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  • BDD Moderators: Keif’ Richards | negrogesic

Taking Klonopin at Night = Anxiety Relief

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xxpurplehazexx

Bluelighter
Joined
Jul 18, 2012
Messages
134
I've been taking 1.5mg klonopin every night for almost four years. I know that if I were to come off I would have horrid withdrawals, but at this point how much is it really helping my anxiety? Any input from long-term benzo users would be greatly appreciated. I know klonopin has a relatively long half-life and this question is very subjective. I rarely ever take it during the day because I it makes me drowsy and sort of depressed.
 
You asked the same question to yourself in your post, that i would ask you. "How much is it really helping your anxiety"? If you could answer that it would help, do you still feel anxiety relief daily or are you saying it's not working anymore? If it's not working or helping you AT ALL anymore, then your best bet would be either to SLIGHTLY increase the dosage since your dose isn't too bad and you haven't claimed to be abusing them.

However if increased, i would recommend no more than 3mg MAXIMUM and if that was to stop working, your best bet would be to come off.

Or Option #2 Is to start a slow taper process with a doctor/psychiatrist, that is if it's not helping you at all anymore because if you do go the route of increasing your dosage and find that it's not working anymore than the withdrawals will be even worse.

Many people that don't abuse benzos and take them as prescribed find that at some point it's "working anymore" or providing "anxiety relief" and bump up the dosage, and then after time then from 2mg go up to 4mg, and after sometime that doesn't work anymore and go upto 6mg etc etc to the point where the withdrawals can be fatal and very very dangerous, and it happens to a lot of people who don't do drugs or abuse the benzo without realizing the intensity of benzo withdrawal especially in higher dosages.

Smart doctors and psychiatrists will limit highest dosage they will prescribe if it's not working anymore and you have to keep upping it up repeatedly. So.... It's upto you. hope you reply so i can give you a better answer than i already did.
 
Yeah but so many people complain of the anxiolytic effect going away real soon, which is why i see people taking massive amounts of prescribed benzos on here, even the ones that don't abuse them. But idk if the OP is claiming they aren't helping anymore at all (he's been on them for 4 years) or if he just wants to come off the medication..
 
xxpurplehazexx said:
I've been taking 1.5mg klonopin every night for almost four years. I know that if I were to come off I would have horrid withdrawals, but at this point how much is it really helping my anxiety? Any input from long-term benzo users would be greatly appreciated. I know klonopin has a relatively long half-life and this question is very subjective. I rarely ever take it during the day because I it makes me drowsy and sort of depressed.
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You need to talk to your doctor about this.
 
weekend addiction said:
I find that tolerance builds slowly to the anxiolytic effect.
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But it really doesn't. Someone who takes the same dosage everyday as prescribed won't really see any decrease in anxiolytic effects.

When you decide to take more than prescribed is when your tolerance to the anxiolytic effect starts to build.
 
Clonazepam was the benzo I used for the most part of my "benzo addiction career", maybe 7-8 years (for the most part 3-4 mg a day. Even after many years I still had anxiety relief from it, albeit less than in the beginning. I did find that tolerance build up to its hypnotic effects, to the point where I had to add quetiapine and mirtazapine to get sleep because even monster doses of clonazepam just didn't put me to sleep. Clonazepam was however, effective for anxiety and panic still. But we all react quite different to benzos.

So IME tolerance builds quite slowly to the anxiolytic effects, but tolerance to the hypnotic effects tolerance builds quickly (regarding all benzos).
 
My dr kind of frowned at me getting diazepam 5mg (20 of them, once nightly) from the ER. she asked if i had anxiety which i do... and i told her i used to get Klonopin from an old psychologist i used to see before i lost my insurance. she says she would much rather see me on clonazepam(klonopin) due to it being more "stable". she waited for me to see her in two weeks so i would run out of the diazepam, and wrote me a script for 1mg clonazepam(30 of them, once nightly). i know thats a big jump up, but i needed it. thankfully clonazepam has that muscle relaxing effect too, its really my fav benzo i think.

ime/imo the euphoria and hypnotic effects may wear off after a while w/o increasing dosage, but like above post said not the anxiolytic effect. i seem to notice a quicker issue with lorazepam and alpralzolam. so i geuss its just something benzos are bound to do, but typically it takes longer to build the tolerance with clonazepam.

im certainly no expert tho... but im sure glad i got my script. good luck OP, quitting or not.
 
i've been on xanax for 10 years now and as long as i don't use it everyday it helps my anxiety but i have taken it everyday for a few months and it started to lose effectiveness so i use it at most once every other day but usually once every three days
 
hatrix said:
But it really doesn't. Someone who takes the same dosage everyday as prescribed won't really see any decrease. When you decide to take more than prescribed is when your tolerance to the anxiolytic effect starts to build.
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I don't think there is any evidence to support your theory. By slowly I mean over the course of years. Over the course of years even perfect patients will develop some level of tolerance to the drug with few exceptions. Just like pretty much every drug known to man tolerance eventually will develop.
 
