Posted by Rick on February 25, 2004, at 9:53:48
I'm inviting people to report experiences tapering off an extended use of Klonopin/clonazepam WITHOUT
great or lasting withdrawal distress.I emphasize "withdrawal" because, to the extent possible, I want to divorce this discussion from the distress that may come from the sudden return of pre-Klonopin anxiety (although it may be hard for some people to distinguish between the two, especially if they have become psychologically dependent).
Although there are plenty of pro-Klonopin posts on here, there seems to be a lot of negative discussion and worry lately. But I know lots of people have also reported quitting with zero-to-minimal problems, even cold turkey in some cases (NOT recommended)!
After five years, mostly at 1 mg/day to *great* benefit, I am tempted to experiment with quitting *temporarily* because
1) I'm just curious to see if I will have the terrible withdrawal many have reported...I'm pretty sure I would not, but by no means positive. While this doesn't "prove" anything, I know I haven't had any problem dropping some non-benzo drugs that have produced bad withdrawal for many.
2) I want to see if there has been any lasting benefit for my social phobia. J.R. Davidson, one of the top social phobia researchers, has done studies showing substantial residual benefit after discontinuation (and he reports that most patients tapered the Klonopin without significant distress, incidentally).
One hesitation I have to even experiment is that Klonopin had several *beneficial* side effects. I.e., when I started taking it, it unexpectedly addressed several bad problems that I wasn't even looking for it to help, e.g., my frequent facial and sinus-area pain (undiagnosed TMJ?). I'm almost sure something like that problem would quickly return upon discontinuation.
Anyway, bottom line, please share any *success* stories getting off Klonopin (which, I repeat, is not to imply that someone *should* necessarily try to get off if it's having overall net theraputic benefit).
No disrespect to those who have had unfortunate withdrawal experiences, but they are (understandably) much more likely to write to share their experience and warn people, so we hear about a disproportionate number of these kinds of these outcomes. I would guess these folks may also (again, understandably) continue to need further support in their quest to get better, and thus visit a board like this more often. As an analogy, if you trusted internet boards for all your info about the anti-cholesterol drug Lipitor -- perhaps the world's top-selling med -- you would think it was likely to ruin your life, when in fact the great majority of people have zero-to-minimal side effects. (It's not a cut-and-dried issue...I *do* think the medical community and certainly drugmakers are sometimes unaware of, and/or downplaying, negative effects. But in my opinion many net boards tend to over-fuel these concerns, causing people to "run scared" from medicines that could be extremely tolerable and beneficial to them because they've been "warned" by "horror stories" on the net.) Also, getting back to Klonopin, there are always at least a few anti-benzo zealots who come on the board and vociferously try to further their cause, sometimes posting under multiple aliases.
Thanks in advance for posting your experiences about minimal-difficulty Klonopin/clonazepam discontinuation.
Rick
poster:Rick
thread:317489
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20040223/msgs/317489.html