klonopin

[wmac]

Ok I tried Klonopin.Yikes!! Im such a light weight its scarey. The doc prescribed me 0.5mg so I took half yesterday at 11:20 AM and it did help with anxiety and I really felt fine. Then at about 10;30 last night I started to feel sick and it felt like a lead brick in my gut. But at 12:15 last night or am I took another 0.25mg when I finally went to sleep I slept really good, I think I may have died. lol.. but when I woke up this morning I felt hungover, sick, lead brick in my gut felt like I was ran over by a semi truck. I felt sickish all day really tired, and just not real well. So I will not take that again. I will switch back to ativan. I take 0.5mg in am and at pm but I will add another dose in the middle of the day. The doc wants me to do 1mg twice daily but I think that may be too much that is why he switched me because klonopin is longer lasting. I talked to the pharmacist and she asked if I had changed any thing else yesterday and I said no. She agreed it was the klonopin. So my vote is no for klonopin. I was kinda anxious to try it thinking it would be my answer to relieve my anxiety on a daily basis but I guess not. Its a pretty potent drug.
wmac

[jake357]

Some comments to your questions about meds. U posted this a long time ago but this may help others. Restoril which I call yellow jackets are seriously addictive, Im glad to see you are trying Trazadone, But doses of that are normally higher or around 100+ mg at night. About the Xanax/Klonopin deal, Xanax is nothing compared to how physically and mentally addicted you can become to Klonopin. Ive take 8mg a day for the last 5 years and was without it for a few days, i felt like I was dying and going to siezure really bad. The drug honestly doesnt do much for me anymore, but my doc has really not thought out how he would get me off it. Oh and keep your eyes and a count of your drugs, these ones especially people WILL steal them. Its just a really bad situation for ppl like me w panic dissorder. Hope that was helpful to anyone.

[wmac]

Well I just pulled all my recent blood test that I have copies of and my potasium is on the lower side not the higher side and my sodium is within normal limits. I also just had surgery and they say something traumatic or surgery makes it worse. Although my bp went down to 80/44 after the surgery but spinals do that too. And the two espion (something) nuero(something) within the white blood cells are normal which they say for addisons they are higher. So I dont think thats the problem. They have also checked my thryoid as recent as March of this yr or Feb cant remember. It was normal I was wishing that was the problem. Im just a lucky one to have nsvt thats all.My doc was not worried about the lower bp after surgery. So who knows why I have what I have no one does they call it idiopathic nsvt. Just my luck.

[Darius5691]

Ryan,
Do you happen to know what is the equivalent dose of Klonopin to Xanax .5 mg? Thanks very much for your incredible wealth of knowledge! Are you a doctor, by chance? Just wondering where you get all of this from, or is just personal experience dealing with anxiety? Amazing. You are a huge help to us here on this forum. :-)
Anne

[wmac]

Ya they have checked my thyroid. But what is addison's? never heard of it. So your thinking what im thinking just treat the anxiety and not the heart arrthymia right? I also dont drink enough water and I know dehydration can cause low bp also I do have kidney stones which are calcuim oxalate which are caused from dehydratioin.

[wmac]

Thanks for the post. Ok first of all I started to take the toprol xl the dosage they gave me was 12.5mg but beings that im so senitvie to meds the first day I took 1/4 of it and the second day I also took a 1/4 of and the thrid day I took half and six hours on the dot booooommmmmm... In the begining the cardio saids med could make it worse so for two yrs I fought not taking it. then I did and it was worse. The cardio suggested flecinaide and im like no way. I have seen ep after ep for this. The ep in utah at the university suggested nadolol. didnt want it Now my main cardio says nadolol and then another in utah heart clinic says cardizem. Well nadolol is non selective and im afraid of that because I smoke. yes I said it i smoke. The only times I have my episodes are when at rest watching tv or on computer so my heart does the nsvt at slower beats and like one of the docs said on the heart forum if it happens to you at slower beats then a beta is not for you but if it happens at higher rates then it is for you. The 26 beat run was eternity and I thought I was going to die. dont want to go there again. As for the ocd yes I am that even the counsler said I have it. I have rituals I do at night checking everything as it seems at least 100 times (not that much really) making sure things are unplugged washing my hands all the time. I like a song I listen to it over and over and over again. I make myself crazy. I am thinking strongly about the klonopin again but I dont know if I can up the dose the third day to .5mg because .5mg is like 1mg of ativan and I havent even ever done that. New meds throw me into a panic inself.  Inerderal is non selective right? The problem with cardizem lowers your bp and im already 92/62normally.The same with betas. Im just at such a lost here. How long has your nsvt been. the ep at the utah heart clinic said if I really wanted he would take me back into the ep lab. and not sedate me this time only to put the caths in unlike the two other times I was pretty well sedated with versede. so may thats what I should do I just dont know anymore.
Thanks Ryan

