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Long use benzo....Please help for withdrawal as its terrible.

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Mighty-oak

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Mar 1, 2016
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I have been on Diazepam (Valium) at 10mg for the past 16 years everyday. The Dr added Clonazepam (Klonopin) at 1mg 7 years ago.......I have been withdrawing very very slowly from Clonazepam for the last 2 years using digital jewellery weighing scales (measures 000.1g) as I could not get on with the liquid taper. I am now down to 60g on the digital scales which is the same as 0.125mg of Clonazepam so the same as 2.5mg of Diazepam......I just cant seem to go any lower dose wise without the most horrid anxiety. Any ideas on how to ease these withdrawals? So current meds are.... 10mg Diazepam every morning, 40mg Citalopram (Celexa) every lunch time and 0.125mg Clonazepam every evening. My stats are 42yr old Male, 6ft, 229lbs. Main withdrawals symptoms are increased anxiety, insomnia and terrible muscle aches especially in my legs. I was originally prescribed these meds for anxiety/agoraphobia, never knew that long term benzo use actually makes anxiety/agoraphobia worse thus me wanting to get off them.

Any help/advice would be great.
 
People have recommended gabapentin as a benzo comfort drug to me before. Benzo withdrawal is just horrible in general. Your brave for facing it head on like you are.
 
cj said:
People have recommended gabapentin as a benzo comfort drug to me before. Benzo withdrawal is just horrible in general. Your brave for facing it head on like you are.
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Thank you CJ......Although I dont feel brave!

I take it you have been and done benzo withdrawal? I smoke about 20 cigarettes a day and the Dr has told me to quit smoking, dont know if I can quit whilst in withdrawal?

I never knew these drugs were so addictive.....Clonazepam seems to be a lot harder to come off than Diazepam for some reason?
 
Mighty-oak said:
Thank you CJ......Although I dont feel brave!

I take it you have been and done benzo withdrawal? I smoke about 20 cigarettes a day and the Dr has told me to quit smoking, dont know if I can quit whilst in withdrawal?

I never knew these drugs were so addictive.....Clonazepam seems to be a lot harder to come off than Diazepam for some reason?
Click to expand...

I am going through it right now. Although my duration of use is measured in months instead of years. So I know enough to know it sucks beyond the ability to be accurately described. I wouldn't worry about the smoking right now even though it might make your blood pressure a bit higher. The best advice I have is too slow down your taper if its getting too overwhelming too handle.
 
I was prescribed Xanax for 10 years and told to take as needed. I had no idea it was addictive or anything about it until I went to check into rehab for alcohol and they cut me off. Withdrawal was horrible, PAWS was brutal, and I have since registered and wear a medical alert bracelet stating I am allergic to benzos to guarantee that I never get them. My last benzo was in Feb 2010.

The clonazepam is worse than diazepam to stop because it has a shorter half life so you enter withdrawal sooner. Are you still taking any, and do you have any diazepam on hand?
 
I should add, clonazepam has a much shorter half life. The half life for diazepam is 20-200hrs, compared to 15-50hrs for clonazepam and about 11hrs for alprazolam.
 
Thanks greatly for the replies, really does mean a lot when feeling this anxious and low.

I have loads of spare 10mg Diazepam tabs as my Dr just hands them out to me. What is really strange is that I am scared stiff about swapping totally over to Diazepam from Clonazepam. I take 10mg of Diazepam first thing in the morning and have doe for the past 16 years and the past 7 years I take Clonazepam at exactly 6pm, cant be any earlier or later, has to be 6pm, really dont know why this is? I could swap the 0.25mg of Clon' for say 3mg of Diaz but why is it that I am so scared of swapping over to just Diaz?
 
What do you take each medication for? They do have slightly different uses: clonazepam is better at controlling seizures and panic attacks, while diazepam is better at controlling muscle spasms and pain, not to mention its utility as part of detox protocols and taper off gabaergic substance.
 
I take them for anxiety/agoraphobia/panic attacks. The Psychiatrists evaluation of me that he wrote to my Dr and myself was 'Severe anxiety/agoraphobia with no depression'
 
I was just curious as to why you take two different benzos as opposed to just one. Please understand, I have very little experience managing a benzo habit.
 
To be very honest Toothpaste.....Nor do I know :? The Dr originally prescribed me Diazepam for anxiety/panic attacks 16 years ago. Just over 7 years ago I went to see him as felt terrible with anxiety, although a lot had happened as in my family and was a stressful time. Well he then put me on Clonazepam at the same time and told me to take the Clonazepam in the evening, Diazepam in the morning and Citalopram at lunchtime ...... I just followed his orders, but from what I have learnt he made the wrong choices and should never have added a second benzo. Long term benzo use makes anxiety worse so the only way round this is to increase the dose, but this is short lived before having to increase the dose again......Or the other way is to come off them completely which creates very bad withdrawal symptoms and this is what I am struggling with, the withdrawals...... Worst part for me about withdrawals is my anxiety has gone sky high and I dont know how to manage it :(
 
You're doing good tapering to such low levels, just make sure you don't go back up.

