MikelD's road to recovery from klonopin

[Today]

Today at 02:40:42 AM Lizzie - 3:40 a.m. here and the nights over

Today at 01:43:01 AM uwdawg - Thanks kmarie. glad to know it's not just me.

Today at 01:32:17 AM kmarie1994 - uwdawg I have this as well hopefully it goes away soon

Today at 01:30:47 AM helpme123 - Sorry Bella I missed  you hun xoxooxox

Today at 12:11:15 AM Serene1 - Laura xoxoxo, come into chat

Yesterday at 11:07:58 PM uwdawg - my leg muscles feel like they are being tickled...does that make any sense? lol

Yesterday at 11:07:33 PM Melissa7 - come into chat

Yesterday at 11:06:24 PM uwdawg - like it's seriously hard to lift my arms and move my legs. It's scaring me

Yesterday at 11:05:01 PM Melissa7 - Yes and exhausted dawg

Yesterday at 10:47:00 PM uwdawg - my arms and legs feel really weak and tired. Does anyone else have this?

[MikelD]

Last night (Friday 1/29) was my first day at a stable dose and first day on this board! 

.25mg K 3x/day, using cuts from a 1mg pill.  They're not all that accurate since I used my finger nails, so I'm looking forward to finishing off the bottle to move on to new .5mg pills.  Future cuts will definitely be made using a razor blade. 

Today (Saturday 1/30) has been okay so far.  .25mg at 8am in the morning and .25mg at 2pm.  I started to feel inner trembling and some shortness of breath, so I went out for a brisk walk with my dog for about an hour.  Hopefully the rest of the day will continue this way. 

Assuming things go well at this dosage, I'm planning my first cut by .125 in the afternoon next Friday.  Its a little longer than I had hoped, but my attempt to taper my afternoon dose by .125 on Wednesday went so badly that I feel like I need to start over.  Anyway, Fridays just seems like the best day for me to taper since it will give me the weekend to deal with any bad s/x. 

Here's my tapering plans for the moment...

1/30 - .25mg K am, .25mg K afternoon, .25mg K pm
2/5 - .25mg K am, .125mg K afternoon, .25mg K pm
2/12 - .25mg K am, stop afternoon dose, .25mg K pm
2/19 - .125mg K am, .25mg K pm
2/26 - .125mg K am, .125mg K pm
3/5 - .0625mg K am, .125mg K pm
3/12 - stop am dose, .125mg K pm
3/19 - .0625mg K pm
3/26 - Stop pm dose

We'll see... if it doesn't go well I'm going to try titration.

 

[MikelD]

The rest of the day turned out to be a lot worse than I thought.  The junkie-like cravings started around 5 hours after my mid-day dose.  Going for a short (30 min) walk with my dog didn't do anything for it.  I decided to give kava a shot again to see if it would help, and low and behold it seemed to actually make things worse.  (Note to self... don't use kava again)  At 9:30pm I took my .25mg evening dose and went for a long walk.  By the time I got back home at 11pm I felt a lot better.  Hopefully tomorrow will go more smoothly. 

[MikelD]

Today did not go well.  Withdrawal symptoms started just 4 hours after my afternoon dose.  I have now come to admit to myself that my first attempt at tapering was too drastic, so I increased my evening dose by .25mg - for a total of 1mg for the day.  I hate to take a step backwards, but I can't take it anymore. 

Titration is now my plan of attack.  My graduated cylinder is on order and should be here by this coming Friday.  If all goes well I'll start tapering that day or the following day.

[MikelD]

Wow... today has not gone as I had hoped.  The morning started off with inner trembling that was not so bad.  After my morning dose I was feeling okay.  I was on my way to see my Chiropractor and got a call from my boss about a performance issue with some Solaris servers that I built for a project.  It wasn't all that stressful, we've already got plans for how to solve it, but it led to anxiety/panic attacks after I got back from my appt.  This was surprising since I've had a headache for days and my adjustment took care of that. 

