Help me figure out what's causing my extreme anxiety...

I'm in the process of cold turkeying Haloperidol (it's neurotoxic, and I'm through the worst of the side effects, so I'm not going back on).

 

One of the withdrawal effects is anxiety.

 

I'm also on .5 mg Clonazepam twice a day, which I've been taking for about 7 weeks now.  I'm not yet tapering, but will be soon.

 

My extreme anxiety is there when I go to bed, and there when I wake up.

 

Yesterday I had a panic attack about 4 - 6 hours after dosing Clonazepam.

 

Taking the Clonazepam blunts my anxiety a bit, but it's still there and doesn't go away even right after the Clonazepam kicks in.

 

Could I have already become completely tolerant of Clonazepam?

 

Or is this more likely anxiety from cold turkeying Haldol?

When did you stop the Haldol?  And did the Clonazepam seem to help more near the beginning of the cold turkey?  Did your doc just say to stop the Haldol?

The Haldol was an IM injection, so I didn't quite go cold turkey, but rather a very fast taper.  Of 150 mg I still have perhaps 25 mg in my system based on its half-life.  The injection was about eight weeks ago.  I decided, on my own, to stop it because it's so toxic, the second most toxic drug you can get actually.  Brain shrinkage anyone?

 

I can't discern whether the K was helping more because at the time I wasn't experiencing Haldol withdrawal, but rather it's absolutely awful primary effects, which is what the K was prescribed for.  It did help with those. 

 

And the sedative-hypnotic effect of K has gone away.

 

I'm just wondering if severe tolerance to K can develop this quickly, because I feel like an anxious piece of s#!t almost non-stop.  Though, it could easily be a Haldol withdrawal wave.

 

I wasn't prescribed the K for anxiety.  I'm normally a non-anxious person.

 

Thanks for your help.

 

The Haldol was an IM injection, so I didn't quite go cold turkey, but rather a very fast taper.  Of 150 mg I still have perhaps 25 mg in my system based on its half-life.  The injection was about eight weeks ago.  I decided, on my own, to stop it because it's so toxic, the second most toxic drug you can get actually.  Brain shrinkage anyone?

 

I can't discern whether the K was helping more because at the time I wasn't experiencing Haldol withdrawal, but rather it's absolutely awful primary effects, which is what the K was prescribed for.  It did help with those. 

 

And the sedative-hypnotic effect of K has gone away.

 

I'm just wondering if severe tolerance to K can develop this quickly, because I feel like an anxious piece of s#!t almost non-stop.  Though, it could easily be a Haldol withdrawal wave.

 

I wasn't prescribed the K for anxiety.  I'm normally a non-anxious person.

 

Thanks for your help.

 

Gosh, I'm not sure.  My experience with Clonazepam was that it was still sedative for a few years.  It's possible to build up tolerance any time during long-term use, but after 7 weeks for it to seemingly stop working is a rarity.

My best guess is that you are having anxiety from the Haldol withdrawal and .5 mg of Clonazepam is not enough to stop that level of anxiety. I'm not saying to increase the K dosage because then you are adding to the problem. It's also possible to have interdose withdrawals from the K. Hopefully it will ease up on you, but I'm no expert on Haldol withdrawals either.

I agree, my best guess is that the anxiety is from haldol and the K just isn't really touching it. In my limited experience with haldol....it gave me the worst akethesia of all time. It was beyond anxious.

And I only had a few doses. It does have a pretty long half life too.

I was given a double dose of it to try and put me to sleep.....it was horrible, I stayed awake for 2 days and could NOT sit still for more than a second and had horrible arm movements. It sucked.

As per facility protocol.....they followed those doses with double doses of zyprexa......but that's a story for another time

 

Yes, you could have interdose withdrawals with K but mostly I think it's because the haldol WD is just in overdrive.

 

I would definitely wait to stabilize before tapering the K if you can.

SouthernBelle08,

 

I agree, my best guess is that the anxiety is from haldol and the K just isn't really touching it

 

Agreed, they work on totally different systems.

 

I'm pretty sure I'm getting K side effects, and interdose K withdrawals though.  I've been on it for seven weeks or so now, so I want to start tapering soon because I agree that it isn't doing much, if anything, for the Haldol wd anxiety and depression.  Rather it's just causing its own issues, itchy skin, interdose withdrawals, maybe some depression.

