Need suggestions from members who have gotten off Klonopin

RipdnTxs

Member
Long story short, went through some really stressful times roughly 5 years ago and Dr. put me on Klonopin. I am still taking it to this day 2-2.5mg a day. My life is pretty stable now and the effects of this drug have really taken my zest for life away. No desire to workout anymore, do the things I used to enjoy etc etc.... I am going to go through this with my Drs help and guidance, but Ive read many horror stories about coming off this and its pretty scary. I would love to hear anybody else who has gone through this and what their experience was like and any suggestions on what helped and what didnt. Tks
 
Sorry I didn't see your post sooner. I have been there with opiates. Best thing you can do is ween yourself off. Once you've taken your last pill, sleep it off for a few days (weekend).
Drink tons of water and take Imodium and multi vitamins. If you blaze, throw that in there. After this is done you need to find a way to get out of the house. Work yourself up slowly, but get back into fitness. It will make everything easier and return your brain chemistry back to normal quicker than anything else.
Pm me if you need any help or someone to talk too. Benzodiazepines are no joke.
 
Do it under medical guidance because you can actually die from benzo (& alcohol) withdrawals. Take your time tapering. If you just have to be off immediately then go to hospital that detox but make sure that they understand your you've been taking for over 5 years so detoxing you will not be quick. May take up to 5-7 days. Then immediately go to inpatient addiction therapy.

If you can take your time tapering then check in out patient therapy

Both therapies will help you adjust to life without benzos. Start working out asap. The good pain from working out will help you cope with pain from life without benzos.

Other than THC, quit everything else. I am no doctor nor should you break the law.

Keep positive. Things will be better.
 
Ideally you could get off in a detox if you can take a week off. I've had a benzo dependency before and it can be horrifying. Clonazepam is a milder benzo so it shouldn't be too hard to come off, just taper the dose down a little bit or detox for a week under care. First post is great advice.
 
I take clonazepam and have been taking it off and on for ~4-5 years. I generally take 1mg per day, and sometimes just take .5 mg. So my dose is fairly low. However, at one point I decided to stop taking it for a while. After about a week or so, the withdrawals came on pretty strong. Headed to the ER thinking I was a goner - chest was tight and felt like I was going to have an "event". So while it might not be the most powerful benzo, it's far from mild.

The trick here, as others have stated, is to wean off of it - VERY VERY SLOWLY. I'm no doctor, but have seen recommendations of a 6-8 month weaning period for this, where you're reducing the dose you take by very small amounts over several weeks at a time. Don't feel like you have to get off of it within a month or two. As long as you stick to the weaning schedule, it should make things easier on you. Keep in mind that aside from the addictive nature of the drug, it's still generally a physically safe medication, so be patient and work out a weaning schedule with your doc that isn't too aggressive. Good luck!
 
Appreciate the comment, I have been tapering on my own very slowly from 3mg a day for the past couple months. I,m at 2mg a day now and will see my Dr. this next week to get his input and recommendations. Did U ever get completely off and if so how do U feel mentally now ???
 
RipdnTxs said:
Appreciate the comment, I have been tapering on my own very slowly from 3mg a day for the past couple months. I,m at 2mg a day now and will see my Dr. this next week to get his input and recommendations. Did U ever get completely off and if so how do U feel mentally now ???
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Your welcome. Please keep us updated with progress or bump in the road.

Slow and steady.

I currently feel like I never took anything. But it's been over 5 years since I took any rx for "pleasure". I quoted please because in the end, it was anything but pleasurable. Other than symptoms of low as fuak testosterone, I feel blessed and so lucky to have bad ass muthafuaker 4 yr old son, beautiful wife, house, cars and a job.

Things will get/be better. There is plenty of light down road. It will be very difficult journey and perhaps the most challenge that you WILL overcome.

Not to scare you, but It took me about 1 year before I felt "normal". I felt better after 4 weeks clean. But I felt like I'd rather die first few days clean.


Remember that recovery starts with YOU. You have to want it more than life. Your recovery will be the most important thing for next few years of your life.
 
Appreciate everyones input and concern. I really want to get back to being fit and in shape, but the motivation is just not there. I WILL beat this as I have beat some other substances over the years. Paxil was a real bitch, but I beat that 3 years ago and now am on no SSRIs since after years of trying different ones..Chiefnation hit it perfectly, its so easy to sit in the house now. I used to be on the go all the time, but the last few years I,m just flat feeling alot of the time and thats not how I will live the rest of my life. So far Ive gone from 3mg to the 2mg in 2 months, everytime I drop the dose my heartrate goes up for the first few days, other than that not too bad. I may try switching to liquid Valium and adjust my taper more closely after seeing my Dr this Wed. This is going to be quite a ride !!!
 