Lol the OP still has yet to reply. ^ In theory it does make sense what hatrix said about tolerance builds more when taking more than prescribed. If i were to take my 1mg twice a day as i do daily, and take like 5mg of them for like even 3-4 days, than go back down to the 1mg twice a day, it wouldn't work as well since my body was starting to get used to a higher dose.

Some people been on the same does of benzos for years without much problems, but most that abuse and some that don't keep increasing the dosage to the point where it is very dangerous and doesn't work much for them.

I never really noticed a strong effect on the muscle relaxant properties of klonopin even in the beginning as many people like as a part of klonopin. I notice more relaxation of the muscles and body from xanax even though it doesn't have the mild muscle relaxant properties of klonopin. Also i don't think benzos should be ever prescribed simply just for sleep as i have been noticing a lot of users are prescribed to them for sleep that don't have much anxiety issues. Their are much more safer and effective medications for the simple purpose of falling/staying asleep.
 
Intenselife said:
Lol the OP still has yet to reply. ^ In theory it does make sense what hatrix said about tolerance builds more when taking more than prescribed. If i were to take my 1mg twice a day as i do daily, and take like 5mg of them for like even 3-4 days, than go back down to the 1mg twice a day, it wouldn't work as well since my body was starting to get used to a higher dose.

Some people been on the same does of benzos for years without much problems, but most that abuse and some that don't keep increasing the dosage to the point where it is very dangerous and doesn't work much for them.

I never really noticed a strong effect on the muscle relaxant properties of klonopin even in the beginning as many people like as a part of klonopin. I notice more relaxation of the muscles and body from xanax even though it doesn't have the mild muscle relaxant properties of klonopin. Also i don't think benzos should be ever prescribed simply just for sleep as i have been noticing a lot of users are prescribed to them for sleep that don't have much anxiety issues. Their are much more safer and effective medications for the simple purpose of falling/staying asleep.
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Such as? I'm curious on what you suggest as an alternative. I'm one of those people and get temazepam for sleep.
 
Snake_Eyes said:
Such as? I'm curious on what you suggest as an alternative. I'm one of those people and get temazepam for sleep.
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Around here just about everyone gets prescribed quetiapine or mirtazapine for sleep (no doctor wants to prescribe the "horrible" benzos).
 
I have mirtazapine. I was taking it with zolpidem. My psychiatrist then moved me to temazepam which worked so good I didn't have to take the mirtazapine.
 
Snake_Eyes said:
I have mirtazapine. I was taking it with zolpidem. My psychiatrist then moved me to temazepam which worked so good I didn't have to take the mirtazapine.
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For SLEEP i would recommend higher doses of seroquel or trazodone. Particularly speaking of the seroquel it will knock your ass out and is a bit safer than taking temezapam for long term if your talking about purely for sleep. Temezapam works great for sleep because it has high hypnotic properties that many benzos lack but it should only be prescribed to those who have a combination of insomnia and high anxiety not just insomnia, since benzos long term is a do or don't decision that can affect you very negatively if you don't weigh out the pros and cons which is different for everyone.
 
weekend addiction said:
I find that tolerance builds slowly to the anxiolytic effect.
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^^^this... or not at all really to an extent...there are studies on this. the problem is too many people confuse the hypnotic and sedative effect that benzos have with the actual anxiolytic effect. dont get me wrong, you need the full spectrum of the drug for panic attacks, but not for general anxiety in my opinion (except in severe cases). i have used .5mg of xanax average per day for 3 years to rid of night time anxiety which in turn helps me fall asleep normally (20 mins or so). i do not feel any narcotic effects at all from that .5mg, but I need 1mg with any panic attack which only happens rarely since I have been on the .5mg per day at night.

EDIT: I was just prescribed trazadone for sleep on my attempt to taper off my Xanax. I am supposed to only use it if I really can't sleep with the taper though, not every night. I haven't tried it yet but my brother said it knocked him out many times and he has a high benzo tolerance.
 
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No way to tell, only you can tell if it's still working. You could always taper off of it, the biggest problem with getting off benzos is mixing up physical and mental addictions as benzos cause both.
 
Intenselife said:
For SLEEP i would recommend higher doses of seroquel or trazodone. Particularly speaking of the seroquel it will knock your ass out and is a bit safer than taking temezapam for long term if your talking about purely for sleep. Temezapam works great for sleep because it has high hypnotic properties that many benzos lack but it should only be prescribed to those who have a combination of insomnia and high anxiety not just insomnia, since benzos long term is a do or don't decision that can affect you very negatively if you don't weigh out the pros and cons which is different for everyone.
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Seroquel is terrible to use for sleep...
 
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