I am having a VERY difficult time with Klonipin withdrawal

I’m very, very sorry for all the suffering you’ve been through. I wish you the best in your healing. I’m exhausted from trying to help educate others in the safe discontinuation of benzos. So many get CT’d and continue to add more meds, which can be just as bad as the benzos to ease symptoms of withdrawal or CT. If they help, good for you. If not, there is medically sound help out there if one looks beyond addiction centers. You’ll find that, of course, benzos help in the short run or maybe even years for others, but eventually tolerance hits.

Best to you.

Thank you very much .. yrs .. I honestly thought I’m on these for life . If I can’t go without after trying the tapering ( twice ) then I was destined to struggle to keep my dosage at 1.5 per day and like you said , is true .,I too had hit tolerance so would have to sneak an extra one here and there … at the end of my (30) day refill it was murder! I had only a few and I just had to take them very sparingly and still went through wds .. so this is one reason I do not want to stay on pregabalin any longer than I absolutely have to .. I don’t want another drug to replace this one .. I would rather put up with the shingles nerve pain . At least that’s physical.. the mental torture game is like someone throwing you into the gates of hell , best way I can describe it . Here I am this morning , going out …. Up over 2 hrs now and no sign of a wd. I just took my one pregabalin an hour ago but didn’t have a craving for it .. it’s only been 3 weeks ..I sure hope when they start to taper me off of the pregabalin..?that will be it … done.! Cross your fingers for me and I’ll keep you updated …Thanks again …. Just wanted to put this out there in case someone else may want to talk to their dr about pregabalin.. I stumbled upon it working .. pharmacy told me that they’ve never seen it just replacing clonazepam… it’s usually used as a tapering method though ..

We all think either we’re on for life or we can’t handle the w/d. I’m not sure I’d consider wanting “hell” to end as a craving. You’re not seeking pleasure. You absolutely can get off both drugs, but you have to be willing to go through a lot of symptoms. There are support groups full of others coming off benzos, pregab (Lyrica) and ADs because they were in tolerance and there’s no sense in taking a drug that stops working. They don’t continue chemo if it’s not working.

I wish you’d check out Benzo Information Consortium if you are suddenly hit with worsening withdrawal symptoms. They can be very strange. Hopefully, you’re one of the lucky ones and you will just taper off the pregab slowly with few issues. It’s not an easy drug to get off of.
See this post here.
https://connect.mayoclinic.org/discussion/my-lyrica-journey/

I wish you only the best. I’m not at all anti-drug. Many are life-saving. These, however, should only be used in emergencies and for the shortest time possible and slowly tapered off. That’s the new black box warning the FDA finally realized was the honest thing to do.

Thank you 👍. Yes , off clonazepam ( cold turkey ) not one pill since I received nerve pain after recently having shingles . Dr gave me Pregabalin, to help . This had nothing to do with my clonazepam..I figured I was on that for life ? Until after taking the 2 75(mg ) pils per day for the pain … it did help a bit but like I said before it obviously took the place of the cpam .. no need to take one in over 3 weeks now .. so now it’s only been 3-4 weeks that I’ve taken Pregabalin. But we’ve already started my tapering from the 150 mgs of Pregabalin, yesterday ..cross fingers …no Wds from Pregabalin.. but I was only on a low dose for 3 weeks so they didn’t think I’d have a problem ? But the exciting thing is that I haven’t craved or felt a wd symptom in 4 weeks…. I guess I was always scared that the cpam wds would wait for me ? 😂😂. Pharmacist laughed and said no that if I’ve had not one clonazepam in 3 weeks and 2 days ? It’s def out of my system .so nothing now ? Shingles saved my life ? They would never have thought to use Pregabalin as a substitute…but it has been used in the tapering process …

Thought this article I recently found might be helpful for some with respect to withdrawal and protracted withdrawal which I'm certain I have, although symptoms seem to be slowly improving.

Glad to hear you’re improving . Omg .. I hope that doesn’t happen to me lol .. so it’s been 3 weeks now without taking one clonazepam (klonopin) and second day of tapering from 75 mg twice per day ( taken for nerve pain left over from shingles ) just worked out without knowing .. that it took the place of cpam . So have only been on Pregabalin for 3-4 weeks . So far just down to 1 (75) mg tablet per day but for 3 days .. so far ( knock ✊ on wood ) no wds ? Might be a little hard when I come off of second pill but they’re going to cut that one in half ..,so I’ll take 35mgs for a few days and see how I do ? Then the other 35 mgs .. they honestly don’t think I’ll have a problem bc the cpam should be out of my system and the Pregabalin, was only taken for 4 weeks at a quite low dosage per day ? But are still tapering just bc of my past problems with cpam . I will keep the cpam , just in case ..,but hoping I don’t have to use them ever again . 🤞

I hope you never have to take the cpam again either. And hopefully you will be fortunate and skip any withdrawal symptoms. After 3 weeks, sounds like your doing well. Drug just started doing number on me after only a month or so into taking it. One of the symptoms disappeared within a few days of last dose, while tremors/shaking continue but seem to be slowly getting better. Not happy about ever being prescribed this. Doctor and I had a phone conversation about cpam and it was obvious to me he doesn't understand it. Says he has prescribed to 300 patients. I told him he's lucky but many of his patients are surely dependent on it, I didn't really hold back at this point. He didn't have response for that comment. I should have asked him how he could possibly prescribe drug to patients long term, when it was only meant to take for 2 to 4 weeks max? It just didn't come to me at the time of phone call or I would have as I would have liked to hear his response? Done with him. Best of luck!

