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Klonopin taper. Could somebody help?


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I don't know, we will see... I am still experiencing moments in the day when I feel panic rushes... they last a couple of minutes. I can't even describe them as panic attacks. They are more like very anxious thoughts, during which I am feeling hopeless and lonely, like If my destiny is to Wander around all alone while everybody else is feeling good, while everybody else is going on with their lifes and I am stuck in an eternal grey present. Luckily these moments don't last too long but when they happen I am scared of my thoughts because I also think that one day I could lose my mind and hurt mysef. I hope I won't,  I hope I will survive and I will remember this journey as something belonging to a past that will never come back. The mornings are still awful, worst part of the day when i am nauseaous and I find myself throwing up often. But soon I will spend 4 days on holiday with my fiancee and I hope that would help to stop concentrating too much on what is happening.

Sport chapter: yes, I walk. I started to go to work walking and I try to use my car less and less. And I like to go by myself to a solitary playground to shoot a basketball. I find it relaxing as it is my favourite sport. I am not playing games, I am just shooting around.

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This is a terribly isolating experience, we lose our connection with others and even with ourselves, no wonder we feel so alone.  We understand how you're feeling so you're not alone, try to remember that this is a temporary experience, it's a very long temporary but one none the less. 

 

I'm glad to hear you'll be going on holiday, distraction is a necessary tool for getting through this.

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Hello Pamster! Oh, you are so right about that. It is an isolating experience. No matter how many caring people you can have around you (and that is not my case: as an orphan since my childhood I don't have a family but I have some really good friends and my fiancee who I hope will not get tired of this situation and will stay by my side) , you still have to face this all alone. You have to fight all these symptoms that I am sure nobody of us could have ever imagined they could even exist. If we knew... nobody would have ever started taking benzos for sure. And as Koko Lee suggested , the original anxiety and panic we had is a walk in the park compared to what we are all feeling now. I know you understand what I am going through and that you support me. I am so glad I came across this forum. I will never thank you enough for what you are doing. And Reading your signature, Pamster,  gives me hope that there is an end to this and that is temporary as you said. No matter how long it will take but it is temporary.

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

Hello guys! It's been a while since my last visit here. I am writing with a concern I have: I went down to 18 marks in my syringe so now I am effectively taking one drop of klonopin at 8 a.m., one at 2p.m. and 18 marks of my syringe. I started this on the 20th of august and I was expecting to start feeling some withdrawal after 5 data/a week. Instead I felt bad the 10th of september and that disoriented me. Has anyone experienced anything like that? My symptoms have been overheating, sweating, heart pounding, some catastrophic thoughts and fear. But mostly I started throwing up again. I need to say that my stomach has always bern a problem for me through all my life. I remember throwing up when anxious as a little kid and also later in my teens and also having an ulcer in my early twenties. So maybe this could not be related to benzo belly but who knows?

Anyway I am not feeling totally fine. To be exact sometimes I really feel bad. It is weird how such a small reduction could affect somebody. On the 20th I should go down to 17 marks in the evening and I will keep my morning and afternoon dose unaltered but maybe I will wait one more week to do that.

I wrote here just to have some advice and to read your thoughts about what my situation is at the moment.

Thank you in advance

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A quick recap to help things out for you: after a huge withdrawal in may/june due to going down from 1.5mg per day to 0.7mg per day in just 40 days I felt better by july and before joining this forum I tried to switch from klonopin to valium and I failed feeling a huge wave of depression, so I came here and we figure out to use my syringe in order to level my klonopin through the day so I started tackling the evening dose.

Of course I am scared of this "neverending" journey , I am scared I could be stuck on klonopin for life and that I will never recover. I know some guys need to updose but that us the last option for me. After all I kicked 0.8mg in 40 days. But I must admit I am drained

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I'm glad to hear you're not looking to go up in dose, a slow steady downward trajectory is the best way to rid yourself of the Klonopin.  I know it seems never ending but for most of us, recovery happens and hopefully it will for you too.

 

What have you decided to do about your doses, are you going to reduce your evening dose?

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Hello Pamster and thank you for your reply.

Well, se Kinda all agreed that reducing the evening dose first in order to reach a stable Serum level with the morning and afternoon doses was the wise option. Do you all still think that is the way to go? I know there is also an option of leveling things up by now by maybe moving one more drop in the morning and one in the afternoon,  and by doing that reducing the evening one and leveling things up but I don't know why this scares me, maybe because the original 5 drops i used to take in the morning were the toughest one to take.

Any suggestion on what would be wiser for me (considering of course that everybody is different and there are no rules in this)?

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Any suggestion on what would be wiser for me (considering of course that everybody is different and there are no rules in this)?

 

I've mentioned to other members that experimentation seems to be the only way we can find the best taper for us, unfortunately that means using ourselves as the subject and sometimes it hurts.  Your last sentence summed up your question and my answer so I'm afraid that its up to you to figure this out based on your needs but I'm sorry to hear making the change scares you.  Of course I can understand it, I didn't taper but I'm constantly amazed when people just reach stability after a reduction then invite the pain they know is coming by reducing again.  You're all hero's in my opinion!

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Yes, I understand your point of view. I have read your story but I guess that, talking about experimentation, I could not try to replicate what you did, though sometimes I would like to tie myself to a bed and cold turkey. I also considered the idea of a detox center but I guess that these two options won't work for me.

I don't know, it seems like I really have to stay calm and keep hoping that, in a way or the other, I will make it.

