Help please severe crisis! Very severe! Clonazepam

[[ho...]]

My clonazepam is hurting me now every time I take it. 5 minutes after I take it my muscles start to cramp up uncontrollably in my body including my neck and face and my muscles in my face pull down in my jaw and my chin gets pulled up and is so tight that my mouth clamps together it is extremely painful and the muscles in my neck tighten and get so sore and I feel stuff like this for the whole day. My body and face feels like it has been beaten with a baseball bat, I get stiff everywhere too especially my arms wrist and hands. The pain is excruciating. Sometimes my face contorts uncontrollably my mouth, eyes, nose, jaw everything moves in the most ugly horrific unnatural ways. Every time I take my dose this happens now with my muscles also my brain is feeling dead now after each dose. I only feel the least muscle cramping and have a clear mind in the morning now right after I wake until I have to take my K. I soon be unable to move I will be all seized up and in too much pain too function, my mind is getting so bad with each day.  I have to get off this. I am already bedridden and can hardly function. I already am experiencing the numbness, burning, tinnitus, excruciating head pain without reducing.  My legs and feet and arms torso burn and have pins and needles so badly.

 

Should I try to go off quick by breaking my pill breaking a .50mg into quarters then reducing by a quarter every couple of weeks I am on .75mg K so that would be reducing by approx. I think .12mg and hold for every 2 weeks that would be a 12 week taper?

I cannot break them any smaller without the pieces being to uneven or shattering.

 

Or I have a water taper plan of 250 days but I honestly do not think I can last that long I feel at this rate I only have maybe 5 days left of being able to even function enough I can hardly get something to eat with how badly each dose of this K is doing to me to carry it out and be able to function well enough to do it?

 

I am so afraid please help me. I have no one else to go to for help. My doctor just says stop taking it. Same with my family. They do not believe it is the clonazepam. Same with my husband he says do a one month taper. I have no one to look after me. Everyday the last 3 days I get worse by 50% it is torturing me alive.

[[Gr...]]

That sounds so painful and awful.  Are you sure it is the klonopin?  As I see you are on a few different meds.  It is possible that you are having a paradoxical reaction to the klonopin.  When did this start? Was it sudden or gradual?  When did you make your last cut in your klonopin taper?

[[ho...]]

That sounds so painful and awful.  Are you sure it is the klonopin?  As I see you are on a few different meds.  It is possible that you are having a paradoxical reaction to the klonopin.  When did this start? Was it sudden or gradual?  When did you make your last cut in your klonopin taper?

 

Yes I am sure I am on zopiclone 7.5mg also but no other mental health meds but that and the K.

I'm positive it is the K causing everything.

I had 4 too quick tapers from feb to april after I had thought it was part of those withdrawals causing my muscle pain, tightening, movements.

I started in march taking my K again now I look back and see it was then I started having this kind of muscle tightening issues. Shortly after starting the K again my tolerance grew quick I had to keep taking for a maintenance dose.

It has steadily gotten worse but is just this week has developes immediately now I notice distinctly and fast after I take it all the muscles tightening is instant and it literally deforms my face and is excruciating all over my body too. I know it is the K. I reduced 3 weeks ago by a quarter of a .5mg tablet.

 

What do you do when you have a paradoxial reactions so severe as this?

I have held off today on taking my noon dose thinking I would taper by another quarter of the .5mg tablet the muscle tightening has had time to relax some now but the numbness, burning, tinnitus, excruciating head pain, burning of my legs and feet and arms torso burn and have pins and needles so badly. Is getting so much worse. I do not know how to get out of this?

[[Pa...]]

Hi hopefloats,

 

I'm so sorry to hear you're experiencing this, I hear how desperate you are!  I have a question about the timing of your doses of Klonopin, do you experience the same reaction with each dose?

 

Pamster

[[...]]

I had very similar muscle rigidity/tension and it was excruciating.  It became severe after jumping off k and I had to do one rescue dose at 2weeks off.  I peaked again 2 weeks later, but managed to ride it out. I tore some shoulder muscles and broke some teeth from the jaw contracture.  My tongue was constantly forced into the roof of my mouth and it has all my teeth imprinted around the perimeter. It was a cyclical symptom that peaks every evening.  It started out as 24/7 but then slowly reduced over the last 6 weeks.  Now it is very mild  and only lasts about an hour.  At the time of the tiny crumbs rescue dose I was under the impression it was serotonin syndrome from my Paxil, but I am now pretty confident that it is Klonopin withdrawals.

  I am sorry to hear that anybody has to endure that intense pain.  All I can say is that it is horrible, but like everything else it goes away with the drugs.

[[ho...]]

I had very similar muscle rigidity/tension and it was excruciating.  It became severe after jumping off k and I had to do one rescue dose at 2weeks off.  I peaked again 2 weeks later, but managed to ride it out. I tore some shoulder muscles and broke some teeth from the jaw contracture.  My tongue was constantly forced into the roof of my mouth and it has all my teeth imprinted around the perimeter. It was a cyclical symptom that peaks every evening.  It started out as 24/7 but then slowly reduced over the last 6 weeks.  Now it is very mild  and only lasts about an hour.  At the time of the tiny crumbs rescue dose I was under the impression it was serotonin syndrome from my Paxil, but I am now pretty confident that it is Klonopin withdrawals.

  I am sorry to hear that anybody has to endure that intense pain.  All I can say is that it is horrible, but like everything else it goes away with the drugs.