My Dr. wants me to go to a Psychiatrist and have them supervise me getting off, so I,m gonna stay at 2mg a day until I talk with him. Had a few anxious days after dropping to 2mg, but today seems better.....
 
RipdnTxs said:
My Dr. wants me to go to a Psychiatrist and have them supervise me getting off, so I,m gonna stay at 2mg a day until I talk with him. Had a few anxious days after dropping to 2mg, but today seems better.....
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Psychiatrist? interesting....I would have never thought to go to a Psychiatrist. I would have gone to a doctor that specializes in addiction medicine.

Keep you head up. ONLY YOU CAN BEAT THIS and you will, it will take time.
 
I think a lot of the anxiety, certainly not all of it, comes from not knowing how you'll cope without it and anticipating the negative effects. The constant fear and worry can really make it more difficult. You may want to consider finding an outlet to keep your mind focused on something else. Working out is good, but I'm talking about something that is more time-consuming, that maybe you can set a goal at and work on during your down time as you go through this process. Maybe learning to play an instrument or something that requires a lot of focus that will keep you preoccupied. Just a thought. Regardless, just stay in control and you'll be fine man.
 
He may refer me to one, but Ive know this Psych.for years and he is a personell friendof the family and I trust him to steer me in the right direction....


datsthat said:
Psychiatrist? interesting....I would have never thought to go to a Psychiatrist. I would have gone to a doctor that specializes in addiction medicine.

Keep you head up. ONLY YOU CAN BEAT THIS and you will, it will take time.
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I think U are spot on about the anxiety for me, Ive quit reading about coming off this anymore from the horror stories from others. I have found a few that came off without to much difficulty, but the mind is a tricky thing to control for me at times. Ive actually been having those same thoughts, Ive got to find something I,m passionate about and focus on that. It used to be being a gym rat, but the drive has faded the longer I,m on this. I will say yesterday was a good day and then this morning around 4:30 woke up with my heart pounding and feeling like something bad was about to happen. One hour, one day at a time !!! Tks for cking in ......

hyperCat said:
I think a lot of the anxiety, certainly not all of it, comes from not knowing how you'll cope without it and anticipating the negative effects. The constant fear and worry can really make it more difficult. You may want to consider finding an outlet to keep your mind focused on something else. Working out is good, but I'm talking about something that is more time-consuming, that maybe you can set a goal at and work on during your down time as you go through this process. Maybe learning to play an instrument or something that requires a lot of focus that will keep you preoccupied. Just a thought. Regardless, just stay in control and you'll be fine man.
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RipdnTxs said:
He may refer me to one, but Ive know this Psych.for years and he is a personell friendof the family and I trust him to steer me in the right direction....
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Good to hear. Please keep up updated on your progress. Use this thread as one of your outlets. I will and am following this thread and will reply to your questions or comments. I am on your side even though we are complete strangers. I am here to help you with moral support as much as I can. Talk to us when you are feeling crappy....it will make you feel better to express your feelings.

Remember, its up to you. YOU ARE NOT THE ONLY PERSON feeling this way. There are many others with similar struggles.


Oh yea, I highly recommend you get your Testosterone levels check because it may be low due to certain Rx medicine. Mine is super low due to opiate usage over a decade ago. I was taking more narcotic pain killers than you can imagine for over 10 years. I have been clean for over 5 years. I just got my Testosterone levels checked and my free Testosterone is 145 (almost a girl). Low T makes it very difficult to enjoy life and you need all of the enjoyment you can get. Plus if your T is low, it will make gains difficult at gym.

Remember, I am others here on this forum are here to listen and help.
 
Well this weekend I crashed or am weaning off too fast. Fri night started having racing heart rate and horrible anxiety like something really bad was about to happen. Sat was alot worse, I rode it out until that night and went from 2mg a day back to 2.5mg and yesterday afternoon I started to feel a little better. I have no more erratic heart rate and the empending doom feeling is gone, just really kinda down feeling now. I talked to the Psych and will see him in a few weeks, he wants to taper more slowly than what I was doing, now I know why. I am almost out of time I cant take off from work this year, may have to wait until the start of next year to do this as I work on 480 volt hot equipment and I cant work feeling like I did this weekend. One slip up and I,m toast, literally. ALWAYS be proactive and research what Drs are giving U........
 
Sounds very familiar to my reaction. I'd definitely slow it down man. I'd say at the most lower it .25 mg at a time (or even less?), and just stay at that dose for several weeks, maybe even a couple of months. Try to just forget about being off of it completely for now. This is a long term process. Just for transparency, I still take it, but only .5 to 1mg a day. It takes the edge off of my stress levels and don't mind being on it at this dose. I may at some point start that weaning process myself, but for now I'm fine with being on it.
 
