1mg twice daily for the last year

[[Tw...]]

I am realizing that the reason I am stuck in the vicious cycle I'm in us because of tolerance withdrawals.  I never knew this was such a thing.  Now that I realize what has happened,  i need off klonopin. I believe for almost a year now I have been on tolerance withdrawal. And this is why i can't break free from extreme anxiety Does this sound feasible? On my own I went down to 1mg a day a month ago. This was before I knew I needed to get off. I just felt I needed to start tapering down. I am really scared of the hell I am being told I am going to start going through from withdrawals.  I am already struggling like hell. What do I do from here? I took .5mg today. My psychiatrist gave me Valium, and told me to stop the klonopin and start 10mg of Valium immediately.  But 10mg of Valium knocks me out for a whole day. I took one quarter of the pill this morning along with only. 5 klonopin. This is all very confusing and scary. Would anyone be willing to help me out with this process?

[[Pa...]]

Hello Twistopher, welcome to BenzoBuddies,

I'm glad you've figured it out, so many of us didn't know what was happening until a lightbulb went off and we're able to connect the dots.  

Its very important you remain as consistent as you can, we don't want to see radical changes in dose or times of doses, everything needs to be done gradually, your brain is very sensitive to change as you've already found out.

Please don't switch your entire dose over to Valium, its very slow acting which means you may be at risk of increased symptoms as the Klonopin exits your body but before the Valium has had a chance reach full saturation.  Many can taper directly off of Klonopin because while its half life isn't as long as Valium, it is longer than many other benzodiazepines.

We typically suggest reducing your dose by about 5-10% every couple of weeks or whatever your symptoms dictate, this will hopefully keep you functional.  A symptom based taper is best, let them guide your reductions because we're all so different, there isn't one size that fits all.

Keep talking to us, lets figure this out together.

Pamster

[[op...]]

Twistopher,

I went through the same thing - 5 months of tolerance withdrawal losing severe amounts of weight, horrible nausea, neurological symptoms. When I realized what it was, I stopped taking the benzos completely and crashed miserably. I had to go back on, and do a very slow taper. I did stabilize and was able to taper off. Pamster's advice is solid. Start with a stable dose, and slowly start to wean yourself off. I took a full year to get off 4mg of Valium doing a microtaper. I got through it and you will, too.

You can taper directly off klonopin. The one advantage to moving to diazepam (valium) is that the pills come in smaller doses so it's easier to dry cut throughout your taper if you want to do that. If you taper off klonopin, it's likely you will need to do a liquid taper or get a compounded prescription. If you do cross over, most people do it a little at a time. 

You can get more advice about all of this on the taper boards.

Anyway, you'll get great support here. You're going to be ok.

openroad

[[Bi...]]

@[Tw...]How are you today ?

[[Tw...]]

I haven't taken a klonopin since 7 p.m. Friday evening. It is noon on Sunday now. I slept last night. I don't seem to be going through withdrawals at this time. Have I been blessed and avoided the dependence or do withdrawals start later than a day and a half after last dose?