Posted by HedgeHog on May 7, 2005, at 0:31:12
In reply to Re: is klonopin really all that addictive?, posted by anneL on May 6, 2005, at 0:16:17
I have been taking Klonopin 0.5 mg once a day for the past four months. I was initially prescribed it to help address relatively acute anxiety and depressive symptoms while I was trying out a series of other medications (Remeron, Wellbutrin, Cymbalta, etc.). This has been my first experience in taking a benzo for an extended period of time; I had taken Ativan PRN in the past, although no more often than once or twice a month. I am 28 years old and diagnosed with your standard unipolar depression.
I found this topic to be of particular interest in that I began to reduce my Klonopin dose four days ago. Per the advice of my psychiatrist, over the past four days I have taken 0.375 mg rather than 0.5 mg (a 25% reduction). Rather than trying to split the actual 0.5 mg tables, I obtained a prescription for the Klonopin Wafers which are available in 0.25 mg and 0.125 mg form. Unfortunately, they aren't available as a generic so they're a little more expensive.
This is my second "attempt" to reduce my Klonopin usage in the past month. On the first attempt, I cut the dose in half (from 0.5 mg to 0.25 mg) and suffered from a host of moderate to severely uncomfortable symptoms. I would characterize these symptoms as sharply increased ("rebound") anxiety, increased difficulty falling and staying asleep, noticeable shaking in my hands and legs, and feelings of panic ranging from perceived difficulty breathing to just feeling plain old fashioned scared for no reason. These symptoms were significant enough to return to my 0.5 mg dose.
This time, I have started with a slower taper and hence have had the above symptoms but on a smaller scale. Given the relatively long half life of Klonopin (~16 hours), in my experience there has been an approximately one day lag between decreasing the dose and experiencing withdrawl symptoms.
While I certainly appreciate that everybody has their own unique situation, I would state my opinion that discontinuing Klonopin has been much tougher than I would have imagined. I have had thought that a "small" 0.5 mg dose taken once a day over a "short" four month period of time would lead to any sort of physical dependence whatsoever.
My advice to anybody attempting it would be to go as slowly as possible. It has been a very helpful medication for me but you need to respect the potential difficulty in getting off it.
poster:HedgeHog
thread:491592
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20050504/msgs/494783.html