Low a crumb at at time. Wait 2 weeks and then another crumb. The entire process will/can take up to 1 year.

REMEMBER, no rush. Take it slow.

AND if it's too much, then it's ok to go back to previous dose for another week. But you have to make continual decrease over time
 
Also take your current dose and split into 3 equal servings and take every 8 hrs. This will allot you to reduce with minimal discomfort.

Why you decrease by a crumb, only do it to one of your servings. For me, I reduced either my 2nd or last dose but never your 1st dose of day.
 
More great suggestions... After this weekend I have accepted the fact this will be a LONG process for me. I dont have a choice but to approach it this way, I will go slow as needed, because as yall know the mind goes strange places tapering off too fast. I am a single Dad and have no time to be out of it for a while and the work I do will not allow me to be. Feeling more calm and balanced today......
 
RipdnTxs said:
More great suggestions... After this weekend I have accepted the fact this will be a LONG process for me. I dont have a choice but to approach it this way, I will go slow as needed, because as yall know the mind goes strange places tapering off too fast. I am a single Dad and have no time to be out of it for a while and the work I do will not allow me to be. Feeling more calm and balanced today......
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Being a single dad is hard enough. I have a great relationship with my wife now that I am clean. She finally trusts me. It took over 5 years to earn her trust back. Luckily my son was not born yet during that time of my life. That time made me who I am today.

Many people have overcome benzos. So will you.

Keep us updated on your progress
 
Ask your doctor to write you a script for Liquid Klonopin for kids. It comes in 0.1mg/ml. So you would be taking roughly 20ml for a 2mg dose. Slowly wean the dose down by 0.5-1ml every few days. It will take a few months, but you will have the easiest time possible coming off.


I take 0.5 - 0.75mg no more than 3x per week but it only makes my life better as it removes the stress.

Mike
 
Ok. I was prescribed Klonopin for a few years until recently (January this year). My dose was about the same, 1mg 3x daily, so 3mg daily. This is what I did and its helped incredibly:

I tapered off by myself:

3 mg daily - week 1
2 mg daily - week 2
1.5 mg daily - week 3
1 mg daily - week 4 and 5

This is where you have to be careful and take your time

.75 mg daily - week 6
.5 mg daily week 7
.25 mg daily - week 8 and 9

on week 9 try to not take it unless you have too. Its more mental at that point than anything. You shouldn't have any withdrawal symptoms with such a slow taper. If you do, take .25 mg.

Any questions just ask me.



Edit: Also, if you start to get anxious to the point of it being a problem, I used Kratom to help. A lot of headshops sell it nowadays (US). I always bought the Red Bali for the sedative/anxiety effects.


Good Luck Bro
 
Getting off Klon is easy. I took it for years, 2mg/d.

First of all, it has a long half-life. This makes it convenient but also undesirable for long-term use. Replacing it with a shorter acting benzo is something to consider, so you may wish to discuss that with your doc. A long half-life = greater enzymatic involvement, greater receptor up-regulation, etc.. which equates to faster tolerance and higher addiction potential. If you're just taking it for stress then something like lorazepam might work equally well for about the same dose and only 1/3 the duration of action. Diazepam has a nice short half-life too, but also a much higher dose requirement, making it a less efficient replacement option if the goal is to minimize.

Second, situational use is something to think about. If you don't have a chronic medical condition (like seizure) then why are you using it chronically? If you'd like to still treat the stress with a benzo, but are also serious about limiting dependency, using on a situational basis only seems like an obvious strategy.

Also, if you'd like to get off of RXs completely, there are many potential alternatives which are natural and can attenuating withdrawal while also providing decent GABAnergic activity.
 
Just to clarify:

Diazepam(Valium) has a MUCH longer half-life than Klonopin. Klonopin is mainly prescribed for anxiety due to is somewhat long half-life. Ones like Alprazolam(Xanax) Lorazepam(Ativan) are used to seizures and panic attacks due to their quick onset.

But again, be careful getting off of benzos. Just like with alcohol, the withdrawals can kill you (DT's).
 
Brandinooooo said:
Just to clarify:

Diazepam(Valium) has a MUCH longer half-life than Klonopin. Klonopin is mainly prescribed for anxiety due to is somewhat long half-life. Ones like Alprazolam(Xanax) Lorazepam(Ativan) are used to seizures and panic attacks due to their quick onset.

