Clonazepam

[cinapon]

I have been taking Clonazepam daily (1mg before bedtime) for prevention of panic attacks.  I have been taking it since January.  I now feel better than I have felt for YEARS.  I am able to get 6-7 hours of sleep every night, and have not had a panic attack since taking the medication.  I started at 1 mg and don't feel the need to increase it.  However, my PCP wants me to wean off of this medication.  He is worried about dependence issues and tolerance.  He wants to put me on an SSRI instead.  The last one I tried made my life terrible (Lexapro).  I was forced to wean off of that medication because it severely interfered with my sleep.  

I realize everyone is different, but I have read from other posters on this forum about great success with this drug.  What experiences have others had long term with Clonazepam?

[Madison55]

Hi my doctor also wants me to ween off clonazepam, it's been 5 months that I've been on it.  It helps me sleep when all other medications have failed.  The doctor prescribed Effexor since I had really bad side effects with Lexapro.  So far I am on day 7 of Effexor and feel fine.  It hasn't helped me sleep all that much like clonazapem.  But I will give this medication about 2 mos to see how it helps.  Do you notice any hair shedding with clonazepam?  Or is it just me and stress?  I swear I have been seeing more of my hair all over the place.  I feel like my hair is getting so thin and is shedding like crazy.  That is why I want to ween off clonazepam. What is the safest way to ween off? Does anyone know?

[Paxiled]

Are you seeing a psychiatrist or a regular doc?  Effexor is more for depression than anxiety, and it's even harder to stop taking than clonazepam for many people.   If you're going to try an antidepressant for anxiety you usually would start with the ssri class these days, or the tricyclics.  The snris, the class Effexor is in, are a more stimulating antidepressant, and while they can work very well for depression and anxiety caused by depression if your main problem is sleep anti-anxiety drugs and antidepressants aren't necessarily the answer, but if you are going to try an antidepressant, again, for anxiety as a prime problem, I'm not sure you've selected the best one to start off with.  Now, some people get a side effect of sedation with serotonin targeting drugs, and Effexor does target that, but it also targets a stimulating neurotransmitter called norepinephrine.  You don't really say what's bugging you other than sleep, and sleep disorders aren't necessarily anxiety disorders or depression disorders.  Have you been diagnosed by someone who specializes in this (that's psychologists for the mental illnesses and sometimes psychiatrists if they've done their homework and neurologists for sleep disorders).  But as for tapering, you basically do it as slowly as you need to, as your reaction will not be the same as others.  5 months isn't a terribly long time, which will make it potentially easier than if it had been years, but you never know.  It can be easy as pie for some people and very hard for others.  Nobody can tell you, unfortunately, which you will be.  Don't know anything about the hair loss, but it might possibly suggest a nutritional deficiency that might also explain the sleep problem.  Might also not be that.  What you don't want is a doctor rushing you more quickly than suits you and who knows how to react if you have problems -- who knows how to slow down the taper and treat you like an individual.  Best of luck.

[Madison55]

I am seeing a psychiatrist and a medical doctor.  They both suggested I take Effexor since Lexapro was a failed attempt.  I got so many horrible side effects from it.  I was under a lot of stress due to a toxic relationship.  I tried ending that relationship and it was very difficult but I have ended it now.  Of course,  just like anyone going thru a break up, I feel sad, a bit depressed and have trouble sleeping now.  But I'm able to function, work, eat well etc..
The only problem is that  I can't seem to calm myself on my own and even If I do I wake up a few hours later leaving me exhausted.  My doctor suggested I try Effexor to help calm me and help with my sleep issues.  I don't know what is worse to taking Clonazepam or taking Effexor long term.  I have heard how hard it is to get off Effexor and I am very scared.  I am on day 9 of Effexor so I just started it. I've gotten labs done and all comes out fine with me.  I think my hair loss can stem from the stress I was when I was in that toxic relationship.  However, ever since I started taking clonazepam the hair shedding got worse.  I have never been a depressed person or someone that has anxiety but my sleep disruption is stemming from this relationship I was in.  I have tried all natural remedies to help with my sleep issue and nothing works.  I don't get panic attacks for have anxiety just can't sleep on my own.  My brain does feel different though.  It's like it forgot how to unwind and sleep.  It's always alert and awake.  

