Posted by Phoenix1 on February 5, 2008, at 9:23:26
In reply to Help/pointers in reducing Klonopin, posted by SteelyDan on February 4, 2008, at 23:04:40
> I take 3 mgs. of klonopin daily for anxiety. My problem is that i think it is causing my depression. My goal is to reduce it down to 2 mgs. a day,(slowly of course) and then maybe further. My problem is every time it try to reduce it .50 mgs., or .25 mgs a week i feel like crap, get frustrated and go back up to the initial 3 mgs. I am very frustrated, any help will be greatly apprecciated. I am also on remeron and effexor.
>
> Dan> I take 3 mgs. of klonopin daily for anxiety. My problem is that i think it is causing my depression. My goal is to reduce it down to 2 mgs. a day,(slowly of course) and then maybe further. My problem is every time it try to reduce it .50 mgs., or .25 mgs a week i feel like crap, get frustrated and go back up to the initial 3 mgs. I am very frustrated, any help will be greatly apprecciated. I am also on remeron and effexor.
>
> DanHi Dan,
Since it has such a long half life, Klonopin is usually not the worst benzo to taper off of. Be glad you aren't trying this with Xanax! I hardly noticed reducing .5mg per week of Klonopin. But then you have been on it for quite a while if I remember correctly, which may make it a bit more difficult.
You could try switching over to an even longer half-life benzo like Valium or clorazepate in equivalent doses and taper off of that.
Look up Heather Ashton's free literature at:
http://www.benzo.org.uk/manual/index.htm
She has LOTS of experience in this area, and suggests very, very slow tapers with very, very small dose decreases. Maybe show her manual to your pdoc? For certain reasons, not everyone agrees with her method, but I think it's a humane comfortable way to taper off of benzos and she has had a fairly high rate of clinical success.
Also, I know you are on Lyrica. I found that it helped to reduce my need for benzos. See what you can do here in terms of increasing Lyrica while decreasing Klonopin.
I have to say that eliminating Klonopin helped my depression considerably. For me personally, it was a bad drug, but YMMV.
Hope this helps a bit.
Good luck, you will get through it and feel better for it in the end!
Phoenix
poster:Phoenix1
thread:810772
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/wdrawl/20070929/msgs/810817.html