Feel worse after dose…please guidance

Here I am again. Day 2 on Klonopin. Switched back from Ativan, which I was on 3 weeks.  I’m in major distress.  My anxiety has been so bad…fear, tinnitus a couple times. When I take my Klonopin, my muscles hurt and cramp, and my head gets all foggy, I feel scared/paranoid, increased anxiety…what’s happening?  The Ativan was making me feel disassociated and depressed.  What to do? I feel Im paradoxical. Should I just stop? Anyone have this problem when taking their med? Im so upset. I can’t win.

What was your Ativan dose and what's your new Klonopin dose?

Ativan was .25 three times/day. Klonopin was .25 twice/day. Yesterday I took .125 at night bc I thought maybe I could do that considering the fact that they say k is twice as strong as A. I actually felt better than taking the .25 that I took this morning and tonight. I was having similar responses to K before I switched to A, but not as bad.  I don’t know. I’m having opposite responses to all the benzos than that one is supposed to.

So you were on 0.75mg/day Ativan for 3 weeks switched to 0.5mg/day for one day and then the second day you changed it to 0.375mg/day and then back to 0.5mg?

 

There are a couple of things. If you look at this conversion calculator https://clincalc.com/Benzodiazepine/ you'll see the conversion from 0.75 to 0.5mg is correct. So you probably need to stick to that. Going up and down in doses is creating a whiplash effect. The other thing is you'll likely feel an increase in symptoms because Ativan has a short half-life and Klonopin has a long half-life so it will take a while for the Klonopin to kick in. Two days are probably not enough to feel the full effect.  Also, you've mentioned before you did not have a particularly good experience with Klonopin previously, so it's likely you'll have the same symptoms on Klonopin as you had before. I know this sucks and I wish I could make it better. I do think the best you can do now is to stick to a dose and a benzo and try to stabilize. I believe this should happen over time. It may not happen as quickly as you want it to, but hopefully if you can give it time, there will be improvement. 

It could be that you need to get some consistent doses of Klonopin over a few days in your system before you will get much relief FMF.  I know that doesn't help how you are feeling right now, though.  I'm sorry.

What do you do to distract yourself during the day? Do you have any routines? We can help you make some if you want :3

Hi FMF,

 

I agree with Kate and jelly.

 

Only surmising, but the Ativan (short half life) would be leaving your system quickly, whereas the klonopin will take time for the blood serum levels to build because of the long half life. I know you are suffering FMF, and I’m so sorry for what you’re going through, but I just don’t see any other option than to give the k a few more days to build up in your system. Please write down how you are feeling each day with a list of symptoms rating each of them out of 10. If you feel like they are 10 now, then in another week you may be able to see by looking at your daily symptom diary that they have decreased to an 8 or 7 or maybe even less. It’s very difficult to see improvements if we don’t write them down because we’re never measuring suffering against wellness, we’re just measuring slightly different levels suffering.

Thank you! I do need to be consistent. I get a fuzzy head, and I hate it. This is why I tried the ativan. Also, not really much anxiety relief if any.  I could use some daily routine suggestions.  Thank you!!

Im starting my taper in 2 weeks. Micro off of this. 

Here are some routine suggestions:

 

Journal throughout the day. Anything you do, write it down. Feeling bad? Good? Write it down.

 

So things at the same time. Waking up, going to bed, meals, exercise, make a schedule and follow it. Write it in your journal!

 

Plan for a small amount of worry time. Sounds weird, but this did a lot for me. I didn’t allow myself to look up any symptoms or do any self diagnose shit during the day. Rather, I could only do this for 15 minutes each day at the same time. After a couple months of this, I began to grow tired of it and it soon fell off my schedule.

 

Make time to meditate or practice mindfulness. This can be hard for some and even make things a bit worse. But for the majority, it’s helpful.

 

Do something you like every day. After you have done this for a couple weeks, make sure you change it up with something new. I love my dog and I made sure to walk her twice a day and sit in the sun with her for 10 minutes a day before going into the shade :3

 

This is just and idea dump. There are so many things you can do every day and no matter how hard it feels at first, it can and will get better. Yell, scream or cry if you have to. Just know it will get better.

 

The body wants to heal. It’s what bodies do.

Thanks, ThisBur.  I try to stick to routines, but it’s tough when the anxiety is so relentless. I will try again, though!

It took me months to get used to it for sure. It was hard ;_; Just keep trying. Trying is better than nothing, even if you don’t feel like you are moving forward. You are moving :3

Thanks, ThisBur.  I try to stick to routines, but it’s tough when the anxiety is so relentless. I will try again, though!

 

Same here Fmf nothing seems consistant even with regular dosing. And Paradox or rebound anxiety...Oh my

 

Thanks for sharing