[wmac]

What is hyperlipidemia??? Ok my problem is im a bit ocd anyway with anxiety attacks. When I have my nonsustained ventricular tachycardia it really throws me into a anxiety attack and sometimes panic. Now the anxiety does not cause the heart arrthymia vise versa. I worry all day everyday about having another episode all the time, im fearfull in going places getting to far from help. All the cardio docs have said my nsvt is not life threating I have had to eps and they could not induce the arrthymia. But Im scared everyday even when I get single pvcs or pacs and I just want to not worry about this. I took beta blocker toprol xl for three days and had the worse episode ever it got recorded so that is not  a good option either. I just want to help the anxiety of all of this so I can be a bit normal is all.

[wmac]

I absoulety respect or opinon as does everyone else. However when you said it was poor practice on my doctors part to prescribe 0.5mg times three per day I disagree with you. You seem to be pushing klonopin on everyone here and Its not for everyone and that includes myself. I do well with ativan so im sticking to it. I have no reactions and I know what to expect. the only thing I think it has done to me is lower my white blood count which it can rarely do but maybe i just run low anyway and its not alraming low anyway. I get so many anxieties due to my heart arrthymias and I need something. I did however feel that klonopin did help with anxiety it just seemed to make me feel level but I dont like the hung over feeling or being tired and the gut ache and nauesa. Ativan has never done that to me.who know maybe I should switch to valium maybe that would be better but I suggested it to my doc and he said no for some reason. maybe I should up my dose of ativan to 1mg times two instead of the 0.5mg times three. thats what he wanted me to do to begin with. I just want something that will help the anxiety go away. Alot of the antidepressants have cardio side effects and im not sure i want that . My doc suggested zoloft he said it would just help me not be so obsessive about it and I could be normal again ..lol But yes dont take it personal what I said we all really appreciate you and you your knowledge maybe you can help me come up with some answers to my problem as well but not with klonopin. lol
wmac

[Darius5691]

Ryan,
Thanks again. And before I even go into any discussion about Xanax and tolerance, etc. ... I am sooo sorry to hear about what happened to you at the hospital. Unbelievable. How are you feeling now? I didn't read your response to Barbara until after I'd sent my questions to you. Now I feel badly. You're not feeling well, just getting over such a terrible time, and I'm bothering you with Q's. Sorry.

If you feel like even answering another question ... !! ... do you happen to know if lowering my dose of Xanax (i.e., total tabs per day) would make my blood pressure go up? Over the past few days, I've been getting more sleep and so my anxiety level has gotten lower during the day. I've switched from taking upwards of 1-3/4 to 2 tabs of .5 mg Xanax down to 1-1/4. Would making that change cause me to feel spacey in the head, with higher blood pressure? Normally I'm at 100/60 or 110/70. Now my readings are more like 125/77. Not all the time, but I definitely feel like something's different blood pressure-wise. It's harder for me to take a deep breath, for instance. Just wondering if I'm causing this to happen by lowering my already fairly low dosing.

