Klonopin nightmare

STAY AWAY OF THIS POISON

Can't stress enough this. I'm 38 y/o guy and want to share my experience. Never in my life had the necessity to take drugs for sleeping. Then the last two years, because of some work related stress, my sleep deteriorated very badly. I used to sleep only for 4-5 hours per night and some nights even 2 hours. One night I did not sleep at all and decided to speak with a doctor about it (Psychiatrist). Ok he said, take for one month 1 mg of Klonopin before sleep. Since I'm afraid of taking drugs, especially mental ones, I took for one night only. It worked fine. Next day I was relaxed and had a very good sleep. Then I decided to take the drug as needed. Once every 4-5 nights. Then after a month since I started taking the drug for the first time, I went for a week vacation. Stupidly I decide to take the drug every night for one week during my vacation. I wanted to have very relaxed time for my vacation and good sleep. And I did. When I came home decided to quit the drug. So for 5 days after vacation it was "fine". Sleep started to deteriorate in fact by the 4th or 5th day. So after the 5th day I had a crazy insomnia for two days. My head could not get relaxed and I had very high anxiety level too. So went back to the drug. In the next two months I had such a large number of failures with cold turkey attempts. Every time I decided to quit, after few days I had to go back again to the medicine. My symptoms of withdrawal started to increase with weird feelings and high level of anxiety, insomnia and body tremors. Never had this type of feeling in my life. And I led a healthy lifestyle before, eating the right food, hiking, going to gym regularly. I lost all my muscles created in the past two years, and my weight decreased 10 pounds in two months. Doctor never spoke about the difficulties that you could have after you quit the drug and symptoms that come after. And the funny thing is that I did not take the drug regularly as I was supposed to take for a month. So my last two months were intensive visits in different psychiatrist offices and psychologist. I had a problem for only one night sleep before taking the drug and I created a mountain of problems for at least three months. So I started to taper off the drug myself. From 1 mg, I went to .5 mg for a few days. Then .25 for few more days, and finally decided to be off it, stopping totally. I'm 15 days without drug and sleep a lot better. No withdrawal problems for the past week or so. The first week after stopping was brutal, with insomnia and different kind of mental and physical problems, but worthy the effort to stop. I urge everyone to read carefully and be informed before using these types of drugs. I'm well educated guy but I believed the doctor authority like a blind person. If you ever feel anxious or have sleep problems there are way better alternatives than drugs. Try yoga, meditation, magnesium supplements before sleep, exercise etc. Things that no doctor has ever mentioned to me as alternatives. Drugs like Klonopin must be the last thing, and even when need to take it it must be for only a night or two, and throw the box in garbage after that. Any usage more than this will set you up for a ride that you will remember for a long time, if not even destroy your life.

What I wrote here maybe is a long page but I wanted so badly to express myself and contribute with my experience. Thanks God I feel totally disconnected to klonopin now. Never ever ever I will put this poison or any similar thing in my mouth again.

 

Thanks, Albany1981, for coming back to share your story.  Very well told.  Best wishes for a happy life!

Flibberty

:thumbsup:

congratulations on getting off of the medication 

thanks dude, its a wild ride to get off these drugs. that is just the first quarter of the game. next is the withdrawal which comes in phases. I am 8 months out and feel pretty darn good most days. last three nights were not good but I had too much caffeine which set my insomnia off....feeling much better today.

 

I digress...keep posting on your progress

 

30 days off the drug. Feel my old self again. The only problem is lack of sleep. I sleep on average 5 hours, sometimes 3-4, sometimes 6-7. But I think is related to the reason I took the drug at first place, not smth part of withdrawal from the drug. I want to say that I have not a single withdrawal symptom that I had the first week of stopping the drug. Only not the best quality of sleep, that is the only one, which I hope will get fixed with time. Meanwhile I use chamomile regularly every night, magnesium 300mg. Go to gym 3-4 times a week but exercising lightly, like fast pace walking in the treadmill and some little weight lifting. Still not my old self to the gym unfortunately. Also I'm trying to incorporate meditation every night before sleep, and read books also before sleep and it helps. I will keep posting again after a while. Good luck to everyone.