Started Clonazepam Taper and Need Advice on Next Cut

hello everyone,

 

after tapering off of 15mg/day of zolpidem and reducing from 900mg/day to 50mg/day of pregabalin, i had stabilized and began tapering clonazepam a week and a half ago. i was on the maximum fda recommended amount of 4mg/day and  i decided that i wanted off of the medication, so i reduced by .25mg, placing me at 3.75mg currently. the drop was within the 10% rule that has helped me in the past on the previous medications tapered, but while not disabling, i did experience pretty severe anxiety/panic, night sweats, insomnia and lack of appetite before stabilizing within the past few days.

 

my question is given what i've experienced, would you all recommend decreasing next by .125mg or another .25mg. i feel like if the former were chosen that it'll take me foreeeever to significantly reduce this medication and being on such a high dose daily has some pretty severe sexual sides, so i don't want to spend like three more years tapering at a snail's pace. on the other hand, i was miserable, but not non-functional cutting .25mg - still able to work and go out and such and it didn't take a terribly long time to stabilize.

 

my dr added hydroxyzine prn to take which sort of helps much like mirtazapine would without the mirtazapine munchies.

 

advice?

Congratulations on cutting the Zolpidem out of your life and I'm glad to see you were able to stabilize after the pregabalin reduction. 

 

I understand not wanting to spend years tapering the Clonazepam, its discouraging but the trouble is, it may be necessary in order to remain functional. I'm sure you won't have to taper that long but using your symptoms to guide you is really the best way to do this.  Once you're off of the medication you won't have the drug to help minimize the symptoms so its a good idea to use it while you can.  I'm sure you're aware that even after the drug has been eliminated, there is still healing to be done.

 

I believe the sexual side effects of being on that high of a dose will begin to ebb as you continue to reduce your dose but rushing the process could put you in a worse state with sex being the last thing on your mind so I hope you'll try to be patient.

 

It sounds like you were functional after your .25 mg reduction, you may be able to get away with another one since your dose is so high but it may become necessary to slow it down after that, I'm sure your symptoms will let you know.

 

 

thanks @pamster - i appreciate the guide. yes, i'm going to try to reduce again by .25mg because while the symptoms were difficult they weren't debilitating, so hopefully that will be the case with this cut as well and then i may need to slow down depending on how quickly i recover or whether an adjunctive medication, e.g., the hydroxyzine can mask at least some of the symptoms.

 

 

so a few days ago i cut .25 from 3.75 to 3.5 and i didn't experience much in the way of withdrawal symptoms. sure, my anxiety elevated a bit but it might have also elevated because i  was expecting severe symptoms. for whatever reason the first cut that i made from 4mg to 3.75mg caused for some pretty severe symptoms, nausea, night sweats, elevated anxiety, gastrointestinal issues, headaches/migraines, insomnia and this time around it's been quite surprising to not have experienced nearly any of that. i'm confused but not complaining at all. i don't have any rationale for why this happened. 

I didn't taper but I've read members say that with Clonazepam they begin to notice symptoms show up around days 2-5 after a reduction so while I'm hopeful you won't have an increase of symptoms, I hope you won't get in a hurry to reduce again just yet.

 

Its so difficult to predict how each reduction is going to go but I have seen members be able to get into kind of a routine where they have a feel for it and this allows them to plan their life around them.

yes, i've heard that as well and i didn't really have a horrible time getting off of zolpidem, but did have a horrendous time lowering pregabalin which sounds counterintuitive. anyway, today is my third day since reducing and i'm totally fine - i feel as though i haven't really reduced at all. granted, i'm well within the 10% recommended window, so it just may be that i'm still on a large amount of the medication and removing a quarter of a mg isn't terribly impactful. what's odd about it, though, is that the very first cut made was pretty intense, not pregabalin intense, but quite uncomfortable and it started on the beginning of the second day. i'm close to nearing the fourth reduced dose most currently cut and i'm quite fine.

 

again, not complaining, but hopefully this process won't be horrific as it was with pregabalin and more akin to what it was like getting off of zolpidem.

I didn't have much trouble eliminating Ambien either, Klonopin was another story but I was on it a lot longer.  I'm very hopeful for you, this sounds promising so please keep updating, I'd love to see a member have an easier time of it, I see so much pain.  :'(

i will. i'm hopeful. ambien was really a breeze. klonopin in past attempts hasn't been nearly as difficult as lyrica, so there's that going for it at least. i'm crossing my fingers.

 

another topic that might belong in a different section is that i have to be sedated for dental surgery soon and i'm sure they are going to use propofol which makes me nervous. i don't quite know if i should seek an anesthetist that will use ketamine instead of propofol, however, the go-to sedative for dental anesthesia is propofol. i did not need this wrench thrown into the mix right now, but alas here it is.

Oh dear, this isn't good timing for a dental procedure but we have to take care of our other heath needs.  There is a lot of discussion about this topic on the Other Medications board, you could start a thread or use these search engines because ours isn't the best. http://www.benzobuddies.org/forum/index.php?topic=251991.0

thanks, pamster. i'll start a thread there to see what other people have to say as well as what dental anesthesiologists have to say about the situation. i'm sure most of them will state that it's not a big deal because it's just one day, but that may very well not be the case. thanks again for all your support! <3