Autistic Experience: Feeling Sedated During Clonazepam Taper

[[br...]]

 

Hi everyone,

I'm reaching out to see if anyone else has experienced something similar during their clonazepam tapering process.

I've been taking clonazepam for 10 years, and at my peak, I was taking around 45-50 drops per day. With the guidance of my psychiatrist, I managed to reduce my dose by one drop per week. Currently, I've reached 10 drops per day. However, in this last week, I've been feeling a constant sensation of being "high" or "sedated."

Interestingly, during panic attacks, this sensation was somewhat comforting, but now, experiencing it daily is quite uncomfortable.

For additional context, I'm on the autism spectrum, which might be relevant to my experience with the medication and its tapering process.

Has anyone else felt this way during their taper? How did you cope with it, and do you have any advice?

Thanks in advance for your support!

 

[[...]]

Hi, @[br...], and welcome to BenzoBuddies! We're glad you've reached out to us. I'm not too familiar with clonazepam tapering, although think what you feel is expectable and normal. There are other members going through clonazepam reducing right now or who have finished with it. I'm sure they will share their experience and give their opinion.

My congratulation on your progress! It looks really impressive. Good luck to you!)

[[Ca...]]

Hi welcome on Benzo Buddies 

I am autistic, too! I had severe paradoxical reactions to all benzos. To all psych meds in general! I took methylphenidate or vyvanse for 9 years for ADHD and suddenly I had interdose withdrawal with panic attacks in methylphenidate rebounds not knowing that it was interdose withdrawal. I was given a lot of different psych meds to manage the methylphenidate rebound panic attacks. Onto All of them had paradoxical reactions and develloped severe akasthisia! I was given Klonopin to manage that. It wouldn't work ! In great despair I kept raising my dosage only to get more severe paradoxical reactions. Then I found all those forums and Plattforms and Dr jenn amd Dr Joseph and I knew it was the meds causing all my problems! Now I am off of Klonopin for almost 16 months, off of Methylphenidate for 4 months and off of Propanolol for 4 weeks. Now off of everything but in a severe setback eversince I got off methylphenidate. It's really bad.

 

It's typical for people on the spectrum to have weird reactions to psych meds if not paradoxical! It's unpredictable! I think Autistics shouldn't be given psych meds! Never heard of any good report of that a psych med actually helped with Autism! These meds are evil crap anyways and dangerous as we all know here! I was sick for years with the negative side effects of methylphenidate and I am totally shocked if I see how my beautiful full face develloped into a haggard gaunt meth face on Ritalin and Vyvanse! It was no weight loss but the face and cheeks, eyes totally sunken inn with an unhealthy morbid color looking like I was inpatient in a palliative care unit! I still don't get over with what all these meds did to me! They took everything from me! But hell I am getting it back someday I know!

I felt better and better and better with every drop less. As soon as Klonopin was gone the akasthisia and Agitation and panic was gone as well!

 

Isn't a one drop per week taper a bit too fast? It might work quite well on higher dosages but if you get lower you might come up with very very severe unbearable withdrawal symptoms! That's what happened to me as I got of via rapid taper because of my severe paradoxical reactions and even went to detox for the last milligram of Klonopin. Of course they didn't recognize the paradoxical reaction and labeled me as an addict! But as long as you don't have a severe paradoxical reaction I would really go as slow as recommended here on BB

Edited August 8 by [Ca...]

[[Fr...]]

is the benzo prescriber the same person the autism diagnosis came from? did the diagnosis come before benzos?

[[br...]]

 

Hi, thank you very much for the warm welcome. My history with medications is quite complicated as well. Fourteen years ago, I was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder Type 2 (BP2), even though I never had any manic symptoms. I would just feel "depressed" and then feel fine. Today, I know that the depressive episodes were actually shutdowns. Once I started respecting my limits, avoiding crowded places, long meetings, and taking breaks during family gatherings (since too many people talking at the same time makes me dizzy), those episodes labeled as depressive disappeared.

What’s even stranger is that, despite being diagnosed with BP2, I was also diagnosed with ADHD a few months later and prescribed Vyvanse 50mg, which wouldn’t make sense if I had BP2. I was also prescribed Klonopin for panic attacks. The Vyvanse helped me wake up but I’m not sure it improved my attention. The Klonopin worked very well for panic attacks when taken as needed, but I started needing higher doses, and since it was in drop form, it was easy to increase the dose. I strictly followed the 50mg dose of Vyvanse because I didn’t want to take more, especially after a coworker started having delusions from taking high doses (he didn’t have ADHD, he just wanted to increase productivity).

After a few years, I changed psychologists, and the new one suspected autism and also found the Vyvanse prescription odd for someone supposedly with BP2, saying it would likely cause frequent hypomania.

I then saw a neuropsychologist and a psychiatrist specializing in autism, and finally got the correct diagnosis. It’s strange how everything in your life starts to make sense after the diagnosis.

I was surprised by Canary’s story because I’ve had many paradoxical reactions as well and never connected them to autism. I took quetiapine to sleep and had insomnia, took some antidepressants and got more depressed, had a trauma and took alprazolam and got agitated – it’s all very strange.

Responding to Frogman, when I was diagnosed with autism about 7 or 8 years ago, I was already dependent on Klonopin and couldn’t imagine living without it. Fortunately, I got off Vyvanse; Strattera works much better, and I didn’t have many problems stopping Vyvanse like I’m having with Klonopin.

Klonopin is a terrible medication; I think it should only be prescribed in a hospital setting and for acute cases. My brother, who is also autistic, can’t get off it either. Even though he takes a low dose (around 5 drops a day), if he stops, he starts having horrible tremors.

Life as an autistic person is already challenging, and reading Canary’s story, a lot makes sense. Medications that help many people seem to make things worse for us. But we keep fighting.

Reducing by one drop per week at such a low dose might indeed be too fast, as now it will be a 10% cut per week. I will talk to my psychiatrist about this. The tough part is that it seems psychiatrists rely a lot on trial and error, maybe because science still doesn’t fully understand how these medications work. Sometimes, I feel like a lab rat, haha.

I forgot to mention earlier because it doesn’t bother me much, but I’m feeling chills and waking up drenched in sweat at night.

Thank you all

 

[[Fr...]]

There is no understanding in the profession of the drugs, how minds work, the difference between a disease and developed uncommon behaviour, basically everything. We just haven’t developed that understanding yet. 

[[Da...]]

Hi I’ve been following benzobuddies for about 6 months.  My son is autistic and nonverbal.  We are currently tapering him off clonazepam after 6 months use.  I just wanted to say that people with developmental disabilities are vulnerable to being over prescribed psychiatric medication., and in our experience he is very sensitive to any adjustments that are made. I have received some very good advice from members here as far as tapering him.  I hope you connect with someone who can help.