 

and you took 6 to 9 months to taper?

I still need to taper and do not know if I can handle this all for that long or manage a water taper I cannot hardly function from the pain am too weak and my muscles to pain ful stiff to use my arms and hands hard to even type. I can hardly mange to eat.

 

I thought I could try to go fast taper only taking taking a quarter less of the .5mg pill did that 3 weeks ago wothdrawals are getting worse each day and the muscle tightening and cramping  etc I cannot stay on it a current dose and it is getting worse but cannot go down just by breaking my pills it is too much I have only put off taking my afternoon dose by 5 hours and although my muscle tension is less the rest is excruciating this is going to literally going to destroy me it is so bad I just finished tapering off of 4 meds too quickly and it ws excruciating but it took a turn for the worst after the tspers were done but I have only dropped down thatc .12mg of this the 3 weks ago and now holdong off today taking my dose everything is already worse then it was after I had finished all my last 4 tapers that where done almost at the same time as each other. I cannot handle a quick taper then of just breaking the pills and going down by .12mg at a time I can tell this has me beat. I cannot cold turkey this it would kill me or leave me totally messed up forsure but I cannot manage a slow water taper I can hardly even manage to function to eat something once a day now I hardly bath. The water taper I know I am going to find too hard to manage and for 250 days to get off the .62mg I feel stuck in absolute hell.

[[ho...]]

Hi hopefloats,

 

I'm so sorry to hear you're experiencing this, I hear how desperate you are!  I have a question about the timing of your doses of Klonopin, do you experience the same reaction with each dose?

 

Pamster

Evening dose of .25mg the worst, .12 afternoon not as bad, moring dose of .25mg really bad but not as bad as nighttime dose. Same reaction but most intense with evening and morning dose.

 

please help me I do not know what to do know after waiting 6 hours from my afternoon dose that I cannot do a quick taper but I cannot manage a water taper but cnnot stya at current dose it keeps getting worse.

[[...]]

I can only suggest trying out either cutting a significant amount and seeing how your system responds right now to less, or concentrate on stabilizing at a dosage before starting the taper.  Also I would recommend showers with the warm water hitting the back of your neck while distracting yourself with a phone or something in a ziploc bag.  Not so hot as to make you overheat(if you have issues with hyperthermia) but not cold.  A lot of the benzo symptoms can be mitigated by treating it more like a sensory disorder.  Desensitizing affected areas and/or the entire body helps me a lot.  Lots of ways to alter sensory, look it up and you will find plenty with most of it being found in O.T. treatment of disorders in children. 

[[Pa...]]

Thanks for letting me know what's going on, I was trying to figure out if Zopiclone interdose withdrawal might be affecting you, but it doesn't appear to be the case. 

 

You may have already stated this elsewhere but has the Clonazepam always affected you this way or has the problem started since you did a rapid taper of your other medications?

[[re...]]

How long has this been happening? When did it start? By any chance did it start soon after you refilled your prescription? I'm wondering whether you could have gotten some bad pills. Do you have any clonazepam from a different batch?

[[ho...]]

How long has this been happening? When did it start? By any chance did it start soon after you refilled your prescription? I'm wondering whether you could have gotten some bad pills. Do you have any clonazepam from a different batch?

Thank you for the reply

It has been going on since I started taking the clonazepam again after I had been off it for a couple of months while on the lyrica. I started to take it regularly again about 5 months ago during my withdrawals I was confusing the muscle tightening, stiffening and movements with my other withdrawals but now since the other withdrawlas started to subside and the longer I took the clonazepam I realized it was no longer doing anything for me so thought I hit tolerance then once I cut it back a few weeks ago and now I can see that this all starts to happen the tightening I know it is the clonazepam. So I get my prescription refilled every week so. I started having my first uncontrollable muscle movements and muscle tightening after the psychiatrist took me off the lyrica too quickly. I think my gabba receptors have been too stressed and damaged even the baclofen does not work anymore but causes my muscles to tighten and clamp up when I take it now.

[[ho...]]

Thanks for letting me know what's going on, I was trying to figure out if Zopiclone interdose withdrawal might be affecting you, but it doesn't appear to be the case. 

 

You may have already stated this elsewhere but has the Clonazepam always affected you this way or has the problem started since you did a rapid taper of your other medications?

 

thank you for helping me

Originally I had thought it was the zopiclone I had started to get out of the withdrawals and started to feel quite a bit better for a month but then started to feel like I was in the beginning of my withdrawals and now it is even worse the pain. The clonazepam never made me feel this way until I started to take it again after it had been out of my system for a couple of months. Once the psychiatrist put me on lyrica he took me off the clonazepam then 5 weeks later when I wanted to see how I would be off of it he took me off too fast with only a 4 day taper. I have since had it pointed out to me from a support group I was in servere clonazepam withdrawals as well as lyrica withdrawals before I started my other med tapers. Once I started taking it again I think it was happening from the beginning of taking it but I confused the muscle issues with being withdrawals from the other med tapers which I did too quickly.

[[Ma...]]

I was once polydrugged and looking on your signature this brings back old horrible memories. Since you cannot really know which med causes which symptom in combination with the other meds and or the withdrawal from earlier meds... I would stick to the taper plan and get rid of each med, one after the other. If one takes so many different meds, no one can tell what's going on any more. I have been in this situation, too.

Its nearly impossible to change something without creating new symptoms. I am so sorry..