But again, be careful getting off of benzos. Just like with alcohol, the withdrawals can kill you (DT's).
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Yes, thank you for correcting my generalization. Indeed, diazepam has some relatively long-lived actives. Though the long terminal values are generally misleading, as one could anticipated with a look at the comparatively short values of it's marketed metabolites. Things like temazepam, oxazepam, and even pro-metabolites like clorazepate (which demonstrates significantly longer duration when compared to diazepam, but you probably wouldn't guess it just looking at the numbers.)

So yes, it would be more accurately stated from a 'clinical perspective', but I'd still classify the effective duration of diazepam below Klonipin and certainly below Xanax as well.

And just to clarify further, clonazepam was originally marketed specifically for treatment of seizure. While it's off-label utility as an anxiolytic has become popular, and may account for the majority of it's prescriptions as you mentioned, situations like the OP now finds himself in are a obvious testimony to the perils of trading application efficiency for dosing convenience.
 
I’ve been prescribed klonopin since I was 17 (now 25). I take it for epilepsy, I’ve gone a couple days before with out it. I Havnt noticed any withdrawal symptoms when i miss a dose. Will I eventually have bad withdrawals if I continue?
 
There is A LOT of research out there about CBD oil, and coming off of benzos and opiods.

While you don't get the high of THC, CBD's are the "healthy" side of marijuana. One of the major effects is anti-anxiety, and it has been shown to help with DT's from opiods and benzos. So you might want to look into some CBD oil as well. You can eat it drink it, vape it, whatever, but it is supposed to be quite beneficial in that area. A lot ofpeople are actually using it instead of benzos for anxiety too.

Check out this article: Invalid Link Removed
 
MrKleen73 said:
There is A LOT of research out there about CBD oil, and coming off of benzos and opiods.

While you don't get the high of THC, CBD's are the "healthy" side of marijuana. One of the major effects is anti-anxiety, and it has been shown to help with DT's from opiods and benzos. So you might want to look into some CBD oil as well. You can eat it drink it, vape it, whatever, but it is supposed to be quite beneficial in that area. A lot ofpeople are actually using it instead of benzos for anxiety too.

Check out this article: Invalid Link Removed
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This is a very interesting part of cbd oil. Ive began to use it for pain. My girl however takes it for the anxiety. I havent seen her take xanax like she used too. She was a daily user and quit benzo's. She said she also cut back on her antidepressant. Stuff is expensive, but at least her product has a money back guarantee.
 
RipdnTxs said:
Long story short, went through some really stressful times roughly 5 years ago and Dr. put me on Klonopin. I am still taking it to this day 2-2.5mg a day. My life is pretty stable now and the effects of this drug have really taken my zest for life away. No desire to workout anymore, do the things I used to enjoy etc etc.... I am going to go through this with my Drs help and guidance, but Ive read many horror stories about coming off this and its pretty scary. I would love to hear anybody else who has gone through this and what their experience was like and any suggestions on what helped and what didnt. Tks
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Take the dose down 0.5 mg every 2 weeks that will reduce sides and you ween off
 
Clonazepam is a longer acting benzo so it is easier to taper than something like Xanax. You’re not taking a huge dose which is good, and if you could taper down in 0.25mg increments then you probably will feel very little withdrawals during the taper but in the end there will always be something. The detox from even shorter acting Benzos lasts more than a few days.

The real problem is whether you are an actual drug addict who will have a lot of difficulty tapering the dose and not wanting to just pop an extra 4mg because you want to feel good. Also someone stated going to a detox because of the seizure risk. The seizure risk is a real danger but if you get your dose down low enough you should not need a supervised detox. Most detoxes will keep you there for a week max and they’ll bring you from 2.5 to .5 and then send you home when you are safe from a medical standpoint to kick the rest. Light exercise during mild detox can be helpful at times to boost endorphins.
 
I appreciate ur comments, but everything the last two above said is straight out of a book that SHOULD apply to everyone. I am currently on .56 of a milligram, I have to split 1/8 milligram pill into four and I am having success with dropping every 5 weeks at only .003 drop. I have been coming off this poison for over 3 years now. I have tried the above suggestions and ended up on LOA from work for 10 weeks, a brief stay in a UTSW hospital last summer to detox and was released too early cold turkey and ended up in the ER three times for very high BP and completely out of my mind. Im with a Dr. now that isnt spewing crap from a old manual and he said with me will go this slow route so I can function and work. Hardest thing Ive ever been through, but I am getting there..... STAY AWAY FROM BENZOS please......
 
Well yes the best thing you can do is start to take one step at a time , may be you should start taking intrest in other things and keep your self engaged in it this will help you in order to distract your mind and reduce the dosage level of the drug.
 
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