eventually I would only receive IV ativan and a single 1mg dose of klonopin after hours of waiting. A few nights later, I would be back if I couldn't get my hands on anything. Eventually I was able to manage on .5 mg twice a day and then 5 mg of valium twice a day and eventually, half a 5 mg valium twice a day was enough to get me by. By this time, I had sufficiently educated myself on benzo withdrawal. Since the valium had stopped working at the reduced dose I was on and I had run out again anyway, I decided to try jumping off again. That was about 3 weeks ago, and while it has not been nearly as bad as abrupt cessation at much higher doses, it is still a living hell of dysfunction and misery. Add to that a bitchy, depressed, suicidal wife and a 13 year old boy with cerebral palsy, autism and raging puberty hormones, the bills and rent, no job with no hope or ability to go to one, friends and family wondering what the hell is wrong with you......You have there a recipe for an utterly miserable life. You know what keeps me going? Nothing but grit and determination. A desire to return to normalcy without reliance on pharmaceutical products is not something I thought could be this difficult, but that's where I am. With that, I would like to say how deeply I admire each and every one of the victims whose posts I have read this evening. Your strength of character is stronger than that of many people for having endured a single day of this drudgery, let alone weeks, months or years. Seeing all the support that has been offered by complete strangers has been rather eencouraging, even insiring. I'll even thank the poor ignorant bastard who's post angered my soul so much that I registered and posted in defiance of that imbecilic series of mouth defecation that you offered to the thread. For your unkind words prompted me to tell my story for the first time after spending months, trolling forums and websites for information about this epidemic and how to cope with it. The one thing I've found to be required above all else, is a remarkable amount of courage, stubborn, determined, undying courage. My best wishes to you all, those who have posted and those who will. You are ccertainly not alone, there are many of us and we have a responsibility to educate the world on the evils of this disease. For it is we who have suffered this terrible affliction who know best how dire this situation is. Thousands of scripts for xanax and z drugs are written to unsuspecting patients every day and something must be done to prevent it from continuing. That duty falls on those who know best, and that definitely isn't the doctors, it's all of us.
That post was ssupposed to be posted as a reply to the one, lone negative post that I saw in this great thread, sorry, I get a littlelong winded when Iirritated.
Thanks for your post its very helpful. My physician is recommending either Ativan or Klonopin for severe insomnia and I am very reluctant. I'm just getting off lortab for chronic pain issue that was successfully corrected with surgery, but coming off the lortab hasn't helped my insomnia. I told my doc I'd like to wait a couple of weeks to see if I can figure this out, so far no luck. I am going to talk to him about the two meds you are taking...I do not want to deal with anymore narcotics or their side affects. Thanks!
i have only dabbled with a pill here or there just to relax. Never will I ever touch another Benzo. I am so sad and appalled by the pharmaceutical industry and these irresponsible doctors! and to think I am back in college to become a nurse.. I feel robbed and disgusted!I am so sorry to all of you for having your lives wrecked by this.
I am here because my boyfriend is detoxing and I wanted to try and understand his symptoms. He is going through this? ... This drug is pure evil everything I have read so far is so sad. I am so sad for him! I was taking a lot of his behavior personally. His mood swing, irritability, loner dazed state of mind.
I have come to a serious realization he is not going to make this with out my support and understanding. Is there any advice that any of you could give me to help him?
He has been on them for 3 years, recently tapering off and now his job is basically gone, we can pay the mortgage but he is so depressed from not being able to be around our friends, work associates and me. I am so lost at times because I feel like I am walking on eggshells I do not know what to say, how to say it.. I am hoping he will go to counseling together with me that is all I know to do.. Please any suggestions would help. I send my heart to you all dealing with this.
