Hi Chris thank you dearly for your response. See if I can answer your questions as I go along as well as remembering them.
Yes I’m doing this on my own but with my primaries careful watch. This medication is the last one of my regimen. The past 3 years a lot was thrown at me. 2 diagnosis that were hard to swallow. Melanoma skin cancer and Multiple Sclerosis. MS is still on the fence but now they are thinking something worse. I was doing well on the MS meds and anti seizure medications, so I thought. Last year I was in relapse after relapse. Getting steroids infused a lot. It just happened that I kept missing days of the Klonapin or whatever the name is due to not being able to drive myself to the pharmacy. My kids were both at school and husband on the road which left me alone. After going through horrible side effects that was it, I needed off this medication. I had help from my primary and neurologist. Neurologist was against me coming off it but I didn’t care. Once I started lowering it, 2mg to 1.1/2 I was feeling less leg pain. I know this may sound funny but once I got down to 1-0.5mg, my moods, memory were so much better. I didn’t feel like I was in this strange bubble. I was actually thinking clearly too. My leg pain was better. My family started noticing my moods were calmer and I was happier. I felt like myself again. Bc we were lowering really fast I started noticing I couldn’t breathe, chest pains. Never felt like this in my life. After going to the ER, pulmonary doctor, cardiologist etc., no heart or lung issues, I was told I was Experiencing a full blown panic attack. I’ve never ever experienced a panic attack before and now that they have stopped (the medication) I was told this was due to side effects coming off this. That my body was addicted to this medication. Not my head, my body. 😳 I was baffled let alone furious. My own stupidity really. I did a lot of research about this medication and went right back to the original doctor who prescribed this and why. I’m still shocked about what I found. So I took it upon myself and lowered this with a lot of trial and error. I’m now on 4 days completely off it. Praying daily that I keep doing well. I did find out that I will need a good 6 weeks of being off this completely before I feel 100 percent and back to normal. So my plans going forward is to keep myself calm, stress free, away from extreme heat or anything that could trigger a MS relapse. Staying home and away from others that could effect my immune system. Listening to my body and eating healthy. Reaching out to people such as this site for help. I’ve always been to proud to ask for help but I’m finding that this, me cannot do this alone. I truly hope that I can help someone else when I get this behind me. Tysm Chris. Let me see if I answered all your questions.
What I’ve also noticed coming off this medication....
Panic attacks - increased
Hard too breathe, chest heaviness, jumpy, insomnia.
Was told to struggle through this that it was temporary.
No other medications were prescribed too help with this side effects.
Which is probably why it’s taken 1 year so far coming off 2mg’s.