Social Anxiety

[bpc15]

Hi,
I was recently diagnosed with Social Anxiety. My doctor prescribed me with 1.5 mg of clonozapem and 45 mg of buspar daily. I am concerned with both.

First with the clonozapem as I have heard it is addictive. At this point I am taking 1 mg a day, half in the morning and half at bedtime. I have not noticed much difference in my daily life, but it has helped. Is this a dose that I will have trouble getting off of in the future, or will I have to increase my dose eventually for the medicine to be effective?

With Buspar, my MD suggested I start off with 5mg a day and build that up daily by 5 mg until I reached 45 mg. I also had to divide the dose up for 3 times per day. I was having no trouble when I got to the point of taking 10 mg at one time, or 30 in the whole day. But when I had to increase to 35 mg in the day, and take 15 mg at one time, I got extremely dizzy and felt like I was going to faint. This also coincided with a cold I was having at the time so I am wondering if the cold caused this, or the increase caused this. At this point I cannot take more than 5 mg of Buspar at a time, when at one point I was able to take 10mg. Does this mean Buspar is just not for me?

Thanks for any help,

[ethes]

I have depression/gen. anxiety, with social anxiety. I take klonopin only as needed for a few days-when I am having an extremely hard time. I have tried many different meds. Am currently on Paxil-it is more geared toward social type anxieties, and seems to be working fairly well. I still have more depression, esp. this time of year, than I would like but at least my (performance)-social anxiety is managable. Hope you find whats right for you.

[Poppy_goodwill]

You need to be careful with clonozipam. It's a benzodiazepine and they cause dependency. The drug companies themselves recommend taking them no longer than a week at a time. If you take it too long and become dependent, you will not only have to wean yourself off them. But you could go into between dose withdrawal, which means you start to feel more and more anxious even though you're taking the drug. So you go to the doctor and she tells you, well, I guess you need more! And on it goes, racking up the dosage and still not feeling too great.

Please, take them sparingly, only when you're really suffering. And look to an SSRI for a solution if you need something to help manage depression and anxiety over the long term. The new class of SSRI's (cipralex,etc) are  much safer with fewer side effects than the older ones like Prozac.

[Casey80]

Hi There -

I have SAD and GAD and have been taking klonopin (clonozapem) for a couple of months. I take .5 twice a day. You may be a bit tired for a week or maybe less, but that goes away. It is not addictive. If you use it for longer than a couple of months, you may become dependent upon it, which means you can't suddenly stop it.

Clonozapem usually takes a couple of weeks to a month to build up in your system. It works by increasing the GABA in your brain, which is your body's natural relaxation mechanism. Don't be afraid to try if for a month, you will notice subtle changes. You will find your self more at ease in situations, and not having as much anticipatory anxiety about social situations.

I am a high school principal, trust me, I know about needing to be in control and have my brain work.  It all works great . . . Buspar... well it works for some and not for others. I don't know too many people that it has worked for, if you get really dizzy back the dosage down and slowly try to go up.

Send a message to Ryan on this board, and search around for other posts on Klonopin he has great insight that will help you. Be strong and keep the faith. I know how hard it is to struggle with social anxiety.