Starting 1mg Clonazepam Taper soon. Need advice

[[Ry...]]

I've been on 1mg of Clonazepam daily for a little over 10 years. Recently, I've decided that this needs to go so I've scheduled an appointment with a psychiatrist next week to discuss tapering off of it. I've never actually spoken to a psych except when I started having panic attacks 10ish years ago and am afraid that she is going to attempt to substitute my clonazepam when my goal is to be 100% med free. I don't take anything else and never have.

 

For those of you who have tapered with the help of your doctor, I have a few questions:

 

Are there things I should watch out for when telling her I want off of it? Will she want to put me on an alternative medication for anxiety or will she respect my "med-free" choice?

 

I want to tell her that I want the slowest, safest taper possible. I don't care if it's a year. Do psychiatrists typically frown on this or are they willing to let you come off slowly? I'm terrified of the encounter in general, like I'm getting my hopes up that she's going to be on my side but I know that's not always the case. I didn't realize how addicted my body was to them until I went on antibiotics that were burning my stomach and I went down to .5mg for a few nights to ease the burning and hit full withdrawal on the second night. Sweating, insomnia, anxiety, etc.

 

That was my wake-up call. I want this stuff out of my body and am willing to do it slowly.

 

So I guess my main question is: any tips on how to present this to her?

[[NJ...]]

I think the biggest danger with this is that she will want you to taper too fast. Not many doctors will right off the bat suggest other meds or have you switch--for those that crossover to Valium it seems that their doctors need to be convinced.

 

Tapering too fast was my issue when I told my doctor I wanted off. He said .75 two weeks, .5 two weeks, etc. That failed, next taper failed so now I am here for third time in a year. Going very slow (with an additional med, which I absolutely could not do this without it) but doing mostly okay.

 

And many others on here have been given similar fast tapering schedules. You have been on 1 mg a LONG time, and you will likely need to go very slow (maybe more than a year) to be successful. I would browse the boards to see what others are doing. Do you want to dry cut pills? If so, make sure you have a scale, and .5 mgs are easier to cut than the 1 mg. Cut and hold or microtaper? Do you want to do a liquid taper, either do it yourself titration (then you would also need equipment--I dry cut klonopin so am not familiar with what you might need) or with a liquid compounded version of K? I think if you go in with a plan your doctor will likely be more supportive. But make it clear you want to control taper schedule based on your symptoms.

[[be...]]

I've been on 1mg of Clonazepam daily for a little over 10 years. Recently, I've decided that this needs to go so I've scheduled an appointment with a psychiatrist next week to discuss tapering off of it. I've never actually spoken to a psych except when I started having panic attacks 10ish years ago and am afraid that she is going to attempt to substitute my clonazepam when my goal is to be 100% med free. I don't take anything else and never have.

 

For those of you who have tapered with the help of your doctor, I have a few questions:

 

Are there things I should watch out for when telling her I want off of it? Will she want to put me on an alternative medication for anxiety or will she respect my "med-free" choice?

 

I want to tell her that I want the slowest, safest taper possible. I don't care if it's a year. Do psychiatrists typically frown on this or are they willing to let you come off slowly? I'm terrified of the encounter in general, like I'm getting my hopes up that she's going to be on my side but I know that's not always the case. I didn't realize how addicted my body was to them until I went on antibiotics that were burning my stomach and I went down to .5mg for a few nights to ease the burning and hit full withdrawal on the second night. Sweating, insomnia, anxiety, etc.

 

That was my wake-up call. I want this stuff out of my body and am willing to do it slowly.

 

So I guess my main question is: any tips on how to present this to her?

[[be...]]

In my opinion if she does not respect your need to be med free she might not be the right doc for you.  The good thing is that the majority can get off thus type of medication with little to know problem.  However, those are not the ones we usually see on our site. Most find us by googling their symptoms. They are the minority that have difficulty and sometimes great difficultly coming off of them.

[[Kl...]]

My doctor doesn't believe there is any need for a slow taper with klonopin because of its long half life and he's the same psych that tapered me off Risperdal in two weeks (I was so sick I don't even remember anything from coming off of it except that it was HARD).

 

So there is a real risk that your doctor will be stubborn and taper too quickly. My taper schedule by my doctor: 1mg to 0.5mg for one month then 0.5mg to 0.25mg for a month and so on.

 

I've hit week two of 0.5ng but "slipped up" and took Theanine yesterday since my withdrawals were SO BAD and I was beginning to not have the ability to function at work. I guess Theanine is a big "no" supplement 

 

I hope you find an understanding doctor who can appreciate the actual impact coming off these meds has on us! Good luck!

[[Ry...]]

My doctor doesn't believe there is any need for a slow taper with klonopin because of its long half life and he's the same psych that tapered me off Risperdal in two weeks (I was so sick I don't even remember anything from coming off of it except that it was HARD).

 

So there is a real risk that your doctor will be stubborn and taper too quickly. My taper schedule by my doctor: 1mg to 0.5mg for one month then 0.5mg to 0.25mg for a month and so on.

 

I've hit week two of 0.5ng but "slipped up" and took Theanine yesterday since my withdrawals were SO BAD and I was beginning to not have the ability to function at work. I guess Theanine is a big "no" supplement 

 

I hope you find an understanding doctor who can appreciate the actual impact coming off these meds has on us! Good luck!

 

Yeah, my GP was absolutely not knowledgeable about Benzo tapering at all. Her original suggestion was like, "Wait, so they've never increased your dosage? It's a placebo at this point! Do .5 for a week, then  .25 for a week, then .25 every other day for two weeks, then just stop."

 

That woman was trying to kill me. One night of .5 had me no bueno like I just took my full 1mg and the fuzzy head and anxiety are gone. There's no way I could've done it her way.

 

For everyone else: thanks. I'm going to stressss a slow taper and if she doesn't respect that, I'm gonna look elsewhere. I have noticed a lot of horror stories on this site and was warned against it, but I was like there's no way that so many people are just imagining this, so I poked around and combined with my own experience, the withdrawal severity is definitely a thing.