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Yes, please don't follow my example with either the cold turkey or the aborted detox center.  What you're doing is going to be a part of your life for awhile, we've found it can't be rushed, going slow is our only option for remaining somewhat functional to protect the life we have and the one we hope to resume when we recover.  I hope you can find a way to accept this journey because recovery is amazing, I still remember the euphoria I felt when I was well again and the gratitude I still feel is humbling when faced with so many still suffering.
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Thank you for your always caring and kind words. I guess there is nothing left to do for me than go on like this. If only I knew for certain that it won't get worse, that I won't be' bedridden, that my stomach will feel better, that I will stop with my huge morning nausea, that I will find the strength and will to get out of bed in the morning, that the terror that I have when I wake up, with my heart racing like crazy and my anxiety going to the roof , it all will all go away, it would be easier. That I will really heal then yes, it woul definitely be easier.
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Your words break my heart Salazar77.  Have you spent much time reading success stories, I pretty much planted myself there when I was suffering, they helped me have hope.  Of course my mind wouldn't let me believe they were written by real people but when it was time for me to write mine, I had to acknowledge that healing was possible because I was finally one of those stories.
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I have read some but I was nearly crying because, as you said , it could seem Unreal that it could happen. Ifyou are in the dark it seems it will always be like that. Plus I still have to recover from paroxetine and its prolonged withdrawal and damage. Yes, it seems neverending . I would give a harm to get back to baseline, ti my old anxious version of myself. When i read of people who actually end their life in despair or because they are so tired of suffering that they just want it to stop , i become sad for them and scared of what could happen to me. I really wish the doctors who still say "why are you suffering? Just go back on meds. You need them" are wrong and that i would be free.
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I estimated that I could get rid of klonopin in a couple of years and maybe I will stuff suffer for teo more years... that is a lot.

And I notice that my life is a sequence of "what if, what if, what if..."... all the possibilities that could interfere with this. And if you add the fear of being maybe hospitalized or being bedridden at some point, or "needing" antidepressants and "wasting " all these 4 years, plus the 2 I already spent in withdrawal from ssri... well, that is scary

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It looks like you're focusing on worst case scenario's which of course is typical but it's important you work to change this, you don't want to become a self fulfilling prophecy.  This is going to take a long time but the intensity of they symptoms will change, you won't feel exactly like this all of the time.

 

You're going to have windows which will give you hope followed by waves which will take that hope away but this is what lets you know for sure that this isn't permanent, that your brain is doing its best to get back to it's normal function.  Every cell in your body is working to get this right, so your job is to do your best to eat healthy, avoid stress and alcohol, maintain a positive outlook, distract yourself from the symptoms, get some exercise and wait for the healing to happen.  You can do this!  :thumbsup:

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Ok, I will. I will also try to think that every reduction of the dose is a step forward to healing and that healing is already happening in a way. And that it won't start only when all the drug will leave my system.

Thank you again.

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I'd do a search on the board to see what other members have said about them.  Alternative Therapies & Supplements

 

Just remember to proceed with caution when adding anything new, take very little and only one thing at a time so you'll know what's causing what if you react negatively which can happen because of our highly sensitized central nervous system while going through this process.

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Salazar77, OMG, reading this thread, well I don't have words to describe how it made me feel.  Let's just say, I can finally write this after wiping the tears from my eyes.  I've just started this journey, as you can see in my signature.  I am filled with fear, doubt and guestions!

 

I just wanted to say hello and see how you're doing.  To everyone who has helped you, you're heros!

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Hi. It's being a while. I am still tapering and having hard times.  Not always but very often. I am starting to think that maybe th "cut and hold" taper is tough for me. Maybe in the next future i will ask advice on how to do a daily microtaper which i ve seen on YouTube It is a popular method. 

I just wanted to say "hi" now and i hope things will get better. I have sommano doubts and fears. 

I am thinking.... "what if this is not withdrawal anymore but it is actually a brain damage that won't heal? A damage ti the receptors that will never get back to normal?".

If you have some words of encouragement that would be appreciated

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[0f...]
Daily micro taper isn't really much different than a cut and hold.  The cuts are just way smaller and the holds are way shorter.  For example - instead of a 10% cut every 10 days, a person could do a 1% cut daily.  Same tapering rate, but done in smaller bites.
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  • 2 weeks later...

Hello guys. Just a quick update and request of suggestions.  I am struggling a lot. I am experiencing pretty much the major symptoms listed in the ashton manual and even in Wikipedia.  I am now at 1 drop in the morning, one in the afternoon and 17 marks in the evening. When i came here i was at 20 marks in the evening of my syringe.

Could it be interdose withdrawal? Or is it just "normal" reduction withdrawal?

I won't reinstate and I don't want to spend the rest of my life on klonopin. So i am not surrendering.  I know this is a really serious and even fatal condition and that there is no help whatsoever except suffering and hoping that things will get better one day. I am just asking to whoever will read this his/her opinion.

Thanks in advance

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Hi Salazar!

 

I'm sorry that you are having so many awful symptoms. 

 

Just to be clear, one drop is equal to 0.100 mg, and 17 syringe marks equals 0.425 mg.  Right?

 

So your schedule is

0.100 mg in the morning

0.100 mg in the afternoon

0.425 mg in the evening

 

Is that correct?

 

About what time do you take each dose?

 

Koko Lee

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How long ago did you change your dosing schedule from once at night to 3 times a day?

 

How did you transition from single to multiple daily doses?

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