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What is the best way to taper off Klonopin?
Depression & Anxiety | Last Active: May 16 6:16pm | Replies (271)Comment receiving replies
Never, ever abruptly discontinue Klonopin. Ever. Please google Ashton Manual by Dr. Heather Ashton. This is the correct way to taper off. Slowly. Approx. 5-10% a month, not 25%. You can try that way to start as you are on a very high dose, but you may not be one of the lucky ones. I hope you are. The medical community knows very little about long term benzo use beyond 3 months of use. It’s all Pharma driven. The UK is far ahead of us because they have national healthcare, which is not commercially driven. Don’t expect to get the correct info from your doctor/therapist. They simply do not know, weren’t informed and may cut you off. Read more info on benzodiazepine information coalition (benzoinfo.com).
Never go to an addiction rehab. They will Cold Turkey you. This is rarely an addiction. Very few people crave benzodiazepines, but your body will eventually develop tolerance and your doctor will often prescribe more or other drugs. BAD IDEA. CBT and many other life skills will help you deal with anxiety and depression. Benzodiazepines are NOT the safe drugs you think they are. Klonopin is actually the most potent benzodiazepine and causes the worst side effects, 1 mg is equal to 20 mg of Xanax. Ask your doctor about the new FDA black box warning on Klonopin and other benzos and tell him you’d like to taper off according to Ashton Manual if you don’t think they’ll cut you off.
I wish you the best. I’m not surprised that you weren’t apprised of this. Doctors simply do not know.
Replies to "Never, ever abruptly discontinue Klonopin. Ever. Please google Ashton Manual by Dr. Heather Ashton. This is..."
You are correct I'm sure, not good to stop cold turkey like I did. I was only taking it for 7 months at .5mg per day but after a month or so caused me to have tremors while sleeping or almost to sleep. I asked my sleep disorder doctor if this drug could be causing it and he said no. I asked again two months later and was told no again by his assistant. I then noticed body buzzing going on during my awake hours, really odd feeling. Also started having my right eye acting like a nerve was going crazy but I saw no movements when looking in the mirror. My regular doc couldn't believe he prescribed it after I told him of my issues. I decided to just stop and my last dose was night of March 3rd. Well, it's not been fun but seems to be getting better. Insomnia big time and still persists. My night body tremors have pretty much subsided and my eye twitching did stop after just a couple weeks of stopping medicine. Body buzzing is slowly getting better but still persists to some degree, some days better than others but seems to be improving. I freaked out and stpped cold turkey as the tremors/body buzzing, and eye issue all freaked me out and I needed to find out if the drug klonopin was the cause. I now know it was but I am still facing some lingering effects I assume due to cold turkey issue. I did read that symptoms after 30 days of stopping the drug are known as protracted withdrawal and it happens 10 to 15% of time and mostly to people who stop cold turkey so there you have it. I'm 65 by the way and extremely healthy, other than sleep disorder which is where this whole fiasco started. Based upon my withdrawal symptoms I am hopeful I will be completely free of these minor episodes soon. It's a terrible drug, can't believe many are taking much higher dosage than me. Anything higher and I would lost all functionality. I am livid at the sleep doc to say the least. Best to all!
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1 mg. klonopin equals roughly, 1 mg. Xanax. not 20 mgs.