Hope you're feeling better.
Anne

[Darius5691]

Ryan,
Thanks so much for your response. I truly appreciate your suggestions. I definitely plan to speak with my psych this coming week about switching to Klonopin, unless he has some other recommendation that will allow me to come off Xanax. Do people experience tolerance after being on Xanax for 5 weeks? I am glad you thought to explain the difference between dependency and tolerance, as I wasn't aware of it. I'm afraid I've already built up a tolerance, but am not sure. How does one know?
Anne

[Darius5691]

Ryan,
I switched to Klonopin a few weeks ago (1/2 of a .5mg tab bid), from Xanax .5 mg (dosing varied - anywhere from 3/4 to 1-3/4 tabs per day). I think because I was tinkering with my sleep med at the same time (from Restoril to Rozerem - which didn't work), I experienced heightened anxiety. At the time, I attributed the increased anxiety to Klonopin, I think erroneously. I have a psych appt next week and plan to speak with him about trying the Klonopin again, since I've heard it's not as addictive as Xanax. Do people who switch from Xanax to Klonopin typically have any problems? Side effects? Etc.? Is Xanax XR any better than regular Xanax? Is it similar in nature to Klonopin?

If you don't mind ... I also have a question about Xanax. I've been on .5 mg for 5 weeks now - at first PRN q4-6 hrs. (I took anywhere from 1/2 tab/day to 1-1/2). Then I started on Restoril as a sleep aid, and my Xanax dose went down to 1/2 or 1/4 tablet in the a.m. and another 1/4 to 1/2 in early afternoon. Now I've switched to Trazodone for sleep (50mg), because I wasn't comfortable being on two benzos at one time, and my Xanax dosing has gradually increased - instead of just two doses/day, I'm up to 4: 1/4 or 1/2 tablet in the a.m., 1/4 tab at noon, 1/4 at 4 p.m., and 1/2 tab at night with the Trazodone, per my psych's recommendation. The combo has been hit or miss, sometimes I can sleep 5-6 hours, sometimes not. It's always interrupted sleep, though. yuk. I tried once not taking the Xanax with the Trazodone, and it wasn't a successful evening.

If I am successful in switching to Klonopin, would I still be able to take the Trazodone as a sleep aid? I mean, I'm really hoping that once I can myself evened out, I won't even need sleep medicine. But, until that happens, I'm wondering if I'll need to switch sleep med again. I hate switching meds, because it seems that my body doesn't always react very pleasantly to it.

Thanks for whatever insights you can give.
Anne

[heartfluttersflyawayplz]

as you can see i didnt get ti finish what i was saying above, but was just checking to see you did say i could just stay on the .25 right it seems to do the job i really dont want to go up to .05 a pill, and in a week or so am going to try and see if my anxiety is gone after i start eating better and stomack does not wake up sick and all the tingling is gone i will try and go off of it , anxiety has never been a life thing for me so i hoping i can get off of the pill but if i had to i would stay on klonpin its been a great med for me , thank you telling me about it .

ryan did you go back to hospital this week and if so how did it work out for you this time, you have been in my thoughts and i was happy to see you back on here . let us know how your doing. your in my prayers . Barbara

[heartfluttersflyawayplz]

wow i hate that you didnt like the klonpin, i also took ativan when needed, but i this point and time in my life i need something everyday until i can get back on my feet, and klonopin is the best because it levels off and keeps you calm and your body does not want more and more . where as with the ativan it will. you can stay on klonpin for life if need to but not ativan.when i first started taking it i was very tired and yes sick at stomack but the stomack was from all the weeks of anxiety i had gone through and it messing up my stomack. now i have gone back on the klonopin have been on it 4 days today and i feel much better and my stomack is feeling lots better am getting where i can eat better , yes am tired but i can deal with that. am still taking just the half of a .05 in the am and pm it seems to work for me so not sure if i will go up to .05 at anytime. am going to stay on it a few weeks and than start coming off of it to see if my stress has gone away to where i can handle it .

[heartfluttersflyawayplz]

wow i hate that you didnt like the klonpin, i also took ativan when needed, but i this point and time in my life i need something everyday until i can get back on my feet, and klonopin is the best because it levels off and keeps you calm and your body does not want more and more . where as with the ativan it will. you can stay on klonpin for life if need to but not ativan.when i first started taking it i was very tired and yes sick at stomack but the stomack was from all the weeks of anxiety i had gone through and it messing up my stomack. now i have gone back on the klonopin have been on it 4 days today and i feel much better and my stomack is feeling lots better am getting where i can eat better , yes am tired but i can deal with that. am still taking just the half of a .05 in the am and pm it seems to work for me so not sure if i will go up to .05 at anytime. am going to stay on it a few weeks and than start coming off of it to see if my stress has gone away to where i can handle it .