Posted by Tony P on August 31, 2001, at 1:52:37
In reply to Re: Roche calls it an anticonvulsant? » Squiggles, posted by Cam W. on August 30, 2001, at 19:40:29
Despite my previous humorous (I hope) comment, I have an immediate and serious interest in this. I'm on a reasonably low dose of clonazepam right now. I have however been hooked on short-acting benzodiazepines in the past, most recently about 10 years ago.
I have now been taking low doses of Clonazepam (.5-1.5 mg. per day) off and on for about 3 months, and am currently on a (hopefully) temporary regime of .5 prn in the daytime and .5-1.0 mg at night, for agitation and insomnia while I adjust to Welbutrin (day 7 today and things are going really well). A side benefit is presumably some seizure protection - I'm not high risk, but did have a couple of seizures 25 years ago withdrawing from valium & alcohol, partly also precipitated I'm convinvced by the Chlorpromazine my pdoc prescribed at the time, not knowing that is a fairly common exacerbating factor in withdrawal seizures.
Returning to the present day, I don't want to stop the clonazepam, which is serving a useful pupose, and I am sticking to the Dr's limits or less, but I'm worried: Am I setting myself up for an unpleasant withdrwal at this dosage and time frame - maybe a few more weeks?
Tony P
> Squiggles - All benzodiazepines are anticonvulsants, to some extent, especially the fat soluble, long-acting ones like diazepam (Valium™) and clonazepam (Rivotril™/Klonopin™).
>
> The neurotransmitter GABA (gamma-amino butyric acid) is an "inhibitory neurotransmitter". It inhibits the release of other neurotransmitters (serotonin, dopamine, norepinephrine), thus slowing electrical transmission in nerve cells. The slowing of nerve cell conduction is calming, and thus stops the spontaneous firing of nerve cells, seen in convulsions.
>
> Benzodiazepines facillitates the binding of GABA to the GABA receptor complex (causes a conformational change in the GABA receptor complex, so that GABA binds to it more readily).
>
> - Cam
poster:Tony P
thread:76985
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20010828/msgs/77044.html