Almost forgot to come back!

[[Sl...]]

I 'jumped' from a dose of .25mg of klonopin at the beginning of April. I no longer had access to my Pdoc and I had been wanting to get off the klonopin anyway. In retrospect it probably wasn't the greatest time in my life to stop; but then again when is?  My wedding was 5 weeks after my jump date. And little did I know I was about to undergo some major life changes shortly after the wedding.

The first few days after the last dose weren't too bad. I kept waiting for withdrawals to hit but they never did. Then, toward the end of the first week, it all hit like a ton of bricks. All the dose reductions I had done were relatively large. I couldn't be bothered to cut doses really small or do aqueous solutions, so I did .25mg increments. Each reduction was pretty hard, but they were nothing compared to what I experienced after stopping completely. It was a bizarre cycle. First it was just general anxiety, I could still function well enough to go to work and do most things in my personal life. The depression hit, and it hit hard. There were a few nights where I would just lay in bed staring at the wall feeling completely hopeless. The work schedule I had was pretty erratic, lots of graveyard shifts and a passive aggressive boss that was pressuring me in to working 60 hour weeks. I kept my resolve and refused to put in any more than what my contract required.

Around weeks 2-3 I started getting some very disturbing compulsions. I understand that OCD is a form of anxiety but it was something totally new to me. It was the single most difficult part of the entire withdrawal process. It was even harder if I was working a slow night shift at my already dull job. My mind would wander and I would start worrying about the same thing over and over again. I would engage in checking behaviours and feel a little better for a couple hours before repeating the whole process. It was absolute torture.

Over the previous few years I had put on some weight. I'm pretty tall so I carried it alright, but I've been slim my entire life and was about to marry the most beautiful woman on the planet. I had been on again off again dieting for 6 months or so prior to the day I stopped klonopin. The month before I stopped klonopin, I started dieting hardcore. This diet continued through the entire withdrawal process. Whether or not it made withdrawal tougher or not is hard to say. I don't doubt the exercise was a huge help. As for the large calorie restriction and near elimination of carbs, that may have made things worse. Between when I kicked my diet into high gear and the day of my wedding, about a 2 month span, I lost 25 pounds. Honestly the increased anxiety really killed my appetite and probably made it easier to lose that much weight. Physically I felt better than ever, and as the wedding day approached and all the preparing for the ceremony, reception, and honeymoon began to ramp up, my anxiety started to drop off fast. By the time I was a week away from the wedding, 4 weeks after stopping klonopin, I was having far more good days than bad ones. The anxiety and discomfort would come and go still, but it was transient and didn't distract me from the big day to come.

The wedding was beautiful. All our friends and family were there. I was in pure ecstasy. We were both on a nice long break from work and our regular lives. I was off for nearly the entire month of May. I had the luxury of having saved up a copious amount of PTO and used it all at once. We jetted off to the Arctic to stay in a cabin in the wilderness and enjoy each other's company. By this time I was probably 99% recovered.

At first, every hour was a challenge. I had nearly every withdrawal symptom in the book. As time went on, I would have windows of a few hours where I would be okay. I would feel normal and like I had something to look forward too. The waves were hard and would completely shatter the hope I had. Then instead of having a few good hours, it would be an entire day here or there. When this started happening I knew I had made the right choice to stop klonopin. I felt better than I had in years. I felt more awake, mentally sharp, and active. The occasional bad day wouldn't get me down. After the first few weeks the withdrawal symptoms dropped off in such a way that it's almost impossible to say when they all ended completely.

There have been a few members on this board that were incredibly helpful, especially while I was dealing with the compulsions. This site has been an invaluable resource of support and information during the entire withdrawal process.

For anyone reading this that is going through withdrawals: this is going to be one of the hardest things you will ever do. But stick with it. As soon as you start feeling those windows of normalcy, it'll start getting easier. Just having a little taste of what you're working toward is a huge morale boost. Just keep with it. You wanted to quit in the first place. You can do it. It isn't easy, but you'll come out the other side as a stronger person.

Thanks for all the help everyone!

[[Fa...]]

Wow! What a wonderful accomplishment to have your wedding and to work under these circumstances. Congratulations and thanks a lot for sharing. Do you have any lingering sxs? How is your sleep?

I wish you to enjoy the happiest and healthiest life...together with the loved ones.

FS

[[...]]

Great success story thank you! It's interesting to see your sig and how you reduced what looks like once a year ! That was probably a very good plan and gave your brain time to heal Inbetween drops.

And congratulations on your marriage , you are off the med now and nothing to prevent you leading a very full and happy life !

All the best!

MiYu

[[Al...]]

I love how these people with almost no withdrawal come to tell some motivational speeches about hardest things in life.

[[Su...]]

Slowdime thanks for you post!

I think it really shows what a slow withdrawal can do..... that was a long time to be withdrawing -- as is the way that seems to be the best for coming out the other side relatively easily, or so I read about so often on this forum.... way to go and inspire.

Congratulations on all your life events and happiness!  :smitten:

SS

 

 

[[Br...]]

Congrats!!!!

 

One thing that hit me is that you did not have any effects the first several days after quitting.  Same, after I quit my month of Ativan recently.  First day or two, a little anxiety.  Days 3-5 were great...I was like...okay, that was easy!  But now I'm having increased anxiety and panic.  Some of it may be messing around with some different beta blocker drugs (see story in sig) but some of it may be the Ativan.

 

I'm hoping due to my small doses that my withdrawal will not be as painful as some here, because I don't know how I can make it at work if it gets worse.  But day at a time.

 

Congrats!

 

Did your fiancé/wife know about your struggles or did you try to hide it from her?

[[Sl...]]

Thanks for the kind words!  I'm not going to make a post for each reply so I'll just lump them all in this one.

 

Fallingstar: sleep has been great! Honestly as soon as the withdrawal symptoms started to die down it got a lot easier. The insomnia during withdrawal was rough and there were plenty of sleepless nights and days. Strangely enough, I'm sleeping better now than I did while on a stable dose of klonopin. No lingering symptoms, I had a little bit of anxiety recently that I can say with 100% certainty had nothing to do with withdrawal. It was much milder than the anxiety that required klonopin to treat in the first place. But even that is mostly gone now.

 

MiYu: Yeah that's more of a coincidence than a planned taper schedule. When I first started klonopin, my Pdoc put me at 1mg/day to start. He gave me quite a bit of latitude in dosing and once I had stabilized at 1mg I decided to reduce my dose, just to see if I could be anxiety free with less. .75mg was plenty effective so I kept that dose for a while. When I reduced to .5mg, I had the intent of stopping klonopin all together. I had wanted to do it sooner than when I did but life intervened and it wasn't a good time. .5mg was effective enough so I left the dose there instead of going back up.

 

Alex23: I have no idea what you're talking about, and I suspect you might not either.

 

Sufferingsixty: like I said to MiYu, the taper schedule was really only from .5 to .25. Withdrawal itself lasted a little more than a month. I guess I'm pretty lucky, it seems a lot of folks here withdraw much more gradually than I did and some have a much more protracted withdrawal.

 

BreatheEasy: The half life for klonopin is pretty long. I'm guessing that's why there was some latency between when I jumped and when I started feeling like garbage. Ativan has a much shorter half life. I'm no Dr but messing with other meds at the same time probably doesn't help. I wouldn't be surprised if you still had some withdrawal going on after only a week though. Honestly it gets easier. Feeling the way you do isn't permanent, nothing in life is. My at the time fiancé was a huge help. She was really the only person I could go to that would listen to me. We're both incredibly happy!