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Switching from Xanax to klonopin

I've been on Xanax for about 4 years. I'd only take .5 a day at night time. Now I've been through some pretty stressful things including having serotonin syndrome from a rare drug interaction between lexapro and Prilosec. I thought I was going to die. Since than my anxiety has been 100 and they had me start taking 3 .5 Xanax a day and it wasnt working. So my doctor suggested Klonopin. I took it yesterday all day and than had insomnia all night and don't know if my body is going through withdrawals from no Xanax. I was steady 3 times a day for about three months. Please help.
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By the way, I didn't mean to say nobody should ever take benzos regularly, just that it's best to avoid it if you can.  For some people, this will be the only thing that works for them.
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Avatar universal
You'll hear contradictory opinions on this, but my opinion, for what it's worth, based on a lot of research because of a rare form of protracted withdrawal from an antidepressant, is that no other drug acts exactly like any other drug -- if they did the FDA would not grant a new patent to the second drug.  So no other drug necessarily produces an effect that cancels out withdrawal from a former drug.  That's why, again in my opinion, the most prudent and safest way to ever quit these drugs is to slowly taper off any drug you've been using regularly until you successfully quit before starting a new drug so you can tell what problems are withdrawal problems and which are side effects of the new drug.  Also, klonopin is very different from other benzos in that it is longer lasting in effect (theoretically) and also takes longer to take effect, which is why it's so often prescribed to be taken daily whereas all recent advice is to only take benzos when necessary.  Of course, your doc or psychiatrist will virtually never tell you that.  So yes, it could very well be withdrawal.
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Arlington, VA
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