Switching from Xanax XR BACK to Clonazepam

[Oneiropolos]

Okay, so details first: I'm a 23 year old female who has had diagnosed anxiety for about two years, to the point I finally had to drop out of college because I could no longer function only 9 hours away from getting my degree.  About a month ago, my psychiatrist suggested I switch to .5mg Xanax XR twice daily from .5 Clonazepam three times a day. The understanding of this switch would be that on the Xanax XR, I would also take another two pills of regular xanax - one in between my two doses and one right before I slept. Xanax XR basically did nothing to curb my anxiety on the whole and people could even tell a very noticeable decline this last month. Finally, this last friday, I got good poisoning (figures I don't go out to eat alot because my anxiety is slowly morphing into agoraphobia and then I get food poisoning one of the times I do, right?). The anxiety was absolutely impossible to tolerate all weekend because of the fear of getting more sick,and today, I finally reached the breaking point of calling the psychiatrist and requesting that I return back to Clonezpam because, while I am not and have never been cured of my anxiety, I could at least go between doses without panic attacks on most days.

By without panic attacks, I mean that I almost always have this underlying sense of tension and anxiety - a sort of butterflies in my stomach - but not complete breakdowns except on particular occasions. This was not the case in the last month, where a breakdown has been an almost daily occurence. So, right now, I'm back to .5mg of Clonazepam three times a day (when I get up, sometime in the middle, and when I go to sleep). I also have the .5mg tablets of Xanax for 'as needed', and I take 12 100mg gabapentin tablets a day (3 tablets in the morning, 3 tablets in the middle dose, 6 at night).

Because it was a phone call (and the longer I take, the more I get charged), and because my mind is not in the best state right now as it is, it didn't occur to me later to ask several questions. So I thought I'd try here and see if anyone could help me since I don't have insurance and calling again will be difficult financially.

Firstly, I HAVE quit Xanax before back when I had a psychiatrist who had me take a pill each day, but that was only .5mg each day and while I felt some withdrawal, it wasn't horrible and my current psychiatrist wanted me to quit. I was on the clonezepam at the time too. When I quit the clonazepam a month ago, I did have some withdrawal as well, but it was something I could handle with the increased Xanax dosings. I have heard that Xanax is the much more vicious one in terms of withdrawal - should I be prepared to go through some really rough times, or will being on clonazepam again largely take care of the brunt?  

Secondly, since I am allowed by my psychiatrist to take regular xanax on an as needed basis, should I try to taper down a bit just so that potential withdrawal is not so difficult?

Thirdly, I was on clonazepam for so long I forgot what it feels like for my body to 'get used' to it again. Since I'm on Xanax right now, am I still going to have to adapt to clonezapam again or will it be a fairly seamless process?

Thanks very much to anyone who has the time to answer!

[travjones27]

I just switched from 1 mg of klonopin 4X a day to 1mg of xanax 3X aday. I have Crohn's disease and anemia and 2 feet of intestine removed a fiew years back and have had nothing but diahhera and abdominal pain and have been on all kinds of pain meds for over 5 years every day almost. I realy went to a psych to get off of tramadol which is generic for ultrium and i will never take tramadol again cause very bad withdrawl even more than darvacet and percecet and alot of other narcotic meds. Ultrium is not concidered a narcotic and can be bought over internet without script, (BAD IDEA), i spent over a thousand dollars on them over the months bout 130.00 a bottle of 180.

[travjones27]

I agree and one of my secretarys at my office i go to has told me the dr don"t like it when the bill gets over 300.00 dollars and he might not treet me. the next time she tells me that im going to tell her she can talk to my lawyer even though i dont have one, THATS DOWN RIGHT IGNORANCE SAYING TO PEOPLE LIKE US WITH ANXIETY DISORDERS!

[Jimmy1975]

Thats malpractice , You should report that *** to your states med. board . And as far as the secretary she has NO business telling a GAD patient anything like that . I`ll tell you what i`ve been at UCLA many years and if a UCLA doctor did something like that they would be lucky to have a job the next day and i`m not kidding. I`m very sorry you had to go threw that .  Take care  Jim

[Oneiropolos]

My second psychiatrist (who I went to after the first just wasn't willing to make -any- changes even when something wasn't working) is the one who originally started me having xanax for when the klonopin couldn't quite handle a situation.  It started out that I would only need it maybe a couple times a month, when a panic attack was especially bad. The klonopin was taken for maitenance purposes - the xanax was the extra help when I couldn't make it through a day. Because the xanax proved so effective when I did take it, that psychiatrist suggested I take one each day in between doses in order to try to give me the most 'peaceful' day possible. I was pretty bullied by this second psychiatrist... I was once threatened by his secretary that if I dared to cancel an appointment because I was too sick to make it,  the psychiatrist could choose to 'drop me' because he didn't tolerate that sort of thing. I became terrified of him, of upsetting him, and the idea that I might not be able to get my prescriptions written when I was still so in need of medicine. :/
So, I managed to find another psychiatrist in the area, the one I go to now. She's much kinder, and much more lenient about finding medications 'right' for me. When I revealed that xanax really did seem to knock out anxiety at a better rate than the klonopin, she gave me a prescription to Xanax XR, which in theory is supposed to have a longer halflife than normal xanax. But it just did -not- work. Hence the switch back to klonopin. I don't think Xanax XR was something my doctor was really 'enthused' about, but she wanted to let me try it. I'm just scared of the withdrawal off the xanax now that it's been pretty solid in my system. I've had such bad withdrawals from medicines in the past and experiencing horrible side-effects from ALL of the anti-depressants they put me on. I'm completely in a panic about how badly this switch is going to hit.

[Jimmy1975]

I don`t know who you are seeing but I don`t think any doctor I know would have a patient taking Xanax and Klonipin at the same time . Frankly I have GAD and I go to the UCLA anxiety clinic and most psychiatrist I know will not priscribe Xanax unless they have too . Xanax has some very nasty side effects and thats why most of the doctors I know prefer Klonipin and it also has a longer half life then Xanax  .Take care Jim