Posted by SandyWeb on March 30, 2007, at 11:22:34
In reply to More effective anxiety benzos then Klonopin?, posted by football on March 29, 2007, at 22:44:00
Football,
Well, I'm the strange one again. My experiences seem to be different. Maybe you and I follow along the same lines. I don't know.
Remember, these are MY experiences only:
I found Xanax to be a placebo. It did absolutely nothing, no matter how many pills I took. I have heard from another person on this Board that had the same experience as that. It was just a waste.
Ativan I found to take an hour to work, but then you felt it immediately. Your mind just relaxes and you can sigh with relief. I find it to be the strongest benzo, but it only has a half-life of about 4 hours.....so doesn't last long enough. I didn't find it all that sedating, either. It *may* have helped me sleep a teeny bit better, but I'm not really sure because I don't sleep well at all.
As for clonazepam (Klonopin), I find that it takes about maybe 40 minutes to work. But it comes on so subtly that I'm not even aware of it until I realize that my body tension is gone. Very, very subtle. Its half-life is about 16 hours, BUT.....it doesn't seem that way. I still need to take it multiple times per day. And it has the complete opposite effect of what a benzo should do....it actually energizes me! I keep switching back and forth between Ativan and Klonopin, forgetting (duh) that Klonopin energizes me and thus doesn't help with sleep at all. But even though it gives me the energy to stay up all day and get work done, it also allows me to be calm. Weird, huh? I was taking 1 mg 3x per day, but then realized that it was making my insomnia even worse. Now I take 2 mg in the morning and 2 mg in the late afternoon. If it's an extremely stressful day (such as the other day when I had a Social Worker visit my home), I was jumping through my skin and had to keep taking more. But that's okay. I made it through the interview. Phew!
Anyways, that's my dissertation (ha) on benzos. I wish you well.
God bless,
Sandy
poster:SandyWeb
thread:745331
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20070327/msgs/745438.html