Posted by katekite on June 14, 2002, at 20:12:44
In reply to Re: pdoc attitudes on benzos in general vs on Xanax » katekite, posted by Phil on June 14, 2002, at 12:36:18
I think there's a couple kinds of dependence.
One would be with short acting ones: you find it helpful, then it wears off and you feel the need for it again, you start to take it all the time just to feel relaxed and keep increasing the dose. I think this is the kind of addiction pdocs worry about.
My kind of addiction is that I took klonopin for anxiety and it really helped. Then I got diagnosed with ADD and started those meds and that helped even more. So I want to try life without the klonopin. I'm down to .25 mg per day and feel just like I did before I ever started klonopin (my body is acclimated and thinks that's normal now). When I try to go off completely I get this rebound anxiety and insomnia that is worse than anything I experienced before and I about go nuts and can't do it. So I consider myself addicted. But I don't want the feeling and never consider increasing the dose. I'm not sure what to call this kind of addiction. I think this type of addiction would be more common with the longer acting ones like klonopin because it is so easy to get a blood level going that doesn't change. I would rather have just used the short acting ones as needed than have to go through this. Since the short acting ones get mostly out of your system before you take the next one (if careful) then I should have been able to prevent dependence with them.
So yes, I feel like klonopin lost its effectiveness at the dose of .25 mg per day, for me. I'm sure if I went back to 1 mg a day I would really be able to tell though.
sorry this is so long.
kate
poster:katekite
thread:109633
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20020609/msgs/109873.html