Posted by sfmom on December 14, 2003, at 15:37:06
In reply to Which is more addictive Ambien or Klonopin?, posted by Lynne on December 12, 2003, at 0:15:12
Well, I can only share my experience with Klonopin, but I became dependent on it very quickly. I started out with two pills a day for anxiety, then my doc said I could go up to three, which I did. But it still wasn't helping me to sleep at night so I called my doc and asked for Ambien to sleep. She said that since they are in the same family of drugs, she couldn't give them both to me. And when I described what I thought were my continuing anxiety symptoms, she recognized them as Klonopin withdrawal between doses! I have had to slowly wean myself from the Klonopin because I have terrible withdrawal symptoms between doses. I'm down from 1.5-2 mg a day to .75, broken up into .25 doses three times a day. I'm also getting acupuncture and taking herbs to help with the withdrawal.
I know that my situation is not the norm. Some people take Klonopin for years without dependency problems. But getting off of it has been very difficult for me. Also, one more difference between Klonopin and Ambien, is that Ambien has a much shorter half life so if you are just taking it at night for sleep, the potential for dependency is less than with Klonopin, even though they are in the same "family" of drugs.
Good luck finding something that works for you.
poster:sfmom
thread:289005
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20031213/msgs/289745.html