Adding zolpidem or ambien and clonodine

[[ba...]]

Hi guys my doctor has me on a clonazepam taper but from past use I found zolpidem or zopiclone helped lots for sleep.

I am on a taper that is three months in and I'm at 5 mgs clonazepam very soon. 

He's been reducing 0.5 every two weeks so he didnt do the big drop at the start.

Question: I'm also on mirtazipine so is there any use of asking him to switch my 40 mg Mirtazipine to zoplicone or just adding a z drug?

Also I went to a pain doctor recently who added clonodine. 

The clonodine helped first couple days buy please any input would help.

[[Bu...]]

Hey @[ba...],

I would stay clear of the non-benzo z drugs as they act on the same GABA receptors as benzos and  can be just as damaging and are just as hard to get off of.  I know the insomnia is rough, believe me.  I barely slept for a good 2 1/2 months last fall.  My sleep is still very up and down, but it is slowly improving.  

There are a lot of other things to try.  Here's a link to an article with some great tips for dealing with insomnia:  https://withdrawal.theinnercompass.org/coping/withdrawal-induced-insomnia-z-list-tips

[[De...]]

DO NOT add on Ambien for sleep to help on a taper. It’s another benzo. You will need to taper or go cold turkey off that as well. It will also create a complicated cycle where you won’t be able to know which drug is doing which. You will also hit tolerance on Ambien quickly and start waking up earlier than you’d like in a panic. It’s so not worth it. I had to cold turkey ambien before tapering off K. It was hell. 

My 2 cents.