 

Haldol akathisia has gone away, though it hurt my decent knee and ruined my bad knee before it did, so badly that I'm on crutches now.  I was pacing for 20 hours a day at one point, and the pacing went on for two weeks.  Talk about suicidal ideation being in full effect, not that you could stop pacing long enough though, lol. I think I might still feel the akathisia restlessness a bit, but not strongly enough that I have to move around.

 

I think I'm going to switch to dosing K four times a day in order to smooth out the anxiety levels.

 

I got 150 mg Haldol I.M. 

 

How much did you get.  For how long?  Pill or I.M.?  How long did the wd anxiety last?  And did you CT off or taper?

 

And what in the world would stabilizing feel like? 

 

 

A quiet search turned up a lot of information about Haldol withdrawl symptoms:

 

https://www.mayoclinic.org/drugs-supplements/haloperidol-intramuscular-route/precautions/drg-20072783

 

Knowing what is causing your anxiety is a guessing game but I would go with the most obvious thing that has changed which is the Haldol cessation.  Did you consider using a small dose of oral Haldol tabs to wean off more gradually once the IM was wearing off?  I know everyone is different but it took many years for me to develop tolerance to clonazepam so I wouldn't blame seven weeks of clonazepam use for the anxiety you are experiencing on it.  At minimum I would suggest you stablize where you are before you take on tapering clonazepam.

Just a suggestion …

 

The fact that you had what sounds like an adverse reaction to a one-time intramuscular injection of Haldol (a potent psychotropic drug) and were prescribed Klonopin (another potent psychotropic drug) to counter the negative effects of the Haldol is highly relevant.  To help other members help you, might I suggest you clarify this in your signature?  That way other members will not miss this important detail when responding to your posts.

 

For example, your signature currently reads:

 

May 10th:  Put on 1 mg K per day to control side effects of another med.

 

You could amend this to read:

 

May 10th: Put on 1mg K per day due to adverse rxn to IM injection of Haldol

Libertas, I changed my sig.

 

To everyone,

 

My situation's actually changed a bit since I posted this.

 

While trying to find a doctor to help me taper very slowly I went to see a new doctor, a GP (general practitioner).  It was very strange, but soon after I walked into her little clinic, which is way out in the country and attached to her home, much of my anxiety abated. 

 

And most of it hasn't come back.  I now have a period starting at 5 AM where I'm in a pretty hellish level of anxiety.  Today it lasted 80 min.  The day before it lasted 2 hours.  A reduction of 40 min in one day, and this hellish anxiety no longer occurs at other times throughout the day, so I seem to be headed in a very good direction on the Haldol withdrawals.  I still have a comparatively slight, but still very noticeable, constant level of anxiety, but it's radically improved.  The worst of the Haldol wd are over, so I'm not going back on.  Can Haldol kindle?  I have no idea, but I'm not finding out.

 

In hindsight I should have tapered, but I didn't even know about tapering.

 

What's strange was that doctor.  She was just very strange.  She had a very healing presence and was a very unusual person.  She seemed masterful in a way.  The huge drop in anxiety was seemingly instantaneous upon walking into her clinic, and it hasn't returning except for a short period in the morning.

 

Right before going to the clinic I'd gone to the pool to do water walking as a way of reducing the Haldol akathisia anxiety.  When I'd walk in the pool the anxiety would go away almost completely and then return as soon as I got out, so I know that it was caused by Haldol akathisia.  I no longer go to the pool because my anxiety just isn't high enough to make it worthwhile.

 

Correlation isn't causation, but I think that doctor might be some sort of energy healer or awakened person or something.

 

Since the K doesn't seem to do much of anything for the Haldol withdrawal anxiety, they do work on entirely different brain systems, I've decided to start tapering.  I just don't want Clonazepam to take over my life, Haldol is bad enough.  I just read a post from someone who was on Clonazepam for less than two years and was just up for three days straight after being off for two years: http://www.benzobuddies.org/forum/index.php?topic=269466.0;topicseen

 

Clonazepam is scary stuff.

 

Today is my first day and I've made a 5% dry cut with a Mettler Toledo precision balance I got on ebay.  Just took the first dose.

 

That's 1/10 of the cut that put me in the ER twice, and the Haldol anxiety is much more manageable now, so I should be fine.

 

At this rate I'll be on an 8.5 month taper, but I might speed up as the Haldol wd anxiety further decreases.  Or hold, if needed.

 

The doctor's name is Ellen Gardner, on the very off chance that anyone in Southern Utah ever reads this.