You shouldn't worry to much about switching to the klonopin, as long as you have benzos In your system in adequate amounts you wont go into withdrawal. The transition should be relatively seamless.

The only thing I know that'll help you lower your dose even further and eventually jump would be opiates.

It sounds like a bad idea but if done properly it can help you get off the benzos which are actually harder on the body anyway.

Obviously this is a very risky idea because you could end up with an addiction, but if used short term, only a few days, it could help.
 
I agree that taking one benzo as opposed to two is better for your long term health. I also agree that, because you have significant amounts of a benzo in your system, that switching to only clonazepam will likely cause no problems, other than, perhaps, a little bit of a dose increase.

As long as you're not tempted to take it and can store it out of reach, somewhere safe, I would stock up and hold on to that diazepam. It would be very helpful for when you choose to come off the clonazepam.

I wouldn't suggest using an opioid to facilitate the transition from diazepam+clonazepam-->clonazepam. It is highly unlikely you'll be in any significant discomfort.

>snip<

You've been on the stuff long enough to know by now that you're not going to get out of this predicament in a matter of weeks, I'm sure. So it is great you are starting to plan ahead!
 
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It's actually more potent and centrally acting, which is why it's the only long term anti-seizure benzo for outpatients. The binding on it is incredibly tight, not as much as alprazolam but not far off. I've been on it for 15 years, have had status epilepticus 3 times when having an insurance lapse, and the times I ran out for whatever reason were more unpleasant than anything I have ever gone through, and trust me - there is a lot.

No doctor warned me about it back in 2000, and no neurologist, psych, D.O. or any other kind of doctor ever suggested I even lower the dose. It's been the same for 15 years.

I know I just can't do it, not now. Gabapentin is horribly depersonalizing for me so I can't take it, but that's the standard. Most docs inpatient want you out ASAP so they often do d/c benzos, phenobarbital replacement with massive amounts of gabapentin for years. Fuck that.

I went over 200 hours without sleep during accidental cold turkey. It's really, really bad .. people, stay away.
 
Mighty-oak, I believe I was a little confused when I wrote my previous response to you. After some thought quite sure that diazepam really is the better option for you, if you had to pick between the two. For a number of reasons. . .

If you have been taking diazepam daily for 16 years, as one of your earlier posts in OD indicates, the transition from diazepam+clonazepam-->clonazepam may be a bit more cumbersome than I initially thought (I had assumed you'd only been on both benzos the same amount of time).

By cumbersome I mean is that if you switch to only clonazepam, you'd probably need to increase the dose of clonazepam in the morning from a basic equivalent dose to a slightly larger dose of clonazepam. Who know what will actually happen.

Weaning off clonazepam is a bit more difficult than weaning off diazepam. And switching from clonazepam to diazepam to wean yourself off benzos once and for all down the road would be more complicated than just replacing your evening dose of clonazepam with diazepam now.

Why not replace the clonazepam you take in the evening with an equivalent dose of diazepam? That seems to me like the much better option if your priority is to get off the stuff (granted, a nice super slow taper).
 
Thanks greatly for the replies :)

Sorry, I am coming off Clonazepam and currently at 0.125mg, was on 1mg and taken me 2 years of cutting tiny amounts off the tablet to get to 0.125mg. I have read about swapping the Clonazepam for Diazepam but am scared stiff of swapping totally over to Diazepam......Got some strange mental block thinking that I have to be on even the smallest of dose of Clonazepam......Strange?

Opiates.....Is that codeine?
 
Yes, codeine is an opiate. Who knows, perhaps using it for a week may help you. Just be very, very careful. If you enjoy the codeine I mean, because you're playing with fire. No one need another addiction. The only thing worse than a benzo habit is an opiate/opioid+benzo habit.

I find it hard to believe that switching from 0.125mg clonazepam to diazepam would cause you disnificant problems.

If you're worried about it, be smart. Instead of adding another opiates/opioids to the mix, replace the 0.125mg clonazepam with 5mg of diazepam. That is a significantly larger dose of diazepam compared to the dose of clonazepam you are taking. It would ensure you don't suffer any ill effects during the transition to only diazepam. Thereafter you can start whittling down your evening dose of diazepam.
 
Thanks greatly toothpaste......I will switch the 0.125mg of Clonazepam to 5mg of Diazepam and hope I dont get any increased anxiety......Think this will be mind over matter as for some stupid reason I think that Clonazepam is helping me more, but I think deep down they must have an almost identical structure?
 
They are very similar medications, though they do have important differences. If you feel that clonazepam is helping you more though, that is valuable information and not something to take lightly.

What is your priority: Treating your current condition, getting off benzos, or doing both?

If you want to get off the benzos asap, manage your anxiety and feel that clonazepam works best for you, perhaps you are best doing the following:

Keep your evening dose of 0.125mg clonzepam where it is at. No sense messing with it if it's working. Reduce you dose of diazepam slowly, very slowly, until you're only taking 2mg diazepam in the mornings.

What kind of experience do you have with benzo tapers?
 
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