You are so right ! Like I said , I too was addicted after 3 months I think ? But didn’t know what they were ? This was 10 yrs ago . I just figured I didn’t need them anymore ( my dad passed away ) np getting clonazepam or whatever benzo I wanted ? I actually took Xanax back bc it made me jittery … so we tried clonazepam? I had my pick ? Back then .. now they won’t even prescribe them .. I’m sure some still are .. but my new dr won’t I’m just grandfathered into them . But he thinks I should start a slow taper ( within 1 month -2 months ) I laughed …. I said to him “ you’ve never been addicted to any benzodiazepines have you ?” He shook his head “ no “ I told him that I only needed these pills for about 1 month … but had 2 more refills on file so got them filled but didn’t seem to have the same effect anymore .. but for last 10 years I’ve been on. These pills bc those terrible , horrific , he’ll like ,brain torture chamber … but I still struggled not to take anymore than 1.5 mgs per day .. it makes me so mad bc they look at you as if you have 10 heads if you say how hard the wds are ? I told me dr that I’ve already done a 9 month taper but cheated a few times bc I couldn’t take the every 2 weeks a new week on horror … so quit after 5 months . I was thinking about the micro taper …. Until I came down with shingles and pain that where I had the rash ? Nerve pain … feels like a bad sun burn and someone poking at it with pins . So dr gave me pregabalin and after 1 week I noticed no wds and didn’t need cpam anymore . It’s been almost a month now and haven’t touched one . Pregabalin must have same make up as benzodiazepines.. so I’m now on just 2 (75) per day . I was prescribed up to 4 per day . So I did feel wds yesterday when I went from 3 pills to 2 pills but today I feel fine ..I asked the pharmacist and he said that it’s much much easier to come off of pregabalin than cpam … so hopefully others will see this and ask their dr about pregabalin for them . I tried everything in 10 yrs to help me get off of these … I just fell upon this drug by accident .. 🤞🤞

I've been taking clonazepam for almost ten years, and haven't tried to withdraw from them, and don't really want to. They brought me out of an excruciating state of panic that set in while I was on vacation, and I even entered a day hospitalization program after I returned home. I also started taking duloxetine. These two drugs, mostly the clonazepam, almost instantly stopped the panic and anxiety, so I won't badmouth clonazepam. Now, it seems like it primarily stops me from feeling irritable and edgy, but that's good, too, and my psychiatrist has no problem prescribing it.

You are so right ! Like I said , I too was addicted after 3 months I think ? But didn’t know what they were ? This was 10 yrs ago . I just figured I didn’t need them anymore ( my dad passed away ) np getting clonazepam or whatever benzo I wanted ? I actually took Xanax back bc it made me jittery … so we tried clonazepam? I had my pick ? Back then .. now they won’t even prescribe them .. I’m sure some still are .. but my new dr won’t I’m just grandfathered into them . But he thinks I should start a slow taper ( within 1 month -2 months ) I laughed …. I said to him “ you’ve never been addicted to any benzodiazepines have you ?” He shook his head “ no “ I told him that I only needed these pills for about 1 month … but had 2 more refills on file so got them filled but didn’t seem to have the same effect anymore .. but for last 10 years I’ve been on. These pills bc those terrible , horrific , he’ll like ,brain torture chamber … but I still struggled not to take anymore than 1.5 mgs per day .. it makes me so mad bc they look at you as if you have 10 heads if you say how hard the wds are ? I told me dr that I’ve already done a 9 month taper but cheated a few times bc I couldn’t take the every 2 weeks a new week on horror … so quit after 5 months . I was thinking about the micro taper …. Until I came down with shingles and pain that where I had the rash ? Nerve pain … feels like a bad sun burn and someone poking at it with pins . So dr gave me pregabalin and after 1 week I noticed no wds and didn’t need cpam anymore . It’s been almost a month now and haven’t touched one . Pregabalin must have same make up as benzodiazepines.. so I’m now on just 2 (75) per day . I was prescribed up to 4 per day . So I did feel wds yesterday when I went from 3 pills to 2 pills but today I feel fine ..I asked the pharmacist and he said that it’s much much easier to come off of pregabalin than cpam … so hopefully others will see this and ask their dr about pregabalin for them . I tried everything in 10 yrs to help me get off of these … I just fell upon this drug by accident .. 🤞🤞