Posted by zeugma on December 31, 2003, at 17:34:25
In reply to Re: is Xanax more addictive than alcohol?, posted by Alexander on December 31, 2003, at 16:34:31
The problem I've been having with Klonopin is that it seems to worsen my narcolepsy-like symptoms (hypnagogic hallucinations, sleep paralysis, and unrefreshing sleep leading to excessive daytime sleepiness). The drugs that block these symptoms are monoaminergic reuptake inhibitors, and sure enough, after adding Strattera to a TCA, the already diminished number of these symptoms disappeared altogether, only to reappear immediately after starting Klonopin treatment. Frustrating... it seems like I have GABAergic as well as monoaminergic problems, but treating the GABA issues (terrible social phobia) worsens my monoamine dysregulation, which shows how precariously balanced these two systems are in my case. And I have experienced a return of depression in the past two weeks.
I began to scale down the already subtherapeutic dosage of Klonopin a little while ago. I took .125 mg two days ago, but nothing yesterday or today. I think the holidays are contributing to my state of mind (I get depressed when I just sit around, but the social phobia and lack of energy makes me want to isolate.) I'm thinking maybe Xanax would be better than Klonopin becomes it seems less likely to cause depression and also has a much shorter half-life so if I took it in the morning it would be out of my system by evening. But it was hard enough to get my pdoc to let me try Klonopin, I don't know if he'd let me go for Xanax, and I'm fairly discouraged about my options for overcoming social phobia right now.
poster:zeugma
thread:294899
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20031231/msgs/295219.html