Klonopin (benzo) Withdrawals - Same Dose?

[Deleted member 28403]

@Ocean5 It's sort of always full, I talk to a lot of people

 

[Ocean5]

@Born to Run First I went off over several weeks. Probably too quickly. Old p-doc told me I could just stop. Which I knew made no sense since she had me taper off SSRIs before. Maybe bad day, or alzheimers for her. No clue. Just last meeting made no sense with advice given.

I should have stayed on a small dose for awhile looking back. But with current health I can't reduce, so I guess I may have to increase.... for now...

 

[Deleted member 28403]

@Ocean5
Thats tough, hopefully you manage to get to a more stable state from which you can begin reducing again

 

[Born to Run]

Maybe bad day, or alzheimers for her.

LOL :roflmao: old p-doc should retire

I should have stayed on a small dose for awhile looking back. But with current health I can't reduce, so I guess I may have to increase.... for now...

I see your point in how messed up this is in your situation. With regard to withdrawal of benzo's it depends of course on the dose you are on, but the last time I withdrew I took half a year to withdraw from 4.5 mg Lexotanil per day. The point is that the additional GABA receptors that your brain generates upon taking the benzo's need to be broken down again to their normal levels, and this takes time. Maybe 2-3 weeks per reduction of a quarter of a tablet, and then you can do it without symptoms in my experience.

 

[Ed Norton]

I take klonopin for a few years...best only as needed..I can go weeks without it and it's still effective.

Just to be frank I did a long course of exposure which taught me to sit with even extreme anxiety and one benefit is lowered anxiety in my case. So I have much less need for anxiolytics. If only I can beat depression so easily..which of course you don't wanna sit with!

 

[Ocean5]

@Ed Norton Once off never taking anything like that again daily. No matter what p-doc says.

I wish you the best with dealing with depression. Been in major depressions including recently. Very difficult.

 

[Sue Tyler]

Can you start Klonopin (benzo) withdrawals while maintaining same dose? From my understanding it can lose...

Yes! It's called "withdrawal tolerance." Google "Ashton Manual" for more info or check out one of the Facebook or online benzodiazepine withdrawal groups..

 

[EmmaOwl]

Thats an awfully long time. Yep. Switch. Time to switch.

A year is a long time? I've been on the same dose of benzos for several years. Still works. I take other meds, and I can't always feel them working, but I can tell if I forget to take my dosage of benzodiazepines. It is still doing its job. It lowers my anxiety.

I'd like to cut it out, but I will definitely be under a doctor's care for that. An abrupt shift can indeed be dangerous. Cutting out benzos all of a sudden, after daily use, puts you at a higher risk for a seizure, not to mention general uncomfortableness. (Is that a word? Well, now it is, I guess!) But it seems like people are mixing up psychological addiction (like alcoholism) and physical addiction that your body could develop while taking *any* medication, whether it is considered to be addictive or not.

A key thing to remember - everyone is different.

ETA Yes it is definitely possible to develop tolerance. But it varies from person to person. Seriously - talk to your doctor.

 

[Cannottakethis]

I never developed a tolerance and I've taken the same 1mg dose for years. The withdrawal from stopping abruptly is horrific. When I was recently in the hospital they titrated me from 1mg to .25 in the span of 1 week. They didn't tell me they were doing this, and I couldn't understand why I was feeling so physically ill why I was there. I had so many stomachaches, going to the bathroom, having chills, anxiety etc. A lot of other people there we're having similar issues, and we thought we all had a virus. It wasn't till the last day, and I was being checked out by another psychiatrist, then she gave me the prescription for the .25 , but I had realized what had happened. Apparently they were lowering everyone's doses of benzos. I think that one week is way too short to titrate off of any benzo. While at home, I had been titrating myself going on from 1 mg to .75 for one week then .5 for one week then .25 for one week and .25 every other day for another week. I didn't have any withdrawals doing it that way.

 

[EmmaOwl]

USA benzos are only prescribed a month at a time due to restrictions but refills are often given.

I've been given 90 days' worth of a benzo, all in one go, in the U.S. Also scripts written with 5 refills. Not both at the same time, but I've never encountered a problem.

n.b. I have been working with this prescribing psychiatrist for many years. Not many doctors would do this...but there's no rule or law prohibiting either of those things.

Eve, might it be a state regulation you are thinking of, as opposed to a federal one?

 

[EveHarrington]

I've been given 90 days' worth of a benzo, all in one go, in the U.S. Also scripts written with 5 refi...

That was an old post of mine.

In my state, those are the rules per my doc and pharmacist.

I stand corrected.

 

[EmmaOwl]

That was an old post of mine.

In my state, those are the rules per my doc and pharmacist.

Oh, now I see that Eve. This thread has run into a timeline problem a couple of times - my apologies for contributing to it. I didn't intend to argue. I was curious about governmental regulations, not individual doctors or other medical professionals. That old post of yours had me wondering if my doctor had broken some kind of code.

For a while I had a psychiatrist give me benzo prescriptions for 2 weeks at a time with no refills. I still took the same amount of the same medication, but he got to charge fees for twice-monthly appointments.

These types of things can change a lot from doctor to doctor.