Hi all Klonapiners! Im new to the withdrawal/weaning off status of Klonapin, and was put on it only for chronic insomnia, which i have have had off and on for years. I do have mild Generalized anxiety disorder, but have not had to be on any medication because i dont get panic/anxiety attacks or anything severe. i am a bit high strung during the day, but i am in excellent health (just turned 41 last week) I am a former gymnast, now a personal fitness trainer, in great shape, but i just have had such stress (family, financial, work related you all know that c**p) all dumped on me in the past 2 years, so my insomnia got worse. That was my only complaint. One practictioner says i should be on an SSRI (effexor?) but i am NOT depressed, frustrated and ready to strangle a few people that desparately deserve it (chuckle) but I am a high energy, healthy female whos ass was dragging during the day cause i couldnt fall asleep and when i finally did i would wake up and couldnt go back to sleep so i was strung out. Being a fitness trainer, people pay me to be"UP" and energetic coach w lots of energy and enthusiasm. So i refused any anti-depressant, but we started on the benzo road as i had tried other drugs (Ambien, the CR version), temazapam, valium, xanax, ativan, nothing really worked, then i tried Klonapin. BANG! i was out like a light within 30 minutes....slept a just about a solid 6 hours straight every night, but i had a high dose of 4mg to make that happen. Was on 4 mg for nearly 6 mos. Made a stupid mistake (not to mention dangerous!) when i stopped cold turkey - at first it was because i was away and forgot my pills...but the first 2-3 days i had no symptoms...into my 4th night without and still was ok so i thought, maybe i passed the withdrawals....no sir, by day 7 i was not sleeping, NOT AT ALL, having muscle twitches and sweats by day 10 and kept thinking, what is wrong with me? Shouldnt the drug be out of my system by day 10? Well....guess not! I thought i could handle it, but by day 10, i called my doc, who promptly screamed at me saying "you could have had a seizure!". I misunderstood when he told me this way back, since it is used for preventing seizures, i didnt think that pertained to me....boy was i wrong. He terrified me so much i ran home from the store and took my dosage and then stabilized so fast that night &next day was like nothing was wrong. Then finally, on Aug 6th, i said enough, i gotta get off this stuff and figure out another way to help my sleep. Mind you, i am not on ANY other medication, except occasional muscle relaxers from an chronic old back injury. I started to wean down w doc approval, ive been doing .5 mg drop every two weeks...so far so good. As of today Sept 30, it is day 3 and (night 4 tonight on 1.5 mg) Went from 4mg to 1.5 from aug 6th to Sept 30th, so far so good, no side efffects, and my sleep isnt as bad as it was...yet. Though i just went through a very stressful past two weeks, today i started to notice occasional shortness of breath, and im thinking, anxiety? i dont usually have that symptom in the first place, and not when i withdrew cold turkey either. but i work out today and i feel fine....does the suffering get worse as you fall below 1.5mgI just dont know what to expect, but i had a physical and all was good. Everyones post is scaring me as they say how hard it is to get off Klonapin. So far, doing the 2 week (.5mg) taper, all has been very good...is it my good health and fitness level? or is my worst days yet to come? any advice here would be great!
Hi,
I would get advice from a doctor who is familiar with withdrawal symptom of klonopin and the effect it may have on a
the pregnancy.
Judy
Ive also taken itmfor insomnia. I was at .5 mg and am now down to .125. Im not sleeping, going crazy, ive gained 12 pounds though and im not sure if its the clonazepam reduction. I alo having SEVERE acne and I 41. My dr can't figure out why the acne or the extra weight. I had my hormones checked and all were normal. Speaking og normal that's something I've not felt in a while. Ive been weaning fo months Nd don't feel like there's any improvement. Last night I took my o,ld dosage because I needed sleep so badly. Any suggestions? My dr gave me a marijuana card but it doesnt shut my brain off, only makes me extra tired. Stuff like unisom or benedryl doesnt do a thing either. I could run a marathon on benedryl.
hi my name is Jodi I been on this drug for 5 years I takr 3mg a day now im getting off this drug im a doing .05 mg every six days i'm down to 1 1/2 mg a day now and keep going down till im off I hate this drug did u get bad headaches I cant get rid of it and my tummy hurts all the time and sweats and chills at the same time does it ever go away? or does the head ache stop or get less painful? would love to hear ur answers on this ty
Yes, Klonopin can definitely be a bear. I have been on 4mg per day 2mg in the a.m. and 2mg in the p.m. for about 13 years. I just decided I'd had enough. I really didn't know if it was doing any good or not; besides my Doc cut me down to 1mg tabs because he said the FDA was climbing all over his case about prescribing 4mg tabs. Well, maybe who knows. At any rate I had already started to cut back so it was no big deal. I stayed on 1mg twice daily for one month. Now I'm down to .5mg twice daily and will be on that dose for a month. The last phase will be .25 for another month and then quit. Yes, I'm feeling a bit of discomfort; mostly lethargic. I noticed the post about hair loss, yeah, I noticed it last week, mostly in the front. I hope it grows back. But at 65 I still have all my hair and it's still as thick as when I was 30 but I don't like losing it in the front; fortunately I don't have to do comb-overs. Getting back to the subject. My wife started a regime of powerful liquid vitamins from a great company; I wish I could name it but I don't think it's allowed. Any way, I take a multi, a B-complex, D, C, and one called Stress be Gone. I also take an over the counter relaxant. I'm if I wasn't taking all this stuff my withdrawal would be much worse since Klonopin has such a long half-life; that's why it's so d..m hard from which to withdraw. One person mentioned detox. I glad it work for him/her. Me, I wouldn't touch detox with a barge pole. In many cases the stuff they give you is worse to withdraw from then the Klonopin. I want to take this opportunity to offer my sincerest sympathy to those who are suffering so much. Drug withdrawal can be a horrible experience especially when on doesn't know how long the symptoms will last. I wish all you all the best. Just remember YOU'RE TOUGH and you can do it. Just fight and don't give in to the temptation to just try a little to ward off the anguish otherwise you'll back to square one. As we say in Wales: don't bottle it!
Lechyd da! (Good health)
Gareth