Sleep ease with melatonin and Unisom

Such drugs make the brain become dependent on them. The very worst, if you can believe it, is plain ol' nicotine. The brain has two main types of neuro-receptors, muscarinic and nicotinic. The brain actually makes its own form of nicotinic neurotransmitters. When we smoke, we encourage the brain to begin to make less and less of what it ought to produce on its own. It's no wonder people cannot quite smoking, at least not with an insane amount of support, will power, and sometime substitute behaviors.
Anyway, you can wean yourself off the bzepines but it takes both determination and a methodical approach. You start with a teensy reduction, go a full week on that, then another teensy reduction, another week, and so on. It might take up to six months to get off them fully, and there might be some stubbed toes along the way. You must have an open mind to the thought of getting off them, and you must only act with the advice and monitoring of a competent physician.

Yes, my new doctor is open to me keeping up with 2 mg clonazepam daily. Unfortunately, it takes time to wean off any benzo, and she is not offering me an alternative to that benzo. I've stopped using it in the past without taking so much time to reduce dosages, but after 2 days, the anxiety disorder was back just as it was before, so I know the clonazepam is working. I don't think 2 mg is much of a dose on a daily basis anyway. The doctors are typically just worried about addiction to benzos. Some people are like that, but not me. I rarely get a very slight mood elevation from Percocet or Norco (I needed them after a fractured pelvis earlier this year), maybe my metabolism is able to process them differently. They definitely kill extreme pain however.

Thats good your new doctor is letting you keep taking Clonazepam. Alot of doctors would not...at least where I live. But you say your anxiety comes back after 2 days of not taking Clonazepam....that is most likely withdrawal symptoms.....from abruptly stopping it. I'm glad it's helping you and your doctor let's you have 2mg a day...that is considered kind of a high daily dose....at least my doctor would say so. I'm surprised your doctor isn't worried about you being addicted to it. Because you most likely are....but so what...if it's helping you.

laughlin1947, I wonder what state you are in because I am in Wisconsin and they would never just prescribe that much....wouldn't happen! I was sent to a psychiatrist because my primary doctor did not want to prescribe lorazepam long term....and I do not need a psychiatrist.....it's RIDICULOUS

My pcp also did not want me to take lorazepam long term. I followed his advice and weaned off it. Took me awhile but glad I did.

My pcp also did not want me to take lorazepam long term. I followed his advice and weaned off it. Took me awhile but glad I did.

What did you take instead of the lorazepam?

Mirtazapine

This is late and perhaps somewhat aside from the gist of the discussion right now, but most sources I have sought suggest that most of us should not be taking more than 3mg of melatonin if taken each night. I have trouble sleeping at times, usually long enough. The quality is quite decent, but I awaken near the 5.5 hour point and that's usually 'it' for me. So, I take a single tablet of 3mg of melatonin, but only every third or fourth night. This way, its effect does not become reduced due to habituation or to adaptation, and its effect is more potent on the nights I do take it. Even so, there are more potent pills on the market, and the general consensus I have found is that it is too much. Additionally, although I haven't felt the need to use it in some months now, after my angiograms and two ablations for atrial fibrillation, I had difficulty falling asleep. I asked my physician for help, and he prescribed zopiclone at 7.5 mg. On the advice of my pharmacist, who knew I have sleep apnea, I only took half a breakable tablet, and that worked very well.
It may just be my upbringing and/or personality, not to mention my phenotype, but I find that if I tough it out for a few days, and then take the 'help', that I usually, not always, get a good night's sleep that way. It's as if my mind calms knowing I have gotten some assistance and I usually sleep longer that night.
One last message from me, and again it might be my thinking only on this matter: I don't like having to take medicine at all, but I don't have other answers when it comes to intractable and serious conditions. If you need the help, especially just for a night or two to get past a tough patch, then go ahead, and don't look back. It just builds more angst, self-recrimination, and sets limits on what the medicine can do for you. Fighting the need only goes so far, and in the end, you ARE doing it for your health!!