Insomnia ON Klonopin .5mg

Has anyone experienced insomnia while on a benzo? I have been on Klonopin .5-1mg for 4 months, and while I have nights that are fine, there are some where my brain just feels powered on until 4-5 hours after I take the Klonopin. In the hours leading up to falling asleep, I can feel my anxiety increasing as time passes because I have an extreme fear of not sleeping which stemmed from severe insomnia I experienced from stress off and on starting January 2019.. Anyway, what seems to be going on here? Why am I fine some nights with .5mg, and other nights 1mg hardly does anything at all? I still feel rather new to this, so I'm not sure if this is something others experience, but I feel like it would be so reassuring to hear that I wasn't alone in this. I do plan to come off of the Klonopin, but with my sleep being so weird and unpredictable even while on it, it's a step I'm afraid to take at this point in time.

I think almost all of us know the countless nights without sleep, some more than others of course.  I think my longest consecutive 0 sleep is 7 days.  I highly doubt that is going to be even close to a record here.  The micro sleeping where you cannot even really tell if you have slept or just laid there, is the worst for me.

I found that when my body became dependent upon the benzo I was taking, it began to cause the issue I went on it to fix, insomnia, this is pretty common but the most common problem it causes is anxiety.  When I increased my dose the problem was solved until my body grew tolerant to that dose so I had to increase it again.  I couldn't keep doing this, it wasn't sustainable so I had to stop.  Once I did and recovered from the damage the drug did to me, I learned how to sleep again. 

I found that when my body became dependent upon the benzo I was taking, it began to cause the issue I went on it to fix, insomnia, this is pretty common but the most common problem it causes is anxiety.  When I increased my dose the problem was solved until my body grew tolerant to that dose so I had to increase it again.  I couldn't keep doing this, it wasn't sustainable so I had to stop.  Once I did and recovered from the damage the drug did to me, I learned how to sleep again.

 

Is it possible that I could have become tolerant to .5mg even with most of my nights being decent? On the nights that I have difficulty with sleep, it's not like I'm thinking at all, my brain is just stuck in awake mode for several hours before sleep finally comes. I'm determined not to up my dose since I sleep okay most of the time, but the nights that are a struggle definitely make my anxiety horrible the next day. It would make sense I suppose that tolerance to .5mg is causing my anxiety to be more resilient to the medication..

Yes, you could be building tolerance to the drug.  I took K-pin for sleep too.  Benzos take the place of your body's normal GABA function.  GABA is a neurotransmitter that makes you calm and relaxed, so you can sleep.  When GABA stops working on it's own because of the Benzo (GABA becomes down regulated) your body totally relies on the Benzo for sleep.  You have another neurotransmitter - Glutamate.  Glutamate is what makes you active and alert and even fight or flight.  Normally GABA and Glutamate are in a balancing act so one doesn't dominate the other.  However, the Benzo temporarily "disables" GABA allowing Glutamate the rule the day and night.  That's why many people coming off Benzos either via a CT or taper, experience sleep issues.

 

Insomnia was my worst symptom.  I would taper off as soon as you can.  Your body knows how to repair the temporary damage caused by the Benzos.  You can sleep on your own without taking drugs.  It's not easy, but so worth it in the end.

What ThEwAy2 said! 

Yes, thank you ThEwAy2, thank you for all of that information! I guess I'm relieved to know it's a fixable problem! I'll stick around on here on my journey to come off of these things, I'm glad I'm in the right place!

Has anyone experienced insomnia while on a benzo? I have been on Klonopin .5-1mg for 4 months, and while I have nights that are fine, there are some where my brain just feels powered on until 4-5 hours after I take the Klonopin. In the hours leading up to falling asleep, I can feel my anxiety increasing as time passes because I have an extreme fear of not sleeping which stemmed from severe insomnia I experienced from stress off and on starting January 2019.. Anyway, what seems to be going on here? Why am I fine some nights with .5mg, and other nights 1mg hardly does anything at all? I still feel rather new to this, so I'm not sure if this is something others experience, but I feel like it would be so reassuring to hear that I wasn't alone in this. I do plan to come off of the Klonopin, but with my sleep being so weird and unpredictable even while on it, it's a step I'm afraid to take at this point in time.

 

 

Lorazepam gave me insomnia I never had any trouble sleeping before I took benzos, could be having a paradoxical effect on you.