A brisk 1 mile walk after my appt. didn't do anything for the anxiety/panic feelings , and having lunch didn't either.  After my afternoon .25mg dose, I felt a little better - but it didn't last long.  The inner trembling feelings are back, with a slight feeling of anxiety and some shortness of breath (probably from doing some ball exercises).  I'm going to see what I can do about those with some deep breathing exercises.

I sent an email to my doc to get his opinion on whats been going on with me.  I wonder if I should go back to .5mg 3x/day, which I felt stable at for about a week, before starting my taper.  The idea of increasing my dose still sounds to me like I'm "losing" at the tapering game, but I'm just getting so tired of feeling crappy.  Its freaking discouraging.... At least I'm not depressed and my neck is not doing so bad though.  I stopped taking naproxen after reading that NSAIDs can increase withdrawal symptoms.  Its not like I'm doing any better since I stopped taking them though, so I wonder how much truth there is to that.

Hopefully tonight will go better...

[MikelD]

Strangely enough, tonight did go better.  Not sure what I did differently, other than finally finding a comfortable spot to lie on the couch with a heating pad on my chest (which helps with my shortness of breath issues) so I can watch TV without it hurting my neck.  Hopefully this will continue through tomorrow, but I'm not placing any bets.

[MikelD]

I finally had a stable day!    A bit of anxiety during the middle of the day before lunch, but otherwise nothing of note until around 10:15pm - which has been pretty usual for me.  Hopefully tomorrow will go just as well.  My wife had an early morning meeting, so I'll be getting the kids ready for school - so I'm bracing for a bit more anxiety than usual.  Hopefully it will be under control like it was this morning.

[MikelD]

The past couple of days have been fairly uneventful, other than forgetting to take my afternoon dose until 5pm yesterday - which kinda threw me off.  This morning I woke up and 6am and couldn't get back to sleep due to strong inner trembling/anxiety feelings.  A little before 7am I got up, took my am dose,  and took my dog out for a brisk 3 mile walk.  The day has gone well since then.  I'm going to try to wait until a little later in the day to take my afternoon dose to see if that makes any difference to how I feel in the morning. 

Just got back from seeing my psychiatrist.  He helped me realize that I have a lot of unresolved issues with doctors in general, especially related to my mental health/anxiety/depression.  I mentioned my plan to try titration, which he was not too keen on.  He didn't think I would be very successful with getting klonopin to mix with water (milk is not an option for me), and suggested that he work out a taper schedule instead.  Since I do need to work on trusting doctors, and he hasn't wronged me yet, I figure I should give it a shot.  So, starting on Sunday I start my taper - cutting .125mg a week.  He was able to prescribe to me .125mg tablets so won't have to worry about cutting any tablets.  If all goes well, I should finish my taper by first week of April or so.  We'll see...

[MikelD]

Last night I made what I consider my first real cut in dosage, down to .325 at night from .50.  I didn't have any real trouble last night, but I'm feeling a little more anxious tonight.  Maybe its just in my head... I know its not supposed to really affect your body for 72 hours, but I seem to feel it a lot more quickly for some reason.  Long walks continue to help with the anxiety/inner trembling s/x, but it won't help me get to sleep.  I've been feeling better in the morning (and sleeping better) since I stopped taking melatonin at night.  Hopefully I won't have to resort to it tonight.

[MikelD]

The week has been fairly uneventful, just the usual morning inner trembling and anxiety feelings and a bit at night - up until this evening.  A bit of work-related stress pushed me over the limit.  I was feeling pretty confident after passing the 3rd day, based on klonopin's half-life - even thinking about trying a faster taper.  Now I know my limit.  Sticking to cutting .125mg/week is going to be a challenge, but I'm going to make it.   

[MikelD]

Its day 7 after my first cut and I'm feeling seriously crappy today.  Lots of anxiety and trembling.  Not sure if it has to do with having spicy food yesterday, or that I forgot to take any Suntheanine yesterday too.  Before that I was feeling pretty confident that I would be ready for another cut right at 7 days.  Now I know its going to be at least another day, maybe more.  I'm trying my best to not feel down about it, but its not working out very well.  It was just a little over a month ago that my time with K started, and its going to be at least another 2 months before I'm off.  Grrrr....