[Paxiled]

Look, you get to decide how you're going to run your life, not me.  That's really important to emphasize so you don't take anything I say as what you're going to do.  Collect the best info you can, make the best choice.  My own opinion, and it's only my opinion as a long-time chronic anxiety sufferer, is that you shouldn't be on medication at all, you should be in therapy at most.  I say that because you say you were not an anxiety sufferer or a depressed person and that a specific event triggered all this trouble, a bad breakup.  No drug in the world can fix grief.  Just can't happen.  Can't fix feeling lonely or isolated or angry or wronged.  These meds treat the symptoms of, in the case of Effexor, depression, and in the case of anxiety and depression, drugs such as Lexapro, but if you use them to get over a break-up the bad feelings will not resolve because you won't have solved them or let time solve them, which it will, you will just have suppressed the symptoms.  When you decide to stop taking meds, you'll still have the problem possibly because you never solved it and you have a problem that, unlike those of us with no foggiest notion of why we're like this, can actually be dealt with and will pass if you learn how to let it.  No one is ever the same again after a bad break-up.  Some of us never fully recover and we're always changed, especially if we're the party getting broken up with.  I've had a few of these in my life.  There's no question that if you're prone to depression or anxiety a bad experience can trigger some pretty long-lasting mental problems, and maybe that's what you have, but in my case, there were problems I can trace back before the break-ups.  If they had never happened it's likely I would never have fallen into mental illness as bad as it got, but I was prone to it.  My sister was prone to it.  You apparently haven't figured that out yet because you're only talking about one bad break-up, not a pattern.  Effexor might well make you feel better, and it's also very possible because of its stimulating nature you will suffer more anxiety and sleeplessness because of it.  If it does work for you it will be more likely because of what Lexapro did that what Effexor does for truly chronically depressed people, which is to take a down disease and make the person more up.  Anxiety is an up disease that needs to be taken down.  Trying a different ssri, as they all affect us very differently, would have been a better choice, based on my long experience with this junk, than moving on to a stimulating antidepressant.  Now, you can take this and toss it in the trash and go with your docs, but most of these docs know less about drugs than most people on this site do because we've all been led down the garden path once or twice.  Some docs are just better than others.  But again, it might work wonders for you -- as long as you keep taking it.  In the end, if truly your problem is a bad break-up, recovering from it is the solution to your problem, and drugs won't do this, they will suppress this.  Therapy might fix it.  Time will fix it eventually.  I'm only saying this because you already have trepidation about the clonazepam and so moving on to Effexor just doesn't seem necessary yet.  Good psychiatrists generally move from first trying therapy to the drugs that are the most appropriate to what ails you with the reputation for the least side effects and difficulty stopping and then get to the harder ones when others fail.  Lexapro was probably tried first because it has a reputation for having less side effects, though whether that's true in reality or not I have no idea.  Usually they start with Prozac, because it is the easiest to stop taking as it stays in the body longer, having therefore a natural taper the others don't have.  So you make your own decision based on your homework and the faith you have in your docs; you know yourself a lot better than I ever will.  If I had your story, I wouldn't be taking any meds, yet, not until I tried therapy and time.  That's knowing what I know now and someone who did need to take meds.  Whatever you try, go all in with it, give it a good try as side effects start before effects do and if the effects are really good you won't mind the side effects as much, and get better.  Peace.

[cinapon]

I'm happy to hear that Zoloft is working for you.  I'm going to try to wean off of Clonazepam.  You're right---I think my doctor is trying to do what's best for me in the long run.  

[cinapon]

No, I'm not in therapy, but I am going to try to wean myself off of this drug over the next several weeks.  I'll post again with results.  Thanks for your response.

[Paxiled]

If what you're taking is working, I'd be hesitant to change.  It's true, though, that klonopin is going to be very hard on you when you quit if you take it for a long time, but so are ssris for many, many people, and they have far more side effects.  It's up to you, but it's rare that a medication works as well as you described, and in my mind they're all trouble to quit.  Are you in therapy too?  Because if you haven't resolved your issues, and I'm not saying therapy will actually accomplish that, then you're going to have to stay on something and they're all hell.  Maybe try to reduce the dose to .5 mg and see if that helps as much instead of switching from something that works to something that might not.  

[cj29]

Like other benzos, one can develop a tolerance to clonazepam, but it actually has a much longer half life than other benzos like xanax and ativan, so doctors prescribe it more long term.  I actually used it for about eight months, but weaned off of it after I got put on an SSRI.  I was initially kind of hesitant to do it because I had a bad experience with a different one before I started Zoloft, which ended up working for me.  Sometimes it is a little trial and error to find the right one for you.  As always, keep talking with your doctor about this...it sounds like he/she is trying to do the right thing...keep us posted!